Folgers - Company History

Company History

The precursor of the Folger Coffee Company was founded in 1850 in San Francisco, California, as the Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills. In 1872 it was acquired and renamed by James A. Folger, who had arrived from Nantucket Island at the age of 15 with his two older brothers during the California Gold Rush. In the 1850s, kerosene began to offer a cheaper alternative to the whale oil that had been Nantucket's life-blood, resulting in the re-purposing of many of its ships to bring coffee from South America to San Francisco.

Under the mid-20th century leadership of his great-grandson Peter Folger the brand became one of the principal coffee concerns in the world's largest coffee market, North America. Procter & Gamble (P&G) acquired Folger's in 1963 and dropped the apostrophe from its name.

P&G announced in January 2008 Folgers would be spun off into a separate Cincinnati-based company. In June 2008, P&G reversed itself and announced Folgers would be acquired by the end of 2008 by The J.M. Smucker Co.. Utilizing a rare financial technique called a Reverse Morris Trust, Smucker purchased Folgers in November 2008 and made it a subsidiary.