Wendy's

Wendy's founder Dave Thomas (July 2, 1932 – January 8, 2002) dropped out of high school but picked up his GED in 1993. His GED class voted him Most Likely to Succeed.

Before he founded Wendy's, Dave Thomas worked for Kentucky Fried Chicken ending up as a Regional Director. He is credited with inventing the famous red and white KFC bucket, and advising Colonel Sanders to appear in his own commercials.

Dave Thomas opened the first Wendy's restaurant on November 15, 1969 in Columbus, Ohio.

Wendy's "old fashioned" burgers were inspired by Thomas's trips to Kewpee Hamburgers in his home town of Kalamazoo, Michigan, which sold square patties.

Wendy's is named after Dave Thomas' daughter, Melinda—she couldn't pronounce Rs and Ls as a kid, calling herself “Wenda.”

Dave Thomas regretted using his daughter's name. Not long before he died he told his daughter: "I should've just named it after myself, because it put a lot of pressure on you."

The first Wendy's franchisee, L.S. Hartzog, signed an agreement for Indianapolis, Indiana in August 1972.

A single Dutch snack restaurant holds the registered name Wendy's since 1988 in the Benelux (Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg) region. This has hindered Wendy's attempts to branch out in Europe, even after Wendy's (US) went to court to try to get the trademark registration dropped.

Wendy's moved its headquarters to Dublin, Ohio, on January 29, 2006.

As of late 2025, Wendy's was the world's third largest hamburger fast food chain with over 7,240 locations, following Burger King and McDonald's.

Of the total of 7,240+ locations, 6,825 restaurants are franchised, and 92% of the system-wide restaurants are located in North America.

There are no Wendy's in Europe due to a local Dutch snackbar owner owning the Wendy's trademark in Europe. Since the year 2000, Wendy's has been embroiled in a legal war with the Dutch Wendy's, attempting to acquire a European trademark. Dutch courts, however, side with Dutch Wendy's every time. 

Dave Thomas insisted his favorite meal was a Wendy's Single with cheese, mustard, pickle and onion, fries, a frosty dairy dessert and a Diet Coke.

Dave Thomas appeared in more than 800 commercial advertisements for the Wendy's chain from 1989 to 2002, more than any other company founder in television history.

As a high-school dropout, Dave Thomas was afraid his success would convince teens to drop out of school, so at age 60, he went back and got his GED.

Clara Peller, a retired manicurist, was hired at age 80 as a temp on a commercial set. Her voice and manner brought an acting contract, and she became rich and famous from Wendy's "Where's the beef" campaign.

Peller lost her job in 1985 after doing a Prego ad in which she "found the beef at somewhere other than Wendy's."

Wendy's burgers are square and not circular because square patties have corners that stick out so that customers can easily see the quality of the meat.

Wendy's Bacon Deluxe 

For dessert, Wendy's serve Frostys, which is actually a mixture of chocolate and vanilla flavors. This was because Dave Thomas thought that 100% chocolate would be too overpowering a flavor when paired with a Wendy's burger and fries meal.

Walmart

Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores.

By Mike Kalasnik from Fort Mill, USA - Wal-Mart Albemarle Rd Charlotte

HISTORY

The history of Walmart began in 1945 when 26-year-old businessman Sam Walton  (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992) purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas with the help of a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law, plus $5,000 he had saved while serving in the Army during World War II.  His primary focus was selling products at low prices to get higher-volume sales at a lower profit margin.

Five years later, Walton purchased a store from Luther E. Harrison in Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened a five and dime store Walton's 5 & 10.

The original Walton's Five and Dime store in Bentonville, By User Bobak 

The first true Walmart opened on July 2, 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas. Called the Wal-Mart Discount City store, it was located at 719 West Walnut Street. It was Walton's assistant, Bob Bogle, who came up with the name "Wal-Mart" for the new chain.

Within five years the Wal-Mart company had grown to 24 stores across the state of Arkansas, and had reached $12.6 million in sales.

In 1968, the Wal-Mart company opened its first stores outside of Arkansas in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.

The company was incorporated as Wal-Mart, Inc. on October 31, 1969

By 1988, Walmart was the most profitable retailer in the United States, and by October 1989, it had become the largest in terms of revenue, though it did not outsell K-Mart and Sears in terms of value of items purchased until late 1990 or early 1991.

Sam Walton was an avid pilot and used his small aluminium plane to scout new store locations and keep tabs on his stores.

Sam Walton was worth around $8.6 billion when he died on April 5, 1992, but still insisted on having $5 haircuts (leaving no tip).

