Laura Scudder

Laura Clough Scudder (1881 – 1959) was an entrepreneur in Monterey Park, California, who made and sold potato chips and who pioneered the packaging of potato chips in sealed bags to extend freshness.

Born in Philadelphia, Laura Scudder worked as a nurse before moving to California. While there she became the first female attorney in Ukiah, California before moving south to Monterey Park, California, where she started her food company in 1926.

At first, potato chips were packaged in barrels or tins, which left chips at the bottom stale and crumbled. Laura Scudder started having her workers take home sheets of wax paper to iron into the form of bags, which were filled with chips at her factory the next day. This innovation kept the chips fresh and crisp longer and, along with the invention of cellophane, allowed potato chips to become a mass market product.

Scudder also began putting dates on the bags, becoming the first company to freshness date their food products.

Laura Scudder faced many obstacles running her own company during the Great Depression. For instance, when she tried to get insurance for the company's delivery truck, she was denied by all the local male insurance agents, who claimed that a woman would be unreliable at paying the premiums. The female insurance agent who eventually insured the truck went on to insure the entire company fleet.

At one point, Laura Scudder turned down a $9 million offer for the company because the buyer wouldn't guarantee her employees' jobs. In 1957 she finally accepted a $6 million offer from a buyer who guaranteed job security for her workforce. The new company was called Laura Scudder Inc. At the time of the sale the company had expanded into peanut butter and mayonnaise, and Laura Scudder brand potato chips held a greater than 50% share of the California market.

In 1987, Laura Scudder Inc. was sold to Borden, Inc. for $100 million. [http://www.secinfo.com/dsvrf.b2Te.j.htm] Annual sales for the chipmaker were $126 million in 1986. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE0D91430F930A1575AC0A961948260] However, union problems motivated Borden to close all California plants of Laura Scudder only a year later. [http://www.secinfo.com/dsvrf.b2Te.j.htm] In 1993, Borden sold what remained of Laura Scudder for less than $16.7 million. [http://www.secinfo.com/dsVS7.bPm.htm] However, the buyer, G.F. Industries, Inc.'s Granny Goose subsidiary was already in trouble, and was put up for sale in January 1995. [http://calbears.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_April_12/ai_16811910] Both brands seem to have disappeared from most markets, and websites for both Grande Foods [http://www.grandefoods.com/laura-scudders.html] and Snack Alliance, Inc. [http://www.snackalliance.com/product_laura.php] claim the Laura Scudder brand. According to this page [http://www.laurascudderspeanutbutter.com/about_us.aspx] on the J.M. Smucker Company website the Laura Scudder's Natural Peanut Butter business was acquired by Smucker's from BAMA Foods Inc. in December 1994. Smucker's currently (2008) markets the Laura Scudders brand of natural peanut butter on the west coast.

References

*cite book|title=Patently Female: From AZT to TV Dinners, Stories of Women Inventors and Their Breakthrough Ideas|author=Ethlie Ann Varie and Greg Ptacek|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|year=2002|id=ISBN 0-471-02334-5

External links

* [http://www.dmgi.com/chips.htm A history of potato chips]
* [http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/inventors/scudder.html A biography]