Hellmann's Mayonaise and the Rockies

[Soup]

Why is Hellmann’s Mayonaise known as Best Foods Mayonaise west of the Rockies? Why not just one name for the whole country?

[techchick68]

Soup,

Guess since I live in the heart of the Rockies (close to the Continental Divide kinda sorta,) we have both brands on our shelves. I don’t know if that means that your question is wrong and therefore they are two different companies with two different mayonaise names.

[Soup]

What prompted my question was the small type on the label of Hellmann’s Mayonaise that says “Known as Best Foods Mayonaise west of the Rockies”. Best Foods is the name of the company that makes Hellmann’s Mayo.
My guess is that Hellmann’s was a popular regional brand in the eastern U.S., and Best Foods Mayo was a popular brand in the western U.S. Apparently, Best Foods bought Hellmann’s but never changed the brandname.
Is any of this true, or am I just spending too much time thinking about mayonaise?

[andros]

Same company, same mayonnaise, two brand names. I’ve wondered that for a long time (ever since hearing the same advertising jingle on both coasts–“Bring out the ----, and bring out the best”).

As I understand it, Hellman’s is an old name, with a good product recognition. When Best Foods bought them out, they decided to keep the Hellman’s name so’s not to mess up a good thing.

I tried calling the 800 number on my jar of mayo, but the offices are closed at the moment. I’ll probably space it off, but if you want to give 'em a ring, try 1-800-338-8831, M-F 8:00-8:00 CST, Saturday 8:00-4:00 CST.

-andros-

[BobT]

I checked in the U.S. Trademark database. Hellmann’s mayonnaise was said to be first used in 1926. Best Foods mayonnaise was first sold in 1923.
Both brands of mayo weren’t trademarked until the late 1940s and early 1950s. It is quite possible that by that time, both names were pretty well established and Best Foods, Inc. didn’t want to give them up.

[Demo]

There’s a few other cases like this. The only one I can remember at the moment is “Sparklets Water” in So. Cal. and “Alhambra Water” in No. Cal. While I’m sure they aren’t bottled at the same place, the company is the same, as is the theme song…“Me and {whatever} water makin’ friends!”…

What a lame jingle…

---

“Universe Man - He’s got a watch with a minute hand, millenium hand and an eon hand and when they meet it’s a happy land - Powerful man, Universe Man”
-TMBG

[Soup]

I just went to mayo.com, the official website of Best Foods/Hellmann’s Mayo. They’re currntly having trouble accepting connections, but I did get to see a map of the United States divided into “Best Foods” and “Hellmann’s” regions. Looks like a history map for the War Between The Condiments. Maybe the border could be called the “Mayo-Dijon Line”! HA!
That’s all the mayonaise-based jokes I can think of.

[techchick68]

Hell Man, it’s the Best Food that mayOnaise.

Now that’s stupid, but trying to help.

[rowrrbazzle]

Originally posted by Soup:
I just went to mayo.com, the official website of Best Foods/Hellmann’s Mayo. They’re currntly having trouble accepting connections, but I did get to see a map of the United States divided into “Best Foods” and “Hellmann’s” regions. Looks like a history map for the War Between The Condiments. Maybe the border could be called the “Mayo-Dijon Line”! HA!
That’s all the mayonaise-based jokes I can think of.

I thought Everybody knew the Rockies are the Condimental Divide.

---

But where were the Spiders?

[RickG]

Another classic example is Dreyer’s Ice Cream west of the Rockies and Edy’s east of the Rockies. Although here in Boulder, which is decidedly *east of the Rockies, we get Dreyer’s. Same company, same product, different brands.

Rick

[yosemite]

Also: Sav-On Drug Stores in the West, Osco in the East. Same drug store, same commercial jingle. I don’t know why…

[BobT]

Sav-on (or Osco) tried naming all the Western stores Osco. Business dropped off sharply as everyone assumed that Sav-On was out of business. So a few months (I think it was less than a year), they changed the names back to Sav-On.

