All language subtitles for The.Food.That.Built.America.S04E14.Bring.Home.the.Bacon.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb

It's an
$897-billion global industry

and it's found in
nearly 100% of homes

across the nation: meat.

Today, we
have everything

from bacon to breakfast sausage.

Hot dogs, bologna.

Turkey as a lunch meat,
Genoa salami, Capocollo,

sliced pepperoni.

Beef stew.

Canned ham.

Chili.

You see all of that
because of Oscar Mayer

and because of Hormel.

But
before grocery stores

had whole aisles of
prepackaged meat,

options are limited and
suppliers are untrustworthy.

You didn't know where
the food came from

or how they were made or
what their ingredients were.

Until two
upstarts herald in a new era.

Oscar Mayer is
introducing Americans

to pre-sliced bacon
for the first time.

They elevated it
from mystery meat

into something that you know
exactly what you're getting.

Deliciousness.

They'll
have to fight-

There are bloody,
violent strikes that go on.

And innovate-

That'll work.

To bring
brand-new meat products-

It was something
they could just have

in their pantry for months

and just eat it
straight out of the can.

It was new, it was
modern, it was creative,

it was sexy.

Into every home.

S-P-A-M.

Huh?

Whether or not
you consume meat,

their legacy is firmly cemented.

We would not have the
foods that built America

without Hormel,
without Oscar Mayer.

It's part of the reason we
have abundance of plenty

and a variety.

It's the late 1800s

and while nationally-shipped
food products

are bursting onto the scene,

options for meat are limited.

Meat was extremely
regional and extremely local.

People were really dependent

on what they could raise
themselves for food.

Hogs were a very
popular meat animal

'cause they're very
easy to raise.

While butchers
sell all varieties of meat,

pork is a bestseller
because almost the entirety

of the animal could
be used for food.

You've got parts of the
animal that have meat,

which is perfectly edible,
but not quite so palatable.

But a new wave
of immigrants bring to America

their methods of using the
less popular meat parts.

These are the pieces that
you can't otherwise sell.

So they're cheap
meats by themselves.

So the sausage really becomes
the first cheap meat.

Sausages,
at the time,

are niche foods popular
with immigrants.

So when Germans
come to America,

especially with heavy
immigration in the 1850s,

Germans brought
sausages with them.

Germans
are flocking

to one American
city in particular,

and at the time, its German
population has pushed it

to become the sixth-largest
German city in the world:

Chicago.

And in 1883 on the
city's north side,

two German immigrant
brothers are trying to break

into the meat industry.

It was a family business.

They came to the United States

from a very poor
family in Bavaria.

Oscar began to work
at the age of 11,

having learned meat cutting
for a number of years.

His younger
brother, Gottfried,

didn't come to
America until 1883.

He was an absolutely
integral part of the company.

Gottfried became an
apprentice in Nuremberg,

and Nuremberg has
very famous sausage.

So he became a wurstmeister

and came to America
with a book of recipes.

The two brothers
take out a massive loan

of $10,000, nearly
$300,000 today,

to start their own butcher shop.

The Mayers, being German,

had, well, kind of
sausage in their veins

and they knew how to make it.

They were putting real
work into these wursts

and they wanted that hard
work to be recognized.

Oscar Mayer was a
more quality product

and more specifically German.

If you're in aficionado, German,

you do know the differences.

The Mayers focus

on creating
superior-tasting sausages,

also known as wursts in Germany.

They are serving authentic,
delicious Bavarian specialties

and there is a
really significant

German immigrant
population in Chicago

that can't get these products
anywhere else in America,

with many authentic
embellishments and flavors.

The brothers talk a
lot about consistency.

Their quality was so good.

All of their products
were made in house.

From the very beginning,

they advertised their products
as the best, the purest.

But Oscar
Mayer doesn't want

to just be the premier
German neighborhood butcher.

He wants non-Germans

to appreciate his
specialty products.

Sausages were not widely
consumed by Yankee Americans.

To get
their artisan products

outside of Chicago's
German enclave,

the Mayer brothers plan
to bring their wursts

to one of the biggest
events in Chicago's history.

