Wesson cooking oil

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Wesson cooking oil is a brand of vegetable oil sold by ConAgra Foods. The products currently sold under the Wesson brand are canola oil, corn oil, sunflower oil and a soy-based vegetable oil, as well as mixes of different oils.

Wesson was originally a trademark of the Southern Oil Company, named after David Wesson (1861–1934), a food chemist at the firm who, in 1899 developed a novel process for deodorizing cottonseed oil, producing the first commercial all-vegetable shortenings from cottonseeds. This new product was marketed as Snowdrift. In the 1920s, the vegetable oil division was spun off as the Wesson Oil & Snowdrift Company. This firm merged with Hunt's Foods, Inc. to become Hunt-Wesson Foods, which was later absorbed by Beatrice Foods. The brand was sold to ConAgra along with many other former Beatrice brands in 1990.

The longtime spokeswoman for Wesson cooking oil was actress Florence Henderson, who coined the term "Wessonality" (frequently sung in a jingle to the tune of Johnny Mercer's "Personality") in her advertisements. She would appear in television commercials for Wesson from 1976 until 1996.