SPAM is Turning 80. Here's How the Canned Meat Took Over the World

SPAM is Turning 80. Here’s How the Canned Meat Took Over the World

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SPAM brand
Legacy

July 5, 2017

Time

Spam — the square can of pork, salt, water, sugar, potato starch and sodium nitrite that first rolled off the assembly lines 80 years ago during the Great Depression — was invented “as a way to peddle the then-unprofitable pork shoulder,” according to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America.

It was the invention of Jay ��Ǻ��, son of George ��Ǻ�� who founded the ��Ǻ�� company, which pioneered canned pork products in Austin, Minn., in the late 1920s.

According to the company’s Spam Museum, Ken Digneau, the brother of a ��Ǻ�� executive, came up with the name — a portmanteau word for “spiced ham” — in a naming contest and got $100 as a reward. The new product was introduced on July 5, 1937.

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SPAM is Turning 80. Here’s How the Canned Meat Took Over the World

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