The Mayer brothers kind of
see the Chicago World's Fair,

where companies of all
types would showcase

their products as a way to
really introduce their brand.

In 1893, along
with now-famous brands

like Cracker Jack and Heinz,

Oscar Mayer targets new,
non-German customers

with a large display for
the 27 million attendees

at the Chicago World's Fair.

Today, we have television,
we have social media.

Back then, they had
the world's fairs.

Even though they were a
pretty small shop at that time,

that got them noticed.

Oscar Mayers's
assortment of German meats,

including liver wursts
and Vienna sausages,

begin to reach a broader
customer base locally.

Even non-German customers
are falling in love

with these traditional
Bavarian delicacies.

Things like bockwurst,
Weisswurst, knackwurst,

stuff that they've
never had before.

So their business
grew and grew and grew

and it became a major
Chicago institution.

But as the
brothers' meat infiltrates

every local butcher shop,
they notice a problem:

how to differentiate their
higher-quality product

from everyone else.

At the time, businesses just
sold their customers meat.

There was no brand
name involved.

They just sold them Vienna
sausages or bratwurst.

So there was
nothing to stop them

from telling their customers

that this meat came
from Oscar Mayer.

How would they know?

You didn't necessarily
know where the food came from

or how they were made or
what their ingredients were.

To combat
butchers passing off

knockoff products
as Oscar Mayers,

they devise an
innovative solution.

They decided they
needed to have logos.

Something to mark them out.

So you had to distinguish
for Oscar Mayer.

Oscar
Mayer becomes a pioneer

of transforming what were
no-name meat products

into a meat brand.

And it's a brand that will
one day sell $3 billion

and introduce
Americans to new meats

that will become iconic staples.

And their unprecedented
breakthroughs in packaging

will shape the entire
meat business,

spawning a $172-billion
grocery meat industry.

But at the turn of the century,

Oscar Mayers' first
packaged labels

tout his original
brand name, Edelweiss.

Edelweiss.

It's sentimental German
song and an alpine flower

which has meaning to
Germans of that time,

like quality and purity.

In 1904, the
Mayers used their new branding

to branch out from
their butcher shop.

Usually people would
travel between 500

and 1,000 feet and that
was their butcher shop.

And you went to the
butcher shop all the time

because you didn't really have
decent refrigeration at home.

And they launch
a bigger wholesale business,

hand delivering
products to 280 butchers

and markets within Chicago.

And the business grows
to employ 43 people,

including eight wagon drivers.

Suddenly, you're mobile
and you're flexible

and you're able to
get your products

into other places that
you couldn't do before.

But just as Mayer
has some success expanding,

in 1906, a journalist
named Upton Sinclair

releases an account

of the unsanitary
conditions he witnessed

at the Chicago Stockyards,

just miles from
Oscar Mayer's shop.

Upton Sinclair's "The
Jungle" shocked America.

And it is still one

of the most shocking
things you'll ever read.

It's horrendous.

Meat packing was
kind of gross.

There's not a lot of
refrigeration around.

It's still very limited.

Companies start to
dump chemicals in it.

These kinds of disinfectants.

Borax, for example,

was widely used in
sausage production

to prevent the meat from
deteriorating along the way.

Workers covered
with blood and feces,

cows that could infect
consumers with tuberculosis.

These conditions
didn't actually produce

the most sanitary meat.

At the
time, tuberculosis

is one of the leading
causes of death.

This, along with an
increase in typhoid fever,

both of which can be
contracted from food,

create mass hysteria
around meat.

People get very obsessed
about the quality of the meat

that they're eating.

And so they begin to push
and lobby for better meat

and better inspection of meat.

The allegations
and looming crackdown

could be disastrous for
everyone in the meat business.

There is a lot of pushback
against a lot of these ideas,

particularly from butchers
and meat packers.

But
for Oscar Mayer,

the outrage will be the spark

that pushes him to completely
reinvent the meat industry.

meat industry is under firee

after alarming stories
of unsanitary conditions

has customers frightened.

It was a time when you had
a lot of foodborne illnesses.

Food poisoning, tuberculosis,
typhoid fever, scarlet fever.

I mean, Americans were very wary

of where their food
was coming from.

And rightfully so.
It could kill them.