Vermont was the last U.S. state to get a Walmart, holding out until 1996.

FUN WALMART FACTS

There are more than 8,000 Walmart stores around the world, and over 2 million people work for Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart was the largest U.S. grocery retailer in 2019, and 65 percent of Wal-Mart's US$510.329 billion sales came from U.S. operations. The company's revenue today is higher than the GDP of Denmark.

The Walton family of Wal-Mart own more wealth than the combined bottom 40 percent of America.

Wal-Mart makes $500 every second.

For every dollar spent in the U.S., 8 cents are spent at Walmart stores.

90% of Americans live within 15 minutes of a Walmart store.

1 in 100 employed Americans is currently working at Walmart.

Walmart employs more people worldwide than there are people living in New Mexico.

There are no Walmarts in New York City.

In 2012, Walmart held a contest, in which the rapper Pitbull would perform in a Walmart with the most likes on its Facebook page. After the #ExilePitbull Twitter campaign, the shop in the remote island town of Kodiak, Alaska, ended up winning.

One of the reasons Walmart failed to establish itself in Germany is that it required its checkout employees to smile at customers. This was however perceived by most Germans as unnerving, as Germans usually don't smile at strangers.

Wal-Mart has its own ‘radio station’ that plays the same music across every store in the United States, complete with DJs, shoutouts, and the like.

In 2005, movie director Robert Greenwald made a documentary movie called Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. The film presented a negative picture of Wal-Mart's business practices through interviews with former employees, small business owners, and footage of Wal-Mart executives. After this movie was announced, director Ron Galloway made a film that ended up being released at the same time called Why Wal-Mart Works; and Why That Drives Some People C-R-A-Z-Y. This movie had a positive view of Wal-Mart.

Film poster

Shaquille O'Neal holds Walmart's record for the biggest purchase sale in one stop. Shaq spent just over $70,000 on one occasion in 2008.

Police are called to Walmart stores three to four times as often as they are to other big-box retailers like Target. 25% of all arrests in St. Petersburg, Florida and 92% of larceny calls in Granite Falls, North Carolina are attributed to single Walmart locations in each city. 

Johnnie Walker

In 1820 John 'Johnnie' Walker (1805-1857) used part of a legacy to open a grocery, wine and spirits shop in the Scottish town of Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire. He soon made a name for himself by blending whiskies from different distilleries, which tasted better than any of the individual constituents he was using.

When the British Parliament three years later eased the restrictions on licensed distilleries, while at the same time making it harder for the illegal stills to John Walker along with many other Scottish whisky manufacturers found their profits increasing substantially.

Johnnie Walker is now owned by Diageo and sold in almost every country, with annual sales of the equivalent of over 223.7 million 700 ml bottles in 2016 (156.6 million litres).

Until 2013 was the most widely distributed brand of blended Scotch whisky in the world. That year it was overtaken by Officer's Choice commonly known as OC,  an Indian whisky brand. It should be noted most distilled spirits that are labelled as "whisky" in India are actually distilled from fermented molasses with only 10 to 12 per cent consisting of traditional malt whisky,  Outside India, such a drink would more likely be labelled a rum.

Volvo

HISTORY

Volvo was established in 1915 as a subsidiary of SKF, a Swedish ball bearing manufacturer. The name Volvo means "I roll" in Latin, conjugated from "volvere".

The Volvo Group itself considers it started in 1927. The first Volvo car, a Volvo ÖV 4, rolled off the production line at the factory in Hisingen, Gothenburg on April 14, 1927.

OV4 1 Wikipedia

The ÖV 4 was not very successful in the Swedish climate, so the covered version, PV 4, was introduced at the end of 1928. Between 1927 and 1929 a total of 996 cars were manufactured.

The first truck, the "Series 1", debuted in January 1928. It was an immediate success and attracted attention outside Sweden.

In 1959, one of Volvo's engineers, Nils Bohlin, invented the 3-point seat belt. Instead of keeping the design proprietary and profiting from it, Volvo made the unprecedented decision to open the patent (or provide a free license) to all other car manufacturers. The company's reasoning was that the invention was so significant for road safety that it had more value as a life-saving tool than as a source of corporate profit. Volvo's guiding principle is safety, and they prioritized the saving of lives globally over financial gain

It is now a standard safety feature in all cars and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that the seat belt saves about 11,000 lives per year. .

When redesigning its seats in the 1960s, Volvo worked with orthopaedic surgeons to create a design that would reduce driving induced back pain.

