If the colorful circles on the Wonder Bread packaging always made you think of balloons, there’s a very good reason why.
In 1921, a man named Elmer Cline, who was the vice president of merchandising development for the Taggart Baking Company, was struck with “wonder” at the sight of hundreds of hot air balloons taking to the sky at the International Balloon Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
That same year, the company launched a campaign promising that “Wonder” was coming on May 21st…though it didn’t explain what the product would be. It was Wonder Bread, of course, featuring a logo inspired by those bright balloons. Obviously, Wonder Bread went on to become one of the most iconic brands in history. But it didn’t really start to get super popular until the 1930s, when Wonder Bread became one of the first sliced bread to hit store shelves, as Carolyn Wyman (author of a book about the bread’s history) told Wisconsin Public Radio. Wonder Bread was also the first to introduce the 1.5 pound loaf, as most loaves were just one pound at the time.
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Clearly, that cheerful logo captured the hearts of the American bread-buying public, as did the fact that the bread didn’t dry out on the shelf even though it was pre-sliced. But the brand’s clever marketing strategy was another major contributor to its success, as Sam Dwyer wrote for Cluster Mag.
“The new Taggart bread wouldn’t carry religious or ethnic connotations that could hinder its sales, or even falsely identify itself with the work of Puritan mothers — it was going to be better,” Dwyer explained. “It was going to be from the mechanized world of the future, a utopian world with factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts… and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propellers sound like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds — a vision outlined in Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, published in 1909.”
“The new Wonder Bread didn’t suggest hearth and home,” he continued. “On the contrary, the unnaturally vibrant colors of the logo and visual purity of this new, virgin white, 1.5 pound loaf perfectly evoked the otherworldliness of the enormous manufacturing system that was seen as America’s future.”
Sliced white bread was a huge deal throughout the 1950s and 1960s, with Americans eating an average of a pound and a half of white bread per person, every week, according to Believer. Until the late ’60s, 25 to 30 percent of the average American’s daily calorie intake came from white bread.
Why did people stop buying so much Wonder Bread?
Unfortunately for Wonder Bread, tastes change. Many of the kids who grew up eating the stuff turned into hippies, and the health food movement brought back whole grain bread in a big way. Despite efforts to experiment with new varieties meant to appeal to this demographic over the years, by 2012, things weren’t going very well for Wonder Bread.
At that point, the brand was owned by Hostess, along with a number of other products that weren’t selling as well as before (like Twinkies). After a strike by the Bakery Workers, Hostess filed for bankruptcy and started auctioning off its brands as part of the liquidation process, as CNN reported. In March of 2013, Hostess accepted a bid of $360 million bid from Flowers Foods. Also included in the deal were most other Hostess breads, including Nature’s Pride, Merita, Home Pride and Butternut bread brands, in addition to 20 bakeries.
Wonder Bread might not be the pantry staple it once was, but all these years later, it’s still a classic carb.
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