SPAM Brings Home Hormel’s Bacon

(April 29, 2017) Austin, MN

On this beautiful cool spring morning I departed Red Wing and took a leisurely drive heading back to South Dakota. I traveled over the hills of southeast Minnesota through the lush farmland on through Zumbrota to do a drive by of the Medical Mecca, Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

Traveling on I arrived at the new relocated SPAM Museum. The new Museum moved off of Interstate 90 to a one-year-old dazzling building in downtown Austin. To say Austin is a one industry town would be an understatement. Austin is Hormel.

The SPAM Museum sits on an entire city block and attracts 125,000 visitors each year. There is no admission fee and all costs are supported by Hormel Foods. The costs are a well-justified advertising expense as the exhibition promotes Hormel’s crown jewel.  

The venue has something for everyone. Besides being a stand-alone museum and Austin’s tourist attraction, the facility partners with the community sponsoring events that increases traffic to downtown Austin and Mower County.

The exhibits include this history of George A Hormel  & Company, food preservation and canned meats, SPAM the product, SPAM’s role in World War II, the marketing of SPAM, HORMEL foods, The Hormel Institute, and interactive activities for children.

An attached museum shop is licensed out by Hormel and sells the usual wearables, coffee mugs, tchotchkes, and the fifteen varieties of SPAM. On the Saturday I was there, the cash register was ringing!

There were many points of interest in the SPAM exhibits. I spent almost fifteen years in the canned meat business and during my childhood, my Father owned and operated a canned meat plant. Consequently what might be an hour visit to the casual visitor was a two and one half hour stay for me. I investigated just about everything presented.

The Museum’s docents are called Spambassadors. I immediately secured my Spambassador, Jim Burroughs who guided me through the exhibits. During my tour, I did not acknowledge my interest or knowledge of meatpacking.

We did bond however. Jim is a South Dakota native. He grew up in Aberdeen and graduated from Northern State College. After graduation Hormel hired him as a hog buyer. Soon after he was hired he joined the Army (voluntarily or not, I am not sure) but he went on to serve in Viet Nam. When Jim returned to Hormel after his Army service, the company identified his potential and sent him back to college to study food science. During his thirty plus years at Hormel, Jim worked primarily in product development and manufacturing systems.

George A Hormel founded a partnership with Albrecht Friedrich in 1887 where in Austin, Minnesota they began a packinghouse market. Soon thereafter the partnership dissolved and the George A Hormel Company began. Hogs were plentiful in the dairy area of southern Minnesota and Hormel who was a good operator prospered. Just as a historical note, George’s uncle was Jacob Decker, an important Chicago meatpacker.

At the turn of the twentieth century refrigerated transportation was developing and meatpacking becoming a prosperous business. Though the first third of the twentieth century, George A Hormel became one of the more successful of the national meatpackers, though not a giant like Swift or Armour.

When George Hormel turned the company operations over to his son, Jay the company’s focus changed. Jay focused on marketing and increasing the value of the company’s products.

During the 1930’s Hormel focused on canned meats as a way of differentiating themselves from the other packers; the pear shaped canned ham, Dinty Moore, and SPAM (canned luncheon meat.) Worth noting the number one canned meat brand today is Hormel Chili.

These products required a new level of manufacturing technique however. Because of the salt and nitrite content in processed pork products conventional canning technology of the time prevented long shelf life due to instability of the can seams. Jay Hormel found his Svengali in Paul Joern, a German meatpacker who had gone bankrupt but was the holder of patents on the canning of hams. Jay brought Joern to Minnesota and history and SPAM were made.

SPAM is a canned luncheon meat that Hormel developed to utilize ham and pork trimmings, and essentially entire boneless pork shoulders. Other ingredients were salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite. The ingredient’s value in SPAM far exceeded their commercial value otherwise. Thus this real winner for Hormel was developed.

Most believe it was the clever and quite catchy name the product was given that assured its success. It is believed primarily that SPAM is a contraction of Spiced Ham. However the Hormel story line is that Jay served the “treat” at a New Year’s Eve party at his home and offered at $100 prize to the guest that suggested the best name. One of his guests, Kenneth Daigneau, who was a brother of one of the Hormel Vice President’s, suggested SPAM.

World War II clinched SPAM’s future and Hormel’s success. I was surprised to learn that American Lend Lease prior to America’s entrance in the War provided 110 million pounds of luncheon meat to Great Britain and Russia during 1940 and 1941. Likely this food assistance sustained many Russians keeping them alive.  Hormel who possessed the technology and manufacturing capacity  produced it all.

The SPAM rations to U S GI’s that was both loved and hated gave SPAM universal brand recognition.

The second great marketing success related to SPAM is its market dominance in Island Countries. These are countries without an animal agricultural industry; among these are Hawaii, the Philippines, and Guam. Hawaii leads the world in SPAM consumption. Annual consumption is 5 cans annually per person. Both rich and poor in Hawaii like SPAM. On the day I visited the Museum, Waikiki was holding their annual SPAM Jam festival. To celebrate the Museum was dispensing SPAM chunks topped with pineapple.  Hormel has customized spice formulation for several of the islands to be consistent with their local taste.

In the early 1950’s Jay Hormel established the Hormel Foundation. The mission of the Foundation, as I understand it is to engage in charitable endeavors for the benefit  of the Austin, Minnesota community. Prior to his death in 1954 Jay Hormel gifted 48% of the company to the Hormel Foundation with the provision for the life of his three sons and for twenty-one years thereafter the dividends from the stock would go to his family. Currently these dividends are about $250 million annually. Two of his sons are still living.

The Hormel Foundation started the Hormel Institute for biomedical research located in Austin. The Institute has been instrumental in studying fatty acids and played a significant role in Alpha Omega 3 and Alpha Omega 6. Currently the Institute is heavily involved in cancer research. The research is solely done in Austin. Just a factoid, but Austin has more PHDs per capita than any other city in Minnesota, including the Twin Cities or Rochester.

In 1993 the company changed its name to Hormel Foods and began diversifying from meatpacking. Besides Hormel, the other prominent brands they make are Skippy Peanut butter and Jennie O Turkey products. Additionally there are other minor brands under their umbrella including Muscle Milk, Lloyd’s Barbeque, and Wholly Guacamole.

SPAM has been and IS the driver of the Hormel’s meat packing operations.

Though I have driven past the old Museum across from Hormel’s Mother Ship on I-90 many times, I am glad I finally stopped. Obviously I loved this place, but you will find something interesting here too!

Personal Note – my Daddy too was a meat alchemist. While Dad was a successful businessman he was not a Jay Hormel. Both shared the meat upgrade gene. Large volume of Dad’s sales was to grocers in the Deep South. They purchased his Imitation Potted Meat and Vienna Sausage for sales to field hands. Dad also had sales to Puerto Rico. Until my visit to the SPAM Museum, I never understood why Dad traveled every year to Ponce to meet with his sales agent, Manuel Badrena.