Pepperidge Farm facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Pepperidge Farm Incorporated

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Food
Founded	1937; 88 years ago (1937)
Founder	Margaret Rudkin
Headquarters	Norwalk, Connecticut, U.S.
Key people	Kenneth Gosnell
Products	Cookies, crackers, breads, desserts
Brands	Goldfish
Parent	Campbell's

Pepperidge Farm Incorporated is an American company that makes delicious baked goods. It was started in 1937 by a woman named Margaret Rudkin. She named the company after her family's farm in Fairfield, Connecticut. The farm itself was named after a special tree called the pepperidge tree.

Since 1961, Pepperidge Farm has been part of the Campbell Soup Company. Its main office used to be in Norwalk, Connecticut. However, in January 2023, the company announced that it would move those jobs to Campbell Soup Company's main office in Camden, New Jersey.

History of Pepperidge Farm

How it All Started

Margaret Rudkin began baking bread in 1937. She did this for her youngest son, Mark, who had asthma. He was allergic to many foods sold in stores. His doctor liked her bread so much that he told other patients about it. He even encouraged Margaret to sell it!

Her very first sale was to a local grocery store in Fairfield, Connecticut, called Mercurio's Market. Margaret's husband, Henry, who worked on Wall Street, started taking loaves of bread to New York City. There, he sold them in special stores.

Growing the Business

As the business grew, Margaret moved her baking from her kitchen to her garage. By 1940, she had a factory. During World War II, it was hard to get good ingredients. This meant she had to make less bread.

In 1947, Margaret opened a modern bakery in Norwalk, Connecticut. Soon after, she opened more bakeries in Illinois and Pennsylvania.

New Products and Sales

In the 1950s, Margaret traveled to Europe. There, she found some amazing chocolate cookies. She thought Americans would love them too. She bought the rights to make and sell them. This is how the "Distinctive Cookies" line began.

Under Margaret's leadership, Pepperidge Farm started making other products. These included frozen pastries and, later, the famous Goldfish snack crackers from Switzerland. In 1961, she sold her company to the Campbell Soup Company for $28 million. She then became the first woman to join Campbell's board of directors.

Margaret also used her baking knowledge to write a cookbook. It was called The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook (1963). This book was the first cookbook ever to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.

The Pepperidge Farm Logo

The Pepperidge Farm logo looks like a old mill. It is based on the Grist Mill in Sudbury, Massachusetts. This mill provided the company with a lot of whole wheat flour every month from 1952 to 1967.

"Pepperidge Farm Remembers"

In the 1970s and 80s, Pepperidge Farm had a popular TV commercial campaign. The slogan was "Pepperidge Farm remembers." These commercials often showed old-fashioned scenes. They made people feel nostalgic about life in the early 1900s.

Pepperidge Farm Products

Pepperidge Farm makes many different products. These include Goldfish crackers, various types of bread, and several lines of cookies.

Cookie Lines

Their cookies are divided into two main groups: the Distinctive line and the Farmhouse line.

• The "Distinctive" cookies are named after European cities. Examples are the Milano cookie and the Brussels cookie. These cookies are special and hard to make at home.
• The Farmhouse line includes common cookies. These are like chocolate chip and shortbread cookies. They are the kind of cookies anyone could bake in their own kitchen.

List of Pepperidge Farm Products

Here are some examples of products made by Pepperidge Farm:

Hot dog bun

Hamburger bun

Goldfish crackers

Chunk Cookie

Strawberry cookie

Pirouette cookies

Milano cookies

Milano chocolate

See also

• List of bakeries
• List of brand name breads