BUSINESS STORY

Exxon Mobil

2011-04-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

Exxon Mobil is a United States corporation formed in 1999 by the combination of Exxon Corporation and Mobil Corporations.

The firm traces its roots to John D. Rockefeller, who founded the company in 1882 as ‘Standard Oil’.

Exxon Mobil is an industry leader in almost every aspect of the energy and petrochemical business.

The firm’s principal businesses are the exploration and the production of crude oil and natural gas, the manufacturing of petroleum products and the transportation and sale of crude oil, natural gas and petroleum products.

The company operates wells and natural gas operations around the world, although North America accounts for the vast majority of its production.

The company conducts business on almost 200 countries and territories around the globe.

The company spends more than $700 million annually towards research in new technologies, including developments in synthetic lubricants, catalysts research, nanotechnology, biomedical services and hydro-carbon based duel cells.
Exxon Mobil

Cattle Ranches Business

2010-12-23T01:58:00.000-08:00

Cattle ranch is a place where herd of cows is kept in production, with calves brought to market each year, and the proceeds of these efforts paying the bills and the keeping the family going.

Cattle ranches have been a vital and integral part of its economy and ecosystem.

Cattle ranches produce food for human consumption, taxes to support roads and schools and government and, and protected refuge for many kinds of wildlife.

Their open range provides the greenbelts so essential to balance the pollution and environmental contamination brought by expanding cities and automobiles.

The cowmen supports a huge and uniquely the industry consisting of livestock markets, order buyers, stocker-grazers, feed lot operation, meat packers, and supermarket owners.

The nature of business is that: when the grass is green, cows are bred: nine months later, caves are born. In three months, cows are bred again and it is the beginning of a new season.

Cattle become profitable and herds are increase; then beef prices drop, herds are liquidated and prices get even worse. As the cattle become scarce, prices go up again. This is the cattle cycle.

Today cattle ranch is a high-tech operation that requires skillfully trained, knowledgeable personnel.

Ranchers recognize that they need to implement the latest herd improvement techniques, such as those associated with genetic engineering, of their individual operations are to remain competitive in the market place.
Cattle Ranches Business

ConocoPhillips

2010-08-11T17:07:00.001-07:00

ConocoPhillips
Headquarters in Huston, Texas, ConocoPhillips operates in the energy sector and has operations in 40 countries, Conoco and Phillips merged in 2002 and has created ConocoPhillips, which then acquired Burlington Resources in 2006.

ConocoPhillips currently as per 2009 employs 33,000 people and has US$ 183 billion and of assets.

ConocoPhillips is the third largest integrated energy company in the United States in terms of market capitalization and oil and natural gas reserves.

Among key competitive advantage of ConocoPhillips are reservoir management and exploration , 3-D seismic technology, high grade petroleum coke upgrading and sulfur removal.

The operations of ConocoPhillips are as follows. The exploration and production group explores and produces oil, natural gas, and natural liquids around the world; this group has exploration operations in 23 countries and production facilities in 16 countries.

Another group is responsible for refining, marketing and transporting oil, and is the second largest refiner in the United States with 12 US refineries, six in Europe and one in Asia.

The natural gas gathering, processing and marketing group is responsible for natural gas operations of ConocoPhillips and has 63 natural gas processing plants.
ConocoPhillips

American Cyanamid Company

2010-06-29T06:54:00.001-07:00

American Cyanamid Company
In 1907 Frank Washburn formed American Cyanamid to produce a basic ingredient for fertilizer, calcium cyanamid, through new electronic technology, for which he had an exclusive U.S license from the German innovators, A. Frank and N. Caro.

When the American Cyanamid Company acquired the American patents rights to the cyanamid process, there was a relatively small pilot plant in operation in Germany, an operating unit of commercial size in Italy and a number of scattered plants under construction in Europe.

To construct its first cyanamid unit at Niagara falls, Canada, the company brought from abroad engineers operating experts and special items of equipment.

