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Margaret Rudkin started with making natural, homemade bread on her family's home, Pepperidge Farms. This bread was only the beginning of an empire of baked products that would be considered one of the largest in its industry.
Margaret Rudkin - Breaking Bread
It was the Irish grandmother of Margaret Rudkin who taught her how to bake in their family kitchen at the age of ten. After she married her husband in 1923, they soon bought a property which they called Pepperidge Farms, in honor of the trees that grew all over the place. During the time of the Great Depression, the Rudkins fell into a stroke of bad luck.
Her husband was having some financial setbacks and was also forced to stay home to recuperate after a polo accident.
During this time, Margaret Rudkin tried to sell off some of their property to make ends meet. At the age of 40, when her son was stricken by asthma, she started baking bread, the same recipe that her grandmother taught her as a child. When her son got better because of the bread, she started selling the stuff in small batches. This soon got the attention of a specialty food store in New York called Charles and Co. Although orders began at only two dozen a day, this soon grew to the thousands!
Sales took off rapidly and thanks to some gushing articles in major publications such as Reader's Digest, her bread was the talk of the town. People flocked to the bakery to get a taste of this wonderful bread that Margaret Rudkin had made. Soon after, this business leader put up her own company and presided over the operations.
Margaret Rudkin even appeared in the television commercials of the company to boost publicity for the products. At its peak, Pepperidge Farms had fifty-eight baked products including cookies, pound cake and even herb-seasoned stuffing. In 1960, the company was eventually sold to the Campbell Soup Co.
It is estimated that seventy million loaves of the well-loved bread were sold. Her company was also revolutionary because she employed women at a time when they were still regarded as 'second-class citizens'.
The Margaret Rudkin Quick Bio Full name: Margaret Rudkin
Birth date: September 14, 1897
Birth place: New York City
Company: Pepperidge Farms
Industry: Food and Tobacco
Key success traits: hardworking, sensible, revolutionary
Additional:
Margaret Rudkin also came out with a Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm cookbook, where she draws on her cooking expertise.
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