Key Ingredients Michigan Foodways

Trivia: Agriculture | Trivia: Business | Trivia: Restaurants

Here is a selection of Michigan food trivia in business. If you would like to provide more information to add to this list, please e-mail us!

FOOD BUSINESS

The Eastern Market (Detroit): The market is 202 years old, and has been at its current location since 1841, serving as many as 45,000 individuals per day.

Gerber Baby Food (Fremont): Gerber is the nation's leader in baby food production, making 5.5 million jars per day and annual worldwide sales of $1 billion (AP Online, July 30, 1999).

Jiffy Mix (Chelsea): Each day 1.4 million people pick up one of Jiffy's little blue boxes on grocery store shelves around the country, affirming an embattled American business tradition. (The Detroit News, Feb. 21, 1999).

Kellogg's, Post (Battle Creek): Battle Creek-based cereal giants Kellogg and Post are the top producers of cereal purchased worldwide. Americans buy 2.7 billion packages of breakfast cereal each year. If laid end to end, the empty cereal boxes from one year's consumption would stretch to the moon and back. Americans consume about 10 pounds, or 160 bowls of cereal, per person each year. In 1993, more than 1.3 million advertisements for cereal aired on American television, or more than 25 hours of cereal advertising per day, at a cost of $762 million for air time. Only auto manufacturers spend more money on television advertising than the makers of breakfast cereal (Cerealizing America, 1995, by Bruce, S. and Crawford, B.).

Little Caesar's (Garden City), Domino's (Ann Arbor): In 2005 alone, more than 3 billion pizzas were sold nationwide. Two of the world's top five pizza chains are headquartered in Michigan: Domino's and Little Caesars. Domino's Pizza, founded in Ann Arbor in 1960, currently operates 8,238 franchised and company-owned stores in the United States and more than 50 countries. Sales of Domino's Pizza brand are $3.3 billion domestically and $1.7 billion internationally. Little Caesars's Pizza started in Garden City in 1959. It had sales of $1.3 billion in 2002.

St. Julian (Paw Paw): Michigan's oldest Winery, dating back to 1921 (Detroit News).

Vernor's Ginger Ale (Detroit): The first soda pop made in America was Vernor's Ginger Ale, created in Detroit in 1866.

Westview Orchards & Cider Mill (Romeo): The oldest cider mill in Michigan, dating to 1813.

Key Ingredients Michigan Foodways
presented by the Michigan Humanities Council - copyright 2007-2008
119 Pere Marquette, Suite 3B, Lansing, MI 48912. phone: 517-372-7770. fax: 517-372-0027.

If you are visually impaired or need assistance with this website, please contact the Michigan Humanities Council.

Michigan Recipe Story Contest | Message Board