Today we take a stroll through a grocery or drug store in 1925, to see which brands and companies were strongest a century ago. Some companies and brands lasted through today, many did not! What were great-great-great grandpa and grandma’s favorite products, what brands entered their daily lives just as Apple and Google do today? Did they spend some time working in a grocery store like many Americans, handling these items every day?
The category data is shown alphabetically.
This study was generated by Gemini Deep Research with many hours of our fine tuning the research. Every sales and market share number from this far back can be a rough estimate, before modern company reporting requirements by the SEC and today’s industry-specific data services. The AI’s industry analyses are too brief and leave out many key factors, but they make good points. I imagine it missed some smaller companies. So read it with a bit of caution.
Using the Consumer Price Index, a million-dollar business in 1925 was the equivalent of about $19 million in 2025, so you can multiply these sales figures by twenty to roughly adjust.
Gary Hoover
Executive Director
American Business History Center
Industry Analysis: Candy (1925)
Total Market: ~$380 Million Dominant Form: The “Combination” Bar
The 1920s were the golden age of the candy bar. Soldiers returning from WWI had developed a taste for chocolate, and manufacturers responded by moving beyond boxed chocolates to the 5-cent bar. Hershey was the bulk chocolate king, but the “Chicago Confectioners”—Mars, Curtiss, Williamson—were inventing the future with composite bars.
This was the era of the “Candy Bar War.” Curtiss Candy dropped thousands of “Baby Ruth” bars from airplanes to build hype. Mars introduced the “Milky Way” in 1923, marketing it as a “Chocolate Malted Milk in a Candy Bar.” Williamson’s “Oh Henry!” was the first block-buster bar, launched in 1920.
Top 30 Candy & Chocolate Mfrs (Est. 1925)
The Sweetener & Preserving Trust
Industry Analysis: Canned Goods (1925)
Total Market: ~$850 Million Dominant Form: Steel Cans (Sanitary) Key Technology: The Sanitary Can (Open Top)
This was the height of the “Canning Age.” Before the freezer or the 747 jet, the can was the only way to eat vegetables out of season. The industry was dominated by Campbell Soup (a marketing genius that turned soup into a staple) and California Packing Corp. (Del Monte), which aggregated the produce of the West Coast.
The industry had recently transitioned from the “hole-in-top” can (which required skilled soldering) to the modern “Sanitary Can” (crimped seams), allowing for massive increases in production speed. The National Canners Association (formed 1907) was a powerful lobbying body, enforcing quality standards to overcome consumer fears of botulism.
Top 30 Canned Goods Packers (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Cheese (1925)
Total Market: ~$350 Million Dominant Form: Processed Loaf & Wheels
The cheese industry was being revolutionized by J.L. Kraft and his patented processed cheese, which extended shelf life and standardized melting. Phenix Cheese Corp (Philadelphia Cream Cheese) was the other major player; the two would merge in 1928, but in 1925 they were fierce rivals.
Top 30 Cheese Producers (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Cleaning (1925)
Total Market: ~$85 Million Dominant Form: Soap Powders, Bars, & Ammonia
In 1925, cleaning meant “scouring.” P&G (Cincinnati) was the giant with “Ivory” and “Chipso.” The market was shifting from bar soaps to “soap powders.” Modern detergents did not exist. Clorox was a rising liquid bleach company in Oakland, CA. Drackett (Cincinnati) manufactured “Drano” (1923), though its famous “Windex” would not appear until 1933.
Top 30 Cleaning Product Mfrs (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Coffee (1925)
Total Market: ~$650 Million Dominant Form: Vacuum-Packed Tins & Whole Bean Key Technology: The Vacuum Can
Coffee in 1925 was in the midst of a packaging revolution. For decades, beans were sold loose from bins, subject to staling. Hills Bros. (San Francisco) had pioneered vacuum packing in 1900, but by 1925, this technology was becoming the industry standard, allowing roasters to ship “fresh” coffee nationally.
Arbuckle Brothers (“Ariosa”) was the old king, fading as the market shifted to higher-quality blends. Cheek-Neal (Maxwell House) was the rising star, aggressively marketing its “Good to the Last Drop” slogan (attributed to Teddy Roosevelt). However, the real volume mover was A&P, which used its thousands of stores to push its “Eight O’Clock” and “Bokar” brands, undercutting the national roasters on price.
