[Interstate Brands Corporation, 1970s]

[Music] Can a corporation which employs an amateur psychiatrist, a toy piano player, a blockhead, a thumb sucker, and a dog to sell its products find happiness? iness and success in today's markets. Can this strange array of juveniles increase corporate sales from $167 million to $277 million in just 6 years while setting new highs each year, too? The answer is yes. If the salesman of the Peanuts characters named Charlie Brown, Lucy, Schroeder, Lionus, Snoopy, and the name of the company is Interstate Brands Corporation. With headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, Interstate Brands is one of the top four wholesale baking companies in the nation and one of the most successful. Interstate ranks among the top 30 producer distributors of quality food products in the nation. Serving well over a 100,000 food outlets with distribution in all 50 states. The company is the sales leader or a leading brand in every market it serves. Interstate products are sold in nearly every major regional or national grocery chain. IBC is a member of Fortune's 500 leading industrial companies and is listed on both the New York and Pacific Coast Stock Exchanges with the ticker symbol IBC. The company's bread and cake products are produced in 36 plants at strategic locations across the country. Breads are marketed under a variety of labels. Butternut in the Midwest, Mrs. Carl's in Wisconsin, Milbrook in the East, Harts in the middle south, Sweetheart in the Northern Plains area, and Webers, Blue Seal, and Foress, an institutional brand on the West Coast. IBC is also one of the nation's largest producers of specialty breads, upside down, Roman meal, Hollywood, and oldworld varieties. Cake products are distributed nationally under the Dolly Madison label, augmented by the Blue Ribbon Cake line in New England. IBC sold more than a quarter of a billion dollars of these products in 1971. Distribution is channeled through more than 380 depots served by a large fleet of over the road transports. Stores are served daily by employee sales drivers who operate a fleet of over 4,000 company-owned delivery trucks. Employees total about 12,000. In 1969, after more than 50 years, the company, which is incorporated in Delaware, changed its name from Interstate Bakeries to Interstate Brands Corporation, adopting a new corporate emblem to reflect a bolder, more contemporary look and to project IBC's confident thrust toward expansion into new directions. First in IBC's diversification program was the acquisition of the Baker Canning Company, a Wisconsin subsidiary which processes highquality corn, peas, and beans primarily for institutional trade. Baker operates three caneries, six warehouses, and has about 10,000 acres under contract or lease. Sales are about $4 million annually. Interstate Brands takes pride in its significant growth in the highly competitive wholesale baking field. IBC sales have established record highs for 10 consecutive years. In 1971, Interstate posted revenues of over $277 million, representing an increase of 8 and 8/10% over the previous year. In 1971, under complex economic conditions, the company was able to achieve record net earnings of $5.1 million or $2.20 per share on average shares outstanding, compared with $21 per share in 1970. This reflects an improvement of 9.8% on net earnings. Of the 5 million common shares authorized, approximately 2.3 million are issued. During 1971, common shareholders equity increased from 44.7 million to 47.9 million and return on equity for last year amounted to 10.610% continuing a 10-year average. 1971 marked the completion of the 24th year in which Interstate has paid quarterly cash dividends without interruption or decrease. In May of last year, the common stock dividend was increased 6.7% from 90 cents to 96 cents per share annualized. Working capital increased from $10.2 million to 12.9 million in 1971. A strong believer in building for the future, Interstate has experienced a continuing program of physical growth and capital improvements. 1971 capital expenditures for fleet replacement, modernizations, and plant expansions amounted to $10.3 million with slightly more authorized for 1972. During this past year, the company opened its new $9 million Dolly Madison cake plant. largest of its kind in the nation at Columbus, Georgia, designed to serve the entire Southeast. In September, the company purchased the Michigan Bakery's bread plant at Grand Rapids, Michigan to replace its much older plant in the same city. In Glendale, California, construction began in February on the $3.5 million addition to Weber's Bakery, which when completed in early 1973, will be one of the nation's most modern high-speed bread production lines. The company is continuing a program of closing older and less efficient plants and consolidating production in more efficient bakeries without losing market distribution. Efficiency of production is a prime corporate objective. Its advertising and marketing expertise has kept IBC a frontr runner in the marketplace. The company through a special long-term contract with United Feature Syndicate extending through 1985 is licensed to use Stupie and his Peanuts friends in the marketing and advertising of all food products. This powerful advertising vehicle presently is employed to promote both bread and cake. The company also has a companion contract for the production and nationwide telecasting of the highly rated Charlie Brown series of TV specials. For your enjoyment and so you can see how the Peanuts Gang works so effectively for us, we thought you might like to watch a few examples of our commercials. Charlie Brown. Oh, Charlie Brown. I just want you to know how much I like the princess sandwiches. Huh? [Music] Prince of sandwiches. Say, do you suppose he knows the Duke of Bologna? >> Fresh hail and hearty Weber's bread. by special appointment to the prince of sandwiches. >> Hi. >> What are you doing? >> Walking. >> No, no. What are you eating? >> Cuckoo. >> What are cuckoo? >> They're chocolate cupcakes. Dolly Madison makes them. >> They sure look good. >> Yeah, they got a lot of creamy stuff in the middle. >> Can I see them? >> Sure. Cuckoo have lots of chocolate frosting and you get two of them. Say, want a trade? >> Well, >> I have this ring. >> I don't know. >> Ah, come on. >> Okay, >> G. Thanks. They sure look good. >> Yeah, and you razies with raspberry coconut frosting and Google's vanilla frosting. Well, see you around. >> Rzzies and Googles. Is that a real genie? >> Oh no. What I need is some extra energy to pitch those fast balls. The prince of sandwiches. Well, maybe a noble sandwich made with fresh hail and hearty butternut bread would help. Thank you. I ought to be able to put some zing on the old ball now. I should have asked for a triple decker >> butternut bread. Always fresh, hail, and hearty. Life ain't easy. It's hard to make it through without getting zapped. And some of us seem to get zapped a heck of a lot more than others. But luckily, there are little things that help us get through the zaps. like these zingers, zingy little finger cakes from Dolly Madison, vanilla zingers for the plain vanilla zaps and chocolate frosted chocolate zingers for the double chocolate super zaps. [Applause] All Zingers have a very delicious creamy filling inside and are now enriched with vitamins and iron. So don't let the zaps get you down. Snap back with Zingers. The cakes with Charlie Brown and Lucy on them. Three in every pack. Zingers. They're good. For what zaps you while the growth of the wholesale baking industry has been steady rather than spectacular, an agricultural industry source book estimates the 1971 value in shipments of bakery products to be $7.4 $4 billion, up 3% over 1970. In 1971, interstate brands performed nearly three times better than the industry average. Recent trends signal outstanding growth opportunities in certain product areas such as snack foods. the lunch cakes, pies, hamburger, and hot dog buns, which IBC produces and is well equipped to expand to meet future demands. IBC's newly enlarged research laboratory and staff offer accelerating opportunities for new product development and creativity. One of IBC's newest products is a Super Zinger. These vanilla or chocolate cream fil snack cakes come individually wrapped in a newly designed family pack. In West Coast and Midwest markets where they have been introduced, consumer acceptance has been enthusiastic. While Interstate Brands Corporation, a growth company, is not restricted to the wholesale baking field for its future development, it does have a commitment to its basic business and its continued progress. A progress which through the years has earned it recognition as one of the outstanding performers not only in the baking industry but within the entire food field. Interstate's commitment to excellence. Excellence in people, excellence in products, excellence in service should keep the company on its profitable course. Its strong and capable management team gives promise of an even more viable role for IBC in the future. [Music]