The
revelations spark

a strict government
crackdown on the industry.

And in 1906, the landmark Pure
Food and Drug Act is passed.

It meant visual
meat inspection

and then a stamp put on
sides of meat hanging

in the warehouses
by an inspector.

While
some meat producers

fight the legislation,

Oscar Mayer takes another track.

When the federal government

starts a meat
inspection service,

the Mayer brothers are among
the first to step up and say,

yes, we want you to
inspect our product.

We know it's good. We want
that stamp of approval.

Mayer uses the
official government stamp

to prove his meat
has been inspected

and to validate its status
as a high-quality product.

Hey!

Oscar F. Mayer was
a fanatic about this.

They signed on right away to
the new meat inspection laws.

He thought it was a civic
obligation to do this.

While
today the FDA assures

the public of food
safety, at the time,

the stamps are
the only guarantee

that a company has complied
with food standards.

Armed with some of the first
certified government stamps,

Mayer wants to use them to
bring his German sausages

into new markets and
become the leading brand

in the industry.

That'll work.

So this becomes a huge
asset for Oscar Mayer

to expand its operations
throughout the Midwest.

And that really
is their first step

toward getting outside the
butcher shop mentality.

They're starting to
grow as a company

and think about bigger things.

As more and
more customers are asking

for his brand by name,

Mayer becomes one of the
city's largest meat purveyors

and an industry leader
at the forefront

of quality assurance.

And Mayer continues expanding,

growing his delivery service
and purchasing a fleet

of the newly released
Ford Model T automobiles

at a cost of $500 each,
or $15,000 today.

So the Model T begins
this kind of transformation

where, if you're a
company like Oscar Mayer

and you're producing
in one place

and you want to sell
into a suburban area,

or you wanna place your meats
with some country merchants

outside of Chicago in Illinois.

So that does change the
geography of distribution.

But in the
midst of his expansion,

the onset of a new American
conflict with Germany

threatens to undermine
the company's progress.

During World War I,

there was so much
German backlash

that they changed the
names of German streets,

they removed the language from
the curriculum of schools,

and they basically
were just trying

to remove any mention of German
or Germany from our culture.

Hello?

No, no, this isn't
Mr. Edelweiss.

No, you don't have
the wrong number.

My name is Oscar Ma...

Hello?

With American
boycotts of German products,

Oscar Mayer's Edelweiss
brand name threatens

to not only stop his expansion,

but now, his entire
business is at risk.

Meanwhile, 300 miles away
in a small Minnesota town-

You ever heard of this farm?

A regional meat
distributor is in danger

of losing his father's company.

No, I haven't.

I found the name of the owner.

It's your accountant.

His father, George,
started working

in a meat packing house
when he was 12 years old

and he eventually
built the business

to a point where it
was really supplying

much of the Midwest
with its pork products.

But now the
company's head accountant

has defrauded the
business of $1.1 million,

the equivalent of
about 20 million today.

And the father and son must
try to claw their way back.

There's a meeting
where they have to admit

to the bankers what's happened,

which of course made the
company look pretty bad

since, you know, the guy
embezzled a million dollars

over the course of
a number of years.

And so, how good were
your financial controls?

The company
stands on shaky ground,

but soon, an unlikely
meat product

will reverse the
company's fortunes

and go on to sell nearly
$300 million a year,

changing the way
meat is distributed,

stored, and purchased.

But right now, Jay and George
Hormel need to figure out

how to get back into
the black and fast.

So, they're not a national
company by any sense.

They are a regional
company at this point.

You're up against some
really hefty competitors.

By the 1910s,

a cutting-edge technology
has turned the meat industry

into a monopoly.

Refrigerated rail cars,
known as reefers,

now allow for
freshly-butchered meat

to finally be shipped
throughout the country.

These weren't
refrigerated cars

like we think of today
with coolant and a motor.

Instead, you had huge blocks
of ice in a compartment on top

and the chilled air would
naturally flow downward.

But this new
technology is expensive,

with refrigerated rail
cars costing nearly double

the price of regular stock cars,

allowing the few companies

that can afford it
to corner the market.

