The Sugar Packet
With WWII wrapped up, Ben Eisenstadt’s Brooklyn Navy Yard cafeteria was short on customers. He closed it up and went into the tea business, where the individual bags inspired him to do something about the dirty sugar bowls he found in city restaurants. The result was the invention of the modern sugar packet and the sugar substitute Sweet’N Low—both born in Brooklyn. Bonus trivia: who received Federal Trademark Registration No. 1,000,000? Sweet’N Low.
Milk’s Favorite Cookie
The name Oreo was trademarked on March 14, 1912, by the National Biscuit Company, aka Nabisco. Its origins are in Manhattan, at the factory which is now Chelsea Market. You may think of Hydrox as an Oreo knockoff, but it’s actually the other way around—the Sunshine company version came first, in 1908.
Pure. Fresh. Clean.
This global company reaches hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide today. Its beginnings were humble, however, as a soap and candle manufacturer on Dutch Street in Lower Manhattan in 1806. Recognize this New York-born behemoth [below]?
It’s Colgate. William Colgate (1783–1857) founded the company that would become Colgate-Palmolive, now good for over $17 billion in sales annually.
Source: “Made in NYC,” City Guide, March 20, 2024
Contributed by Bobbie Roggemann