Volvo was responsible for the first child-friendly car seat in 1967.

Debuting as Volvo's first widely successful sports car, the P1800 saw nearly 50,000 models roll off the production line before its 1973 finale. The car's fame was fueled by its appearance on the British TV series The Saint, driven by the pre-James Bond Roger Moore. The show aired from 1962 to 1969.

The Saint logo next to P958-X2 at Volvo Museum. By Jarvin 

Volvo renamed their Cream Yellow paint color for their 1995 850 T-5R "Faded Yellow" in Australia. This was because they knew the paint would eventually fade under the Australian sun due to the technology at the time.

In 2004, Volvo created a concept car for women in which the pedals adjusted for high heels and the headrest could accommodate a ponytail.

Ford bought the Volvo car company in 1999. In March 2010, Ford signed a deal to sell Volvo to China's biggest multinational automotive manufacturing company Geely for $1.8 billion.

Today there are two companies: Volvo Cars that produces standard size cars and Volvo Group that produces trucks, boat engines, buses and more.

FUN VOLVO FACTS

It takes and 90 hours to make a Volvo. 700 are produced in Gothenburg every day.

North Korea ordered 1,000 Volvos from Sweden in 1974 and has yet to pay it off, resulting in a debt of 2.2 billion kronor ($322 million). Every six months the company sends an invoice to Pyongyang,

Volvo's crash test cars are subject to the same machinery that tests the structural integrity of buildings during earthquakes.

Irv Gordon, a science teacher from Long Island, drove over three million miles in his Volvo P1800, which he bought in 1966. The former New York school master held a Guinness Book of World Records certification for having registered the greatest number of miles driven by an owner in one car. By the time Gordon died, on November 15, 2018, the car had driven more than 3.2 million miles. 

Irv Gordon's 1800S approaching 3,000,000 miles. By Doug Coldwell

Source Daily Mail

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a German automaker whose headquarters are in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony.

Pixiebay

HISTORY

Austrian Ferdinand Porsche was a well-known designer for high-end vehicles and race cars. In 1934 Adolf Hitler asked his fellow Austrian to dream up a basic vehicle able to transport two adults and three children. The car needed to be able to travel at least 100 km/h, or about 60 mph, and use no more than 7 liters of gasoline for 100 kilometers (about 40 mpg). It would be available to citizens of the Third Reich through a savings plan at 990 Reichsmark ($396 in 1930s U.S. dollars).

Volkswagen ("people's car" in German) was established on May 28, 1937 by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) in Berlin.

The result was the Volkswagen Beetle, which was designed by Ferdinand Porsche and a team of engineers. A handful were made, but by the time the Wolfsburg factory was finished in 1938, World War II was starting and the company concentrated on making military vehicles instead.

Volkswagen was sued by the Czechoslovakian car maker Tatra before World War II because the original Beetle was so similar to the Tatra 97. Porsche was willing to settle but Hitler cancelled their proposals saying he would "would settle the matter." After Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, T97 production was stopped. After the Second World War Tatra resumed its lawsuit. In 1965 Volkswagen settled it by paying Tatra 1,000,000 DM in compensation

During World War II, a bomb landed, but didn't explode, inside the German Volkswagen factory. If it had exploded, the post-war Beetles that we commonly see would have never existed.

Mass production of the Volkswagen Beetle did not actually begin in Germany until after the war in 1945 when the United Kingdom army reopened the Wolfsburg factory.

1949 Volkswagen "split rear window" Sedan

Originally known as the Volkswagen Type 1, the car’s curves and rounded top led to its being nicknamed the 'Bug.' Volkswagen themselves started referring to the car as the VW Beetle in the late 1960s.

Americans shunned the Beetle when it was introduced in the States in 1949: Only two were sold in the first year. But after that, sales grew quickly. After six years of selling cars in the United States, the German automaker founded Volkswagen of America in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in 1955 to standardize its dealer and service network.  By the 1960s, Beetlemania had taken off as hundreds of thousands of Bugs were sold every year, topping out at 570,000 in 1970.

Iin 1963 a VW Beetle donated by the manufacturer became the first car in the Antarctic. It proved so good for Antarctic use, being able to withstand temperatures below -50°C and winds above 150 km/h, that it was nicknamed "Red Terror" by the users.

By February 17, 1972, more than 15 million Volkswagen Beetle cars had been sold exceeding those of the Ford Model-T making it the world's most popular model.

