Mr. Coffee
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Mr. Coffee is a brand of automatic drip-brew kitchen
coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
machines and other kitchen appliances owned by Newell Brands. Founded in the early 1970s to make a pioneering coffeemaker, Mr. Coffee established itself as the industry's top-selling brand through a promotional relationship with former
New York Yankee The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East Division. They are one ...
great
Joe DiMaggio Joseph Paul DiMaggio (; born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, ; November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "the Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American professional baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career ...
, a Major League Baseball Hall of Famer held in high regard by that era's consumers. It subsequently expanded into other kitchen products, such as a related tea maker, juicer, and food dehydrator, and integrated wireless technology into a "smart" version of its coffeemaker."Belkin and Jarden Announce Availability of the Mr. Coffee® Smart Coffee Maker Enabled with WeMo®
businesswire.com, November 10, 2014
Mr. Coffee is a registered trademark.


History

Vincent Marotta and Samuel Glazer founded a company in
Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
,
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
About Mr. Coffee
at MrCoffee.com
focused on coffee delivery called North American Systems (NAS) in the early 1970s. At this time, Marotta had an idea to create an automatic drip coffeemaker. Marotta and Glazer hired two former Westinghouse engineers, Edmund Abel and Edwin Schulze, to engineer the idea.NAS hires engineers
at TheGreatWorkPlace.com
In 1972, the Mr. Coffee brand drip coffeemaker was made available for home use.Mr. Coffee History
at MrCoffee.com
Prior to this machine, coffee was primarily made in a percolator, which combined the ground coffee and water together throughout the brewing process. Wide variation in both heat source temperature and how long individual users allowed the percolation cycle to go on often resulted in bitter and burned tasting coffee. The new Mr. Coffee machine placed only the water in a reservoir above the pot, where it was heated by an electrical element and allowed to " drip" freely through the basket of ground coffee and into a carafe below. This process, which controlled both temperature and duration, produced a much more uniform brewing cycle, resulting in a consistent, fresh flavor. Later units use a thermosyphon (which employs the same thermodynamic principle that drives
geysers A geyser (, ) is a spring with an intermittent water discharge ejected turbulently and accompanied by steam. The formation of geysers is fairly rare and is caused by particular hydrogeological conditions that exist only in a few places on Ea ...
) to raise boiling water from a reservoir aside the pot up a lift tube, then down through the grounds. In either system, only the water is ever in direct contact with the heating element, never brewing or brewed coffee. In 1973, Marotta convinced highly-regarded Hall of Fame baseball player
Joe DiMaggio Joseph Paul DiMaggio (; born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, ; November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "the Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American professional baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career ...
to become an advertising spokesman for the brand. The coffee maker sold more than one million units by April 1974. A succession of products from 1992 to 1995 — the Potato Perfect, the Mr. Coffee Juicer, Food Dehydrator by Mr. Coffee, Bread maker by Mr. Coffee, and Mrs. Tea Hot Tea MakerMrs. Tea Introduction
at MrCoffee.com
— contributed about one-third of Mr. Coffee's total annual sales of $174 million by 1995.


Ownership

In the 1980s, Mr. Coffee endured a
leveraged buyout A leveraged buyout (LBO) is the acquisition of a company using a significant proportion of borrowed money (Leverage (finance), leverage) to fund the acquisition with the remainder of the purchase price funded with private equity. The assets of t ...
and two significant changes in ownership before being acquired by Health O Meter Products, Inc. (eventually known as Signature Brands USA) in 1994.Detailed Company History
at answers.com
In 1998, Sunbeam Corporation (eventually known as American Household, Inc.) purchased Signature Brands. In January 2005, Jarden acquired American Household, Inc.Jarden acquisitions
at JardenCS.com
In 2015 Jarden was acquired by Newell-Rubbermaid, which changed its name to Newell Brands, the current owner of the Mr. Coffee brand.


2012 recall

In 2012, more than 600,000 Mr. Coffee Single Cup Brewing System models were voluntarily recalled in the United States and Canada. A malfunction caused the machines to build up steam and potentially spew water and grounds out of the brewing chamber. There were 164 reports of the malfunction made, among which there were 61 injuries including facial and hand burns.


Popular culture

There have been several parodies in popular media, such as in the ''Back to the Future'' trilogy as Mr. Fusion. (which was actually made for the movie from a Krups coffee grinder)


References


Further reading

*


External links


Official website

NPR Story on Mr. Coffee and Joe DiMaggio

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University
{{Home appliance brands Coffee appliance vendors Cooking appliance brands Home appliance brands American brands Products introduced in 1972 Newell Brands 1994 mergers and acquisitions 1998 mergers and acquisitions 2005 mergers and acquisitions 2016 mergers and acquisitions Joe DiMaggio