Armor & amp; The company is an American company that used to be one of the five leading companies in the meat packing industry. Founded in Chicago, in 1867, by the Armor brothers led by Philip Danforth Armor. By 1880, the company had become the most important business in Chicago and had helped make Chicago and its Stock Union the center of the meat packing industry in America. During the same period, its facility in Omaha, Nebraska, was also booming, making it the largest meatpacking industry in the country in 1959. In connection with its meat packing operations, the company also ventured into pharmaceuticals and soap manufacturers. , introduced Dial soap in 1948.
Currently, the Armor food brands are split between the cooled meat (Armor) and the stable rack meat product (Armor Star). The pharmaceutical brand Armor is owned by Forest Laboratories. The laundry soap is now owned by Henkel.
Video Armour and Company
History
1863 to 1970
Armor and Company took root in Milwaukee, where in 1863 Philip D. Armor joined John Plankinton, founder of Layton and Plankinton Packing Company in 1852 to establish Plankinton, Armor and Company. Together, the partners expanded the Plankinton meat packing operations in Milwaukee and established branches in Chicago and Kansas City as well as an exporting house in New York City. Armor and Plankinton dissolved their partnership in 1884 with Milwaukee's operation finally becoming the Cudahy Packing Company.
In the early years, Armor sold every kind of consumer products made from animals: not only meat but also glue, oil, fertilizer, hairbrush, buttons, oleomargarine, and medicines made from by-products of slaughterhouses. Armor is operated in an environment without union, health inspection, or government regulation. Accidents are common. Armor is famous for the low pay offered by his line workers. He fought unions by banning unknown activist union and by breaking strikes in 1904 and 1921, employing African Americans and new immigrants as strikers. The company was not fully unionized until the late 1930s when the Meat Packaging Society had succeeded in creating an interracial industrial union as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
During the Spanish-American War (1898), Armor sold 500,000 pounds of beef to the US Army. A military inspector tested meat two months later and found that 751 cases contained rotten meat. This resulted in food poisoning thousands of soldiers.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, the young Dale Carnegie, representing South Omaha's sales territory, became the company's top salesman, the experience he got in his best-selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
In the early 1920s, Armor experienced financial problems and Armor's family sold his majority interest to financier Frederick H. Prince. The Company maintained its position as one of the largest American companies through the Great Depression and a sharp increase in demand during World War II. During this period, it expanded its operations throughout the United States; at its peak, the company employs just under 50,000 people.
In 1948, Armor, who had been making soap for years as a by-product of the meat packing process, developed deodorant soap by adding an AT-7 germicide agent to the soap. This limited body odor by reducing bacteria on the skin. The new soap is called Dial because of its 24-hour protection against the odor-causing bacteria. Armor introduced soap with a full-page ad using a flavored ink in the Chicago Tribune. During the 1950s, Dial became the best-selling deodorant soap in the US. The company adopted the slogan "Are not you glad you used Dial? Do not you expect everyone to do it?" in 1953. In the 1960s, the Dial brand expanded to include deodorants and shaving cream. Due to the strong popularity and sales of the Dial brand, driven by magazine, radio and television advertising, the business of Armor's consumer products is included as Armor-Dial, Inc. in 1967.
In 1958, William Wood-Prince, Frederick H. Prince's cousin, became president of Armor and Company.
1970-2000
In 1970, Armor and Company were acquired by Chicago-based bus company Greyhound Corporation after a brutal takeover attempt by General Host Corporation a year earlier. In 1971, Greyhound moved Armor's headquarters from Chicago to Phoenix, Arizona, to a newly built 83 million dollar building. Rock icon Stevie Nicks' father, Jess Nicks, who is a Greyhound executive, became president of Armor.
In 1978, Greyhound sold Armor Pharmaceuticals to Revlon. Revlon sold the drug unit in 1985 to Rorer (later known as Rhone-Poulenc Rorer). Forest Laboratories acquired rights to Thyroid Armor products from Rhone-Poulenc Rorer in 1991. The remaining assets of Armor Pharmaceuticals are now part of CSL Behring. Armor's Factor VIII product "Factorate" was widely reported as infecting thousands of people with hemophilia worldwide with HIV during the 1980s, alleging that the company suppressed evidence suggesting that the product was damaged. As a result, there are lawsuits, questions and criminal allegations.
Rapid Greyhound diversification and frequent restructuring of the unit lead to uncertain profitability. In 1981, John W. Teets was appointed chairman of Greyhound and he began selling unprofitable subsidiaries. After packing meat was attacked at the Armor Food packing plant in the early 1980s, Teets closed 29 factories and sold Armor Food Company to ConAgra in 1983 but continued to run the meat business with Armor Star. Armor-Dial continues to produce canned meat products using the Star Armor trademark with a license from ConAgra.
In 1985, Greyhound acquired the household products business Purex Industries, Inc. in 1985 and combined with Armor-Dial to form The Dial Corporation.
In late 1995, the Greyhound holding company (renamed in 1991 as The Dial Corp) announced its intention to divide the company and separate the consumer goods business. After the spin off, now the former parent company of Dial has been renamed Viad Corp, which consists of service businesses. Dialog's consumer business was reborn as the new Dial Company, relocating its corporate office to Scottsdale, Arizona, adjacent to its long-standing research and development facility. Under the new CEO, Malcolm Jozoff, former P & amp; G, the new Dial Company suffered a massive layoff in the fall of 1996 and a series of disobedience financially in the next four years. In 2000, Jozoff resigned and was replaced by Herbert Baum with a mandate from the board of directors to find a suitable buyer for the company.
2000 to present
Dial was acquired by Henkel KGaA from DÃÆ'¼sseldorf, Germany in March 2004. Food business from Dial, including Armor Star canned meat, was sold to Pinnacle Foods in March 2006. In 2007, Pinnacle Foods was acquired by Blackstone Group, a private equity firms based in New York City.
In July 2006, ConAgra sold most of their meat refrigeration business, including the Armor brand, to Smithfield Foods .
Maps Armour and Company
See also
- Treet
- Armor Refrigerator Line
- Extracted thyroid extract (Armor Thyroid)
References
Further reading
- Arnould, Richard J. "Changed the pattern of concentration in American meat packaging, 1880-1963." Business History Review 45.1 (1971): 18-34.
- Gras, N.S.B. and Henrietta M. Larson. Handbook in American business history (1939) pp 623-43.
- Warren, Wilson J. Tied to a large packing machine: The Midwest and meatpacking (University of Iowa Press, 2007).
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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