Rick (00:04): It takes a bit of a blend of art and science to get baking just right. And having extra eyes, ears, and hands can make a big difference along the way. That's where A. B. Maury North America comes into play. We are the team behind industrial and artists and bakers that help optimize success. We'll discuss more on this episode of The Oven Light. So let's get going. Flip the switch. Welcome back everybody to The Oven Light. The switch is on and today is very special. It is episode number nine. There's a Beatles song in there somewhere, number nine, if you remember that, the White album, spin it backwards. But all right, I digress. So today we're going to talk about Fleischman's Yeast. We're going to talk about the Fleischman family, the longtime history in baking that dates back more than 150 years, actually 154 now. So we're going to have a good time and I brought in a very special guest and I'd like to introduce her.

Rick (01:03): She's my partner in crime on the marketing side for AB Maury North America. This is Trisha McNamara. So Trisha has been at the company almost six and a half years, longtime footwear and consumer retail marketer prior to joining A. B. Maury. She has a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Marketing Management from Missouri State. I think that's the Bears.

Trisha (01:26): It is.

Rick (01:27): That's exciting. And I don't think you'll find a bigger Cardinals fan on the planet than Tricia. So Tricia, welcome.

Trisha (01:34): Thanks, Rick. Happy to be here.

Rick (01:36): So excited you're here. We've gone through eight episodes before this, and how did you avoid it? This is like your passion.

Trisha (01:43): I know. I'm glad to be here. So

Rick (01:44): We're going to have some fun today with Tricia. We're going to kind of reverse roles and we're going to let Trisha kind of play host. And we're going to go back through a little bit of a trip down memory lane, if you will, with the Fleischmann. So let's jump into it. I know you might have a few questions. We recently did a book a few years ago about Leishman's family, 150 years back in 2018. And we're going to dive into some of these cool stories that maybe you've never heard. And there's so much to go through. We can't do it in 20 plus minutes, but we're going to give it a good try. So Tricia, I'm handing it over to you.

Trisha (02:16): Okay. Let's just start broadly. Tell us a little bit about the beginnings of Fleischman Geese with the brothers, Charles and Max Fleischman.

Rick (02:26): You had a couple immigrants coming to the US from Austria, Hungary. They met up with an interesting gentleman named James Gaff who had a lot of history with his brothers in the distilling and brewing industries. They connected more than 150 years ago. And James Gaff had an issue. He's like, "The bread here in the United States is not great. What can you do to help me? " So the brothers went back to Vienna, grabbed some yeast, said, "Hey, this is going to make things different in the US." And before you know it, it took off. And then you fast forward a little bit to 1876, the world's fair. As it was known back then, it was the Centennial Exposition was going on in Philadelphia. And the brothers created this thing called the Vienna Model Bakery, and it took off. And then if you want to fast forward a little bit more, they kind of moved into the first chain restaurant in the United States.

Rick (03:16): They had bakeries and cafes in different parts of the Northeast, even as far as stretching in San Francisco. So you talk about a team of brothers and then you throw James Gaffin. They were all innovators and thinking ahead and it was pretty brilliant.

Trisha (03:30): Do you have any of your favorite stories about the Fleischens family that you can share?

Rick (03:34): You know what? I do. And if you know me, you know I'm a baseball fan, right? And you're a baseball fan too. We have different teams we root for and that's okay. So interestingly, second generation, Julius Fleischman, was quite a baseball fan. He actually had ownership in the Cincinnati Reds. We heard from Major League Baseball historian John Thorne that the Fleischmanns actually had a secret ownership in the Philadelphia Phillies organization or what became the Phillies. And that would be known today as Collusion. So we're not going to talk any further about that. But Julius Fleischman was a big baseball fan and the Fleischman's family, interestingly, started a huge kind of like family resort in the Catskill Mountains. It was a place called Griffin Corners in New York, beautiful area. And since then it's been named after the Fleischmans and it's named after the family. But back then he would have barnstorming baseball players come in, even players like Honis Wagner, who if you know Honis Wagner or know anything about this baseball player, Hall of Famer, Pittsburgh Pirates, the most valuable baseball card ever is a T206 Honest Wagner.

Trisha (04:38): How much is that worth?

