Old London Foods

Old London Foods. a subsidiary of B&G Foods, is a company best known for its Melba toast products. Originally based in the Bronx and called the King Kone Corporation, the company changed its name to Old London Foods in May 1960 to match their best-known brand of food products, Old London, which had been in use for nearly 25 years.

Melba toast dates back to 1897, when Nellie Melba complained to chef Auguste Escoffier that her toasted bread was too thick. He gave her bread that had been toasted extremely thin and named it "Melba toast" after her. The products were first made under the Old London brand in 1932, when the first Melba oven was built, and later variations included restaurant packs of toast and rounds.

The company was originally a manufacturer of food machinery and company founders Harry Tatosian, who invented the machines and R. J. Yohai, vice president and sales manager, decided to start making food using their machines after a trip to London, where they had installed automated baking machines for a customer. They first started baking ice cream cones and used the brand name Old London based on their recent experience in that city. Using an investment of $4,000, they created a multimillion-dollar business exclusively using their own capital to expand to include melba toast and snack products.

Old London was looking for a new snack in the 1950s and had a machine that could extrude cornmeal under pressure through a narrow hole that would be cut to three-inch lengths by a blade. Baked with orange cheddar cheese and flavorings, Morrie Yohai gave them the name "Cheez Doodles". The name came to him while he sat around the table with other employees sampling different alternatives for the cheese flavoring. By 1960, the company's products were sold in 250,000 supermarkets and restaurants in the United States and their Dipsy Doodles corn chips were the second-best selling corn chip in the country behind Fritos and its snack division produced popcorn in caramel, cheese and unflavored varieties, and was the largest producer of popcorn for home consumption as of 1960.Manhattan's famed Sardi's restaurant included Old London crackers by name on the menu for its "executive weight watchers" meal. By 2010 the company's Old London and Devonsheer brands were sold in 90% of American supermarkets.

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