James L. Kraft

James Lewis Kraft (December 11, 1874 – February 16, 1953) was a Canadian-American entrepreneur and inventor. He founded the wholesale cheese distribution business that grew into Kraft Foods Inc., a major multinational food and beverage conglomerate, and patented a pasteurization process for cheese that allowed it to be shipped long distances without refrigeration, making him among the first to patent a processed cheese.

Kraft was born near Stevensville, Ontario, just north of Fort Erie, to Mennonite parents Minerva Alice Tripp and George Franklin Krafft, a farmer of German descent. He was the second of eleven children. He attended school in the Stevensville area and worked at Ferguson's General store in Fort Erie from 1901 to 1902. According to his niece Ruth Kraft Anderson, the family name was originally spelled with two f's, but Kraft dropped one when he started his company.

In 1902, Kraft moved to Buffalo, New York, and became secretary and treasurer of the Shefford Cheese Company. He became a partner the following year, but his partners dissolved the agreement while he was on a business trip to Chicago. Stranded, he used his remaining $65 to rent a horse and wagon, buying cheese wholesale and selling it to local grocers. A year later, he wrote to a friend that he expected to have one of the best wholesale cheese businesses in Chicago within five years. When business faltered in 1907, company tradition holds that Kraft decided to "make God a partner"; as business improved, he brought his brothers Charles Herbert, Frederick, Norman, and John Henry into the company.

In 1914, J.L. Kraft & Bros. Company opened its first cheese manufacturing plant in Stockton, Illinois. Kraft developed a pasteurization process, patented in 1916, that prevented spoilage and allowed long-distance shipping. The company expanded into Canada in 1919 and saw a large increase in business during World War I when the U.S. government supplied tinned cheese to the armed forces. Kraft served as company president from 1909 until his death. He introduced many innovative products and used progressive marketing, including Miracle Whip at the 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair.

Kraft was an amateur jewelry maker who collected unpolished jade, shaped and polished it, and set it into rings given as awards to outstanding employees. He wrote a book called *Adventure in Jade* and owned jade mines in Alaska and California. He was deeply involved in the North Shore Baptist Church in Chicago and was a strong proponent of religious education for young people.

In the mid-1920s, Kraft partnered with Carl and Bertha Hinshaw to develop a golf and tennis resort community in Lake Wales, Florida. The Florida land bust and the 1929 stock market crash ended Kraft's involvement, but the Chalet Suzanne opened in 1931 and has been run by the Hinshaw family ever since. A 1920s Spanish Revival house on the property is still called the Kraft House.

In 1926, Kraft Foods opened a plant in Antigo, Wisconsin. The area reminded Kraft of his childhood home, so he purchased land and built an estate called Kraftwood along Lake Mashkinosiew, where he spent summers with his wife Pauline, family, and friends. Kraft was a close friend of Orange Crush founder C. J. Howel, who spent summers at Kraftwood with his family from 1927 to at least 1934.

Kraft and his wife Pauline had one daughter, Edith. Their home, built in 1930 by architect Abraham Epstein, stands at 17 Canterbury Court in Wilmette, Illinois. Several of Kraft's brothers were executives in Kraft Foods. The family farm in Stevensville, Ontario, still exists. Kraft died on February 16, 1953, at Wesley Memorial Hospital in Chicago and is interred in Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Illinois.

Kraft's birthplace at 3347 Bowen Road in Fort Erie, known as the Kraft House, was built on land farmed by Francis Kraft and later sold to Kraft's father. The site was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2003 by the town of Fort Erie in recognition of his achievements.