The big five companies,

Armour, Swift, Wilson,
Cudahy, and Morris,

create these national networks
of refrigerated car routes

where they're killing
cattle in Chicago,

they're putting the
quarters of the cattle

in refrigerated cars

and they then have
wholesale warehouses

in all the big cities

and a lotta small cities
throughout the U.S.

would distribute the
beef to local butchers.

They crush a lot of
small packing houses.

You had companies
basically having a monopoly

and dominating
the meat business,

so he needed to
find something else.

Hormel's
desperation will lead him

to an innovation that
will change the industry

in unimaginable ways.

In 1918 in
Chicago, Oscar Mayer is reeling

as the Great War has
tarnished his Edelweiss brand.

From the onset of the war,

many German-American
companies had to deal

with a backlash of
anti-German sentiment

from the American public.

This really impacted
their ability

to sell to people outside
their own ethnic enclave.

So Mayer must
make a difficult decision

on one of the first
meat brands in America.

Their sausage line
was called Edelweiss,

which has meaning to
Germans of that time.

But non-German Americans
are not gonna walk in

and look at a case of Edelweiss
brand and say, "I want that."

He decides to
retire the name he spent

so long building up

and replace it with a
name that's also renowned

for its quality, his
own: Oscar Mayer.

Now, Mayer wants a new product
to launch with his new brand.

Oscar Mayer predicted
that one day,

women would be freed
from the kitchen

because they would only eat
foods that were pre-prepared

and ready for
heating or cooking.

And Oscar Mayer decided
that convenience foods

were the way to go.

So they began experimenting
with packaged foods.

Mayer is
determined to break new ground,

making his products
more accessible.

In Minnesota, with his family's
company deeply in debt,

Jay Hormel is desperately
seeking a new revenue stream.

Hormel had to address
some real problems.

You're still limited to
sales through butcher shops.

That's your basic problem,

is it all gotta go
through butcher shops.

And that is an incredibly
limiting process

for what your products can do.

With
a virtual monopoly

on refrigerated rail shipping,

the largest companies
are blocking Hormel

from distributing his fresh
pork products nationally.

But Hormel realizes a
new type of retail store

could provide an
outlet for his meat.

Major changes happened in
terms of the ways that we shop.

There's a big culture
change that happens.

In 1916,
a Memphis grocery store

called Piggly Wiggly
pioneers a totally new model

of food shopping.

Rather than requesting items
from workers behind a counter,

customers are now encouraged

to browse the grocery
store aisles themselves,

picking out the
products they want.

One thing that Jay sees
is the different ways

that people are buying food.

These are not supermarkets.

These are grocery stores, but
these stores are exploding.

And so Jay Hormel sees this

and he starts to
try to figure out

how can his company
have sales in stores

that aren't selling fresh goods?

'Cause if you could
get your products

into these other venues,

suddenly, you are a
national company.

So what this would look
like is a meat product

that can sit on a store shelf

or even a home pantry
without refrigeration.

To do it,

Hormel leans on the
knowledge he gained

while serving in the military.

He's learned about how to
move food from place to place

in these containers in the
food transport division.

And he wants to apply it
to the family business.

And he thinks it can really
help them expand and grow.

He
believes he can do

what no one in the meat business

has successfully
achieved in America.

He wants to find a new
kind of canning technology,

which was really not
suited well for meat.

He wanted to get the jump
on other meat packers.

If he can do that, that
breaks open the market

for their products
in a huge way.

But prior
attempts to can meat

had disastrous results.

During the
Spanish-American War,

Armour Company had supplied
canned meat to the troops

and a whole batch of it was
found to be fetid, rotten.

In
what became known

as the embalmed meat
scandal in 1898,

the illness was traced
directly to canned beef.

This caused a huge uproar.

While only 280
were killed in the fighting,

another 2,600 died

of what the War Department
deemed, "other causes."

But Hormel is compelled
to crack the code

on a safe canned meat

that can sit on grocery
store shelves indefinitely.

Jay Hormel is trying to
figure out the canning.

But basically if you
cook something too much

that's in a sealed
can, the can explodes.

If you don't cook it enough
when it's in the can,

the consumer opens it up
there and it's disgusting.

It's complicated.

Cooking meat in
the can is not easy.

