Franklin Baker Company facts for kids
The current Franklin Baker Company logo
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Number of locations
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2 (United States and the Philippines) |
Established in 1897, Franklin Baker Company is a company that makes and sells coconut products. They are known for their "Baker's Coconut" brand. This company makes dried coconut (called desiccated coconut) and other processed coconut items. They sell their products in the U.S. and other countries around the world.
The company's main coconut products are made in San Pablo City and Davao del Sur in the Philippines. The Philippines is a great place for growing coconuts. Franklin Baker also has offices in Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States, and in Northolt, United Kingdom.
Contents
History of Franklin Baker Company
How the Coconut Business Started
Franklin Baker (who lived from 1846 to 1923) was a person who owned a business that ground grain into flour in Philadelphia. In 1894, he received a large shipment of fresh coconuts from Cuba. This was payment for some flour he had sent there.
Mr. Baker looked for someone to buy all these coconuts. He soon realized that there was a big opportunity to sell coconut products. He found a small coconut business in Philadelphia that was about to close down. Mr. Baker bought this business. With his new supply of coconuts, he started his own coconut company.
By 1897, Franklin Baker's new coconut business was doing very well. He decided to sell his flour business so he could focus completely on coconuts. Later, his son, Franklin Baker Jr., joined him. Their business eventually became known as the Franklin Baker Company.
Growing the Business
The Baker's Coconut brand grew to become the main supplier of coconut products in the United States. This meant they were the biggest seller of coconut items.
In 1913, the company moved its manufacturing factories to Brooklyn, New York.
In 1921, Franklin Baker and his son, Franklin Baker Jr., built new factories in Santa Mesa, Manila, in the Philippines.
Finding the Best Coconuts
To get a steady supply of coconuts, Franklin Baker went to the Philippines. In 1922, the company started processing coconuts there at a plant in Sta. Mesa, Manila. This was the beginning of the Franklin Baker Company of the Philippines. The original idea was to process coconuts in the Philippines. This way, their factory in New Jersey would get dried coconut directly, instead of having to import whole coconuts from places like the Caribbean.
In 1924, the business moved its main operations to Hoboken, New Jersey.
Changes Over Time
In 1927, a big company called General Foods Corporation bought the Franklin Baker Company. Operations were moved to a larger, more modern factory in San Pablo City, Laguna. This new location was very close to where many coconuts grew.
During the Second World War, the San Pablo factory was badly damaged due to bombings. Because of this, the company moved its operations back to the United States for a while to keep the business going. Fresh coconuts from Puerto Rico and Jamaica were brought to the Hoboken factory for processing. Eventually, the San Pablo factory in the Philippines was rebuilt in 1947, and it is still in its current location today.
In 1964, the U.S. processing factory moved from Hoboken to Dover, Delaware. By this time, most of the basic coconut processing was done in the Philippines. The Dover factory then added sugar, toasted, and creamed the dried coconut for other businesses and for people to buy in stores.
In 1968, General Foods built another factory for Franklin Baker in Davao, Philippines. This was to make sure they always had enough coconuts for their products.
New Owners
In 1987, Philip Morris, which owned General Foods, bought Kraft. The Franklin Baker dried coconut products then became part of the Kraft Food Ingredients Group. These products were still sold under the Baker’s brand. In 2004, Kraft sold the Franklin Baker industrial product lines (products sold to other businesses) to an investment company called Andorra Investments Corporation.
