Old-school food brands that are still serving up nostalgia

A very long shelf life

New foods come and go – but some brands are utterly timeless. These iconic mainstays are recognised all over the globe and have stood firm through decades and even centuries, either by adapting to suit modern tastes or just by offering practical and enduringly popular food products. From Worcestershire sauce, invented in a chemist shop, to a small store in Parma, Italy that grew into the world’s biggest producer of pasta, these are the world’s oldest food brands that have been filling cupboards and bellies for a century or more.

Click or scroll through our gallery to discover the most historic food brands known all over the world – counting down to the oldest of all.

Our list is based on the oldest globally known brands and household names. We haven't included drinks or brands that are smaller or little-known beyond a particular place or region.

23. Vegemite

Love it or loathe it, Vegemite is an Australian icon, and probably the country’s most famous food brand. The divisive toast topper was invented in Melbourne in 1922 by food technologist Cyril Callister, for the Fred Walker Company. Made using yeast extract, the recipe was inspired by Marmite – which itself was invented a decade before in 1902 – but it tastes distinctly different to the British savoury spread, with fans claiming it has a more intense salty and bitter taste.

23. Vegemite

In 1923, a public competition was held to find a name for the product, and Vegemite was picked by Fred Walker’s daughter. Vegemite was initially slow to gain traction, with consumers more used to eating Marmite, but things changed when Walker secured the Australian rights to Kraft’s processed cheese and marketed the two products together. It quickly became a distinctively ‘Australian’ food, despite being taken over by American-owned Kraft in 1935, and was used in nine out of 10 homes in the country by the late 1940s. Locals were delighted when Vegemite was brought back under Australian ownership in 2017.

22. Haribo

Loved the world over for its Goldbears gummy bears, Starmix and Tangfastics sweets, Haribo was founded in 1920 by German confectioner Hans Riegel Sr. in Bonn, Germany. To say it was a humble affair would be an understatement – Hans worked out of his own kitchen with little more than a copper pot, a rolling pin and a cooker, taking on his first employee (his wife Gertrud) the following year, who would deliver orders via bicycle. After a few years of experimenting, he came up with an entirely new sweet treat: the gummy bear, which debuted in German sweet shops in 1922.

22. Haribo

Initially known as Tanzbären or Dancing Bears, Haribo’s gummy treats have undergone multiple makeovers over the years, but the prototype was larger and thinner than the version we know and love today. The biggest change happened in 1960, when the bears were rebranded as Goldbears and sold in golden bags packed with five flavours – raspberry, lemon, strawberry, pineapple and orange. Haribo sweets arrived in the US and UK in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, and they're now sold in more than 100 countries, with 160 million gummy bears leaving factory floors around the world every day.

21. French’s Mustard

It’s hard to miss the iconic sunshine-yellow bottles of French’s Classic Yellow Mustard. They’re ubiquitous in supermarkets, in diners and at sports events around the globe. The (then) small company, from Rochester, New York, introduced its tangy mustard to the globe at the St. Louis World Fair in 1904, serving it on hot dogs. It soon became widely available and was sold first in glass bottles, with squeezable packets introduced in 1974. Other styles, including Spicy Brown and Dijon mustards, were added in the 1980s.

21. French’s Mustard

The squeezy plastic bottle we know and love today came in 1991, making it easier for the mustard to be squirted onto hot dogs and burgers, while the current shape – designed to reduce sticky messiness and spillage – was designed in 2002. The company now makes a ketchup for the US market, too, while its Fried Onions are a classic garnish for green bean casseroles.

20. Kraft

This global giant is known all over the world for its sliced singles and mac 'n' cheese boxed dinners, but its beginnings were amazingly humble. In 1903, James L. Kraft emigrated from Ontario, Canada to start a wholesale door-to-door cheese business in Chicago – his first year was dismal, leaving him thousands of dollars out of pocket. He was joined by his four brothers, who helped turn the brand into a household name. They really hit the big time in 1915, when they invented pasteurised processed cheese that didn’t need refrigeration.

20. Kraft

In the 1950s, Kraft Foods introduced Kraft Deluxe Process Slices: pre-sliced cheese squares for cheeseburgers and sandwiches. Loved for their convenience, long shelf-life and mild flavour, they were a massive hit, leading to the launch of Kraft Singles a decade later. Another much-loved creation is Kraft Mac & Cheese, which was introduced in 1937 and sold nine million boxes that year alone. These days, a million boxes are sold every day. The cheesy comfort dish is especially beloved in Canada, where residents consume nearly a quarter of all boxes produced – around 55% more than is sold in the US.

