MJB (coffee)

History

MJB Coffee, an American brand now under Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA, has roots stretching back to the California Gold Rush, when San Francisco grew into a major hub for coffee importing and roasting, giving rise to names like Folgers and Hills Brothers. In 1881, Max J. Brandenstein, whose father was a tobacco wholesaler, started roasting coffee in the Bay Area. By 1899, with help from his brothers Mannie, Charlie, and Eddie, he launched a business importing tea, spices, and coffee under his own name. To ease tensions among the siblings and to hide their German-Jewish background, the company was later renamed the MJB Co. According to a 1978 memoir by the founder’s granddaughter, Ruth Bransten McDougall, her father Mannie changed his surname from Brandenstein to Bransten during World War I to shield the business from anti-German hostility and to satisfy his wife, whose family was French.

In 1900, Mannie introduced a famous advertising slogan: “MJB Coffee Why?” Soon, signs with that question popped up all over the San Francisco area. A New Yorker named Edward Norton had patented a vacuum-canning process for food in 1898, which was later used for coffee. Hills Brothers was the first to pack coffee in vacuum cans under that patent in 1900, and M.J. Brandenstein & Company followed suit in 1914. For the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, MJB built a temporary, ultramodern coffee house topped with a giant cup and saucer bearing the illuminated word “WHY.”

During the 1940s, MJB gained endorsements from Hollywood stars, including those from the film “Cherokee Strip.” A 1970s TV campaign with the tagline “tastes good when it should” featured actress Teri Garr. The ads were so successful that director Steven Spielberg noticed her and cast her in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Ruth Bransten McDougall also wrote a book called “Under Mannie’s Hat,” a collection of family and brand memories.

Nestle bought MJB in 1985, and the San Francisco headquarters shut down in 1997. Two years later, Sara Lee Corp. acquired MJB along with Hills Brothers and Chase & Sanborn from Nestle. In 2005, Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group purchased MJB, Hills Brothers, Chase & Sanborn, and Chock full o’Nuts from Sara Lee for $82.5 million.