Borden Brand Marks 150th Anniversary

For more information contact:
Kris Brill
314-780-1332
krbrill@swbell.net

Maureen Blazevic
314-997-1435
mblaze1672@aol.com

Borden Brand Marks 150th Anniversary with Events at the Nation’s Top History Museums Held during National Dairy Month
Elsie, America’s Favorite Bovine, Leads the Way

Kansas City, MO (May 2007) - Borden®, a brand that Americans have long associated with freshness, wholesomeness and a cow named Elsie, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year with events that commemorate the heritage of the brand and shine a light on hard-working dairy farmers and their families.

“It’s American farmers who back Borden brand dairy products, and it’s the families who embrace those products that have made Borden a highly recognized brand through the years,” said Mark Korsmeyer, president of American Dairy Brands, a division of Dairy Farmers of America which markets Borden cheese and butter products. “So we’re putting both of them in the spotlight, along with America’s favorite spokescow, Elsie.”

The Borden 150th Anniversary campaign features:Donation ceremonies at two of the nation’s top history museums during National Dairy Month in June.  After combing the country for Borden artifacts, everything from an original milkman uniform, to 50 years worth of “Borden Boys” yearbooks, to an original Gail Borden scrapbook has surfaced.

• The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History: On Tuesday, June 5, the National Museum of American History will formally accept materials related to the “Borden Boys,” the young agriculture and dairy college students recruited to handle the cows at the Borden Company’s pavilion during the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The items will be added to the museum’s Archives Center and will supplement its existing collections related to the 1939 World’s Fair. A sampling of the materials, including photographs, will go on temporary display in the museum’s “Treasures of American History” exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum beginning July 3.
• The New York Historical Society:  On Thursday, June 7 a Gail Borden scrapbook and a tin-type photo of Gail Borden will be donated to the New York Historical Society to add to its collection of Borden items.

A fresh and engaging dairy farmer-focused message noting that “Borden Cheese & Butter Proceeds go to Dairy Farmers.” The message is incorporated into dairy farmer-focused imagery on Borden cheese and butter packaging, in print advertising and highlighted on Borden Cheese’s website (www.elsie.com). The dairy farmer-focused imagery and messaging help convey to consumers that proceeds from the sale of Borden cheese and butter go to hard-working dairy farmers and their families. This message drives home a key point of difference offered by Borden cheese and butter and gives consumers a compelling reason to select Borden cheese and butter products over other brands. The Borden cheese and butter brand is licensed by Dairy Farmers of America, Inc (DFA). DFA is a cooperative consisting of nearly 22,000 dairy farmers who take pride in bringing the best the dairy farm has to offer.

How Borden Became a Household Name
The centerpiece of the 150th anniversary campaign will be the Borden Brand’s storied history and how Americans came to identify Borden dairy products with all that is fresh, wholesome and good.

In fact, it wasn’t until founder Gail Borden came along that Americans began to associate dairy foods with healthy eating. In the days before the Civil War, milk products were subject to spoilage and dairy farming was frequently a haphazard enterprise when it came to sanitation. Many Americans fell ill because of bacteria that crept into their dairy products.

A native Texan, Borden was a bit of a renaissance man. He had been a publisher, a cattleman, a surveyor, a civil servant, a politician and a missionary before getting involved in the dairy business. In 1853, Borden began working on a process to condense milk as a means of preventing spoilage. Four years later, he established his first condensery in Burrville, Connecticut and called his nascent business the New York Condensed Milk Company, later to become the Borden Company. More factories were built in Connecticut, New York and Maine, and the business really took off with the Civil War when the Union Army called on Borden to supply condensed milk in huge quantities. Borden’s business made him a wealthy man and admired as well. For the first time, consumers could reliably count on his products to remain free of bacteria and so Borden’s name became synonymous with quality and wholesomeness.

Borden maintained that reputation by dealing only with farmers who kept their barns and cattle clean. He established the “Dairyman’s Ten Commandments” which even today are the basis of many health department regulations. Borden became known as “milkman to the nation.”

Building the Brand
Borden’s sons, John Gail and Henry Lee Borden, were pioneers in their own right establishing Borden also as a purveyor of fluid milk products in New York City in 1875, and a decade later selling sanitary milk in bottles. The business expanded to New York state and then to Illinois and grew rapidly as the nation witnessed the Great Depression, World War II, the birth of Rock and Roll and the space age.

Elsie was born in the 1930s. She first appeared as one of many cartoon cows extolling the virtues of milk in medical journals. Doctors were so charmed that they asked Borden to send reprints that they could hang on their walls.

Borden introduced a real cow to represent the already famous character at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Elsie’s “hayday” was probably in the 1940s when a study showed that more people recognized Elsie than President Harry Truman.

In 2000 Advertising Age recognized Elsie as one of the top 10 advertising icons of all time.  In 2007 she’s looking forward to helping the brand celebrate its 150th anniversary.

The Story of the Original “Borden Boys”
The Borden Boys were young agriculture and dairy college students recruited to handle the cows at the Borden Company pavilion during the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The visitors of the exhibit so loved Elsie, the icon, that they demanded to meet the “real Elsie.” Jim Cavanaugh, today one of only nine surviving Borden Boys, helped select the first “real Elsie” during the Fair. At 90 years of age, he is truly an Elsie historian and maintains personal contact with the Borden Boys (originally about 60) to this day. The close-knit group has produced four yearbooks detailing their World’s Fair experiences and their personal lives after the Fair.  Three of the original Borden Boys, Jim Cavanaugh, Chester Steen and Dr. Herbert Petree, will attend the Smithsonian donation ceremony.  

Recent Borden History 
In 1997, a farm cooperative, Mid-America Dairymen Inc., purchased Borden-Meadow Gold, Dairies, Inc. Mid-America later merged with other cooperatives to form the 22,000-member Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) (www.dfamilk.com).  DFA is America’s milk marketing cooperative, created by and for dairy products.  It is the nation’s largest producer-owned dairy marketing cooperative and food company, representing nearly a third of the nation’s total supply of fresh milk.

Borden® Cheese and Elsie are now marketed through DFA. Borden Brand Cheese products include individually-wrapped cheese slices, natural and processed shredded cheese, natural chunk cheese, snack and string cheese and natural cheese slices. Borden Cheese products are available nationwide at major grocery and mass merchandise stores.