From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

The Florenceville plant up and
running in 1957.
North America, then to Europe and the rest of the world. McCain grew along with
them as one of their most important suppliers.
It is fitting that one of the world’s major frozen food companies is based in Canada
because it was the Inuit of Canada’s Far North who invented frozen food. Their
favourite method of freezing a fish was to toss it on the
ice as soon as it was caught. The Inuit knew hundreds
of years ago that a fish frozen quickly in the dead of
winter tasted better when thawed than did a fish frozen
more slowly in the spring or fall, when temperatures
were milder.
When food is frozen slowly, ice crystals form that
damage the food’s cellular structure, thereby also damaging
its colour, texture, and flavour. Quick-frozen
food, on the other hand, is virtually indistinguishable from fresh once it has been
thawed. Clarence Birdseye, of Brooklyn, New York, studied biology and then worked
as a fur trader in northern Labrador, where he figured all this out by observing the
Inuit. Back in the United States, Birdseye invented a “quick freeze machine” and, in
1925, founded Birdseye Seafoods.
The business was not successful because the public, based on previous experience,
disliked frozen food. As well, few grocery stores had freezers, and home refrigerators
lacked freezer compartments. Four years later, Birdseye sold his company to General
Foods, which kept the brand name but split the word in two – “Birds Eye.” Gradually,
the frozen food business picked up and, during the 1950s, it enjoyed explosive growth
as American families, now equipped with modern fridges and home freezers, discovered
the joys of TV dinners and frozen orange juice.
At the age of fifteen, Jack Simplot leased an Idaho potato farm and became one
of the biggest shippers of potatoes in the western United States. The J.R. Simplot
Dehydrating Company perfected a new method of dehydrating potatoes and, during
World War II, became an important food supplier to the U.S. military. After the
war, Simplot decided that frozen foods were the wave of the future. And what better
product to offer than the french fry, which was becoming increasingly popular and
yet was so time-consuming to prepare?
The problem was that raw potatoes that had been cut up and frozen turned to
mush when thawed. Ray Dunlap, a scientist working
for Simplot, solved the problem. He found that precooking
the potato stabilizes it so it can be frozen and
thawed later without breaking down the cellular structure.
It took several years of work, but Dunlap and Ray
Kuenemann, another Simplot food scientist, came
up with a frozen fry as good as a fresh one. In 1953,
Simplot started selling them – just as, on the other side
of the continent, Harrison and Wallace McCain were
looking for a business to start.
While Harrison and Wallace were working for
Irving, their brothers, Andrew and Bob, were operating
McCain Produce, the family produce firm. It raised
cattle and shipped seed potatoes around the world. Like
all growers, the firm wanted more stability in the market
for its products.
It was the search for stability, says Bob’s son Andrew, that piqued his father’s
interest in the frozen vegetable business. Andrew is chairman of McCain Foods
Group Inc., the official name of “Holdco,” the family holding company that owns
the shares of McCain Foods Limited. “My father originated the idea of a frozen
food company,” he says. His father was thinking not just of himself but of the other
farmers in Carleton County who were at the mercy of fluctuating potato prices. If
a factory could be built in the area to process potatoes and other vegetables, the
result would be increased demand for the raw materials and, Bob hoped, more
predictable prices.
Bob and Harrison visited a french fry plant owned by John Baxter in Corinna,
Maine. As Wallace McCain recalls it, Baxter’s advice was “Don’t do it.” The raw material
for processed french fries was better in the west, they were told. Idaho, not New
Brunswick, was the place to be.
But the McCain brothers didn’t have enough money to go into business in Idaho
even if they had wanted to. Anyway, they were set on Florenceville. It was home, it
had plenty of potatoes, and the New Brunswick government was prepared to help
them obtain financing to build a factory that would provide an important new market
for New Brunswick farmers and boost the province’s economy.
Harrison and Wallace each put in $30,000, and their elder brothers, Andrew and
Bob, contributed $20,000 a piece. Harrison and Wallace each owned one-third of the
6 From the Ground up
t he BeG inninG 7
TOP: Bob McCain shows a
visitor Thomas Equipment’s
AirVac harvester, which
separates stones from
potatoes.
BOTTOm: Andrew McCain,
1980.