Our Sweet Beginnings
Sara Lee was 8 years old when Charlie Lubin, a bakery entrepreneur, decided to name his new line of cheesecakes after his daughter, Sara Lee. His company was purchased in 1956 by Consolidated Foods, where Mr. Lubin continued to serve as a senior executive for many years. In 1985, Consolidated Foods changed its name to Sara Lee Corporation. Over the years, Sara Lee has appeared in various television advertisements for our bakery products. In her words, her father told her the product “had to be perfect because he was naming it after me.”
Sara Lee® Through The Years
1935:
Sara Lee's founder, Charles Lubin, at the age of 32, and his brother-in-law, bought a small chain of neighborhood bakeries called Community Bake Shops. Working together, the business grew in popularity and success and the original three stores increased to seven.
1949:
Charlie had strong entrepreneurial desires, so he parted ways with his brother-in-law. He named his first product, a cream cheesecake, after his then eight year old daughter and changed the name of the business to Kitchens of Sara Lee. At this point, the bakery had "fresh" routes throughout the Chicago area.
1951:
Charlie was always working on new products to market. Since he was a man who took great pride in the quality and taste of his products, it wasn't until 1951 that the soon-to-be famous All Butter Pound Cake was introduced.
1952:
A buyer from Texas, on a visit to Chicago, was so impressed with the Sara Lee products that he asked Charlie to ship them to him in Texas. Lubin knew he couldn't ship fresh product that far and his fresh product didn't freeze well.
1953:
Charlie perfected a reformulated frozen line of products, which met his extremely high standards for taste and quality. By 1953, Sara Lee led the food industry by developing a process for freezing baked goods that retained product quality while offering mass distribution capabilities. This same year, he designed foil baking pans. Using this type of packaging to bake, freeze, and distribute the product to consumers in the same pan, both reduced production costs and costs to the customers. This was a revolution in the food industry. The concept of being able to do all of this in one pan was one of our earliest "firsts".
1954:
Lubin franchised fresh routes to a 300-mile radius of Chicago. The demand for Sara Lee products was increasing and the ability to ship frozen was about to make its mark. One year later, Kitchens of Sara Lee expanded its delivery to 48 US states.
1956:
As the Sara Lee name grew, other corporations were taking interest in frozen products. Kitchens of Sara Lee was becoming so well known that Consolidated Foods Corporation acquired it in 1956 and Charlie continued on as the Chief Executive Officer. This same year, another company, destined to become a major part of Sara Lee, opened its doors. Chef Pierre, Inc., founded by Peter C. Dendrinos in Muskegon, Michigan, was the makers of high-quality frozen pies.