[Doug_Bowe]

Marketing a name: It’s easier to sell a name the public knows and likes.
Another example…when Texas Air bought Continental Airlines. All those airplanes should have been painted “Texas Air,” right?
Trouble was, Texas Air under Frank Lorenzo (do not get me started on him) had such a terrible reputation that they took on the name of the company they purchased.

[Soup]

So, what happens in Alaska and Hawaii? Do they conform to the Western U.S. naming of products? Or has Hellmann’s Mayo established an outpost in the Pacific? How about Puerto Rico?

[Markxxx]

CA’s rival Dave Feldman wrote this in one of his imponderable books. I believe the only place the brands compete is in El Paso.

Standard Oil was similar. In the region for Standard Oil of Indiana it was called Standard. Outside it was called American. Eventually American got shortened to Amoco and Amoco was adopted all over…

BTW
Standard Oil (Indiana) Amoco

Standard Oil (New York) Mobil

Standard Oil (California) Chevron

Standard Oil (New Jersey) Exxon which used to be Esso (get it S.O. - Standard Oil)

Standard Oil (Ohio) Sohio

I recall we used to have a grocery store called National. In Canada they flipped the logo and called it Loblaws.

[yosemite]

This gas station thing is so confusing…

I know there is some connection between Standard Oil, Chevron and Amoco…

But Chevron is in places like Hawaii and (I’m pretty sure) Georgia. Mobil is also in California, along with Chevron, and I know Exxon has been in CA for a long time - not sure if it still is, or has been “absorbed” by some other company. Amoco is not in California, that’s all I know, and Chevron is not in all states.

This is so confusing!

[Bricker]

With all due respect to Mssr. Feldman, when one wishes an authoritive and complete word, one must look to the Master.

In response to a question about the oil industry ownership, and Standard of Indiana vs. Amoco, Cecil Adams wrote:

Prior to 1911, Standard Oil of New Jersey was an enormous holding company that owned, directly or indirectly, about 100 subsidiary corporations involved in the production, refining, transportation, and marketing of oil around the world. In 1906, Standard controlled 86 percent of total U.S. refining. However, in that year the government started an antitrust suit that eventually resulted in the Supreme Court’s order that the company divest itself of 33 of its affiliates, representing 57 percent of its net value at that time. This still left Jersey Standard the nation’s second-largest industrial corporation, and today, as Exxon, it ranks number one. The orphaned companies didn’t exactly die on the vine; after a period of consolidation, they emerged as huge companies in their own right: Mobil (formerly Standard of New York) is the 2nd largest industrial organization in the country; Standard of Indiana is the 8th, Standard of California the 9th, and Standard of Ohio the 25th.

One of the early conflicts among the Standard progeny was who would get to use the widely recognized Standard brand name for advertising purposes, since everybody had a roughly equal claim to it. A series of court battles had the practical effect of dividing the country up into several carefully defined regions, in each of which the local oil company got exclusive use of the Outside their home regions, though, the companies were required to use some other name. Thus at a Standard of Indiana gas station outside the company’s 15-state home region in the Midwest, you’ll find the familiar torch-in-an-oval sign, but it’ll say “American” or “Amoco” instead of “Standard,” American Oil Company being Indiana Standard’s foreign alias. (When Johnny Cash did those commercials for Indiana Standard in the 70s, he had to make different versions for use in different parts of the country. Similarly, Standard of California markets under the name Chevron, and Standard of Ohio under the name Sohio. For many years, Standard of New Jersey used the name Esso (S-O, Standard Oil, get it?) in the East and South, and Enco and Humble elsewhere. The firm fought in the courts for years for the right to use the Esso name throughout the country, but after its last appeal failed in 1969 it gave up, and in 1972 changed both its brand name and its official corporate name to Exxon. Several of the other Standard descendants have also abandoned the Standard name. Standard Oil of New York, long known as Socony, changed its corporate name to Mobil in 1966; Standard Oil of California officially became Chevron in 1984. Even Standard of Indiana, long the holdout, has begun to downplay the Standard name; most of its stations in the Midwest now say Amoco.