The original Volkswagen Beetle would temporarily float on water because of a sealed steel bottom with nothing exposed beneath it. Volkswagen even created a 1972 TV ad which demonstrated its ability to float.

The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany left Volkswagen 's plant in Emden in 1978. Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.

Volkswagen presented the first-generation Golf in May 1974 as a modern front-wheel-drive, long-range replacement for the Volkswagen Beetle.

Volkswagen Golf 3-door (Europe)By Rudolf Stricker - Own work,

The Volkswagen Golf GTI debuted in 1976 a couple of years after the Golf was launched. With a souped-up engine and go-faster stripes, it became the car of choice for teens, who were soon "pimping" their rides with under-lighting and racing seats. It spawned a generation of imitators, from the Fiat Uno Turbo to the Suzuki Swift Sport.

Historically, the Golf is Volkswagen's best-selling model and is among the world's top three best-selling models, with more than 30 million built by June 2013.

When the small sedan segment started to grow in the United States at the end of the 1970s, Volkswagen realized that the hatchback body style lacked some of the appeal to those who preferred the traditional three-box configuration. Their solution was to borrow the Golf's platform, slap on a trunk, and offer it as both a coupe and a four-door sedan. The result was the 1981 MK1 Jetta, which, like its hatch sibling, was designed by Girogetto Giugiaro.

The classic Volkswagen Beetle was produced in Mexico from 1955 where it was used as a taxi. The last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line in Mexico in 2003. The Mexican government effectively ended the Beetle's production because street gangs would often raid two-door cars as the passenger in the back couldn't escape.

The last original Beetle, #21,529,464 was assembled and immediately retired on July 31, 2003, in Puebla, Mexico, at the Volkswagen de Mexico manufacturing plant. It can now be found at Volkswagen's AutoMuseum.

The Type 1 Beetle was in production between 1938 and 2003, a whopping 65 years, the longest a vehicle has been produced in history. 

In 1998 Volkswagen introduced the "New Beetle", built on the contemporary Golf platform with styling recalling the original Type 1. It was succeeded in 2011 by the Beetle (A5), the last variant of the Beetle. Production ceased altogether by 2019.

In September 2015, Volkswagen admitted to illegally using installed software to change emissions test results for 11 million of its diesel engine cars sold between 2009 and 2015. This resulted in engines passing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards and having vehicles emitting up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides. It also brought into question whether VW diesel engines were actually cleaner for the environment than regular gasoline engines.

FUN VOLKSWAGEN FACTS

Many of Volkswagen's most famous models are named after winds: The Golf refers to the Gulf Stream, Passat means "trade wind," Jetta is German for "jet stream." 

Between 1973 and 1975 Volkswagen produced the Jeans Beetle, which had all-denim trim.

Children's TV presenter Peter Duncan attempted to ‘drive' over the Irish Sea in an amphibious Volkswagen Beetle for his new show Duncan Dares on March 9, 1985, but broke down and was towed to safety.

The record number of people crammed into a 1998 Volkswagen Bug and still able to close all doors is 18. They were college students.

Volkswagen owns Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Skoda, Ducati, MAN, and Scania.

Volkswagen was the world's largest automaker by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017. The group's main market is in China, which delivers 40% of its sales and profits.

Sources, The Independent, Autoguide, MentalFloss

Trademark

A trademark is any name or distinctive device that helps people to identify the products made by a particular business. It can be a design, logo, name, phrase, picture, symbol or word and can only be used on things made by the business that owns the trademark.

Examples of trademarks are Coca-Cola and Coke, which are names for a certain drink made by the Coca-Cola Company and the "swoosh" symbol used by the Nike company on their products. 

Nike swoosh logo

Thirteenth century English bakers were ordered to mark each loaf of bread so that if a faulty one turned up, "it will be knowne in whom the faulte lies." These bakers' marks were one of the first trademarks.

The first U.S. trademark was given in 1870. The recipient was the Averill Chemical Paint Company of New York City. 

The Bass brewery was founded by William Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, England in 1777. In the 19th century the company developed a thriving export trade with its India Pale Ale. The Bass red triangle was the first trademark to be registered in the UK under the Trade Mark Registration Act 1875, which came into effect on January 1, 1876.

Bass red triangle logo

Michael Buffer, the "Let's get ready to rumble" guy, had the phrase trademarked and as of 2009 it had generated $400 million in revenue.

In 1998, Nestlé trademarked the tubular packaging of Smarties. It later sued Masterfoods Denmark which marketed M&Ms in a similar package. The Danish Supreme Court ruled that a basic geometrical shape couldn't be trademarked, and ordered the trademark to be removed.

