The Borden Company, originally named the New York Condensed Milk Company
and later the Borden Condensed Milk Company, was founded in 1857 by
Gail Borden (1801-1874), who established a milk depot on Canal Street in
Manhattan and a processing plant in Wollcottsville, Connecticut. At one
time, Borden was the largest U.S. producer of dairy and pasta products.
Born in New York, Borden was a bit of a renaissance man by the time he
reached his 40s. He had been a publisher, a cattleman, a surveyor, a
civil servant, a politician and a missionary. In the mid-1840s, he began
to focus on methods to keep food from spoiling.
In 1853, Borden began working on a process to condense milk as a means
of preventing spoilage. Four years later, he established his first
condensery in Burrville and called his nascent business the New York
Condensed Milk Company, later to become the Borden Company. Borden was
the first company to develop a patent for the process of condensing milk
as well as the first company to use glass milk bottles.
The first product Borden tried to sell was a dehydrated meat biscuit,
and his experience with it led him to patenting and marketing condensed
milk, a form of milk that needed no refrigeration.
Over the years, Borden turned into Borden Inc. with a consumer products
division operating under six operating groups: dairy, grocery, snacks,
specialty, consumer chemicals and bakery. In 1968, Borden created
Borden, Inc. International, a mirror image of the domestic operation
with just about every Borden product distributed in America also
appearing overseas.
Brief history of Borden Incorporation
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