So much for advertising. The question of who owns Standard Oil goes a little deeper. It’s important to understand that the intent of the antitrust action in 1911 was to break up the concentration of management, not the concentration of ownership. At the time of the break-up, it’s true, there was some controversy over whether the courts had accomplished even that. Many critics charged that old Standard bosses simply appointed junior executives as “officers” of the newly emancipated subsidiaries while they ran things from behind the scenes. Whatever the case may have been then though, there can be little doubt today that the various companies generally conduct their affairs independently of one another.

But ownership is another matter. If you owned 1 percent of Standard stock before the break-up, you ended up with 1 percent of the trimmed-down Jersey Standard Company plus 1 percent of each of the 33 affiliates. So if you were a Rockefeller, you still controlled enormous amounts of capital – it was just spread around more. Before 1911, John D. Rockefeller and associates not only managed Standard Oil, they pretty much owned it as well, through a complicated system of trusts and holding companies. They didn’t necessarily own the stock personally, but they controlled the people and institutions that did. After the Supreme Court ruling, this situation remained essentially unchanged. It was only through the passage of time, as additional issues of stock were sold to outsiders and the companies drifted apart, that Rockefeller influence diminished. As late as 1929, though, the Rockefeller family was able to quash a rebellious Standard of Indiana board chairman in a proxy fight by marshalling shares owned by the several Rockefeller foundations and the heirs of old Rockefeller associates.

It’s unclear today how much stock in Standard Oil’s descendant companies is owned by the Rockefellers, or their foundations, banks, and subsidiaries. Standard of Indiana, for example, professes to be unable to identify any large blocks of Rockefeller stock, but admits a great many shares are held by nominees or trusts that conceal the identity of the true owner. A Congressional report a while back said that as of 1960, 1.2 million of Indiana Standard’s then 36 million shares were owned by Rockefeller-controlled foundations. Large holdings in other oil companies were reported as well.

In fairness, it must be said that owning a lot of stock does not necessarily mean you get to run the company – that is, unless you own at least 51 percent, which is not the case here. Shareholders, even major ones, have little say in the day-to-day operations of their companies unless they can contrive to get themselves elected to the board of directors, which by-and-large the Rockefellers have not done (in the case of ex-Standard affiliates, anyway). Moreover, in Indiana Standard’s case at least 1960’s 36 million shares had grown to 150 million in 1979. Unless Rockefeller minions have been extraordinarily, the family’s relative share of the action has diminished considerably. In short, the rich are still pretty rich, but their influence in the nation’s oil industry has been substantially diluted.

I quoted the entire answer above, and I didn’t provide a link, because this column does not appear to be available on this site, its inclusion in the original Straight Dope book notwithstanding.

• Rick

[Kepi]

Texas Air under Frank Lorenzo (do not get me started on him) had such a terrible reputation that they took on the name of the company they purchased.

Not completely accurate, I think. It’s true that Lorenzo was reviled by organized labor at the various airlines Texas Air purchased (Texas International, Continental, Eastern, People’s Express). However, I think the reason the Continental name became the name for the combined fleets had little to do with Lorenzo’s reputation. Instead, I believe it was because Continental had better name recognition than the others, with the exception of possibly Eastern. (The Continental name was already in place at Texas Air by the time Eastern was purchased.) Secondly, I think Continental was chosen over Texas International (the original Texas Air airline) because a less regional sounding name was desired.

BTW, I have no feelings one way or the other about Frank Lorenzo, but an interesting article about him can be found here:
www.prcentral.com/rmndlorenzo.htm

---

Brady Bunch Quote Of The Week:

“Porkchops and applesauce.” – Peter

[DSYoungEsq]

Smucker’s and Mary Ellen, made same place, different days.

[Yossarian]

During lunch, I checked out this regional mayo question at my local supermarket located here between the 103° and 104°W parallels.

We’ve got both Hellmann’s and Best Foods. But here’s the catch: you can only buy Hellmann’s as “regular” (high-fat) and you can only buy Best Foods as the “lite” variety. So–we’ve got 'em both, but they don’t exactly compete with each other.

(If it helps, the supermarket I checked this out at is HQ’d in Albequerque, NM.)