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19. Lurpak

This Danish butter brand has put out some very memorable adverts over the years – you might remember its charming mascot Douglas, a trombonist made from butter (pictured), from ads that ran from 1985 until 2003. But Lurpak goes much further back, starting out in 1901 when a collective of Danish dairy farmers decided to unite under a common brand to increase sales and protect their butter under the 'Lurmark' trademark. Today, the iconic silver branding still features two entwined 'lurs' – Bronze Age musical instruments that have become symbols of Denmark.

19. Lurpak

From 1911, only dairies adhering to a rigorous system of regular blind tastings could use the 'Lurmark' Danish butter brand – quality controls that are still practised today. In fact, the dairy still submits tasting samples to a panel of independent experts every week. These days, Lurpak is one of the most famous butters in the world, eaten in households globally, but its biggest market is the UK. There are several variants, some with lower fat and others with added flavours like garlic, while a plant-based spread is due to launch in 2024.

18. Hershey's

Dubbed ‘The Great American Chocolate Bar’, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate was launched in 1900 – the result of many years of trial and error on the part of founder Milton S. Hershey, as chocolate recipes were a closely guarded secret by the Swiss at the time. Hershey's Kisses arrived in 1907 – and the company makes more than 70 million of the tear-shaped chocolates every day. Over the years, the company has experimented with chocolate varieties in every shape and size, including less successful launches such as Bar None (pictured) and Sweet Escapes.

18. Hershey's

Today, Hershey is the umbrella for more than 90 other brands and products, and the confectionary giant makes some of America's most-loved classic candy bars, such as Almond Joy, Krackel and PayDay. Globally, it’s Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that have made the biggest impact. These melt-in-the-mouth treats were originally created in 1928 by H. B. Reese, a shipping foreman for Milton S. Hershey, but things came full circle when Hershey eventually bought Reese's in 1963. The treats were introduced in the UK in 1996, expanding to the rest of Europe by 2008. Reese's is now the top-selling candy brand worldwide, with more than $2 billion in annual sales.

17. Carnation

Carnation’s Condensed Milk – made with milk that has been evaporated to thicken it, then sweetened – has always proved handy in the kitchen, as this 1952 advert demonstrates. Evaporated milk (without added sugar) was invented in the 1880s by Johann Baptist Meyenberg, who worked for the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in Switzerland. The company was unenthusiastic, so Meyenberg moved to the US and launched the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company in 1899, launching canned evaporated milk under the Carnation label the same year.

17. Carnation

The product was practically a wartime hero, too, with its high fat, protein and sugar content making it ideal for field rations during the two World Wars. Carnation launched an ice cream in the 1950s and even had a Carnation Ice Cream Parlor at Disneyland, California, though they ceased production in the 1990s (the Disneyland spot is now called Carnation Café). The product is still very much around, though, winning over new customers all the time with its nifty ability to make homemade cheesecakes, banoffee pie and caramel a doddle.

16. Kellogg’s

When John and Will Kellogg launched Corn Flakes in 1895, the golden, crispy flakes were originally intended to be bland and encourage Americans to live a pure life. The brothers, from Battle Creek, Michigan, were devoutly religious and believed a simple diet was key to a pure lifestyle. As this 1954 advert suggests, the cereal – among the first to be commercially produced – quickly became a favourite even around jolly breakfast tables.

16. Kellogg’s

The business started in 1906 when Will Kellogg bought out his brother, establishing the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. It was renamed Kellogg’s in 1922, and the brand introduced varieties like Rice Krispies, Bran Flakes and Frosted Flakes. The cereals were introduced to the UK that same year and are now sold globally. One thing has changed, however. The iconic packaging was given a design overhaul in 2019, giving it a clean, contemporary look while remaining recognisable. Most recently, Kellogg’s expanded its offering with the introduction of new Chocolate Flavour Corn Flakes.

15. Oscar Mayer

Oscar Mayer has been making America’s best-known hot dog wiener since 1883. It all started when Bavarian immigrant Oscar Mayer and his brother opened a meat market on northside of Chicago, selling bratwurst and liverwurst to the neighbourhood's large German population. As the meat market's popularity grew, Oscar began branding his wares, and the company just got bigger and bigger. In 1936, the company launched what would become its most iconic promotion: the Wienermobile, a hot dog–shaped car that cruised the streets of Chicago. It's pictured here at Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1951.

