What Is Oscar Mayer Beef Bologna Made of

The Untold Truth Of Oscar Mayer

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You lot know the jingles, y'all've filled lunchboxes and sandwiches with their bologna, you've had endless hot dogs from those xanthous packages. Some of you — at least, according to The LA Times — even named your children later on the curly-haired fiddling cutie in the commercials. But how much practice you lot really know about Oscar Mayer, the company that's supplied America with its processed meats for several generations?

He was a existent person

Similar Duncan Hines, Oscar Mayer was a real person. He was born in Bavaria in 1859, and emigrated to the US when he was 14. After apprenticing with a butcher and spending another half dozen years working in a meatpacking establish, he had saved enough coin to lease the Kolling Meat Marketplace in Chicago. It was about that time his first brother — Gottfried — joined him, and became the business's sausage-maker. Another brother, Max, joined them a few years after, and jumped into the business as an accountant.

They were hugely successful, in office because they had brought traditional European techniques to America, and since Chicago had a growing population of German-American families, their sausages were a piddling taste of abode. By the beginning of the 20th century, they had 43 employees, eight commitment wagons, and supplied nearly 300 stores in Illinois and Wisconsin. Another family unit member too joined the business in 1909 — Oscar's son, Oscar G. Mayer.

That yellow background harkens back to its original packaging

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Oscar Mayer's success is even more impressive if y'all consider the culinary climate of the twenty-four hour period. Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, a damning looking behind the scenes of the meat packing industry. He wrote about horrors that would plow the stomach of the most dedicated carnivore (you're eating people, people!) and it was understandable the public started looking on the whole industry pretty dubiously. That went double for things like sausages — they were meats that hid their true contents, later on all.

Oscar Mayer started advertizement the quality of their sausages with a distinctive yellow band, and you can come across some of the one-time advertisements in the Knuckles University Libraries Digital Collections. It worked, and became such an integral function of the branding it's stayed a function of their look for decades. When Oscar Mayer got a 21st-century update, the artistic bureau involved, Impenetrable, said the yellow band was such an important office of the Oscar Mayer identity information technology had to stay.

The Wienermobile used to exist a lot smaller

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The Wienermobile was the brainchild of Oscar Mayer's nephew, and information technology'southward been around since 1936. It's always looked like a giant hot dog, simply office of the original concept has fallen to the side of the route.

The Wienermobile was originally manned by a little person hired to dress equally chef "Little Oscar" and promote Oscar Mayer products on cross-country road trips. Joe White played Little Oscar for twenty years, and told theLA Times, "My job was to sell wieners. That was my chore, and it and the Wienermobile were both a great ride!"

Y'all'd recognize a few of the other men who've donned the guise of Petty Oscar over the years, too. Meinhardt Raabe and Jerry Maren both achieved fame as Munchkins from the classic film The Wizard of Oz, and you'd recognize George Molchan, also. He spent 20 years working in the Wienermobile, and another 16 playing Petty Oscar at Oscar Mayer'due south Disney World restaurant. He was the longest-reigning Trivial Oscar, co-ordinate to The LA Times, and he passed away in 2005.

They didn't invent bologna, but they made it popular

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Oscar Mayer has a ton of products, but the beginning thing you probably recall of is their hot dogs and bologna. Co-ordinate to Eater'southward history of bologna, this weirdly textured meat was around long before Oscar Mayer.

Information technology has roots in old Italy, where it's been a longtime favorite under some other name — mortadella. In 1661, legislation restricted just what could be chosen mortadella, so sausages that were close but non quite good enough were named for the boondocks instead, and became bologna. Information technology'southward not articulate when it made the trip across the Atlantic, only we exercise know it was pop during tough times, like the Depression and World War II. It would accept been easy for something associated with hardship to autumn by the wayside one time things improved, but Oscar Mayer kept bologna on everyone's radar with an invention y'all all the same use today — their distinctive vacuum-sealed packaging. That made bologna practical besides as popular, because no one likes waste.

They've made a hot dog-carrying drone

The Wienermobile may have been the thing that brought hot dogs to countless 20th-century kids, merely at present, the idea's gotten an update for the next century. In 2017, Gizmodo reported on Oscar Mayer's new hot domestic dog delivery system — the WienerDrone. The drone has a flight time of only about 15 minutes and can only carry a single hot dog, and then information technology's not very practical for, say, delivering a BBQ's worth of Oscar Mayer hot dogs correct to your front door. But coolness is more important than practicality when it comes to advertising, and that's probably why the WienerDrone comes 2 years after some other highly impractical adaptation of the Wienermobile. Gizmodo also covered the release of the WienerRover in 2015, and the remote-controlled, off-road vehicle got such publicity that they introduced a mass-market version not long after.

Their sliced bacon was a start

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Oh, bacon. Information technology's 1 of the oldest methods we've had of preparing meat, and according to The Meat Institute, people have been enjoying salted pork bellies since around 1500 BC. That's a long time to go unchanged, and it wasn't until Oscar Mayer came along that consumers were able to buy salary in the conveniently packaged, pre-sliced form nosotros know and love today. It might seem obvious to pre-slice bacon now, merely the invention was such a big deal they got a Us patent for information technology.