Top 30 Coffee Roasters (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Cookies & Crackers (1925)
Total Market: ~$280 Million Dominant Form: Soda Crackers & Sandwich Cookies Key Technology: The Traveling Band Oven
The biscuit industry provides the clearest example of the “Trust” model in 1925 consumer goods. The National Biscuit Company (NBC)—later Nabisco—was a colossus. Formed by the merger of regional bakeries in 1898, by 1925 it controlled over a third of the US market. Its strategic weapon was the “In-Er-Seal” package, a moisture-proof wax paper lining that allowed “Uneeda Biscuit” to remain crisp even in humid climates, destroying the market for the stale “cracker barrel” of the general store.
The only significant national competitor was Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company (bakers of Sunshine and Hydrox), which fought a perennial second-place battle. The rest of the market was composed of fiercely independent regional bakers like Keebler (Philadelphia) and Lance (South), who dominated their immediate truck-delivery radius.
Top 30 Cookie/Cracker Bakers (Est. 1925)
The Grain & Starch Complex
Industry Analysis: Flour & Milling (1925)
Total Market: ~$1.1 Billion Dominant Form: Whitened Wheat Flour (Cotton Sacks) Key Technology: Steel Roller Milling
Flour was the caloric foundation of the 1925 diet. The industry had largely centralized in Minneapolis, utilizing the hydropower of St. Anthony Falls and the rail connections to the wheat fields of the Dakotas. The “Process” had shifted from stone grinding to steel roller milling, which allowed for the mass production of pure white flour—a status symbol of the era.
Washburn Crosby (the predecessor to General Mills) and Pillsbury were locked in a “Milling War” for dominance. Their primary battleground was not just the bakery trade but the home kitchen, fought with aggressive magazine advertising and radio jingles. The “Gold Medal” brand was already an icon.
Top 30 Flour Millers (Est. 1925)
The Liquid Staples
Industry Analysis: Fluid Milk (1925)
Total Market: ~$1.4 Billion Dominant Form: Glass Bottle Home Delivery Key Technology: Pasteurization & The Milk Wagon
The dairy industry in 1925 was the battlefield of “The Trusts.” National Dairy Products Corporation (NDP, founded 1923) and Borden were aggressively acquiring local dairies to create national holding companies. However, the physical reality of milk—it spoils rapidly—meant operations remained decentralized. Milk had to be sourced from farms within a ~50-mile radius of the city center, pasteurized at a central plant, and delivered by horse-drawn wagon before dawn.
This structure created a market where “National” leadership meant owning the dominant local dairy in every major city. Sheffield Farms in New York, Supplee-Wills-Jones in Philadelphia, and Telling-Belle Vernon in Cleveland were all powerful local fiefdoms, many of which had just been acquired by National Dairy.
Top 30 Fluid Milk Dairies (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Frozen Foods (1925)
Total Market: ~$50 Million (Industrial/Bulk) Dominant Form: Cold Storage Fish & Berries Key Technology: Ammonia Compression Refrigeration
It is crucial to correct the modern misconception of “Frozen Food.” In 1925, there were no TV dinners, no frozen pizzas, and no supermarket freezer aisles. The industry was properly termed “Cold Storage.” It involved freezing whole fish, poultry, or barrels of fruit (for jam making) to arrest spoilage.
Clarence Birdseye is the pivotal figure here. In 1924/1925, he was in Gloucester, Massachusetts, capitalizing General Seafoods Corporation. He had just developed the “double belt freezer,” which allowed for quick freezing—the key to preserving texture. However, in 1925, this was a high-tech experiment, not a mass-market reality. The “Frozen Food” list is dominated by fisheries and cold storage warehouses that supplied restaurants and institutions.
Top 30 Frozen/Cold Storage Firms (Est. 1925)
Note: Modern brands like “Healthy Choice” and “Lean Cuisine” are completely absent. Even brands like “Stouffer’s” existed only as restaurants, not frozen food manufacturers. The list is dominated by fisheries and fruit packers using cold storage for inventory management.
Industry Analysis: Fruit Juices (1925)
Total Market: ~$45 Million Dominant Form: Shelf-Stable Bottles (Grape & Apple)
Refrigerated orange juice did not exist as a commercial product in 1925 (pasteurization technology for OJ was not yet perfected to taste good). “Juice” meant shelf-stable grape juice (pioneered by Welch’s as a communion wine substitute) or apple cider/juice (led by Duffy-Mott and Speas). Fresh orange juice was something squeezed by hand in the kitchen or at the soda fountain.