15. Oscar Mayer

In 1957, Oscar Mayer moved its headquarters from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin and, by the early 1960s, it was the top manufacturer of processed meats in the USA. Over the years the company has been responsible for all kinds of meaty innovations, from its wildly popular Lunchables Lunch Combinations in the 1990s to the less successful ‘Sack o' Sauce in a Can o' Meat’ (basically canned meat with a bag of sauce to mix in) in the late 1940s. After nearly a century of independent family ownership, Oscar Mayer was taken over by General Foods (now called Kraft Heinz) in 1981.

14. Lyle’s Golden Syrup

It’s a must for baking, drizzling over pancakes and – as far as the grinning girl in this 1957 advert is concerned, anyway – for spreading on bread. And golden syrup has been around since 1883 when Charles Eastick, a chemist at Abram Lyle & Sons, was perfecting a method of refining cane sugar and discovered the sticky, gilded syrup as a by-product. It was sold as golden syrup two years later. Abram Lyle & Sons merged with Henry Tate & Sons in 1921, dominating the sugar market.

14. Lyle’s Golden Syrup

Lyle’s Golden Syrup was officially recognised by Guinness World Records in 2006 as being Britain’s oldest brand and having the world's oldest branding and packaging. The brand was sold by Tate & Lyle in 2010 to American Sugar Refining, though it still comes packaged in the same green and gold (and tricky to open without making a sticky mess) tins.

13. Barilla

Barilla is the world’s biggest producer of pasta and, as with many of these longstanding food brands, had humble beginnings. It started with a small bread and pasta shop opened by Pietro Barilla in Parma, Italy, in 1877. Initially the shop supplied the local community with homemade produce, expanding after the founder’s two sons, Riccardo and Gualtiero, took over and opened the first factory in 1910. A continuous baking oven enabled them to supply the city and surrounding areas. Riccardo’s two sons took over in 1947 and the brand expanded throughout Italy.

13. Barilla

The brand has focused purely on pasta since the 1950s, and in 1969 built the world’s largest production plant, capable of producing 1,000 tonnes of pasta per day, near Parma. Barilla was briefly controlled by the US-based W.R. Grace company in the 1970s, though the family bought back the business in 1979 and it’s now owned by Pietro’s great-grandchildren. In 2004, they founded Academia Barilla, focused on safeguarding and promoting regional Italian food culture as a unique World Heritage. And, of course, Barilla continues to sell a lot of pasta.

12. Quaker Oats

This 1890s illustration of workers packing boxes of oats in Chicago, Illinois was intended to demonstrate the good working conditions in Quaker Oats factories. Today, it shows how long the brand has been around. In 1877, Quaker Oats was registered as the first trademark for a breakfast cereal with the US Patent Office noting its branding featured 'a figure of a man in ‘Quaker garb’. The mill in Ravenna, Ohio went bankrupt in 1881 and was bought out by Henry Parsons Crowell, who also secured the Quaker name.

12. Quaker Oats

In 1888 it was incorporated under the American Cereal Company, which changed its name to The Quaker Oats Company in 1901. The brand remains, for many, synonymous with porridge oats, and that man in Quaker garb is still a familiar sight in cereal aisles around the world (this recent picture was taken in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia). Now, though, the traditional boxes have been joined by packets and pots of instant oatmeal, with flavours like apple and cinnamon.

11. Campbell's

Campbell’s classic red-and-white soup cans were immortalised by Andy Warhol in the 1960s, but the product was already an American icon. The Campbell Soup Company was started in 1869 by Joseph A. Campbell, a fruit merchant from Bridgeton, New Jersey, and Abraham Anderson, an icebox manufacturer from South Jersey. The duo began by manufacturing canned tomatoes, vegetables, jellies, minced meats and condiments, but really hit the big time in 1897 when it developed a commercially viable method for condensing soup. The legendary packaging came along a year later – and has barely changed since.

11. Campbell's

In the 1960s and 1970s, Campbell’s cream of mushroom and tomato soups were a main ingredient in recipes of the time, playing a starring role in everything from the era’s infamous casseroles to meatloaf and even salad. In 1970, Campbell's Chunky Soup made its debut, touted as a meal in a can – or, as one ad promised, 'soup so chunky, you'll be tempted to eat it with a fork'. While canned soup continues to be the company’s most famous creation, it now owns several other brands including Pepperidge Farm's breads and cookies, V8 vegetable juices, Swanson broths and Godiva's chocolates.