A business man Moti Shniberg, tried to trademark the term "September 11, 2001."on that very day, as the Twin Towers and Pentagon were still smoldering.

When graffiti artist Banksy sought to trademark his image of a protester throwing flowers in 2020, the trademark office denied it on the grounds of him having no interest in selling his work. In the ruling they used a quote from one of Banksy's books: "copyright is for losers."

The British supermarket chain Iceland has an EU-wide trademark on their name, and take legal action against Icelandic companies that use it. The Icelandic government has applied to have their trademark invalidated, so far without success.

In-N-Out burgers operates occasional pop-up restaurants in Australia for the sole purpose of protecting their trademark there.

Dove soap and Dove chocolate are owned by different companies. Because they're separated as different classes of goods and services, there is no trademark infringement. 

Toyota

While still a department of Toyota Industries, Toyota created its first product, the Type A engine in 1934, and its first passenger car in 1936, the Toyota AA.

Toyota Standard Sedan AA 1936. By BsBsBs

Toyota Motors was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda on August 28, 1937, as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles.

The first vehicles were originally sold under the name "Toyoda"  from the family name of Kiichirō Toyoda. In 1936 the company decided for a new name and held a competition. Toyota was chosen out of the 27,000 entries because the number of strokes to write Toyota in Japanese (eight) was thought to bring luck and prosperity.

The Toyota Land Cruiser originated after the Imperial Japanese Army captured an American Jeep during World War II and ordered Toyota to reverse-engineer it. 

Introduced in 1966, the Toyota Corolla was the first mass-market car to have a radio fitted as standard. 

The Toyota Corolla was also the first Japanese car to threaten the American and European dominance of the industry, thanks to its efficiency. The Corolla was the best-selling motor vehicle worldwide by 1974 and has continued since then to be one of the best-selling cars in the world. 

The first commercial hybrid car, the Toyota Prius, first went on sale in Japan on December 10, 1997 and was launched worldwide three years later. 

The first Prius, model NHW10. By Benespit 

Since becoming fashionable among ecologically aware Hollywood celebrities the Toyota Prius has inspired a legion of impressionable "civilian" consumers to follow suit. Toyota Motor Company announced on March 11, 2009 it had sold over 1 million gas-electric hybrid vehicles in the U.S.

As of January 2017, the Prius liftback is the world's top selling hybrid car with almost 4 million units sold.

A Swiss couple Emil and Liliana Schmid have earned their place in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest driven journey in the same car. As of April 4, 2017 they had driven 741,065 km (460,476 miles) and traveled across 186 countries in the same Toyota Land Cruiser in a journey that started on October 18, 1984 and is still ongoing.

Today the Toyota Motor Corporation produces vehicles under five brands - the Toyota brand, Hino, Lexus, Ranz, and Daihatsu.

Toyota is the largest automobile manufacturer (by production) ahead of the Volkswagen Group and General Motors. In 2012 Toyota became the world's first automobile manufacturer to produce more than 10 million vehicles per year.

In 2017, Toyota's corporate structure consisted of 364,445 employees worldwide and, as of October 2016, it was the fifth-largest company in the world by revenue.

Toyota Motor unseated General Motors as the top-selling automaker in the United States in 2021, becoming the first manufacturer based outside the country to achieve that feat in the industry’s history.

The Toyota Supra which Brian drives at the end of Furious 7 actually belonged to the late actor Paul Walker.

Source The Independent

Taco Bell

Taco Bell is an American fast food restaurant chain that serves Tex-Mex foods.

Taco Bell, Taos New Mexico - 2011. By John Phelan 

Former U.S. marine Glen Bell started his first hot dog stand, called Bell's Drive-In, in San Bernardino in 1948.

Glen Bell funded his hot dog stand by selling his sister's refrigerator for start-up cash.

In late 1951, Bell sold the hot dog stand and built a second stand that sold hot dogs and hamburgers. 

Glen Bell regularly ate at a popular Mexican restaurant across the road. He attempted to reverse-engineer their taco recipe, before eventually persuading the owners to show him how they were prepared. With this knowledge, he started selling in early 1952 tacos at a stand named Taco-Tia from a side window. Priced 19 cents each, it wasn't long, they were outselling the burgers and hot dogs.

Glen Bell

Bell opened his first stand-alone Mexican restaurant on March 21, 1962. A friend convinced him to be a little egotistical and call his restaurant Taco Bell. Bell franchised his restaurant two years later.

