National Biscuit Company

National Biscuit Company

"In 1890, Chicago lawyer Adolphus W. Green helped to found the American Biscuit Co... 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... 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."