Chicago has been a food and beverage manufacturing hub since the days when James Kraft delivered cheese by horse and buggy and the newborn National Biscuit Company went on a bakery-buying bender. In 1914, the city became “hog butcher to the world” and “stacker of wheat” in Carl Sandburg’s poem. Sandburg, had he had more wind left in him, also might have added “palace of sweets”—as Brach’s called itself—and “citadel of Cracker Jacks.”
Today, for every Wrigley, Tyson and Morton Salt—companies with a corporate footprint but not necessarily much manufacturing in Chicago–there’s a Vienna Beef or Ingredion with significant production in the region.
