September 6: Carnation Milk

On 6 September 1899, the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company was formed in Kent, Washington. Later, the company would be renamed the Carnation Evaporated Milk Company. The company was founded by Eldridge Amos Stuart and a partner who soon sold out of the business.

Because milk was such a perishable commodity and because refrigeration was not readily available, it was difficult for people to obtain safe, unspoiled milk unless they lived close to a diary farm or owned their own cows. Evaporated milk became a solution to this problem.

The process to make evaporated milk begins with removing 60% of the liquid from milk. The remaining evaporated milk is then packaged in sterilized cans. As a result of this process, it was easier to transport evaporated milk because it weighted less and had less volume than fresh milk. Furthermore, the sterilization process meant that the milk would not spoil. Consumers would add water to the condensed milk to get a reasonable milk product.

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As a national company, Carnation Condensed Milk has been the subject of Internet hoaxes. One such claim is that a woman won $1,000 for writing a bawdy verse in a Carnation Milk slogan contest. The story goes that the woman had grown up on a farm and knew that she knew enough about cows to write the winning verse for the contest whose top prize was $5,000. A week after submitting her entry, a limousine pulled up to her house and a check was delivered to her. She was told that although Carnation could not use her verse, it was too good for them not to give her something.

The hoax was exposed by Snoopes.com; a great place to check out the truthfulness of claims before one forwards an e-mail or re-posts a message in Facebook.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Posted on by stevenlberg
Categories: American History: Modern, Business History
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4 Responses

  1. Gary L. Johnson says:
    17 September 2012 at 8:10 am

    In 1981, the MRE (Meal Ready-to-Eat) replaced the MCI (Meal, Combat, Individual Rations.) The MCIs were simply too heavy and didn’t quite manage to get the job of keeping soldiers fed well enough to keep them healthy. The MCIs steadily increased in quality as time passed by, going from ingredients for food for a day all the way up to canned and wet rations for soldiers to carry. This was where the problem truly arose. The canned rations were almost what people were looking for. They were almost enough sustenance, they were almost light enough, and they were almost wanted. Almost. But not quite. Some might complain that they should eat whatever is given to them, but if a man not afraid to be fired upon and killed isn’t willing to brave eating something that came out of the can given to him, perhaps we should listen.
    The MRE quickly replaced the MCI as the idea for dehydrated food and modern day packaging came into the picture. The MRE was lighter, smaller, easier to access, never spoiled, allowed for soldiers to pick something that they would actually use and eat, and still managed to retain the ability to give nutrition to soldiers. The MRE is simply a lightweight, compact package that contains a variety of food that is dehydrated. Each package contains an entire meal, has around 1200 calories in it, and weighs anywhere between 1 pound and 1.5 pounds.
    ~Gary L. Johnson

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  2. Brian Rowe says:
    18 September 2012 at 2:24 pm

    Carnation’s condensed milk did solve the problem of keeping fresh milk in your household at any given time. However there was still a problem keeping things such as meat and butter fresh for more than a couple of days. Since refrigeration was well out of the reach for the average income family there had to be another solution. That solution was was a meat safe, which was a wooden box on stilts. The stilts ensured that the box would be kept in the shade away from the sunlight. The safe part itself where the meat was kept had mesh sides to keep fresh air circulating through without the worry of bugs or other animals getting to it since it was often kept outside. The meat safe did help keep meat from rotting, but the safe was no refrigerator. This technique was better than nothing, but imagine keeping your thanksgiving turkey in a wooden box out back. The whole idea of it makes me laugh a bit.

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  3. Haroon Chaudhary says:
    9 December 2012 at 11:52 am

    Condense milk definitely solved the issue of having milk fresh, however as there are advantages so are the disadvantages. Condense milk can easily be spoiled if left outside, once it was opened. Refrigerator is considered to be a solution for everything; however some people cannot afford to have one under certain circumstances. Most of the time a product in the house is considered to be good and can be used. A person like me who barely ever pays attention to the expiration date could easily use the milk that was expired a long time ago and can develop a problem known as botulism. It is a great idea of having a product preserve, but if we are live under preserved products I cannot see the life span lasting longer than it normally would. There are trying to find different ways of condensing other products such as meat and butter, however I believe the entire idea of keeping those stuff in a box will not last long and will end up creating worse diseases than cancer.

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  4. Dyanne Lindert Bennett says:
    20 May 2019 at 2:43 am

    I was born in 1936 and my Dad worked for Carnation Milk Co in Oconomowoc, Wi. I was fed Carnation Milk from my birth. My Dad saved all the cans and on my first birthday made a stack of all of the cans with me sitting on the top. It was in a Carnation Magazine in 1937 or 8. Unfortunately I no longer have the magazine but somewhere in my photos I have the black and white picture. Dad died in 1949 following a short illness. My uncle, Art Kinkel, worked for Carnation in Oconomowoc, and later moved to Washington (?) where the company had headquarters. He was in their PR department. He passed away a few years ago. He had retired from Carnation.

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