He's left with four ounces
of separated meat juice.

There's no way Hormel
could sell it like that.

Damn it.

He has a huge problem.

Meanwhile, Oscar Mayer

also believes he can create
a convenient meat product

for the masses.

And his experimenting
with packaging

has led him to breakfast.

In the early 1920s, the
growing popularity of cereal

is increasingly dominating
American breakfast

since the Kelloggs pioneered
it 30 years earlier.

There's more and more
emphasis on convenience foods.

Eating cold cereals with
milk was very common.

Those were considered
fast, quick,

easy foods at that time period.

Before cereal, people ate
leftovers for breakfast.

Meat, bread, whatever
they had on hand.

Mayer thinks he could return
the American breakfast

to its roots and make
it easy and quick.

He thinks
he's found a way

to turn a low-grade meat into
the perfect breakfast food.

It's the fatty belly of a pig.

And at the time, it's
sold in large slabs.

But one day, it will become

a $6 billion
industry all its own,

producing 2 billion
pounds in America alone.

Today, we know it
as sliced bacon.

In 1924, with
the large meat distributors

monopolizing the
national market,

Jay Hormel's only option
to grow his pork business

is to create a meat stable
enough to bypass butcher shops

and get directly to
grocery store shelves.

By the 1920s, A
has stores all over.

And so Jay Hormel could benefit
by A's national network

and have sales everywhere
in the country.

If he can do that, that
breaks open the market

for their products
in a huge way.

After struggling

with designing a
safe canned meat,

Hormel may have found the
right man for the job.

They become aware,
through various connections

of this meat company
in Germany operated

by the Jorn family

and they've got a
younger son named Paul.

And this company
does meat canning.

Paul Jorn
is considered an expert

in the canning process.

So the Hormels invite
the young man over

and he helps them solve

these various
technological problems

with canning meat in
ways that are gonna work

and the meat's gonna
hang onto its flavor.

Hormel
begins experimenting

with a high priced but
flavorful cut of pork,

a five-pound,
boneless ham shank.

It's the intersection,
if you will,

of air sealing and cooking,

where you wanna cook
the meat in the can

and you also have to
maintain an air seal.

And that's actually quite hard.

Jorn's
process involves attempting

to seal the meat inside
a gelatin filled can

and steam cooking
it at the same time.

To find the sweet spot

between the length of
time that you cook it

and the way that it's kept
sealed inside the can.

As
Jay Hormel attempts

to create a shelf-stable
meat product for the masses,

meanwhile, Oscar
Mayer is attempting

to transform a once unappetizing
cut of pork called bacon

into a savory breakfast meat.

In the 19th century, it
is a low-grade product.

It's not something
that she would serve

on the breakfast table.

It's not this deeply beloved,

deeply sought after
product that it is today.

Not at all.

It's really, at that point,
is considered greasy.

It's a bit of a throwaway.

Bacon was
essentially dry cured.

It was hard. It was salty.

You bought a big, big chunk,

maybe this long and this wide,

and you would then
cut slices off it

to eat at various times.

To
revolutionize bacon,

he plans to elevate it into
a convenient breakfast food

by doing something that, at
the time, no company has done.

In 1924, Oscar Mayer creates
the first ever pre-packed

and pre-sliced bacon.

It's very hard to slice bacon

so they come up with an
incredible innovation.

They develop a slicing machine

where instead of buying
the whole belly of bacon,

you bought it in slices.

And to show
off his quality sliced meat,

he'll use a groundbreaking
new packaging technique.

The DuPont company develops

this amazing new packaging
called cellophane.

And cellophane is the
first clear packaging

available on the market.

You could see through
the cellophane

and see the bacon that
you're purchasing.

Suddenly, that changes
the rules of the game

for bacon production.

Oscar Mayer unveils

the first-of-its-kind,
pre-sliced, premium bacon

in clear see-through packaging,

laying the foundation of the
pre-packaged meat industry

that will become
the preferred way

to purchase meat
in grocery stores.

Oscar Mayer invested
pretty heavily

in packaging
research and design.

So you can actually see
the meat that's in there.

You can see the
color, the uniformity,

the style of meat
that you're buying.