Bell's company grew rapidly, and by 1967 the 100th Taco Bell restaurant had opened.

The 868 Taco Bell restaurant chain was sold to PepsiCo in 1978 for $125 million in stock.

In 1996 as an April Fools Day hoax, Taco Bell printed in six major American newspapers that it had bought The Liberty Bell and was renaming it The Taco Liberty Bell. The joke achieved $25 million in free publicity. 

NASA used Taco Bell tortillas for Space Shuttle missions - bread had too many crumbs so they used tortillas instead, and NASA started making space tortillas. Taco Bell made a tortilla in the 90s with a nine month shelf life, so NASA started using those instead.

In March 2012, Taco Bell teamed up with Frito Lay and created the Doritos Locos Tacos, which is a taco with a Dorito Nacho Cheese flavored taco shell. The success of the Doritos Locos Taco allowed Taco Bell to hire 15,000 new employees.

Taco Bell Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos Closeup | by theimpulsivebuy

When Taco Bell attempted to enter Mexico the locals decried the food as inauthentic. When they returned in 2007, Taco Bell promoted itself as selling "authentic American food", but it closed in January 2010 due to lack of interest.

Taco Bell failed to pay the two Michigan men who pitched the idea of the Taco Bell Chihuahua mascot, and later were court-ordered to pay back  $42.1 million dollars.

As of 2018, Taco Bell serves more than 2 billion customers each year at 7,000 restaurants, more than 80 percent of which are owned and operated by independent franchisees and licensees. 

Taco Bell provides tortillas for NASA to use in lieu of bread, which cause problems due to crumbs getting caught in instruments. The Taco Bell tortillas are ideal due to their long shelf life.

Tabasco sauce

Shortly after Edmund McIlhenny returned to Avery Island, Louisiana, from self-imposed exile during the Civil War, he obtained some hot pepper seeds from a traveler who had recently arrived in the US state from Central America. McIlhenny planted them on Avery Island, and then experimented with pepper sauces until he hit upon one he liked. 

In 1870, two years after he begun selling his creation, Edmund McIlhenny received a patent for his singular formula for processing peppers into a fiery red sauce. He created a brand name "Tabasco" for this new product. The name comes from the Mexican state of Tabasco. 

When Tabasco Sauce first hit the shelves in 1868, the price, when adjusted for inflation, of a single bottle was a massive $17.

A Tabasco advertisement from ca. 1905

Tabasco made its first mass appearance on the battlefield during the Vietnam War. Thousands of bottles were shipped to American troops who appreciated the taste of home. It  was introduced by McIlhenny’s great-grandson Walter, who'd become CEO of the family business in 1949. Walter Mcilhenny was a former general in the military during World War II.

A green sauce — made with a jalapeño pepper base — was the first new flavor. It debuted in 1993. 

Other Tabesco sauce flavors that are now manufactured include chipotle-based smoked, habanero, garlic, "sweet and spicy", and "Buffalo style" sauces. The habanero, chipotle, and garlic sauces include the tabasco peppers blended with other peppers, whereas the jalapeño variety does not include tabasco peppers. 

A few of the varieties of Tabasco sauce. The original on the far right. By DJM 

None of the new Tabesco sauces has the three-year aging process the flagship product uses.
Today, Tabasco brand pepper sauce is distributed in more than 185 countries. Labels are printed in 22 different languages and dialects.

The flagship Tabasco product has, and has always had, just three ingredients — Tabasco peppers, salt and high quality vinegar. The recipe hasn't changed since the sauce was manufactured in 1868.

The Tabasco bottle is still modeled after the cologne-style bottles used for the first batch of sauce in 1868. 

Every bottle of Tabasco starts its journey on Avery Island, an island that's about two-hours west of New Orleans. It is manufactured in one factory on Avery Island that has been owned by the McIlhenny family since 1869.

In 2005, Avery Island was hit hard by Hurricane Rita. As a result, the McIlhenny family constructed a 17-foot (5.2 m)-high levee around the low side of the factory and invested in back-up generators.

Originally all peppers used in Tabasco sauce were grown on Avery Island. Today peppers grown on the island are used to produce seed stock, which is then shipped to foreign growers primarily in Central and South America.

All peppers used in Tabasco sauce are picked by hand. The pepper pickers compare the color of the peppers to a small red stick; if the colors match, the peppers are ripe and will be used in the sauce production process.

Tabasco sauce is aged in barrels previously used for Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey.

