Thomas' is a brand of
English muffins and
bagel
A bagel ( yi, בײגל, translit=beygl; pl, bajgiel; also spelled beigel) is a bread roll originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. It is traditionally shaped by hand into a roughly hand-sized ring from yeasted wheat dough that is fi ...
s in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...
, established in 1880. It is owned by
Bimbo Bakeries USA, one of the largest baking companies in the United States, which also owns
Entenmann's
Entenmann's is an American company that manufactures baked goods and delivers them throughout the United States to supermarkets and other retailers for sale to the public. The company offers dessert cakes, donuts, cookies, cup cakes, loaf cakes, ...
,
Boboli,
Sara Lee, Stroehmann, and Arnold bread companies.
Advertisements for the muffins place emphasis on their "nooks and crannies".
The company also produces toasting or swirl breads,
pitas, wraps, and bagels.
History
The company was founded by Samuel Bath Thomas (1855–1919). In 1874, he immigrated from
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and after other menial jobs began working in a bakery.
By 1880, he had purchased his own bakery at 163
Ninth Avenue in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
,
where he featured his namesake muffins that were baked on a griddle, not an oven.
The business expanded to 337 West 20th Street (a plaque designates the building as "The Muffin House"). Thomas died in 1919, and the company, S. B. Thomas, was inherited by his daughter and nephews, and was
incorporated.
Later, it was owned by
George Weston Bakeries.
Some television commercials for the muffins have highlighted the immigrant story of Thomas, joking about how disappointed his fans in England supposedly were when he decided to take his muffins to America. (Whether the muffins were invented after Thomas had moved to the U.S. is unclear,
but the comments in the commercials are not intended to be accurate and are used for a humorous purpose.)
In 2010, the company won a
trade secret
Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily ...
suit
when an executive uploaded the company's recipes and retired to work for
Hostess.
Annual sales in 2010 for Thomas' English Muffins was estimated to be US$500 million.
See also
*
List of brand name breads
This is a list of brand name breads.
Brand name breads
* Allinson
* Alvarado Street Bakery
* Bimbo Bakeries USA – Arnold, Ball Park, Beefsteak, Bimbo, Brownberry, EarthGrains, Entenmann's, Eureka! Baking Company, Francisco, Freihofer's, Gr ...
Notes
External links
*
Bagel companies
Brand name breads
Grupo Bimbo brands
Companies established in 1880
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