Rick (04:40): Millions and millions and people listening here. If you guys want to do a GoFundMe, let me know because we can go after one. But pretty cool. But can I jump a little more into baseball cards? Sure. All right, Trisha, here we go. So interestingly, the Fleischmann's family and Fleischman's bakery back in 1916 had a baseball card line and they're very valuable cards. You can't find them. I just looked today on eBay and there's a Casey Stengel for \$7,500. That's pretty expensive. But the cool little gimmick that they did on the bottom of the card, kind of like the hostess cards, if anybody's listening, they're like, "Yeah, I remember those in the '70s." And you cut them out of the back of the box. It gave you the little kind of scissors diagram to cut them out. But if you collected enough of these little tabs at the bottom, these little coupons, you could get a little leather album to put your baseball cards in.

Rick (05:31): And it's rare to find these cards without the little coupon piece at the bottom. I did buy one a couple years ago. Of

Trisha (05:37): Course you did.

Rick (05:38): Why wouldn't you? Of course. And let me tell you about the player that I bought, right? This is kind of cool. It was a player named Elmer Netzer. Elmer Netzer. And he even played for a team in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Rebels that were part of a different baseball league. It wasn't National League or American League. I think it was federal league. But he also, he finished up his career in Cincinnati. So that ties back to the Fleischmanns. Julius Fleischman was also, besides being a baseball owner, was the mayor of Cincinnati. Elmer, his career record, 69 wins, 69 losses. You talk about his average you're going to get, but his ERIO is pretty good, 3.15. So just so you know, I think I paid 150 bucks for a scoring of a 10 out of 100. It's not a great looking card, but it's my card and I'm pretty excited about

Trisha (06:18): It. That's awesome. Fleischmans have a pretty extensive family tree. Any noteworthy names on there that we might have heard of?

Rick (06:26): Well, I've got one and I'll say one and I'm going to let you talk a little bit maybe about the other. Mine on the list is Lorenzo Lamis. Anybody know the actor?

Trisha (06:34): Love him.

Rick (06:35): There was a great show. I believe I'm right. I think it was Renegade where he was a motorcycle guy. Leatherjack, a tough guy, comes in to clean up every town he goes to. It was pretty cool. But Lorenzo Namas is part of the family. Who's the other cool one? Well,

Trisha (06:48): I was going to say on Lorenzo, he was also on Falcons Crest, which is how I know him.

Rick (06:51): Any listeners out there? You want to know more about Falconcrest? Send Trisha and email the ovenlight@avare.com. We can connect that way. Who's the other person? The

Trisha (07:00): Other person who has been in the news most recently is Elizabeth Holmes. She's the great, great granddaughter of Charles Fleischman.

Rick (07:08): Yeah. Great, great, great, maybe. I don't know. There's a lot of greats in there. There's a couple

Trisha (07:12): Greats,

Rick (07:13): But

Trisha (07:13): She's been involved with Theranos scandal most recently.

Rick (07:18): And if you're not familiar with that, or maybe you are, there's a great documentary series or actually kind of a docudrama, if you will, about Elizabeth Holmes. But it's that whole point about taking a prick of blood and you could get tested on a lot of things health wise. Well, it turned out to be fraudulent. There was a whole thing going on with Theranos and the company. And at one point she was the youngest female billionaire in the world, but then it all collapsed like a house of cards. You got any more detail on that? Becau watch all this stuff. I was

Trisha (07:45): Going to just say she was found guilty earlier this year and is awaiting sentencing, but there is a show you mentioned called The Dropout on Hulu.

Rick (07:54): That's it. And who plays the lead role? It's Amanda Zifri. Amanda

Trisha (07:57): Seifert.

Rick (07:58): Yeah, that's her. Yeah. And she does a great job, especially to try to mimic the voice. It's pretty incredible. But who would've thought that's all part of the Fleischman's family?

Trisha (08:06): Yes.

Rick (08:06): Do you want to dive more into celebrities? It's not part of the family tree, but Gilligan's Island. If you know anything about Gilligan's Island, you remember that show, right?

Trisha (08:14): Correct. 1964.

Rick (08:15): Bob Denver was Gilligan. The opening scene was actually from a place called Coconut Island in Hawaii that the Fleischmanns owned and they used to entertain. They were big celebrities and they acted like celebrities and they would bring in people from all over LA and Hollywood to party really on this island. Well, it's turned out over time. The families hand it back over to the government and there's a lot of marine biology research that goes on there now today.

Trisha (08:41): Some famous, notable people that have visited Coconut Island, maybe Amelia Earhart.

Rick (08:46): Really? Stop

Trisha (08:46): By. Amelia Earhart, Betty Davis, and even Shirley Temple.

Rick (08:50): Okay.

Trisha (08:50): When she was little, it was the place to go.