Top 30 Juice Processors (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Fruit Spreads (1925)
Total Market: ~$65 Million Dominant Form: Jellies & Apple Butter
Before widespread refrigeration, fruit spreads were a caloric staple and a way to preserve the harvest. Welch’s defined the grape jelly category with its “Grapelade” (a WWI staple). J.M. Smucker (Orrville, OH) was a growing regional power in apple butter.
Top 30 Fruit Spread Mfrs (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Ice Cream (1925)
Total Market: ~$250 Million Dominant Form: Drug Store Fountain Scoops
Ice cream was a boom industry, closely tied to the dairy giants and the soda fountain culture. National Dairy Products (Hydrox) and Borden were the leaders. The industry was still largely local due to the difficulty of transporting frozen goods, but brands like “Fro-joy” were emerging.
Top 30 Ice Cream Manufacturers (Est. 1925)
The Protein Giants
Industry Analysis: Meat Packing (1925)
Total Market: ~$2.5 Billion (Wholesale Value) Dominant Form: Carcass Beef & Cured Pork (Barrels/Sacks) Key Technology: The Refrigerator Car (Reefer)
The Meat Packing industry in 1925 was the heavyweight champion of American manufacturing. Centered in Chicago’s Union Stockyards, the industry was dominated by the “Big Five”: Swift, Armour, Wilson, Cudahy, and Morris (though Morris was in the process of being absorbed by Armour). These companies were not merely food processors; they were logistical sovereigns. They owned the private rail cars that moved the meat, the ice plants that kept it cold, and often the banks that financed the cattle drives.
The industry was operating under the shadow of the Packers Consent Decree of 1920, a landmark antitrust settlement that forced the Big Five to divest their interests in unrelated grocery lines (like canned fruit and wholesale grocery distribution) and stockyards. However, in 1925, this decree had ironically solidified their grip on the core meat business by forcing them to focus capital on slaughter and packing efficiency.
The “Yellow Sheet,” published by The National Provisioner, was the bible of pricing, setting the daily rates for beef and pork across the continent. The industry was characterized by high volume and razor-thin margins, relying on the “disassembly line” method of production where every part of the animal was utilized—hides for leather, bones for fertilizer, and fats for soap.
Top 30 Meat Packing Companies (Est. 1925)
Source Analysis: The table reflects the overwhelming dominance of Chicago-based firms. Swift and Armour combined controlled nearly 45% of the total national market. Note the presence of regional strongholds like Kingan in Indianapolis and Morrell in Iowa, which survived by dominating pork packing in the corn belt, closer to the hogs than the Chicago giants.
The Chemical & Paper Revolution
Industry Analysis: OTC Drugs & Remedies (1925)
Total Market: ~$280 Million Dominant Form: Powders, Tonics, & Salves
The 1925 drug market was defined by the seizure of German patents during WWI. Sterling Drug, a conglomerate formed to acquire the U.S. assets of Bayer, dominated the market with “Bayer Aspirin” and “Phillips Milk of Magnesia.” The distinction between a “Patent Medicine” (secret formula) and an “Ethical Drug” (listed ingredients) was hardening. Advertising was aggressive, with Listerine (Lambert Pharmacal) famously inventing the problem of “halitosis” to sell its antiseptic.
Top 30 OTC Drug Manufacturers (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Paper Products (1925)
Total Market: ~$110 Million Dominant Form: Toilet Tissue & Wax Paper
The 1920s saw the branding of the bathroom. Scott Paper (ScotTissue) led the way. Kimberly-Clark introduced Kleenex in 1924 (originally for removing cold cream, not blowing noses) and Kotex (1920), creating entirely new categories.
Top 30 Paper Product Mfrs (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Pet Food (1925)
Total Market: Emerging / Niche Dominant Form: Canned Horse Meat & Dry Biscuits
In 1925, the pet food industry was a novel concept, transitioning from table scraps to commercial products. The market was split between two technologies: the British-imported tradition of “Dog Cakes” (hard tack biscuits) and the newly exploded market for canned horse meat.
The latter was driven by a grim economic reality: the rapid mechanization of American agriculture (tractors replacing horses) was rendering millions of farm horses obsolete. Chappel Bros. Inc. of Rockford, Illinois, capitalized on this surplus, slaughtering thousands of horses to produce “Ken-L-Ration,” the first dominant canned dog food. Meanwhile, F.H. Bennett in New York was pioneering the “whole meal” concept with Milk-Bone.