Tabasco pepper mash aging in barrels on Avery Island, By Skb8721

Tabasco is the official hot sauce supplier to the British royal household. It's also served aboard Air Force One.

Saddam Hussein once pranked his guests by adding Tabasco to koftas he'd cooked for them. Some of the panicked guests initially fearing that the paranoid dictator had poisoned them.

The aliens on the show Roswell put Tabasco sauce on everything, but the actors actually used V8 Berry Splash to protect their mouths.

Sources Food For Thought by Ed Pearce, Today

Subway (fast food restaurant)

In 1965, Fred DeLuca borrowed $1,000 from friend Dr. Peter Buck to start "Pete's Super Submarines" in Bridgeport, Connecticut. 

DeLuca's dream was to become a medical doctor and Buck suggested he open a submarine sandwich shop to help pay for his education.

The founder of Subway, Fred De Luca. By Subway - mynewsdesk

Dr. Peter Buck offered to become Fred’s partner, and their first Pete's Super Submarines" shop was opened on August 28, 1965. 

As Pete's Submarines sounded like Pizza Marines they renamed their shop "Pete's Subway." Eventually in 1968, it was shortened to simply "Subway" as it is known today.

DeLuca and Buck had set a goal of having 32 stores opened in 10 years and by 1974, the pair owned and operated 16 submarine sandwich shops throughout Connecticut. However, realizing they would not reach their 32 store goal in time, DeLuca and Buck began franchising, launching the Subway brand.

The first Subway on the West Coast was opened in Fresno, California, in 1978.

The first Subway outside of North America opened in Bahrain in December 1984.

The first Subway in the United Kingdom was opened in Brighton in 1996.

In 2004, Subway began opening stores in Walmart supercenters and within three years had surpassed the number of McDonald's locations inside U.S. Walmart stores.

A Subway in a Walmart Location.

Today, there are more than 44,000 Subway locations in 112 countries across the world, making it the world's largest fast food restaurant chain by number of stores.

Subway serves about 5,300 sandwiches every 60 seconds, which means roughly 320,000 sandwiches are served every hour.

A Subway restaurant in Dawson, Texas.

There are 12 different breads, 7 different meats, 5 different cheeses, and a variety of vegetables and sauces to choose from. In total there are about 37 million sandwich combinations available on the Subway menu. 

Subway uses 16 acres of lettuce a day. 

Translated into Mandarin Chinese, Subway means "taste better than others."

Source Huffington Post

Starbucks

HISTORY 

The very first Starbucks café opened at 2000 Western Avenue Seattle, Washington on March 30, 1971. Its founders Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker were friends from the University of San Francisco.

Starbucks is named after Starbuck, the chief mate in Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick.

Starbucks' original name was going to be Pequod after a whaling ship from Moby-Dick.

The first Starbucks cafe moved to 1912 Pike Place, Seattle in 1976; never to be relocated again.

The Starbucks store at 1912 Pike Place. By Diego Delso

By 1986, the Starbucks company operated six stores in Seattle.

In 1987, Baldwin, Siegl and Bowker sold the Starbucks chain to former manager Howard Schultz, who rebranded his Il Giornale coffee outlets as Starbucks and quickly began to expand.

Later in 1987, Starbucks opened its first locations outside Seattle at Waterfront Station in Vancouver, and also in Chicago.

At the time of its initial public offering (IPO) on the stock market in June 1992, Starbucks had 140 outlets.

The first Starbucks location outside North America opened in the Ginza area of Tokyo, Japan in 1996.

Starbucks entered the Australian market in 2000 with high hopes, but the company quickly realized that it had made a number of mistakes. First, Starbucks failed to understand the Australian coffee culture. Australians are known for being discerning coffee drinkers, and they were not impressed by Starbucks' sugary coffee drinks. Second, Starbucks overpriced its products. Australians are used to paying less for coffee, and they were not willing to pay a premium for Starbucks' coffee. Third, Starbucks expanded too quickly. By 2008, Starbucks was losing millions of dollars in Australia. The company closed 61 of its 87 stores, and it has been struggling to regain a foothold in the market ever since.

As of November 3, 2023, the Starbucks company operates 35,704 locations worldwide. Starbucks is now the largest coffeehouse company in the world, and it has a presence in over 80 countries.

FUN STARBUCKS FACTS 

The company's headquarters is located in Seattle, Washington, where 3,501 people worked as of January 2015.

Starbucks Center in Seattle . Photographed by user Coolcaesar

There are over 87,000 different drink combinations at Starbucks.