An organization made up wholly of Americans was assembled, however, and in 1909 a research department was established to develop methods and means of converting the crude product into fertilizer material which could be used in the American fertilizer mixtures.

In 1912 a formal research laboratory was established and 3 years later a building was erected at Warners, N.J., to house its activities.

At this time about six men spent their full time in the laboratory. With the outbreak of the First World War, the company, knowing cyanamid, organized special staff to develop and produce them.

Not until early in 1919 could this emergency service abandoned and the personnel reorganized into a new research unit principally occupied with investigations of cyanamid derivatives.

By the 1990s American Cyanamid had successfully completed its strategy shift from chemicals to pharmaceuticals.
American Cyanamid Company

Early story of Albertson’s Inc

2010-05-08T07:10:00.001-07:00

Early story of Albertson’s Inc
Joseph Albert Albertson was born in October 17, 1906, in Yukon, Oklahoma, one of four sons of Earl and Rhoda Albertson. Three years later Earl, a farmer and horticulturist, moved his family to Caldwell, Idaho.

Albertson graduated from high school in 1925 and studied business at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. In chemistry class he became acquainted with Kathryn “Kay” McCurry whom he latter married.

While in college, Joe worked as a janitor, but the money wasn’t enough. He left college after two years and took a job as a clerk at a local Safeway grocery store.

Joe’s career moved quickly at Safeway, before his 12 years career with Safeway ended, Joe was managing more than a dozen stores and learning every phase of the retail business. Joe and Kay married in 1930, and their daughter Barbara Jean was born in 1933.

However, Joe Albertsons wanted to own a store, designed to his specifications. In 1939, he formed a partnership with L. S Skaggs, a fellow Safeway employee, and Tom Cuthbert an accountant.

Joe used his life’s savings of $5,000 plus a $7,500 loan from his aunt, to make up his share of $12,500. His aunt elected to have stock instead of monetary repayment.

On July 21, 1939, the trio opened their first Albertson’s Food Center in Boise, Idaho. Shoppers were greeted by a fresh bakery, and automatic doughnut machine, one of the first magazine racks in the country and double dipped ice cream cones called “Big Joe” that cost a nickel.

The store netted a $10,000 profit in the first year, and Joe quickly opened two more stores in 1940, in Nampa and Caldwell. By end of the second year, total sales exceeded $1 million.
Early story of Albertson’s Inc

The story of Abbot Laboratories

2010-04-16T20:16:00.001-07:00

The story of Abbot Laboratories
Dr. Wallace C. Abbott began to practice medicine in Chicago in 1886. Troubled by the indefinite and changeable results that he had obtained from the use of unstandardized fluid extracts and tinctures, he began to study the experiments of the Belgian dosimetrist, Burgraeve.

The idea of using only the active principle of a drug plant in place of a watery or alcoholic extract appealed to him.

Unable to purchase such a product, he began to isolate the pure alkaloids from the crude drugs and to make his own active-principle granules.

From his “laboratory” in an annex to the family kitchen, he was soon supplying granules to other physicians in the neighborhood.

After the incorporation of the enterprise in 1900 as the Abbott Alkaloidal Company, the manufacture of other types of products was undertaken and the nucleus of a chemical research staff was formed.

Dr. Alfred S. Burdick’s association with the company had much to do with emphasis given to research.

The First World War placed unusual demands upon all the pharmaceutical laboratories of the country and resulted in an enlargement of research facilities.

The Abbott Laboratories continued their expansion after the war and began research aimed at the development of synthetic medicinal to meet definite needs.

One result of this study was a new local anesthetic, particularly useful to doctors working on the eye.

A research program in the field of hypnotics led to the production of several new compounds.

