Cracker Jack
| Product type | Caramel coated popcorn and peanuts |
|---|---|
| Owner | Frito-Lay |
| Introduced | 1896 |
| Website | Official website |
Cracker Jack is an American brand of snack consisting of molasses-flavored, caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts, well known for being packaged with a prize of trivial value inside. The Cracker Jack name was registered in 1896. A slogan, "The More You Eat The More You Want", was also registered that year. Some food historians consider it the first junk food.
Cracker Jack is famous for its connection to baseball lore. The Cracker Jack brand has been owned and marketed by Frito-Lay since 1997. Frito-Lay announced in 2016 that the prizes would no longer be provided, replaced with a QR code which can be used to download a baseball-themed game.
Frederick William Rueckheim—a German immigrant known informally as "Fritz"—sold popcorn at 113 Fourth Avenue, now known as Federal Street, in Chicago beginning in 1871. The popcorn was made by hand using steam equipment. In 1873, Fritz bought out his partner, William Brinkmeyer, and brought his brother Louis Rueckheim over from Germany to join in his venture, forming the company F.W. Rueckheim & Bro.
In 1896, Louis discovered a method to separate the kernels of molasses-coated popcorn during the manufacturing process. As each batch was mixed in a cement-mixer-like drum, a small quantity of oil was added—a closely guarded trade secret. Before this change, the mixture had been difficult to handle, as it stuck together in chunks.
According to an urban myth propagated in the 1960s by then-owner Borden Food, Rueckheim produced a popcorn confection and first presented it to the public at the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago's first world's fair) in 1893. There is no known evidence that Rueckheim had an exhibit at the Columbian Exposition.
In 1896, the first lot of Cracker Jack was produced, the same year the name was registered. It was named by an enthusiastic sampler who remarked: "That's a crackerjack!" (a colloquialism meaning "of excellent quality"). The product's tagline—"The More You Eat, the More You Want"—was also introduced in 1896. In 1899, Henry Gottlieb Eckstein developed the "waxed sealed package" for freshness, known then as the "Eckstein Triple Proof Package", a dust-, germ-, and moisture-proof paper package. In 1902, the company was reorganized as Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", a song written by lyricist Jack Norworth and composer Albert Von Tilzer, gave Cracker Jack free publicity when it was released in 1908 with the line: "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack!" In 1922, the name of the Chicago company was changed to The Cracker Jack Company.
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