Rick (08:53): Wow. Okay.

Rick (08:55): Excellent. Well, I can tell you a little more on Shirley Temple. If you're in the St. Louis region listening, Fitz, which is a local root beer brand, they do have a new Shirley Temple drink in a bottle and it's pretty tasty. My son loves it. There you go. There's your bonus backed away for the day. So Trisha, I know we've talked about baseball a little bit, but I got to use a football analogy or a basketball analogy. Let's call halftime real quick because one thing that I haven't asked you, you've been asking me questions is rapid fire questions. So these are things that I'm going to ask you and I just need some quick answers on the fly. All right.

Trisha (09:28): I'll do my best.

Rick (09:29): Here we go. If you had to pick your favorite Cardinals baseball player out of the three, who would it be? Willie McGee, Ozzy Smith or Adam Wainwright?

Trisha (09:41): Ozzy Smith, for sure. The Wizard.

Rick (09:43): Is that because he came into our offices and he enjoys our lemon cake? That's

Trisha (09:47): Longstanding admiration.

Rick (09:48): Okay. I almost threw Fernando Vinia in there. He was a popular- Oh, I think him too. Yeah, he was good. I mean, there's been a lot of stars. Okay, Tricia, here's another one. A lot of good movies out. And as of this taping, I have seen Top Gun Maverick. And I remember being of high school age watching the original with Tom Cruise and I thought it was outstanding. So do you have a favorite 80s film kind of like that?

Trisha (10:12): Well, I did love Top Gun in the 80s. We'll go close to the 80s. I think when I'm talking 78-ish, Greece would have to be my all time favorite movie.

Rick (10:21): Great soundtrack.

Trisha (10:22): Great soundtrack.

Rick (10:23): Totally. Okay. That's a great movie. And you're talking to Olivia Newton. John.

Trisha (10:27): John Travolta.

Rick (10:27): John Travolta. It doesn't get much better than that. Right. And both had singing careers much as you have, right?

Trisha (10:33): Exactly.

Rick (10:34): Okay.

Trisha (10:34): That'll be the next episode.

Rick (10:35): Speaking of music, here's my third rapid fire. Favorite musician and why? And I know where you're going to say.

Trisha (10:43): I mean, there's two, but we're going Rick Springfield.

Rick (10:47): All right. So Rick Springfield. Raise your hand in the car or in your office if you know Rick Springfield. Seriously. A guy has his own little stand in on SiriusXM now. What was the name of the album? The famous one that really put him on- Working

Trisha (10:57): Class dog.

Rick (10:58): Working class dog. Just

Trisha (10:59): Celebrated its 40th anniversary

Rick (11:00): Last year. Wasn't it like a Spuds Mackenzie dog with a tie on or a shirt or something? Kind of

Trisha (11:05): Like that.

Rick (11:06): It was his dog, yes. Was it really his dog? Yes. I see. I didn't know that. I knew you know. Favorite song, Rick Springfield?

Trisha (11:11): Jesse's Girl.

Rick (11:12): Okay. All right.

Trisha (11:14): Yeah. I mean, can't go wrong with it.

Rick (11:16): It's my

Trisha (11:16): Ringtone.

Rick (11:17): Did you date a guy named Jesse in high school or something?

Trisha (11:19): Yeah, no.

Rick (11:20): Okay. Just checking. All right. Had to be asked, right? Inquiring minds want to know. If you do have questions for us, again, reiterating the ovenlight at abmy.com, we'll get back to you and we might even send you some swag if you've got a cool idea, but please stay in touch with us.

Trisha (11:34): Let's dial it back a little bit to the beginnings of Fleischman's yeast for the consumers. They were really kind of ahead of their times in their advertising, wouldn't you say?

Rick (11:44): Absolutely. You go back to, especially like the 1920s and 30s, you look in the Ladies Home Journal, other publications. The ads did a lot about yeast for health. And here's an interesting fact. So this campaign back to 1927 or so, here's the stat. US consumers were eating, consuming 2.5 pounds of yeast per capita, meaning annually, two and a half pounds of yeast, right? We're not talking about just putting it in bread and baking it. We're talking about eating it, mixing it in with some orange juice, tomato juice, water, and downing it because there were huge claims at the time talking about bee vitamins, some protein, niacin, other words that I don't even know, but really interesting stuff. And people were focused on this because some of the claims at the time were, "Hey, it'll take care of pimples, it'll take care of indigestion," all those sorts of things.

