Mother's Cookies

History

Mother's was founded in 1914 when N.M. Wheatley, a newspaper vendor, purchased the rights to a cookie recipe from a customer. A year later, Wheatley opened a one-person operation on 12th Avenue in Oakland.{{cite web |url=https://www.motherscookies.com/en/our-history/ |archive-date=25 July 2021 |url-status=dead}} On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson had issued a proclamation declaring the first national Mother's Day Today in History: May 9 Library of Congress

Archway was founded in 1936 by the Swansons, a husband-and-wife team who baked soft-batch cookies in their garage. The Swansons expanded their company nationwide in the 1940s, changing its name to Archway to avoid conflict with Swanson, a maker of frozen dinners. In 1962 the founders sold the company to their vice president, George Markham, who bought most of the franchises back over the next several years. The transaction made Specialty Foods the third largest cookie maker in the United States after Keebler and Nabisco.

The two companies then went through a succession of owners. Mother's was sold to Artal NV, a Belgian company, then bought by Specialty Foods Corp., a conglomerate formed by Robert Bass, who sold Mother's Cake & Cookie Co. and Archway Cookies to Parmalat S.p.A. Specialty Foods sold Mother's and Archway to an Italian firm, Parmalat Finanziaria in 2000 for $250 million. As of 2002 Mother's was baking 17.5 million cookies per day. Cookie sales began to decline after 2000 due to low-fat and low carb diet trends, although sales improved when the company introduced low fat cookies, and accounted for 10% of the United States cookie market as of late 2004. and moved baking operations to Ohio and Canada. The company suffered an accounting scandal in 2008 and in October 2008, the company became a victim of the 2008 financial crisis it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and laid off all of its workers.

Brand and product returns

In December, 2008, Lance Inc. bought the assets of Archway, and soon reopened the former Archway factory in Ashland, Ohio. Also, the same month Kellogg Company was approved to buy the assets of Mother's Cookies with plans to return the products to the shelves in mid-2009. In May 2009, Mother's Cookies returned to store shelves, including Kellogg's launch of a website for the product. After the return of the Mother's Cookies product line, customers noted changes in the recipes, most notably to the Taffy cookie.

In April 2019, Kellogg's announced the sale of Mother's Cookies, among other brands, to Italian confectioner Ferrero SpA, creators of Nutella.

Products

Mother's is known for pink and white iced "Circus Animal Cookies", "Taffy Sandwich Cookies" (original recipe), "Peanut Butter Gauchos", and iced oatmeal cookies. Archway's most popular product was Ruth's Oatmeal Cookies, based on a recipe found by one of its franchisees at a county fair, which made up 40% of all sales.

Promotions

The company included collectable baseball cards in their packs of cookies, featuring the Pacific Coast League (1952–53) and several west-coast Major League Baseball teams (1983–2002). Many of those cards were distributed by the teams themselves as promotional stadium giveaways. In the presidential election year of 1992, the company also produced collectable cards featuring the Presidents of the United States.

References

References

1. George Raine. (2008-10-09). "Mother's Cookies abruptly shut down". Hearts.
2. (1996-05-13). "Mother's Cookies, O'Boisie Corporation sign distribution agreement". Business Wire (press release).
3. Mike Nolan. (2008-10-09). "Operations Halted:Michigan company has distribution center in Mokena". Sun-Times.
4. "Archway Cookies, Inc.". Funding Universe.
5. [http://kelloggs.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=226 Kellogg Company Acquiring Trademarks and Recipes of Mother's Cake & Cookie Co.] Retrieved Dec 3, 2008
6. "Mother's Cookies After Kellogg's Purchase".
7. (2008-10-03). "Archway Cookies closing in Battle Creek". WOOD TV 8.
8. (1998-10-15). "Specialty Foods to Pay $100 Million for Two Companies". New York Times.
9. Kevin McCoy. (2004-01-13). "Parmalat's American workers uneasy, while investors are angry". USA Today.
10. "Specialty Foods Sells Archway Cookies And Mother's Bakery To Italy's Parmalat". Chicago Tribune.
11. Chandler, Susan. (September 13, 2000). "Specialty Foods Sells Archway Cookies And Mother's Bakery To Italy's Parmalat". Chicago Tribune.
12. Alec Rosenberg. (2002-06-05). "Mother's Facelift: Cookie firm not crumbling in face of competition". Oakland Tribune.
13. Tom Abate. (2006-04-04). "Mother's Cookies crumbling: Oakland bakery abandoning area where it was born". San Francisco Chronicle.
14. Creswell, Julie. (May 30, 2009). "Oh, No! What Happened To Archway?". The New York Times.
15. Ginger Christ. (2008-12-03). "Lance, Inc. approved to buy Archway Cookies, Kelloggs approved by the bankruptcy court to buy Mother's Cookies". Ashland Times-Gazette}}{{Dead link.
16. John King. (2008-12-23). "Shuttered bakery reopens, rehires workers". CNN.
17. [https://motherscookies.com/ Mother's Cookies website]
18. "41 Results - Mothers Taffy Cookies Changed".
19. (April 1, 2019). "Iconic Oakland cookie company bought by Nutella's parent company".
20. David Morrill. (2008-10-09). "Mother's Cookies closes down". Contra Costa Times.
21. Jane Irene Kelly. (1998-03-09). "Mother's Cookies Gets Giddy With KB&P West". Adweek.