In 1922 Abbott Laboratories acquired the Dermatological Research Laboratories in Philadelphia, which had been founded in 1911, on philanthropic grants for the study of psoriasis and have continued to maintain research there under a highly trained staff.
The story of Abbot Laboratories

Petronas Malaysia

2010-03-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

Petronas Malaysia
Petroliam Nasional (Petronas) has been wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia since its incorporation in 1974. The company is active throughout the petroleum value chain including shipping and hold interest in a number of unrelated activities such as the Twin Towers, real estates project and Malaysia’s national automotive manufacturer.

Petronas ranks among the top 20 international oil companies, with daily production of more than 750,200 barrels of oil.

The company also holds 4.84 billion barrels of crude oil reserves and 2.5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves.
Petronas dominates Malaysia’s upstream and downstream petroleum activities as a result of its control over resources, although numerous foreign companies operate in Malaysia.

In addition to its domestic upstream activities Petronas controls 40 percent of the Malaysian downstream and retail market, with domestic market revenues accounting for 20 per cent of company revenue.

Petronas has been expanding aggressively into LNG, with Malaysia accounting for 15 percent of total world LNG exports in 2005.

The company hold a stake of 60 per cent or more in each of three LNG plants in Malaysia, with total capacity of 22.7 million tones per year.

Petronas is involved in two LNG projects out Malaysia. Petronas holds a 38 percent stake in the Egyptian LNG projects as well as 30 percent stake in the Dragon LNG receiving and regasification terminal in Wales , United Kingdom.

Transportation of LNG from Malaysia is handled primary by Malaysia International Shipping Corporation (MISC), which is 62 percent owned by Petronas and has the single largest LNG tanker fleet in the world.

Petronas has been active internationally in the oil and gas sector since 1989, when governments of Vietnam and Myanmar invited the company to participate in joint exploration ventures.

Searching for new eves to replace its maturing fields, Petronas has become known for its global presence which contributes nearly a third of the company’s revenues.

Petronas also has service stations in South Africa and Thailand, and holds a stake in a Sudanese refinery.
Petronas Malaysia

LEGO: The Story

2010-03-03T23:54:00.001-08:00

LEGO: The Story
In 1934 Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish carpenter invented an interlocking brick and named it LEGO after the first two letter of the Danish words ‘Leg Godt’ which means ‘play well’.

By coincidence the word is also Latin for ‘I put together’.

From these early beginnings LEGO has grown to be a substantial international brand on average, every person in the world has 5 LEGO bricks and more than 400 million children and adults spend 5 billion hours a year playing with LEGO.

The products are on sale in more than 130 countries, with four LEGO sets sold each second.

The brand name encapsulated the company’s philosophy that good play enriches a child’s life buy stimulating the imagination and creativity.

The brick is a very flexible toy. On of the professor of mathematics has calculated that there are over 900 million different ways of combining six eight-stud bricks of the same color.

The LEGO range contains 2,000 different items, in 55 different colors and 20 different materials.

The products portfolios has been developed in such a way that there is something for all ages and stages of development.

It caters do consumers who prefer to make things up as they go along as well as those that wish to build from predesigned models.
LEGO: The Story

Secret Formula

2010-02-18T00:23:00.000-08:00

Secret Formula
Many fast food and junk food manufacturers have proudly announced that they have so called ingredients in their products and secret ways of making their products.

Part of the reason for the secret sauces and ingredients is to hype their products.

In addition, the proclamations of secret ingredients discourages consumers from trying to make similar products in their home, thus depriving manufacturers of potential sales.

Finally , there are secrets in every industry and companies do not want to give their competitors any hint of what goes into their successful products or product lines, since manufacturers try to duplicate the competition’s products that are successful.

White Castle founder Walter Anderson proclaimed that White Castle’s secret had been to flatten the meat into thin parties and then sear them on both sides “to seal in the natural juices.”

Harland Sanders figured out a way to cook chicken quickly in a pressure cooker and he developed a secret seasoning featuring a blend of 11 herbs and spices, which Sanders sold to franchisees.

McDonald’s maintains its lead in French fry taste by adding secret ingredients to its flavorings.

The chocolate industry has been notorious for maintaining its secrets.

