Tastykake

Philip J. Baur and Herbert T. Morris founded the company, in the Germantown neighborhood along Sedgley Avenue, with an initial investment of $50,000. First, Baur and Morris had opened a bakery in the Pittsburgh area, selling it to the Ward Baking Company in 1913. When Baur and Morris sold to Ward, the terms of the sale prohibited them from opening another bakery within 100 miles of Pittsburgh, so the partners looked instead to Philadelphia. In November 1913 they settled on the Sedgley Avenue location. Morris's wife came up with the Tastykake name. A Boston student created the Tastykake girl and logo. Then, the company adopted the slogan, "The Cake That Made Mother Stop Baking." Tasty Baking Company quickly established success for its Tasty brand, selling $28 worth of cakes at ten cents a piece on its first day of sales, $222 in the first week and grossing $300,000 in sales by the end of 1914. Sales began to expand throughout Eastern Pennsylvania. Until 1941 the company distributed its products almost wholly by horse-drawn delivery wagons, making them an exclusive city treat. But World War II changed all that as the company sent thousands of cakes and pies overseas to soldiers in both the European and Pacific/Asian theaters, vastly expanding its market. Over the years, Tastykake expanded its distribution through many modes of transportation including trucks, electric cars, rails and ships, selling its products in Western Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York. Tastykake retired their last horse in 1941. The Tastykake brand identity expanded further and sales doubled in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the company installed state-of-the-art machinery that cut the baking cycle from twelve hours to forty-five minutes. Vice-President Paul R. Kaiser became president, and Morris, who had served as president since the company's inception, became chairman of the board. In April 1954, Kaiser was able to report that the Tastykake territory had grown to cover parts of nine states and the District of Columbia. By the end of the decade, annual sales had grown to nearly $22.9 million. In 1989 Tasty Baking repackaged its Tastykake products. The company also began a new line of cakes and pies, in flavors that changed monthly, and introduced a line of honey-graham cookies, called Tasty Bears, aimed at children aged six to 12.