10. Pillsbury

Pillsbury’s advertising has long been all about the high quality of its products. This 1900 ad for Pillsbury's Best Flour even suggests that stores offering alternatives could lose customers. The bakery began by the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Charles A. Pillsbury bought what was then a neglected flour mill in 1869 and spruced it up with the latest tech, creating a profit-sharing plan for employees. Within 20 years, it had grown into one of the world’s most successful and prolific mills.

10. Pillsbury

Today, it’s perhaps most famous for the Pillsbury Doughboy, the brand’s iconic mascot, who came along in 1965 as part of the 'Poppin’ Fresh' ad campaign. Copywriter Rudy Perz came up with the idea when he popped open a can of ready-made dough and imagined the pillowy character jumping out. Now the brand is synonymous with ready-to-roll pastries, biscuits, croissants and cookies, and even produces cookbooks. They also launched the Pillsbury Bake-Off in 1949, which brought fame to the Tunnel of Fudge cake.

9. Heinz

The HJ Heinz Company, founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is best known for baked beans and tomato ketchup, but founder Henry Heinz actually started his condiment and canned-food empire by making horseradish, back in 1869. He harvested the root from his parents’ garden and followed his mother’s recipe, packaging the results in clear bottles – which became a trademark, signifying quality ingredients that didn’t need to hide. His brand grew with pickles, vinegar, ketchup and, in 1895, the first mass-produced tinned baked beans.

9. Heinz

By 1896, Heinz sold more than 60 different products and began exporting globally from 1907, with a factory opening in London in 1928 (mainly feeding Britain’s hunger for those saucy beans). Now the UK’s Wigan factory – the world’s biggest, opened in 1959 – produces around 383,000 tonnes of products per year, which is 1.3 billion cans of food. And, while the label pronounces '57 varieties' and has done since 1896, Heinz actually has around 1,000 times that many products. The founder simply liked the idea of using a number in his marketing.

8. Dr. Oetker

The Dr. Oetker logo might be most familiar to many from its iconic pizza boxes, but the brand actually began with baking powder. Pharmacist Dr. August Oetker founded the company in Bielefeld, Germany, in 1891, introducing his first product – Dr. Oetker 'Backin' – two years later. His innovation was filling small paper bags with the precise quantity of baking powder required for baking with a pound (around 0.5kg) of flour to guarantee perfect baking results.

8. Dr. Oetker

Today Dr. Oetker – pronounced 'ert-ker' – is a global brand with its headquarters in Bielefeld, Germany. Its products, including cake mixes and staple baking ingredients, are a familiar sight to many, especially across Europe, in the US and in South America. Its Ristorante pizzas launched in 1970 and are sold globally, too, with a vegan pizza added to the range for the first time in 2021.

7. Maggi

Many people will recognise this Swiss brand because it’s so prominent in our cupboards. It has a rich heritage, too, beginning in 1886 when Julius Maggi created a combination of seasonings that could easily and conveniently enhance the taste of meals. The government asked him to create quick, nutritious products as female employment increased, and his answer was instant soups and, later, a broth and the brand’s now-iconic Liquid Seasoning (as advertised in this charming, late 19th-century poster).

7. Maggi

Today it’s one of the world’s leading convenience foods brands, known for instant noodles, bouillon cubes, sauces, stocks and seasonings (as shown in this photo taken at a supermarket in Germany). According to Nestlé, which now owns the brand, an average of 4,600 meals are prepared with Maggi products around the world every second.

6. Tabasco

A familiar sight in cupboards, on restaurant tables and as a Bloody Mary ingredient, Tabasco has been spicing up mealtimes since 1868. Founder Edmund McIlhenny grew a crop of capsicum frutescens or Tabasco pepper, a type of wild chilli pepper, on Avery Island, a salt dome surrounded by marshland in Louisiana, USA. He then came up with the recipe by pulping the chillies, ageing them in oak barrels and seasoning with salt before bottling.

6. Tabasco

The first bottles were sealed with green wax, distributed to grocers along California’s coast and sold for around $1 each. Now the sauce is sold in every country, with a number of different varieties now available, including Habanero and Green Jalapeño. The original sauce is still produced on Avery Island with the same three ingredients – aged red peppers, salt and stilled vinegar – though rising sea levels, due to climate change, may force Tabasco to relocate.

