This thread lists a bunch of corporate connections that are invisible at the consumer level. When you buy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream you’re buying a Unilever product. When you buy Jif peanut butter, you’re buying a Proctor & Gamble product. When you buy Heinz ketchup you’re buying a Promark product.
Most products are either formerly independant brands that were bought up by some megacorporation or are house brands that never had any independant existence. And a few are flagship products like Pepsi, which is just one of dozens of different brand names its parent company owns.
What are some well-known products that aren’t examples of this? Products that are still manufactured by a company that has the company name on all its labels?
Hershey’s is the perfect brand for what you’re looking for. It’s never been a subsidiary of any other company, although it has purchased other food companies and subsumed them under the Hershey’s umbrella; e.g. Reese’s peanut butter cups were originally made by the H. B. Reese company, and Twizzlers licorice was made by Y&T.
Hershey stock endows the Milton Hershey School, so the company will likely never be a takeover target.
In the automotive world I would say that Toyota, BMW and Mercedes-Benz satisfy the criteria. While they might own other smaller companies, (for example Toyota owns Hino, a truck company and Denso an electronics company) they don’t go for multiple brands offering more-or-less the same product like GM, Ford or VW.
Toyota has Scion and Lexus which are essentially the same idea as Big-three style branding. They also in many ways run the “Toyota Trucks” brand as a different marque. Mercedes is the same general idea where they sell a huge variety of vehicles with entirely different marketing strategies, etc but usually keep the same brand. Of course, they also had the Chrysler and Dodge brands to sell cheap cars under for a while too, but that didn’t quite work out.
I think BMW is a the only real example of an actually independent car company-- they sell about as many cars as an average division of a major car company, but are independently owned and more or less focus exclusively on cars and motorcycles.
It was, actually - not that long ago (2002). Apparently Nestle put in a bid for the company. I don’t recall what ultimately happened (my brother who still lives in Harrisburg claimed the PA state legislature was thinking of stepping in, but I have no idea what they could have done). I know there were some antitrust concerns though.
Apparently the thinking on the part of the trustees was that their duty was to the well-being of the school, and they seriously considered that selling off the company (and pursuing other investments) was the way to go.
Good thing they didn’t, actually, with the stock market the way it has been lately - most people can still afford to buy the occasional Hershey Bar no matter how tight things are!
I don’t know how well-known the brand is, but Ferrara Pan Candy Company, maker of Lemonheads, Jawbreakers, Atomic Fireballs, etc., is still owned by the 3 families that founded it.
Yes! Still only has about 100 employees and is family run. I remember a few years back in 96’ when 4 of their employees died in a car crash while going out for lunch and the entire company was devastated.