Top 30 Pet Food Manufacturers (Est. 1925)
Perishables & Produce
Industry Analysis: Produce (1925)
Total Market: ~$1.2 Billion Dominant Form: Bananas, Pineapples, & Citrus
“Produce” in 1925 meant United Fruit Company (Bananas). It was a geopolitical force as much as a fruit company, owning the infrastructure of Central American nations. Sunkist (California Fruit Growers Exchange) was demonstrating the power of cooperative marketing, having branded the orange.
Top 30 Produce Shippers (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Salt (1925)
Total Market: ~$35 Million Dominant Form: Round Canister with Spout
Salt was one of the first commodities to be successfully branded. Morton Salt (Chicago) achieved this with its anti-caking agent (magnesium carbonate) and the famous “When It Rains It Pours” slogan (introduced 1914). International Salt (Sterling) was the major competitor in the East.
Top 30 Salt Producers (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Salty Snacks (1925)
Total Market: Regional / Bulk Dominant Form: Peanuts, Pretzels & Popcorn
The concept of the “Snack Aisle” did not exist in 1925. Salty snacks were impulse items sold in bulk from barrels or glass jars on pharmacy counters and in taverns. The market was dominated by Planters Nut & Chocolate Co., which had successfully branded the commodity peanut using the “Mr. Peanut” mascot (born 1916).
The potato chip industry was in its infancy, highly fragmented into “kettle” operations that rarely distributed beyond a single city due to the fragility and spoilage rate of the chips (wax paper bags were just being introduced). Wise and Utz, both in Pennsylvania, were small regional players. The pretzel was the dominant salty dough snack, ruled by the Pennsylvania Dutch bakers and the massive National Biscuit Company.
Top 30 Salty Snack Manufacturers (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Soft Drinks (1925)
Total Market: ~$450 Million Dominant Form: Fountain Syrup & Returnable Glass Bottles Key Context: Prohibition
Prohibition (1920–1933) was the single greatest driver of the 1920s soft drink boom. With alcohol illegal, Americans flocked to the soda fountain and the “near beer.” Coca-Cola was the undisputed king, leveraging a franchise system of local bottlers that allowed it to scale without massive capital investment.
The market was also rich with “mixers” (Ginger Ale, Soda Water) used to make bootleg liquor palatable. Clicquot Club (Millis, MA) was a massive national brand, known for its “Eskimo Boy” mascot and electric sign on Broadway. Moxie, once larger than Coke, was fading but still a New England powerhouse. Regionalism was intense; Dr Pepper was strictly a Texas/Southern phenomenon, and Vernors was a Detroit religion.
Top 30 Soft Drink Manufacturers (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Spices (1925)
Total Market: ~$50 Million Dominant Form: Pure Extracts & Ground Pepper (Tin Tins)
Spice companies in 1925 were often regional “Extract Houses,” producing vanilla and lemon extract for home baking. McCormick (Baltimore) was growing into a national player, but shared the map with powerful regional players like Durkee (NY), R.T. French (NY), and Schilling (West Coast). The market was strictly “pure” spices; seasoning blends were rare.
Top 30 Spice & Extract Mfrs (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Sugar (1925)
Total Market: ~$600 Million Dominant Form: Refined Granulated (5lb Cotton Sack)
Sugar was an industry of giants. American Sugar Refining (Domino) controlled the East Coast, while the California & Hawaiian (C&H) cooperative dominated the West. The 1920s saw fierce competition from the domestic beet sugar industry (led by Great Western), which challenged the cane refiners’ hegemony. The price of sugar was a national obsession, as it was a key input for the booming candy and soft drink industries.
Top 30 Sugar Refiners (Est. 1925)
Industry Analysis: Tea (1925)
Total Market: ~$90 Million Dominant Form: Loose Leaf & Early Tea Bags
The tea trade was dominated by the British titans who had established themselves in the U.S. market. Thomas J. Lipton was the overwhelming leader, having democratized tea by buying his own plantations in Ceylon and cutting out the middleman. The A&P chain was the second largest player, leveraging its direct import capabilities. While the “tea bag” had been invented (accidentally) by Thomas Sullivan in 1908, it was only just beginning to gain traction in 1925; loose tea in tins was still the standard.
Top 30 Tea Importers/Packers (Est. 1925)
