| Hunt's is the name of a brand of preserved tomato products owned by ConAgra Foods, Inc. The company was founded in 1888, in Sebastopol, California, as the Hunt Bros. Fruit Packing Co. by Joseph and William Hunt. The brothers relocated to nearby Santa Rosa in 1890, and then to Hayward in 1895. This small canning operation grew rapidly, focused on canning the products of California's booming fruit and vegetable industries. In 1943, Hunt's was taken over by Norton Simon's Val Vita Food Products - a competing firm founded in the early 1930s. The merged firm kept the Hunt's name and incorporated as Hunt Foods, Inc. The new management decided to focus the company on canned tomato products, particularly prepared tomato sauce. Hunt's barbecue sauce Hunt's later merged with Wesson (producer of cooking oil) to form Hunt-Wesson Foods, which later merged with Beatrice Foods. The brand was sold to ConAgra along with many other former Beatrice brands in 1990. Besides canned tomato sauce, the Hunt's brand appears on tomato paste, diced, whole, stewed, and crushed tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, ketchup, barbecue sauce, and their Family Favorites line of canned recipe helpers. It also is the brand name appearing on ConAgra's Manwich brand sloppy joes products as well as Hunt's Snack Pack Pudding. |
