Pepperidge Farm, inc.

Pepperidge Farm, inc. is a baked goods company founded in Fairfield, Conn., in 1937 by Margaret Rudkin. It is currently a servicemark owned by the Campbell Soup Company.

The Pepperidge Farm Company was begun in 1937 by Margaret Rudkin, who lived at her family's farm (called Pepperidge Farm) in Fairfield, Connecticut. Rudkin's son suffered allergies from preservatives in commercial bread products, so she began baking all-natural breads in her home kitchen that he might safely eat. She moved her operations from the kitchen to her garage, and began selling loaves to specialty stores in Manhattan. In 1939, she sold her 500,000th loaf. The following year, she moved operations to a nearby factory, where she was able to produce 4,000 loaves a week. In 1947, the company moved again to a large facility in Norwalk, Connecticut, and began selling stuffing and dinner rolls in addition to bread; by this point the company was producing 4,000 loaves of bread per hour.

During the 1950s, the company began running television commercials, and initiated their Distinctive Cookies product line based on a recipe Rudkin had purchased from a European company. That decade, Rudkin also purchased the New Hampshire frozen pastries company, Black Horse Pastry Company, allowing Pepperidge to sell Puff Pastry. In 1961, Pepperidge Farm, Inc. was acquired by the Campbell Soup Company; the following year, the newly-owned company released its popular Goldfish line of crackers, borrowing the idea from Swiss companies. In 1963, Rudkin released a cookbook entitled, The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook, which became the first cookbook to feature on the New York Times Bestseller List. Rudkin retired in 1966.