And that really appeals
to a lot of people.

Oscar Mayer starts using

that familiar yellow
packaging for a brand

that has said repeatedly

that their character
is their quality.

Well, you see it with the bacon.

Mayer's
bacon is expensive,

but it's an ideal strategy
for the new display shelves

of America's new
self-serve grocery stores.

Oscar Mayer is
introducing Americans

to pre-sliced bacon
for the first time.

And being able to buy
it already ready to go,

in a package, was a big
shift for a lot of people.

As his bacon
sales in the region take off,

Mayer is hoping it will
finally be the product

that will catapult him
into a national brand.

Meanwhile, Hormel has
finally cracked the code

on its first canned
meat product.

With the kind of knowledge

that Jorn have of
the meat itself,

they're able to have
the right temperature

to seal it in a proper way.

And the result is they're able
to figure out the technology.

In 1926,
they are the first company

to successfully can ham,

calling the product
Flavor-Sealed Ham.

That takes Hormel and
makes it a national company.

There is no other canned
hams on the market, period.

I think Hormel is so
far in front on that

that they don't face
immediate competition.

The new
product is a convenient way

for consumers to have
a shelf-stable meat.

Flavor-Sealed Ham was
gonna be an elite product.

So they sold it for a premium.

If you're a restaurant or hotel,

you can be sure that you
have the sufficient supplies

to handle a rush crowd.

And also it's popular
on the new steamships.

These big ocean liners

in which you put
it on the shelf,

you don't have to
refrigerate it.

And it's also tasty.

It's a big success.

But soon, the
onset of the Great Depression

puts a stop to Hormel's
newfound success

as premium products are
abandoned across the country.

Now, meat packers are cutting
wages and issuing layoffs.

But Jay Hormel tries
to save his workforce.

As a goodwill gesture,
Jay refuses to do layoffs.

Instead, he introduces the
Spread the Work campaign

in an effort to keep as many
of his workers as possible.

But
with sales dwindling,

Hormel can't afford to pay his
employees a full-time wage.

His workers term it,
"Spread the Misery"

because Jay couldn't
keep them all working

as much as they were before.

They weren't working full weeks

and this led to a
lot of resentment

because it really left them
not knowing how much money

they were gonna make
from week to week.

It was very problematic.

When workers received
their paychecks

and there had been a deduction
taken from the paychecks

without their consent,

this really infuriates
these workers.

Discontent erupts in 1933.

On November 11th,

armed strikers stormed
the Hormel plant.

This is really
the first strike

in the meat packing
industry in the early 1930s.

They blockade the plant.

They expel the staff.

At this point, there are
thousands of employees.

There's a lotta
danger for Hormel.

In 1933,
as strikers storm

his meat processing plant,

Jay Hormel is not just
worried about his company,

but he fears for his life.

There are bloody,
violent strikes that go on.

They blockade the plant.

While at the time,

most companies use force
to crush labor strikes,

Hormel knows his
options are limited.

What could he do?
Call in the police?

Call the National Guard?

In such a small town, it's
likely that family members

or friends of his laborers
were going to be the police.

How is that going to work?

Hormel
agrees to make concessions

and accommodate workers.

Jay negotiated what's
known as guaranteed wage

or straight pay,

which is a guaranteed
wage per week

for a set number of hours.

And what that
allowed the employees

to have is wage security.

They knew how much money they
were going to make every week.

That's very uncommon.

Right after the Depression hits,

you have stable pay on a
weekly basis for these workers,

which allows furniture
stores, television stores,

auto dealers, all
sorts of people

to sell goods to these
packing house workers

which they could not
have purchased before.

So this transforms the area.

Five years
before the federal government

guarantees a minimum wage,

Hormel guarantees the
pay of all his workers

and they call off the strike.

Jay eventually becomes an
advocate for his workers,

giving them unprecedented
job benefits

like group health insurance
plans, sick leave,

retirement plans
before Social Security.

The pioneering
plan becomes known

as the Hormel Plan.

In 1938, portions of
the plan are adopted

into the Fair Labor Act
and are still used today.

But despite Jay's
forward thinking,

he's only increased
his expenses.

Demand collapses for
all sorts of products

and I think it's
very tough for them.

