Hills Bros. Coffee

Hills Bros. Coffee is a maker of packaged coffee, founded in San Francisco.

History

The company has its origins with the sons of shipbuilder Austin Hills (1823–1905), who was born in Rockland, Maine, and ran a business in California building clipper ships. His sons were Austin Herbert Hills (1851–1933), and Reuben Wilmarth Hills I (1856–1934).[1][2]

In 1898, Edward Norton, of New York, was granted a United States patent on a vacuum process for canning foods, subsequently applied to coffee. Others followed. Hills Brothers, of San Francisco, were the first to pack coffee in a vacuum, under the Norton patents, in 1900.[3]

In 1900, Hills Bros. were the first to pack roast coffee in vacuum sealed cans.[4] They incorporated under the Hills Bros. name in 1906.[5] In 1926 Hills Bros. moved its operations to 2 Harrison Street in San Francisco,[6] a Romanesque revival building on the Embarcadero designed by George W. Kelham that is now a city landmark.[7] The roasting operations once made the surrounding area smell like coffee, according to a Key System "March of Progress" style public service film from 1945.[8] In January 2012, the building had become home to Wharton | San Francisco, a satellite campus of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[9] A Wharton sign can be currently seen on the Embarcadero side of the building. Google LLC and the Mozilla Corporation also have offices on several floors of the building.[10]

A symbol of an Arab drinking coffee called "the taster", introduced in 1898,[11] was designed by an artist named Briggs in 1906[6] but was replaced by a new, European-American, "taster" to represent the original founders in 1990.[12][13] In 1976, Hills Brothers hired American singer Sergio Franchi as their TV spokesperson to introduce several lines of specialty flavors.[14] Noted character actor John Zaremba was the primary commercial spokesperson for Hills Brothers in the 1970s and early 1980s, portraying a fictional coffee bean buyer.[15]

In 1930 Hills Bros. expanded into Chicago.[6] On 2 November 1938, Hills Brothers Coffee Company filed a petition to rezone 37 ½ acres for industrial purposes to build a plant in Elmhurst, Illinois, north of the North Western tracks to where Schiller Street extended beyond Geneva Avenue. Opposition caused Hills to drop its request.[16]

During World War II, the company's metal containers were replaced with glass jars.[17] In 1984 they purchased the name and manufacturing facilities of the Chase & Sanborn Coffee Company.[18]

In 1985 Nestlé bought Hills Bros. and MJB coffee companies.[6] Hills Bros. opened a new roasting plant in Suffolk, Virginia in 1988.[19] The San Francisco headquarters were closed in 1997, moving operations to Nestlé's U.S. headquarters in Glendale, California.[20] Nestlé sold Hills Bros. to Sara Lee in 1999.[6][21] Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA purchased the brand in 2006. Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA is headquartered at the Suffolk plant. Austin E. Hills was, formerly, chairman of the board of directors.[22]

See also

• Grgich Hills Estate, winery (business partners: Mike Grgich and Austin Hills)
• MJB (coffee), a San Francisco-founded brand of coffee
• Folgers, a San Francisco-founded brand of coffee

Further reading

External links

• Official website
• Hills Bros. Arabian Coffee and Spice Mills, 400 Harrison Street, San Francisco, (1886) photo