If you order a Starbucks Grande Coffee, you are drinking over 320 milligrams of caffeine. That is four times more than inside a Red-Bull.

Starbucks uses round tables to make solo coffee drinkers feel less alone.

Starbucks

The first non-coffee product sold at Starbucks was the game Cranium.

Starbucks pays more for employee health insurance than it pays for coffee.

Starbucks employees are asked not to wear perfume or cologne so that customers can smell the coffee brewing.

One in five of Starbucks customers visit the store at least 16 times a month.

Every scene of the film Fight Club has a Starbucks coffee cup hidden in it somewhere.

The character in the Starbucks logo is actually a twin tailed siren, a mythical creature that lured sailors in order to attack and devour them.

Starbucks has a different logo for Saudi Arabia because the normal logo showed too much female flesh.

Pixiebay

The highest elevation Starbucks is in Breckenridge, Colorado at 9,600 feet.

At the Starbucks located inside of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, customer names cannot be called out or written on cups due to security concerns.There are also no frequent-customer award cards.

Mike Doughty wrote the majority of his "Busting Up a Starbucks" song after he saw a picture of a man kicking the window of a Starbucks location in Seattle, during the 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference protests.

Even Taylor Swift's mom thought the "Got a long list of ex-lovers" lyric from "Blank Space" was "All the lonely Starbucks lovers."

There are stealth Starbucks locations, which are operated by the coffee giant, but do not advertise the Starbucks brand like 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea in Seattle or the second floor of Macy's in New York City. They serve as a "laboratory" to conduct market research on how customers react to new drinks.

Spam (food)

George A Hormel first set up a butcher’s shop in Austin, Minnesota on May 16, 1891. His business developed into the Hormel Foods Corporation.

The American Hormel Foods Corporation started marketing their most famous product Hormel Spiced Ham, made from pork shoulder meat and ham, on July 5, 1937. At first it didn't stand out from other brands, so Jay C Hormel asked his New Year's Eve party guests to help and a Kenneth Daigneau came up with the succinct "spam."

The Hormel Foods Corporation once said that it means "Shoulder of Pork and Ham", but in some dictionaries "Spam" stands for "SPiced hAM".

By Qwertyxp2000 - Own work

Spam was used a lot in World War II, as meat was scare and it became a ubiquitous part of the U.S. soldier's diet. Over 150 million pounds of Spam were purchased by the military before the war's end.

In World War II, some soldiers used Spam to lubricate their guns or waterproof their boots.

The last U.S. Marine killed during World War II was a prisoner of war in Japan. He died when rescue flights dropped food and supplies, and a package came open during descent, its contents fell out, and he was killed by a can of Spam that hit him in the head.

Shortly after the Korean War, there were few refrigerators or protein-dense foods in South Korea. Koreans would barter with American troops for Spam. As South Korea continued to develop, Spam turned into a staple food and it is often a common gift given during Korean Thanksgiving.

The American Hormel Foods Corporation sued Jim Henson Productions for using the name "Spa'am" for one of Miss Piggy's tribal guards in the Muppet Treasure Island movie. A judge dismissed the trademark infringement suit, and noted that "one might think Hormel would welcome the association with a genuine source of pork."

The billionth can of Spam was sold in 1959, the seven billionth can in 2007 and the eight billionth can five years later.

There are only seven ingredients in the classic Spam: pork, ham, salt, water, sugar, sodium nitrite and potato starch. There are numerous other Spam products bfeaturing different flavors and ingredients.

A popular native sushi dish in Hawaii is Spam musubi, where cooked Spam is placed atop rice and wrapped in a band of nori, It is eaten there both as a snack and a lunch dish.

Spam musubi by Janine from Mililani, Hawaii, United States 

The people of Hawaii consume more Spam per capita than any other US state. Residents eat on average five cans per person per year—about 7 million cans in total.

More Spam is eaten on the island of Guam than anywhere else. The average per capita consumption there is 16 tins per year.

Competitive eater Richard LeFevre holds the world record for eating six pounds of Spam direct from the can downing it in 12 minutes.

The Spam Museum at Austin, Minnesota first opened in September 2001. The museum tells the history of the Hormel company, the origin of Spam, and its place in world culture. Volunteer guides - known as Spambassadors - offer visitors small bits of Spam on a toothpick or pretzel stick, commonly known as Spamples.

Can Central Exhibit at the Spam Museum. By Darb02.

The term spam for unsolicited emails comes from the 1970 Monty Python sketch set in a cafe (see below) where nearly every item on the menu includes the canned pre-cooked meat.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce