History
The company has its origins with the sons of Austin Hills (1823-1905), who was born in Rockland, Maine, in 1823. Austin Hills' business in California was building clipper ships. His three sons were Austin Herbert Hills (1851-1933), Earnest Hills, and Reuben Wilmarth Hills I (1856-1934), although Earnest was involved in the coffee business for only a short time. The coffee business was founded in San Francisco in 1878.
In 1900, Hills Bros. began packing roast coffee in vacuum sealed cans. They incorporated under the Hills Bros. name in 1906. In 1926 Hills Bros. moved its operations to 2 Harrison Street in San Francisco, a Romanesque revival building on the Embarcadero designed by George W. Kelham that is now a city landmark. The roasting operations once made the surrounding area smell like coffee, according to a Key System "March of Progress" style public service film from 1945 Starting January 2012, the building will become home to Wharton | San Francisco, a satellite of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. A Wharton sign can be currently seen on the Embarcadero side of the building. The Mozilla Corporation also has offices on several floors of the building.
A symbol of an Arab drinking coffee called "the taster" was designed by an artist named Briggs in 1906 but was replaced by a new "taster" to represent the original founders in 1990. In 1976, Hills Brothers hired the Italian-American singer, Sergio Franchi as their TV spokesperson to introduce several lines of specialty flavors. Noted character actor John Zaremba was the primary commercial spokesperson for Hills Brothers in the 1970s and early 1980s, portraying a fictional coffee bean buyer.
During World War II, the company's metal containers were replaced with glass bottles. In 1984 they purchased the name and manufacturing facilities of the Chase & Sanborn Coffee Company.
In 1985 Nestlé bought the brand and sold it to Sara Lee in 1999. Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA purchased the brand in 2005.
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