Nestlé’s formula of making milk chocolate was a carefully secret beginning in the nineteenth century.

The secret formula for Cadbury’s chocolate is purportedly known only by six people and the formula itself is stored in a vault.

Perhaps the longest held secret in American chocolate manufacturing is how the Hershey Company processes the milk that gives their chocolate its flavor.

Mars, Inc, is supposedly one of the most secretive companies in the world, requiring employees to sign nondisclosure that they will not impart any information about Mars to outsiders.

Soda manufacturer are also notoriously famous for their secret formulas, Roy Allen who launched A&W Root Beer, reportedly purchased the formula for his root beer from a pharmacist in Arizona.

To this day, its unique blend of herbs, spices, barks and berries remains a proprietary secret.

The Coca-Cola Company has long maintained the secret formula for making its beverages and purportedly only a handful of people know it.
Secret Formula

Colonel Sanders of Secret Recipe

2010-01-25T18:10:00.000-08:00

Colonel Sanders of Secret Recipe
KFC story began at the turn of last century, when a young boy, Harland Sanders, became an accomplished cook through ‘family necessity’.

He spent considerable years doing casual work and serving in the United States Army, where he received the title ‘Colonel.’

Anyway, at age forty, Colonel Sanders purchased a service station, motel and café in a small town in Kentucky.

Over the next ten years he tried different seasonings to flavor his chicken.

From this experimentation evolved ‘his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices and the basic cooking technique which is still used today’.

He sold the business when the town was bypassed by a highway.

He then travelled the United States by car, cooking chicken for restaurant owners and their employees.

If the reaction was favorable Sanders entered into a handshake agreement in a deal which stipulated a payment to him of a nickel for each chicken the restaurant sold.

By the age of sixty five the Colonel had 600 Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchise outlets dotted across the United States and Canada.

This as 1964, the year is which he sold the American business for $2 million , leading to another rags to riches story.
Colonel Sanders of Secret Recipe

White Castle and the Rise of Fast Food Hamburger Chains

2010-01-21T06:24:00.000-08:00

White Castle and the Rise of Fast Food Hamburger Chains
During the 1920s, several decades before the rose of McDonald’s and Burger King, White Castle herald the advent of fast food hamburger chains.

In 1921, Walter Anderson and Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram opened a hamburger restaurant in Wichita, Kansas, under the name of White Castle.

Hamburgers had a nasty reputation of being made from low grade or spoiled meat scraps, so Anderson and Ingram stressed in their advisements that their hamburgers were made from speciality selected cuts of ground chuck delivered fresh to their restaurants twice a day.

They also reassured wary customers by packing the grill directly in front of them, so they could see the sanitary conditions under which their food was being prepared.

The first white Castle restaurant served hamburgers sandwiches, smothered with cooked onions, for a nickel apiece.

The White Castle System of Eating Houses, as the chain was called, expanded rapidly during the 1920s due in part to its innovative marketing strategies.

Originally, the chain catered to largely working class clientele, but during the last of the 1920s it attracted a wider range of customers by advertising its sandwiched as a convenient carryout food and by young customers to “Buy ‘em by the sack.”

By 1931, White Castle was operating 115 restaurants across the Midwest and East Coast, all of which featured the same floor plan and distinctive medieval architecture that served as a short of advertising for the chain.
White Castle and the Rise of Fast Food Hamburger Chains

Maxwell House Coffee

2010-01-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

Maxwell House Coffee
Joel Owsley Cheek was born on December 8, 1862, in Burkesville, Kentucky. When he turned 21, he left the family farm and traveled by raft along the Cumberland River to Nashville, Tennessee, where he was hired as a travelling salesman for a wholesale grocery company.

At about the same tome, Colonel John Overton opened an elaborate Nashville hotel that he named The Maxwell House in honor of his wife, whose maiden name was Harriet Maxwell.

The hotel quickly became famous for its fine cuisine and lavish hospitality and the Maxwell House became the place stay whole travelling though Nashville.