5. Lindt

This vintage photo shows part of the chocolate-making process at the Lindt & Sprüngli factory in Kilchberg, Switzerland in 1941. But the origins of this globally renowned chocolate brand stretch all the way back to 1845, when David Sprüngli and son produced the first solid bar of chocolate in a small confectionery shop in Zurich. Rodolphe Lindt also opened a shop in Berne, in 1879, pioneering a coaching process that churned together cocoa mass and butter with sugar and milk over a longer period for a silky-smooth texture. They joined forces at the end of the 19th century.

5. Lindt

Now named Lindt & Sprüngli, the chocolate empire expanded to the UK, US and Germany in the early 20th century and is now the world’s number one premium chocolate brand. Its solid bars and Lindor truffles are a familiar sight in shops around the world, as are its chocolate bunnies sheathed in gold foil and decorated with a red ribbon and bell. First introduced in 1952, they’re still a classic coveted by children and adults each Easter.

4. Knorr

We have to assume that the rosy cheeks of the (slightly sinister) figure in this 1930s ad are a result of the warming bowls of Knorr soup he’s inhaling. The first dried packet soups were launched across Europe in 1873, though the company’s history dates back to 1838, when Carl Heinrich Knorr opened a factory in Heilbronn, Germany. His business started off supplying chicory to the coffee industry and veered in a new direction after he experimented with drying vegetables, herbs and other seasonings.

4. Knorr

Next came the pioneering Knorr bouillon or stock cubes the brand has become best-known for. The products, which have been part of Unilever since 2000, are now sold around the world with variations such as Soupy Noodles in India and Homestyle Stock in Canada, reflecting different tastes and cuisines.

3. Lea & Perrins

We know a few things about Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce: the name can be hard to pronounce but it’s delicious in savoury sauces and dashed on cheese on toast before it goes under the grill. And it was invented in Worcester, a town in Worcestershire, England, by chemists John Wheeley Lea and William Perrins. The idea that sparked it is less certain, though a common story is that Lord Sandys, a British aristocrat returning to Worcester in 1835, asked the duo to recreate a sauce he’d grown accustomed to while he was Governor of Bengal, India.

3. Lea & Perrins

Their attempts proved pungent to the point of being nearly inedible, and the sauce was abandoned in their shop basement until they stumbled across it a few years later. It had mellowed into the rich, savoury, tangy sauce many people know and adore today, and was bottled and sold in the shop from 1837. The bottle, first wrapped in paper to protect it during export to New York from 1839, has barely changed.

2. Cadbury

This finely drawn advert was originally published in 1886, but cocoa for breakfast still sounds pretty good to us. Quaker John Cadbury launched his iconic brand in Birmingham, England, in 1824, initially selling tea, coffee and drinking chocolate, prepared with a pestle and mortar. Workers lived in legendary model village Bournville, just outside the city. In 1905 his son, George Cadbury Jr, created perhaps its most iconic product, the Dairy Milk chocolate bar, which was designed to be a bar with more milk than any other on the market.

2. Cadbury

We know there’s (a glass and a half of) milk, sugar, cocoa butter and cocoa mass in each bar, though the quantities and method that goes into making the bars remains a closely guarded secret even now. The brand was sold to Kraft Foods in 2010, then to Mondelez International two years later, and operates in 50 countries around the world.

1. Maille

Probably the most famous French mustard maker, Maille is also one of the world’s oldest continuously operating food brands – and the oldest overall in our list of globally famous food names. It all started in 1720s Marseille, when distiller Antoine-Claude Maille discovered the medicinal properties of vinegar and created a tonic called Vinegar of the Four Thieves to help locals combat the ravages of the plague. In 1747, he joined forces with his son (also named Antoine-Claude) to open a boutique called La Maison Maille on the rue Saint-André des Arts in Paris, and soon became the official supplier of vinegars, oils and mustards to the court of Louis XV.

1. Maille

Over the years, Maille also supplied royal courts in England, Russia, Austria and Hungary with his tasty condiments. Since then, the gourmet brand has launched various innovative products, including Dijon mustard infused with Chablis and black truffle chips, though the original remains the most loved around the world. The brand also has several boutique mustard shops, including three in France and one in Melbourne, where fresh mustard is served from a pump and presented in beautiful ceramic jars.

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