A HISTORICAL LOOK AT ARIZONA’S FOOD INDUSTRY
By Jo-an Holstein and Debbie Roth
Looking back over time, Arizona’s food industry is much like a rich, vibrant, irreplaceable tapestry. Chain and independent retailers of all types and sizes along with vendors, manufacturers, organizations, events and social changes have been tightly woven together – each influencing and melding with the other.
The result is an amazing design. A depiction of an industry, and the state trade association that serves it – the Arizona Food Marketing Alliance (AFMA.) Both are like no others. To trace this unique industry and association’s beginnings, start by following the tracks
--- the railroad tracks.
The Early Days
As the mighty “Iron Horse” thundered west during the frontier days of the late 1880s, small territorial towns sprang up. The miners and pioneers who called these dusty communities home were served by general stores and trading posts – the seeds from which today’s food industry has grown.
A.J. Bayless (center) grins in his trademark
derby with two industry sidekicks.
These early-day Arizona residents also were served by determined businesses that would become industry legends. Consider Edward Eisele, an immigrant from Bavaria who purchased a Phoenix bakery now led by his grandson and namesake and known as Holsum Bakery – the very bakery that was the first to use a horse-drawn bakery wagon in 1894 and an auto for delivery in 1910. Another example is Shamrock Foods, launched in Tucson in 1922 by W.T. McClelland, who immigrated from Ireland and started the family business with a Model T truck and a couple of cows.
Just a few years earlier, in 1917, legendary J.B. Bayless had moved to the state, bringing his experience with food stores in Tennessee and Washington with him. During the following years, Bayless built a
Arizona’s oldest national chain, Safeway
is shown in one of its earlier days.
successful local chain of 18 stores that was eventually bought out by Mac Marr in 1929. A provision of the buy-out, wrote the late Gene Parker in memoirs dated August 1987, was that J.B. would not compete with them for a set number of years. A year after the buyout, his son, A.J., bought Butcher’s stores and started his own chain.
Read More about the History of Arizona's Food Industry in this PDF taken from the anniversary issue of the Arizona Food Industy Journal.120 E. Pierce Street, Phoenix, AZ 85004
602-252-9761