William Underwood Company
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The William Underwood Company was a food company that, among other things, had a key role in time-temperature research done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during 1895–6 which would lead to the development of food science and technology as a profession.
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[edit] Early foundings
The company was established by its founder William Underwood (1787–1864) in 1822 in Boston, Massachusetts as a condiment company using glass packing techniques. Among the condiments and other items glass packed were mustard, ketchup, pickles, and cranberries. By 1836, Underwood shifted his packing from glass to steel cans coated with tin on the inside because glassmakers in the Boston area could not keep up with product demands from the canning company.
[edit] Business growth
Underwood's canned foods proved valuable to settlers during the Manifest Destiny period of 1840–60. Additionally, Underwood sold numerous canned food to Union troops during the American Civil War of 1861–65. The amount of products canned increased to include seafood products like lobster, oyster, and mackerel. William Underwood died in 1864, the same year that William Lyman Underwood, his grandson, was born. Underwood's son, William James, would head the business as new retort technology continued to be developed for use.
[edit] Involvement with MIT
A problem that would be encountered by the company from its early beginnings in 1822 to 1895 would be cans that had "swells" in them, causing a great deal of product loss. William Lyman Underwood, the grandson of the founder, decided in late 1895 that he had enough of the product loss and went to MIT for assistance of this problem.
Underwood approached William Thompson Sedgwick, the chair of the Biology department at MIT about the concerns he had with the recent product swells and explosion of clams. Sedgwick then summoned his assistant Samuel Cate Prescott and detailed him on the issue. From late 1895 to late 1896, Prescott and Underwood worked on the problem every afternoon, focusing on canned clams. They first discovered that the clams contained some heat-resistant bacterial spores that were able to survive the processing; then that these spores' presence depended on the clams' living environment; and finally that these spores would be killed if processed at 250°F (121°C) for ten minutes in a retort.
These studies prompted the similar research of canned lobster, sardines, peas, tomatoes, corn, and spinach. Prescott and Underwood's work was first published in late 1896, with further papers appearing from 1897 to 1926. This research, though important to the growth of food technology, was never patented.
This research proved beneficial to the William Underwood Company, the canning industry, the food industry, and food technology itself.
In the late 1950s, the new president of the William Underwood Company, George Seybolt, was brought over by his predecessor, W. Durant, to MIT to meet Prescott (William Lyman Underwood had died in 1929). At the Institute of Food Technologists Northeast Section (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont meeting at Watertown, Massachusetts in April 1961, the William Underwood Company dedicated a new laboratory in honor of both Prescott and William Lyman Underwood. Following Prescott's death in 1962, the William Underwood Company created the Underwood Prescott Memorial Lectureship in memory of both Underwood and Prescott. This Lectureship would run until 1982. In 1969, Seybolt donated USD 600,000 to MIT to create the Underwood Professorship, followed up with an Underwood Prescott Professorship in 1972. Three MIT faculty have held this professorship since its inception: Samuel A. Goldblith, Gerald N. Wogan, and since 1996, Stephen R. Tannebaum.
[edit] Later years
Underwood acquired the Burnham & Morrill (B&M) Company of Portland, Maine in 1965. B&M had actually purchased canned clams and tomatoes from Underwood in the late 1860s for resale before producing these products on its own. Baked beans were the best known product that B&M started producing, and that it was done back in the 1920s with its Brick Oven Baked Beans. Piermont Foods, a food company in Montreal, Canada, was acquired in 1968 in order for Underwood to sell its products north of the border. This included B&M Baked Beans and Underwood Deviled Hams which was (and still is) Underwood's best known product.
[edit] Underwood Deviled Ham
Created in 1868 as a mixture of ground ham with special seasonings, it would also be done with other meat and seafood products. This included turkey, lobster, and chicken, and would dub the process as "deviling." "Deviling" consists of adding such spices as hot sauce, cayenne pepper, Dijon mustard, or chopped hot peppers. Trademarked in 1870, it is still the oldest food trademark in the United States as of 2006. The famous red devil debuted in 1895 that started as a demonic person shown in red with a goatee who now appears "happy" on all Underwood products.
[edit] Sale of Underwood and current legacy
Underwood was sold to PET Dairy in 1982 and B&M's Westwood, Massachusetts facility was closed. Included in this was B&M Foods as part of the sale. Thirteen years later, Pillsbury Bakery acquired PET Dairy, and began a modernzation process that included warehousing, production, and processing. B&G Foods of New York, New York acquired Underwood's Deviled Ham and five other products in 1999 where they have remained since.
[edit] References
- Goldblith, S.A. (1993). Pioneers in Food Science, Volume 1: Samuel Cate Prescott - M.I.T. Dean and Pioneer Food Technologist. Trumball, CT: Food and Nutrition Press. pp. 21-29, 125-6, 128, 130, 171-3.
- Powers, J.J. "The Food Industry Contribution: Preeminence in Science and in Application." A Century of Food Science. (2000). Institute of Food Technologists: Chicago. pp. 17-18.