The canned hams are
high-end products,

not a great product to have
when the Depression is going on.

If Hormel
wants to survive

the Great Depression, he'll
need a cheaper product.

And for Oscar Mayer,

the Great Depression has
put a stop to his expansion.

After years of popularity,

sales of his pre-sliced
bacon are slumping,

forcing him to seek out an
inexpensive alternative.

Making a food that's
widely available and cheap

for people of all income levels,

particularly lower income
levels, is really important.

It fulfills America's
desire for meat.

To
find a cheaper meat,

Mayer looks to one that's
popular among Italian Americans.

It's essentially
a large sausage.

There's a casing
and some kind of

seasoned, prepared meat
paste piped into it.

And you could use less
than select cuts of meat.

Originating
in Bologna, Italy,

it's a higher end product made

from the fatty parts of
a pig, even organ meat

and it's known as mortadella.

The process of
making mortadella

is very similar to sausage.

It consists of pork, mostly
neck fat of a pig and fat cubes.

And it's seasoned using
peppercorns and pistachios

and a bunch of other flavorings.

But Mayer
has a way to make

a new type of mortadella,

one that doesn't
use expensive fat.

Oscar Mayer uses different
underutilized meats.

They grind them into
this uniform paste,

which is then seasoned
to perfection.

After that, it's just
processed into loaves.

It was slightly
cured and cooked

and the the importance of that
is that it's ready to eat.

Mayer believes
the thinly-sliced meat

will make for an affordable,
protein-rich meal.

It's a product that will
pave the way for lunch meats

as we know them.

He calls it bologna.

And just like he did with bacon,

Mayer makes it a consumer
friendly product,

launching his
bologna pre-sliced.

If you can make it
more convenient to eat,

then bologna has the potential

to become the number
one sliced meat.

It was the one thing

that, whether your
parents had a lot of money

or not, everybody ate.

Oscar Mayer Bologna was
something that was so cherished

and people loved
the convenience.

Oscar Mayer
Bologna is one of the first

pre-sliced lunch meats available

to the growing number of
self-service customers.

But as soon as he
releases his bologna,

he notices a problem
with the packaging.

When you would
take out a slice,

the end-most part would dry out.

So there was a lot of loss.

Nobody wanted that
dried end of bologna.

It wasn't appealing.

With his
distribution network expanding

throughout the country,

his bologna will need
to stay fresh longer.

For a company that had
an excellent reputation

when it came to quality,

this product was not up
to their high standard.

So they had to find
a solution quickly.

Meanwhile,
Jay Hormel is attempting

to make his premium
canned ham more affordable

for the masses.

Jay Hormel's canned ham
is targeted to the elite,

but he thinks if he
can find a cheaper way

to produce this product, he
can widen his customer base.

To make a
more accessible canned meat

for struggling Americans,

Hormel eyes an underused part
of the pig, the pork shoulder.

The front shoulder of the pig

was always an issue
for meat packers

'cause you could always
sell the rear leg as ham,

but the front part,
what do you do with it?

The sort of front
shoulders of a pig

have a bunch of little
knobbly bits of meat,

and they knew that
there had to be some way

of using this meat.

So, in an effort to
create a shelf-stable,

highly-affordable,
highly-versatile meat,

taking all these cuts of
meat not commonly used,

pressing it together in a block

with different seasonings and
flavorings, Hormel creates-

S-P-A-M.

Huh?

Is that short for spiced ham?

I was thinking shoulder
of pork and ham.

In 1937,
the Hormel Company

devises an inexpensive
version of canned ham,

a product once reserved
for the wealthy.

SPAM.

And they
don't know it yet,

but it will fundamentally
change how the world buys food.

I like it.

has invented a cheaper versionl

of his premium canned
ham product called SPAM.

They haven't ever revealed
what the name really means,

but most people think
it means spiced ham.

It was convenient.
It was nutritious.

It was something they could
just have in their pantry

for months and just eat
it straight out the can

when they needed a quick meal.

To have a canned
product, meat product,

that you could
have on your shelf,

that you could open and slice
up and serve for lunch there,

was a revolution.

And of course it was
new, it was modern,

it was creative, it was sexy.