Of all the products that Cheek peddled, coffee held most of his interest. As he traveled from village, he developed plans for blending his own brand of coffee.

He was eventually granted a partnership in the grocery firm that he worked for, while he meant that his travel days were over. With his free time in Nashville, he started experimenting with coffee blends.

In 1882, he quit the partnership and established a full time coffee business.

Over the next decade, Cheek built his coffee business while continuing to experimenting with new blends.

In 1892, he developed a particularly fine blend that he considered to be rich that it was suitable for a hotel like The Maxwell House.

He approached the management of the Hotel who agreed to serve it to customer for a trial period. Soon, everyone seemed to be talking about the wonderful Maxwell House coffee.

One satisfied customer was Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States. While visiting Nashville in 1907, a hostess asked him if he would like another cup of the Maxwell House coffee. “Delighted,” responded the president, “It’s good to the last drop!” This response was later adopted by Maxwell House as its long running slogan.

The success of the coffee bend contributed to a rapid growth of Cheek’s partnership, the Cheek Coffee Company that he operated with John W. Neal. Other innovations followed such as Maxwell House tea, which was introduced in 1917.

On August 1, 1928, the Postum Company acquired the Cheek Neal Coffee Company for approximately $40 million, changing its name to the Maxwell House Products Corporation.

One year later, Postum changed its name to General Foods Corporation.

Joel Cheek died on December 13, 1936, at the age of 83. The original Maxwell House hotel was destroyed by a fire on December 25, 1961.
Maxwell House Coffee

Wal-Mart Secret of Success

2009-11-17T05:01:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart Secret of Success
Wal-Mart is the biggest corporation in the United States and in the world in terms of revenues and number of employees.

It keeps growing at a rapid pace, showing no sign of letting up. In the first decide of the twenty-first century it appears as if no other company has a chance of catching up to it.

What is the secret of Wal-Mart’s success? Its philosophy, first set its motion by its founder, Sam Walton, is to offer the lowest prices to its customer, thereby undercutting all of its competitors.

Wal-Mart’s basic approach is to minimize margins and maximize returns (i.e., it emphasizes the speed with which goods more through the store over the profit it makes per unit).

Wal-Mart manages to keep its prices low by keeping its own costs down. This is achieved by abstemious management practice (limiting lavish spending by managers) and by keeping down the wages of its workforce (called “associates” by the company).

The low wage policy is maintained by providing weak benefits (for example, relying on spouses’ health care coverage) and by a fierce anti-unionism.

Wal-Mart has used very trick in the book, legal and illegal, to keep unions out.

For this reason along, it has become the prime enemy of the labor movement in the United States and elsewhere.

Wal-Mart is noted for its logistics excellence. It has been a leader in revolutionizing logistics processes, creating a form of just in time (JIT) retailing by developing high tech coordination with its suppliers.

In part for this reason, an in part because of its sheer size and power, the company has gained a dominance over its supplier, putting constant pressure on them to lower their prizes, sometimes with the consequence of pushing them to lower throe production off shore to lower wage countries such a China.

Indeed, its helps to play a role in maintaining and perhaps even driving down the low labor standards of poor developing countries.

In addition, the company puts pressure on it service providers, including transportation and warehousing companies.

These relational processes also cut the company’s costs, enabling it to offer lower prices.
Wal-Mart Secret of Success

The story of Cadbury Schweppes

2009-10-22T16:45:00.000-07:00

The story of Cadbury Schweppes
In 1783, in Geneva, Switzerland, Jacob Schweppes independently developed a process of adding carbonation into mineral water and Schweppes was born.

A number of years later, in the United Kingdom in 1824, John Cadbury began selling tea and coffee.

These sales were bolstered by his increasing sales of coca and chocolate.

Cadbury Schweppes was formed in 1969 via merger of Schweppes (predominantly beverages) and Cadbury (predominantly confectionary/chocolate).

