Mother's Cookies

Mother's Cookies is a food brand owned by Italian conglomerate Ferrero Group. Mother Cookies began as a bakery based in Oakland, California, that operated from 1914 to 2008.[1][2] A sister company, Archway Cookies of Battle Creek, Michigan, was founded in 1936. Both Mother's Cookies and Archway declared bankruptcy in 2008.[3] At its height, the company distributed cookies throughout the United States, and was one of the leading cookie makers in the country.[4] The Kellogg Company acquired the Mother's Cookies trademark and recipes in December 2008 and brought the brand back to West Coast grocery store shelves on May 14, 2009.[5][6]

History

Mother's was founded in 1914[7] when N.M. Wheatley, a newspaper vendor, purchased the rights to a cookie recipe from a customer. A year later, Wheatley opened a one-person operation on 12th Avenue in Oakland.[1][8][9] On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson had issued a proclamation declaring the first national Mother's Day[10][11]

Archway was founded in 1936 by the Swansons, a husband-and-wife team who baked soft-batch cookies in their garage. The Swansons expanded their company nationwide in the 1940s, changing its name to Archway to avoid conflict with Swanson, a maker of frozen dinners. In 1962 the founders sold the company to their vice president, George Markham, who bought most of the franchises back over the next several years.[4] Markham in turn sold the company to two employees, who operated it from 1983 to 1998. The company was sold to Specialty Foods in 1998, reportedly for $100 million.[12][13] The transaction made Specialty Foods the third largest cookie maker in the United States[4][14] after Keebler and Nabisco.[15]

The two companies then went through a succession of owners. Mother's was sold to Artal NV, a Belgian company, then bought by Specialty Foods Corp., a conglomerate formed by Robert Bass, who sold Mother's Cake & Cookie Co. and Archway Cookies to Parmalat S.p.A.[16] Specialty Foods sold Mother's and Archway to an Italian firm, Parmalat Finanziaria in 2000 for $250 million.[17] As of 2002 Mother's was baking 17.5 million cookies per day.[18] Cookie sales began to decline after 2000 due to low-fat and low carb diet trends, although sales improved when the company introduced low fat cookies, and accounted for 10% of the United States cookie market as of late 2004.[14] Parmalat filed for bankruptcy[14] amidst a scandal involving illegal sale of corporate bonds. Parmalat in turn sold the companies to Catterton Partners, a private equity firm in

Brand and product returns

In December, 2008, Lance Inc. bought the assets of Archway,[21] and soon reopened the former Archway factory in Ashland, Ohio.[22] Also, the same month Kellogg Company was approved to buy the assets of Mother's Cookies with plans to return the products to the shelves in mid-2009. In May 2009, Mother's Cookies returned to store shelves, including Kellogg's launch of a website for the product.[23] After the return of the Mother's Cookies product line, customers noted changes in the recipes, most notably to the Taffy cookie.[24]

In April 2019, Kellogg's announced the sale of Mother's Cookies, among other brands, to Italian confectioner Ferrero SpA, creators of Nutella

type	Private (1914–1998)
fate	Declared bankruptcy in 2008, becoming a brand
foundation	1914
founder	N.M. Wheatley
industry	Food
owner	Specialty Foods (1998–2000) Parmalat (2000–2005) Catterton Partners (2005–2008) Kellogg's (2008–2019) Ferrero SpA (2019–present)
homepage	motherscookies.com/

History

Brand and product returns

Products

Promotions

External links

References