Whether Hor'mel or Hor-mel', he invented Spam

Jay Hormel was born to George A. and Lillian (Gleason) Hormel in 1892, the year after George went into meat packing business in Austin, Minn.

As a boy his main interest was in business. One of his first jobs was as the janitor in his church. After a month he set up a meeting with the church board, to complain that too many people were giving him orders on how to do his job. He told them that if they did not leave him alone to do the job as he saw fit, he would resign.

The board backed off, but Jay's attitude was an early indication of how he would function in business -- one that continued throughout his life.

Jay's early schooling was in the Austin Public Schools, but he attended high school at Shadduck St. Mary's Military School in Fairfield, Minn.

After high school he enrolled in Princeton University in New Jersey. He was an indifferent scholar, frequently skipping class, and barely maintaining passing grades, but was strongly interested in the business world. Somehow he obtained title to a failing laundry.

Using his school allowance he began to update the laundry machinery, and hired students to promote sales to fraternities and businesses in town. He turned the business around, but in his sophomore year the president of the College called Mr. Hormel to report that Jay was spending more time in the laundry business than he was in school. Reluctantly, Mr. Hormel gave his son permission to leave school and return to the packing plant in Austin.

The first day on the job Jay reported in a suit and tie, ready to go to work in the office. He was informed in no uncertain terms that he would begin at the bottom, on the killing floor of the plant. He accepted that decision with good grace and spent the next year learning the meat business. Working for some time in each phase of the business gave him an insight into the most efficient way work should be done, leading to his written report, which became the company's "how to" manual, for many years.

By the time World War I came along Jay was eager to enter the army, though Hormel Co. was a major supplier to the troops abroad, and Jay was needed at home. Once in France, Jay served with distinction, as an officer in the Quartermaster Corps.

He received citations for his innovation of sending boned and cutup meat to France, rather than shipping whole carcasses (as had been the case previously), thus saving valuable refrigerated cargo space.

Jay's time in France was rewarded in an additional way. He met and later married a French girl, Germaine Dubois, of La Vernell, France. (Just a word about Germaine -- She apparently was a character, with a quirky sense of humor. She was a fine (French ) cook. But once she made a beautiful tray of hors d'oeuvres for the members of her ladies' club.

They later learned that the canapés were made out of canned dog food. When her husband brought the head of the Meat Institute home for lunch she served him horsemeat. All through the meal he commented on "the most marvelous steak I've ever eaten".)

Jay brought home enthusiasm and fresh new ideas to the Hormel Co. and hired other eager young vets upon his return to civilian life. Though not an accountant, Jay uncovered an embezzlement that professional auditors had missed for over 10 years.

He took his father's motto, "Originate, Don't Imitate" to heart, and was on a constant search for new methods and products. One of these original ideas was to preserve ham for a long time by canning it. Toward this end Jay brought a German Packer, Paul Joern to Austin.

Joern held patents for canning meat. After two years of experimenting they perfected a can for ham. Hormel Co. marketed these canned hams under the name of "Flavor Sealed." These hams were an immediate success, and widely copied.

In 1927, at age 34 Jay became President of the Hormel Co., though George A. stayed active in the company for a number of years.

Some of Jay Hormel's ideas were too advanced for George A. to accept initially. It is to his credit that even though he might have had misgivings about some of the son's innovations, he held his tongue and allowed the transfer of power in the Hormel Co. to take place. For instance: For many years the Hormel Co. had modestly advertised their products in the Ladies Home Journal, to the tune of $7,500 per year.

In 1926 Jay Hormel announced to his dad that he had signed a contract for advertising the Flavor Sealed Hams, at $500,000 per year. George almost fainted. "Why, that's preposterous. I'd never have considered spending my father's money like that."

To which Jay replied, "Of course not. You didn't have a rich Dad like I do." George cooled down. They kept on advertising, leading to the making of the Hormel brand as a household name, one of the most respected in the business.

One of the results of all that advertising, which included much radio, was that the pronunciation of the name Hormel was changed.

For years, in McCook we had Hormel Chevrolet in McCook, pronounced Hor'mel, which is the way Ben Hormel and his family pronounced their name. But radio people, advertising meats, wanted to put more emphasis on the product name, so began asking listeners to ask for Hor-mel' products by name.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s Hormel Co., pushed by Jay, introduced a great many products, aimed at the "working class market" -- a wide variety of sausages, Dinty Moore soups, Hormel's Chili, and of course the most famous of all -- Spam, one of the most innovative ideas that Jay brought to the company, and the one for which he is most remembered. The creation was a little square can of a mixture of pork products, with a catchy.

Spam now is a universal name for "conglomeration" of most anything, and not always positive, such as the clutter on the internet, but for the Hormel Company it has been the signature product of a huge line of successful products.

In 1936 Jay Hormel was faced with two problems. 1. He needed a product that people could ask for by brand name. And 2. He needed to find a product that would utilize the less desirable shoulder meat of the hog. The answer seemed to be that shoulder meat be added to the Hormel Spiced Ham product, making a new unique new product.

On New Year's Eve the Hormels gave a dinner party. Jay introduced the slices of a new canned product, consisting of shoulder meat, ham meat, spices, gelatin, and nitrates. It was served in a variety of ways, fried like ham, diced in salads, served in little squares on toothpicks, with pineapple, etc. Guests were told that in order to get a drink at the party they would have to write, on a slip of paper, a name for the new product. After the 3rd or 4th drink the guests began to get quite creative, and after all the slips were collected a committee of company officers selected the winner, SPAM -- SP(iced h)AM.

Over the years Spam has become one of the most recognized products in the world.

Since 1936 over 5 Billion cans of Spam have been sold. The product was beginning to enjoy widespread acceptance when World War II began. The little square cans of spiced pork products seemed to be made for the armed forces, and quickly became a staple in military mess halls around the world.

Through a special licensing agreement the Hormel Co. allowed other packers to produce the spiced ham product for the armed forces, but no matter. GI's always referred to that product as Spam, no matter who made it, and Spam received full credit for all the jokes and gripes the product inspired among the men.

Hormel Co. received numerous awards for the work they did for our armed forces during World War II, and Jay Hormel, who died in 1954, will be ever known as the fellow who invented Spam.

Source: Three Men and a Business, by Geo. A. Hormel, and M. Kiefer, in Phoenix News Times, 1993