Hence, the merger in 1969 was of giants on the carbonated soft drink (CSD) and confectionary (Cadbury) market reflecting their primary lines of business.

Today, Cadbury Schweppes has the largest share of the global confectionary market and a strong regional presence with carbonated soft drinks in North America.

Their carbonated soft drinks portfolio was enhanced greatly through numerous acquisitions, over the years including A&W in 1993 and Dr Pepper/7 Up in 1995.

Outside of the carbonated soft drinks market Cadbury Schweppes acquired Snapple beverages in 2000. In 2005, Cadbury Schweppes has over $11 billion revenue and a stock market valuation over $21 billion.

In 2004, Cadbury Schweppes had a combined 14.4 percent share of the carbonated soft drinks market in the United States.
The story of Cadbury Schweppes

What is trading?

2009-10-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

What is trading?
Trading is bartering; it is the exchange of goods or services. Trading has been part of human existence since the beginning of time.

In fact, trading is truly the world’s oldest profession.

Trading is not gambling, although some gamblers do trade.

Trading takes place when one person agrees to take the other person’s eggs in exchange for vegetables.

It happens when one barters two cows for a parcel of land. Trading also happens when you exchange coins for food.

All traders have a commodity that they perceive o have a value.

The exchange takes place when two parties agree that the value of each side of the trade is in parity.

If two traders do not agree that their commodities are of equal value, they will negotiate the quantities to be exchange, until such time as they both are comfortable that the amounts to be traded are in parity.

For instance, the trader with the land might want three cows to execute the trade, while the owner of the cows believes the land is only worth one cow.

In this case, there is a spread between the bid and the ask prices.

The trader with the cows is only willing to bid one cow, while the trader with the land is asking three cows. There is a spread of two cows.

Ultimately, if the trade is to take place, the two traders will negotiate, until of one of them increases the bid or lowers the ask price.

As times goes on and word gets around that these traders meet at a particular location to exchange wares, other people interested in bartering show up.

Soon a marketplace exists. It one town it might ne the cheese market, in another the fish market, but the exchange of one commodity for another commodity might always is taking place.

The life of early traders became complicated. In order to supply their needs, they found themselves traveling from home with their cow, to the grain market where they traded the cow for more grain than they needed, on to the fish market where they traded part of the grain for some fish, and then took the egg market where they traded some of the grain for eggs and then back home again with the grain, fish and eggs.

After some more negotiation with friends and neighbors, they agreed to create a derivative, which would make their lives easier, Thus currency was born.

Early traders were able to take their currency to market, negotiate the amount of currency to trade for the grain, fish, and eggs and return home.
The currency did not need a value of its own. All that was necessary was that all the trading parties agreed to make the trade based on the perceived underlying value of the currency.

The currency use in the United States is valueless. It is small pieces of paper with numbers on them and trades them at markets for other commodities that we want.

Traders on the other side of the trade agree to take the pieces of paper because they believe the paper can be used in other market to make an exchange with someone else.

The pieces of paper themselves do not have a value – only a perceived of value.
What is trading?

The Story of Carrefour

2009-09-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

The Story of Carrefour
The origins of Carrefour date back to 1959 when the company was established in France by the Fournier and Defforey families.

The shops were all located on thoroughfares; hence the name “Carrefour.” In other words, the name signifies that is convenient to shop there.

Carrefour opened its first supermarket in Annecy, Haute-Savoie.

The company was formed through a merger of two wholesaler families from Normandy, managed by Paul Auguste Halley and Leonor Duval Lemonnier.

In 1963, Carrefour invented a new concept; the hypermarket. The first Carrefour hypermarket opened in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, with a sales area of 2,500 m square, twelve check out and 400 parking spaces.

Fournier Badin and Defforey attended Bernado Trujillo’s seminars in Dayton (Ohio) at the end of the 1950s, and were much influenced by what they heard.

Carrefour opened its first hypermarket outside France in Belgium and the first outside Europe, in Brazil.

