In 1890, Chicago lawyer Adolphus W. Green helped to found the American Biscuit Co., a large food company that took control of 40 bakeries around the Midwest. American Biscuit set up its headquarters in Chicago, where it owned three large bakeries on the city's West Side. In 1898, American Biscuit became part of the new National Biscuit Co., a 114-bakery cracker-making giant that also included the old operations of the New York Biscuit Co. National Biscuit dominated the American market for mass-produced cookies and crackers. During the first eight years of its existence, when annual sales were about $40 million, the company was based in Chicago; in 1906, the corporate headquarters was moved to New York. By 1910, National Biscuit employed nearly 1,300 men and women at its bakeries in Chicago, one of which was built especially to produce the company's popular “Uneeda” brand. By the late 1950s, when annual sales passed $400 million, National Biscuit (also known as Nabisco) still had over 1,000 workers in the Chicago area. In 1985, Nabisco was purchased by tobacco giant R. J. Reynolds but continued to operate out of the Chicago area. After 15 years of solid growth, Nabisco was purchased by another major American tobacco company, Phillip Morris (renamed Altria Group Inc. in 2003), for $19 billion. The Nabisco product line would soon fall under the operations of another Phillip Morris subsidiary, Kraft Foods of suburban Northfield. See Kraft Inc.

This entry is part of the Encyclopedia's Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000) that was prepared by Mark R. Wilson, with additional contributions from Stephen R. Porter and Janice L. Reiff.