SPAM was not what we
think of today back then.

SPAM is a huge hit.

It absolutely flies
off the shelves.

After its release,
Europe erupts into war,

thrusting the United
States into battle

and with Hormel's
creation in tow.

Over 150 million pounds
of SPAM are consumed

by troops in the war effort.

It becomes the
cornerstone of their diet

and also a useful wartime tool.

The grease layer on top could
be used to waterproof boots,

it could be used
for lantern fuel,

and it could also be
used to lubricate guns.

So it had a lot
of different uses

other than food for the
soldiers of World War II.

And SPAM's
newfound popularity

has a profound
effect on the diets

of people around the world.

For the better
part of the war,

huge amounts of SPAM
are sent to England

as rations for the
British population

that is being pummeled
by the German military,

and after the bombing
stops, is still struggling

with the burden
of the war there.

And so, for decades afterwards,

SPAM has a place in British
food and British memory

as a food which helps
them survive World War II.

So SPAM has this tremendous
popularity and positive image.

After the war,

SPAM soon becomes a staple
of local Hawaiian cuisine.

Deep-sea fishing was something

that was almost a completely
Japanese-American industry

and in an effort to
keep Japanese Americans

under the scrutiny of
the U.S. government,

they forbade any
Japanese-American

from engaging in
deep-sea fishing,

which meant no protein,

which meant Japanese
Americans in Hawaii

had to find an alternative
protein source,

which meant SPAM.

The restrictions
on the fishing industry

pushed SPAM to become a
beloved protein replacement

in sushi, as well as many other
recipes still enjoyed today.

You can't talk
about food in Hawaii

without mentioning SPAM.

SPAM is undoubtedly something

that is ingrained, not
just in Hawaiian culture,

but is actually popular in Asian
cultures around the world.

By the time
George H. Hormel dies in 1946,

he has lived long enough

to see his son pull
the company he founded

out from the brink of default.

Today, it's a food empire
worth over $20 billion

with almost 13 cans of SPAM
consumed every second.

With his sights set on
national distribution,

Oscar Mayer needs a way to keep
his pre-packaged meat fresh.

And in 1950, they innovate
a new unique packaging

called the Slice Pack.

I think that really
set the standard

for a lot of other
companies who then had

to adapt to what
Oscar Mayer was doing.

Oscar Mayer pioneers
pre-sliced meats

in a vacuum-sealed container

and essentially, you were able
to take the slices you wanted,

use them as you wanted,

and you could close
the package up,

let it preserve the
life, taste, quality,

and flavor of your bologna.

It really starts, kind of,
taking America by storm.

So that became a big success

and helped turn
around the company

in that time of
economic hardship.

Oscar Mayer Bologna

becomes the quintessential lunch
meat for American children.

In 1955, Oscar G.
Mayer Sr. passes away,

having seen his small
Chicago butcher shop expand

to 9,000 employees and nearly
$260 million in sales.

The new head of the
company, Oscar Mayer Jr.,

picks up where his
father left off.

What Oscar Mayer
was very good at

when it came to marketing,
is figuring how

to insert its products
into popular culture.

I guess you would call
it earned attention

in the advertising world.

Everyone knows the
bologna commercial.

♪ My bologna has
a first name ♪

♪ It's O-S-C-A-R

♪ My baloney has
a second name ♪

♪ It's M-A-Y-E-R

With the
success of packaged bologna,

Oscar Mayer becomes a
grocery store fixture

from coast to coast.

Today, pre-packed meat like
Oscar Mayer bologna and bacon

account for 83% of
grocery meat sales,

fueling a nearly $300
billion meat industry.

American palates
and American culture

will always, always
come back to meat

in some way, shape, or form.

Since
their inception,

Oscar Mayer and Jay Hormel
have been a driving force

of innovation within
the meat industry,

helping move it out
of the butcher shop

and into the grocery store.

Hormel found a way to take
foods that people loved,

make them shelf stable,
make them available,

and you see how Oscar Mayer
took this processed meat

and really placed an emphasis

on quality,
accessibility, longevity,

and revolutionized
the foods we enjoy,

the foods in our lunch boxes,

and the foods that
built America.