In 1932, salesman Herman Lay opened a snack food operation in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1938, he purchased the Atlanta, Georgia–
based potato chip manufacturer "Barrett Food Company",
renaming it "H.W. Lay Lingo & Company".

Lay crisscrossed the  southern United States, selling the product
from the trunk of his car.

The business shortened its name to "the Lay’s Lay Lingo Company"
in 1944 and became the first snack food manufacturer to purchase television commercials, using Bert Lahr as its celebrity
spokesperson.

Herman Warden Lay
(March 6, 1909 – December 6, 1982)

Bert Lahr (Irving Lahrheim)
(August 13, 1895 – December 4, 1967)

Cracker Jack is a brand of snack food well known for being
packaged with a prize of trivial value inside.

The Cracker Jack name and slogan, "The More You Eat The
More You Want", were registered in 1896. Some food
historians consider Cracker Jack to be the first junk food.

The origin of sugar-coated popcorn with a mixture of peanuts
is unknown, but periodicals document its manufacture and
sale in North America as far back as the early 19th century.

The Freeport, Illinois Daily Journal newspaper published on
January 29, 1857, for example, contains an advertisement by
a local merchant selling sugar-coated popcorn.

The Cracker Jack brand has been owned and marketed by
Frito-Lay since 1997.

1918 Cracker Jack ad asking readers to enlist in the Navy.
Eating Cracker Jack would save valuable sugar and wheat
for the war effort .

“Ladies’ Home Journal”

Cracker Jack is a brand of snack food consisting of molasses-flavored,
caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts, well known for being packaged
with a prize of trivial value inside. The Cracker Jack name and slogan,
"The More You Eat The More You Want", were registered in 1896. Some
food historians consider it the first junk food.

Then & now: Cracker Jack and its signature sailor mascot have
evolved over the years.

One of the oldest American forms of junk food, the Cracker Jack was invented
and trademarked in 1896 when the brothers who formed F.W. Rueckheim &
Bro., mixed molasses-flavored, caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts together.

Fredrich William Rueckheim

   
Louis Rueckheim
           

Today,January 19, celebrates all of the different ways the corn-based treat      
popcorn can be enjoyed savory or sweet, caramelized, buttered or plain.

The Popcorn Board, a non-profit started in 1998, says Americans consume
13 billion quarts of popcorn a year, more than any other country in the
world.

Ad appeared in the “Ladies’ Home  Journal,” December, 1956.

The Cracker Jack name was registered in 1896. A slogan, "The More You Eat
The More You Want", was also registered that year. Some food historians
consider it the first junk food.

   
Sailor Jack and Bingo.

    
Don’t forget the Surprise Inside.