Rick (12:36): But in a way, it was like the early probiotics, postbiotics, prebiotics, right?

Trisha (12:41): Yeah. I think yeast sales tripled during that timeframe when the yeast for health

Rick (12:45): Campaign

Trisha (12:45): Was going on.

Rick (12:46): It sure did. And it eventually kind of caught up with them and there were some claims that probably were probably not as clean as they should have been. So from a marketing standpoint, they took some hits advertising wise because they had these onerous looking doctors and ads saying, "You must take this or you'll look like this. " And, "Hey, you look great if you eat yeast per day." But different times, and it's interesting, but it did have an impact on marketing and advertising decades and decades later.

Trisha (13:11): Yeah. And people are talking about nutritional yeast again now.

Rick (13:14): It's crazy, isn't it? And speaking of nutritional yeast, I'm just going to bring this up because you just brought up yeast of today. Fleshman's yeast, right? It's been around a long time, but there's different formats. There's crumbled yeast, which is a fresh yeast. There's dry yeast, which obviously been dried and you mix it in dough and you need to add some water, but then there's also a cream yeast where water's already mixed in. It makes it easier for large industrial bakers to get their dough ready. But there's not always that much innovation. But it started initially with Fleischmans with some innovation back to 1876, we already mentioned, but then also just before World War II, there was a new active dry yeast that came out from Fleischman's. And that spirit of innovation today is still alive. We just launched a new one during the pandemic, which is a pure gold instant yeast, which is focused on sweet goods with more than 10% sugar.

Rick (14:01): So we're talking things like donuts and Danish, sticky buns, those sorts of things, which are all things that I do enjoy. And so pure gold, instant yeast is kind of cool. So it kind of carries on that long-term innovation for yeast. And if you look further into Amy Maury and what we offer, we've talked in previous episodes about chemical leavening, which is another way to get things leavened and give rise to your dough before you bake. We've talked about mold inhibition, we've talked about tortillas, we've talked about mixes, and we thought it was time that yeast gets its day in the sun. So that's why we're having this show today.

Trisha (14:32): Yeah. And yeast, of course, became even more popular two years ago when everyone was home baking, couldn't find it on the shelves, flew out of the stores.

Rick (14:41): Bingo, you're right. Trisha, that's a good point because at the beginning of the pandemic, I think we're talking April of 2020 now, Fleischman's yeast was up 600%. I mean, it was crazy. Our plants went into hyper mode of production 24 hours a day, seven days a week to meet the demand. It was like meat. It was like sanitation supplies, toilet paper, hand gel, all those sorts of things were in such crazy demand, kind of like the baby formula that we're seeing today in 2022, but yeast was in high demand, even to the point that my wife likes to joke where we would hand it out to some of our friends and family. It was tough, right? You had to kind of ration it, but we'd say, "Okay, meat on the front porch in three hours and there'll be a package of powder for you on the front porch." I mean, that's how it was.

Rick (15:26): It was kind of crazy times, but who would have thought yeast would get its moment and it really did during the pandemic.

Trisha (15:31): Yeah. A lot of first time bakers, a lot of stress relief needing that bread.

Rick (15:35): Absolutely. And I will tell you, I even jumped in there too. I think I baked twice. How'd it turn out? It was okay. I mean, you slap enough butter and jelly and things like that out of peanut butter. It's okay. But yeah, I'll leave it to the baking team here at St. Louis Baking Hub. How about you? Did you try a little bit too or? A

Trisha (15:50): Little bit.

Rick (15:51): Yeah. But it was kind of nice to go out and find new places to find bread and all that, especially during the pandemic. All right. What else you got for me?

Trisha (15:58): How does Norman Rockwell fit into Fleischman's yeast?

Rick (16:02): We talked a little while ago about some of the creative advertising and Fleischman's did things in a totally different way. It's the same kind of spirit we try to live by now as we get ready for IBIE, which is a big baking show in September. Some of the things that we'll be doing there are going to be game changing, we see in our eyes. But game changing to have Norman Rockwell actually do a piece for Fleischman's yeast. And we've got it on one of our huge walls in our office. It shows some different kids in Halloween outfits, but again, this goes back to the 1920s. So it's different. It's 100 years old now, but he's such an icon from the Saturday Evening Post that this one really stood out as probably definitely in the top 10 of print ads that Fleischman's ever had, but to have somebody of that popularity do our creative was pretty special.

Trisha (16:48): Yeah, it is. It looks great. Fleischman's the brand has changed hands a few times throughout the year. Now, of course, it's landed here at A. B. Mari, but it's still the same. Tell me a little bit about that. Let

Rick (16:59): Me give you a little bit of a timeline, right? A lot of changes over the last 154 years. So we talked about 1868 when the gas and the Fleischmans kind of joined hands and it went through there. James Gaff passed away in 1881, so Fleischman's actually became Fleischman's and company. So it changed. 1905, the company incorporated is the Fleischmann Company. So it went through some different pieces there. Fleischman actually formed Standard Brands in 1929. So you're talking the time of the Great Depression, and they joined hands with four other companies and became Standard Brands, which some people out there, if you know your history, you've probably heard that. Fast forward to the 1960s, Standard Brands is a company that acquired Planners nut and chocolate companies. So you remember Planter's Peanuts and all that?

Trisha (17:41): Sure.

Rick (17:41): Right? And then kind of went through some shifts again in the early '80s. Standard brands and Nabisco, right? People would know Nabisco from cookies and such, forming Nabisco brands. So all of a sudden you've got to change there. 1986. I don't know, this is a circle date on the calendar, but Nabisco sold Fleischman's yeast and Fleischman's vinegar to a company called Burns Philp. So hence some things started getting parceled off. There used to be Fleischman's vinegar, Fleischman's margarine, there used to be gin and other alcohol distilled spirits. 1989, RJR Nabisco sells Fleischmann's distilling to Glenmore distilling. So I just talked about the consumer alcohol side, 98. So we're flash forward another nine years. Nabisco sells egg beaters, Bluebonnet, and Fleischman's margarine to Conagra. So these are all companies that people have heard, but we haven't heard them really in this way. And then in 2002, Burns Phillips sells Fleischman's vinegar to Swander Pace capital.

Rick (18:37): But 2004 is interesting because that's when Burns Philip sells the Fleischmann's bakery side over to Associated British Foods, which is our current parent company out of the UK. Associated British Foods is a major company. We're talking more than \$20 billion, 130,000 employees, and a lot of things from grocery to agriculture to ingredients where we play even a retail clothing company called Primark. And they've got about 370 stores around the globe. But really interesting and Associated British Foods kind of really takes us to where we are today. And we're part, just for those listening, we're part of AB Maori, which is a subdivision of associated British foods. And we're part of AB Maury North America right here in St. Louis in the middle of the country.

Trisha (19:21): So it's a good fit for AB Maori. With fleshman yeast being innovative in itself, coming up with the first active dry yeast, and we're a technology company here, always forward thinking. It just fits right in.

Rick (19:35): Absolutely. And that spirit of innovation has had to change. Now, Fleischman's is certainly one of those benchmarks and it's there. It's such an important piece, right? If you don't put yeast into bread, what are you going to get? You're going to get a cracker and crackers are okay, but we like bread, right? 2005, AB Maori North America acquired a company up in the Portland, Oregon area called ICS or innovative cereal systems. They're big in enzymes. So that actually is a big piece of our business today. Beyond yeast, we do a lot and we've talked about all those other areas, whether it's dough conditioning, softening, mold inhibition, preservation and such, but that kind of gets us to today. And we kind of really have it all to thank to Charles and Max Fleischman for having this vision. And we like to have that same standard today, right?

Rick (20:20): That same piece of innovation. Our tagline, which is passionate about baking, I know they would love that back in the day because they were. They were totally passionate. For guys to go back to Vienna, Austria and bring in some yeast slants and bring it into the US to kind of transform the industry, I think they would appreciate where we are today.

Trisha (20:37): I think you're right.

Rick (20:39): So Trisha, I have to say thank you for kind of taking the lead and being the hostess with the mostess today.

Trisha (20:44): You're welcome. It was fun.

Rick (20:46): Yeah. I want to get you back on again, right? So this covers off on episode number nine. Looking ahead, we've got some great shows. As we get through the summer, we're going to have a great celebrity baker, celebrity chef.

Trisha (20:58): That's going to be fun.

Rick (20:59): Oh, it's going to be really good. And that's going to tie in with IBIE, as I mentioned, the big baking show that comes up September 18th to the 21st in Las Vegas. So look for A. B. Maury to make a big splash there. We'll also talk about other parts of the baking industry. I think we've had a great time on our first official season of The Oven Light. And for now, the switch is off, the oven light is off, and we'll see you next time. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oven Light. Until next time when we discuss more about the wonderful world of baking technology, trends, and more, the switch is officially off. Goodbye for now. See you next time.