Within a year, the shop was turning a profit. This they did by turning out high-quality sausages, including house specialties such as liverwurst, bockwurst, and weiswurst, that quickly became favorites among their German-born customers. The Mayers' first challenge was to overcome Kolling's bad reputation in the neighborhood. The two brothers then bought the failing Kolling Meat Market on the north side of the city and leased the building from the former owner.
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Gottfried followed his advice and in 1883 arrived in Chicago, ready to help Oscar fulfill his dream. As a young man in his early twenties, he wrote home suggesting that his brother Gottfried learn the art of sausage making. Career DetailsĪlmost from the time he first set foot in the United States, Mayer dreamed of starting his own business.
#Oscar mayer free#
This became obvious during the Depression of the 1930s, when he ordered his factory to make a certain number of sausages that he distributed free to people who lined up every day outside his office. Although he became a millionaire early in his career, Mayer could never quite distance himself completely from his humble roots as a friendly neighborhood merchant. However, he remained active in the company as chairman of the board until just a few weeks before his death in 1955 at the age of 95. In 1928 Mayer retired as president of Oscar Mayer Foods. Hunting and fishing were, in fact, among his favorite pastimes. In addition to his business interests, Oscar Mayer served for many years as treasurer of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, which was responsible for acquiring and maintaining natural wooded areas for recreational uses. citizen) and had five children: one son and four daughters. They made their home in Chicago (Mayer eventually became a naturalized U.S. The six years he spent there taught him much about the business, and in 1883 he left to open up his own meat market in a Chicago neighborhood that was home to many German immigrants.Īfter his butcher shop was well established, Mayer returned to Munich in 1887 to marry Louise Greiner. In both cities, the teenager continued working in small retail butcher shops before obtaining a job in 1877 with Armour & Co., the large meat-packing firm.
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Three years later, in 1873, Mayer immigrated to the United States with the Schroll family, settling first in Detroit and then moving to Chicago. As a result, he quit school and went to work for his cousin, John Schroll, a grocer in Munich, Germany. His father, a master forester, died when Oscar was only 11 years old. Mayer was born in Württemberg, Germany, on March 29, 1859, the son of Ferdinand and Wilhelmina (Wagner) Mayer. But by 1955, the year its founder died, it employed more than 8,000 people and enjoyed annual sales of $225 million.
In the beginning, Oscar Mayer Foods had about 12 employees. His company grew rapidly because of the high quality of its meat products, and it was eventually able to expand far beyond its headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, thanks to innovative marketing strategies and packaging techniques. Oscar Mayer Foods, now part of the Kraft General Foods empire, was founded in 1883 by a German immigrant named Oscar Ferdinand Mayer.