How it started
History
Pearson & Sons Bakery opened in Massachusetts in 1792, and they made a biscuit called pilot bread for consumption on long sea voyages. In 1889, William H. Moore acquired Pearson & Sons Bakery, Josiah Bent Bakery, and six other bakeries to start the New York Biscuit Company. Chicago lawyer Adolphus Green (1843–1917) started the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company in 1890 after acquiring 40 different bakeries. Then Moore, Green, and John Gottlieb Zeller (1849–1939, founder of Richmond Steam Bakery) all merged in 1898 to form the "National Biscuit Company", and Green was named president. Zeller was president of National Biscuit Company from 1923 to 1931.
Nabisco celebrated its golden anniversary in 1948, and Nabisco had become the corporate name by 1971. In 1981, Nabisco merged with Standard Brands to form "Nabisco Brands", which merged with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1985 to form RJR Nabisco. Kraft General Foods acquired the Nabisco cold cereals from RJR Nabisco in 1993, and the cereal brands are now owned by Post Holdings. In 1999, Nabisco acquired Favorite Brands International. In 2000, Philip Morris Companies Inc. acquired Nabisco and merged it with Kraft Foods in one of the largest mergers in the food industry. In 2011, Kraft Foods announced that it was splitting into a grocery company and a snack food company. Nabisco became part of the snack-food business, which took the name Mondelēz International.
The first use of the name Nabisco was in a cracker brand produced by National Biscuit Company in 1901. The firm later introduced Fig Newtons, Nabisco Wafers, Anola Wafers, Barnum's Animal Crackers (1902), Cameos (1910), Lorna Doones (1912), Oreos (1912), and Famous Chocolate Wafers (1924, which would be discontinued in 2023).
In 1924, the National Biscuit Company introduced a snack in a sealed packet called the Peanut Sandwich Packet. They soon added the Sorbetto Sandwich Packet. These allowed salesmen to sell to soda fountains, road stands, milk bars, lunch rooms, and news stands. Sales increased, and the company started to use the name NAB in 1928. The term Nabs today is used to generically mean any type of snack crackers, most commonly in the southern US.
As of July 16, 2021, parent company Mondelēz International made the decision to close the Fair Lawn plant after 63 years forcing the majority of the 600 employees to move on and/or retire, accept jobs with other businesses or transfer within the company.
From Wikipedia’s article on Nabisco, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2