Carrefour introduced “produit libres” (generic as an early of store brand), which are unbranded products but “just as good and cheaper” and started the development of hard discounting.

In 1980s, Carrefour store brand products were introduced. In the 1990s, the internationalization of the company started to increase and new store were opened all over the world.

With a presence in about 30 countries more than half of its sales are generated outside France.

This makes it one of the most international of all food retailers. The group concentrated mainly in three continents: Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Carrefour hypermarkets offer large choice under one roof – between 40,000 and 60,000 items of food (60-70%) and non food (30-40%) products, mostly at low prices.

Being part of a shopping mall or retail park, hypermarkets attract good traffic.

In the last few years Carrefour decided to capitalize on the attraction of its hypermarkets by:

Strengthening its position and price image
Adjusting the business model to meet customer expectations
Making shopping easier so that it can be a pleasure: simplification of message, introduction of shorter paths around the store, adaptation of the product mix to changing customer requirements
Connecting with customer to serve them better

The essence of a hypermarket is offering a very large range of products at low process.
In phases of the business cycle marked by low consumer confidence, the hypermarkets have sized the occasion to strengthen their prices image.

The price strategy is accompanied by a new system of assisted pricing. The electronic tagging system enables the company to change prices remotely.

It also eases stock management through a rapid indication, at the shelves, of the exact stock level.

Accordingly, it is easier to respond to local competition quickly and flexibility.

This is carried out site by site by monitoring the competition in the surrounding region and within the customer catchment area.

The Carrefour hypermarkets stand out not only for their low prices and the high quality mix, but also for their variety which has been strengthened by the company over the last few years.
The Story of Carrefour

Levi’s Blue Jeans

2009-09-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

Levi’s Blue Jeans
In March 1853, the youngest member of the firm of J. Strauss Brother & Co. of New York City stepped off a steamship and onto one of San Francisco’s many wharves.

He was one of the city’s newest entrepreneurs, the proprietor of the West Coast branch of the family business, but he gave this new enterprise his own name: Levi Straus.
Born in Bavaria in 1829, Levi immigrated to New York with his mother and sisters around 1847.

Brothers Louis and Jonas had a dry goods wholesaling business there and Levi joined the family firm. By the early 1850, the Gold Rush had turned San Francisco into a humming metropolis, and Levi was sent to California to represent J. Strauss Brother & Co. on the West Coast.

His first wholesale warehouse was on the north side of California Street between Sansome and Battery Streets.

On May 1853, the clipper ship Oriental arrived in the city form New York with his first shipment of dry goods and six more ships arrived with merchandise for Levi before the year ended. The firm of “Levi Strauss” soon had retail customers throughout the West.

He did not build his business alone. Around 1856, his sister Fanny her husband David Stern and their son Jacob arrived in San Francisco from New York, and brother Louis joined the firm a year later.

Levi moved his warehouse to a succession of larger quarters and by 1864, he was living with Fanny and David’s growing family.

In 1866, the company moved to spacious headquarters at 14-16 Battery Street, and the corporate name was now “Levi Strauss & Co.”

In January, the wife of a local laborer asked Jacob, a tailor to make a pair of sturdy pants for her husband. Using a heavy white fabric called cotton duck Jacob fashioned the trousers as usual.

He wanted to make the pants last longer, so he used a few metal rivets to fasten the pockets and presented the finished product to his customer, who paid him $3.

Within a few moths, Jacob was making so many pairs he decided to patent the process and look for a business partner to help him mass produce the pants.

Enter Levi Strauss, his fabric supplier, Jacob wrote to Levi sometime in 1872, and in July of that year the two men applied for a patent on the new invention.

Their correspondence was lost in 1906, so it is not known what kind of agreement they forged, but what is known is the important thing: on May 20, 1873, the US patent and Trademark Office granted Levi Strauss & Co. and Jacob Davis patent No. 139, 121 for an “Improvement in Fastening Pocket Opening” on men’s work pants: the first blue jeans.
Levi’s Blue Jeans