While nosotros're on the tasty subject area of bacon, allow's talk well-nigh that weird packaging. No other meat is packaged the same way, and Bloomberg says that'southward considering the US Department of Agriculture ruled bacon packages needed to be transparent on both sides so consumers could see just how fatty all the slices are. While it was Swanson who patented the shingle-style packaging format, it was Oscar Mayer who patented the front- and rear-window version nosotros see in stores today.

That jingle was written in an hour

In September 1962, songwriter Richard Trentlage heard virtually a contest Oscar Mayer was holding. Inspired by a comment his son made — he said he wanted to be "a clay bike hot dog" — Trentlage sabbatum downward and wrote the now-famous jingle in well-nigh an hr. The Chicago native typed up the lyrics and submitted them, but it wasn't an overnight sensation. In fact, Digital Music News says it almost didn't get selected at all. Oscar Mayer spent a whole yr consulting with focus groups and debating about which contest submission was going to exist the big winner before settling on Trentlage's tricky tune.

It went on to be i of the longest-running jingles ever, and was merely retired in 2010. That's not bad for an advertising melody kickoff recorded in the songwriter's domicile studio, sung by his xi-year-former son and 9-yr-erstwhile daughter. Trentlage passed away in 2016, but at that place's no dubiety his song will alive forever.

That bologna commercial was a concluding-minute fluke

You know the bologna commercial, too, with the curly-haired little boy sitting on a pier and fishing while he eats his sandwich and sings about Oscar Mayer. That fiddling boy is Andy Lambros, and he went on to be a web and graphic designer and marketing consultant. He almost didn't get his time on the piddling screen, though, equally that wasn't supposed to be the commercial at all.

Co-ordinate to an interview with Oscar Mayer'southward Vice President of Marketing Jerry Ringlien, the plan was originally to recruit dozens of kids who would each sing a picayune bit of the vocal. The idea was that information technology would prove how everyone loved Oscar Mayer bologna, and that'due south the commercial they filmed. The film crew had a few minutes of daylight left, though, and asked if at that place was anyone there who could sing the song from start to stop. Lambros could — and did — and that'southward why he asks, "How'southward that?" at the stop. When they were reviewing the footage, they knew that was the commercial they needed to apply.

They're making a commitment to responsibly-raised pork

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One affair everyone can agree on is the importance of responsibly raised animals. In 2012, The Humane Society of the United States gave Oscar Mayer (and parent company Kraft Foods) a shout-out for promising to stop the utilize of gestation crates in their food chain. Gestation crates are highly controversial, and are essentially crates barely larger than a sow. Pigs are forced to live and give birth in crates so tiny they tin can't even turn around, and according to Oscar Mayer'southward statement, none of their pork products will exist supplied by farmers who use them by 2022.

They helped teach nearly animal welfare

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The meat manufacture remains i of the about controversial parts of our modern food supply, and in 2014 Oscar Mayer's Animal Welfare Team announced they would be partnering with the University of Wisconsin for a program designed to teach students nearly brute welfare issues. That's everything from assessing animal husbandry practices to finding sustainable yet safe ways to better the industry.

The partnership ultimately focused on the creation of several new courses at the university, forth with public resources on animate being welfare issues. Assistant professor of animal science Kurt Vogel, PhD. was named Oscar Mayer Faculty Scholar, and teaches classes from brute physiology to meat production systems.

There's ongoing fence near the removal of nitrites from hot dogs

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At that place's ongoing business organisation growing over exactly what our mass-produced, store-bought foods incorporate, and processed meats is i of the biggest question marks of them all. In May 2017, Oscar Mayer announced they were eliminating "added nitrites, nitrates, artificial preservatives, and fillers" from their hot dogs, co-ordinate to The Chicago Tribune.

Information technology sounds corking on the surface, but in that location'southward ongoing debate about just how much of a departure the move is going to make. Without nitrites, those tasty-looking hot dogs would be an unappetizing greyness, then that's not an option. Instead, they're going with nitrites extracted from celery. Still sounding good, right?

But nitrites are nitrites, and celery actually has a expert percentage of them. In spite of what yous may have heard, the federal government doesn't consider nitrites dangerous, and that's a proficient thing — they're not actually going away someday soon.

Lunchables are mind-numbing bad for you, and they've ever known information technology

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Who doesn't love Lunchable solar day? They're so much better than a boring old Lead&J, right? Fashion back in 1999, nutritionists were confirming what parents were already suspecting — Lunchables are mind-numbing bad for y'all. They hit the shelves in 1988, and by 1999 Oscar Mayer had sold one.vi billion. The Washington Post says was a massive hit for a few reasons: information technology was convenient for parents and it was user-friendly for parent company Kraft, who could sideslip some of their other products — like Capri Dominicus — into that vivid yellow box.

But in that location are big bug. They're low in fiber, have few vitamins and minerals, and some types come packed with most l percent of your kid's daily fatty intake. In 2009, Lunchables topped the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's Cancer Project list for worst packaged lunchbox meals. We'll but expect at the winner — Lunchables Maxed Out Cracker Stackers: Cracker Combo Ham and Cheddar. With 660 calories, 9 grams of saturated fat, and 1,600 milligrams of sodium (which is way more than the daily recommended intake for kids), this is i dejeuner that'south not going to do your kids whatsoever favors.

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