CORPORATIONS: A Billion for Spam

G.I. legend has it that Spam is ham that flunked its physical. Among fed-up fighting men from Attu to Anzio, Spam became one of the most celebrated four-letter words in World War II, gave birth to a flavorsome literature of tales, odes, jokes, limericks. The story was told of a downed flyer who wandered through the South Pacific jungles for several weeks, subsisting on berries; when he finally found camp and was offered Spam, he fled back into the jungles, crying “I’m going to eat the berries.”

Because G.I.s so cordially hated Spam, few people figured that it would have much of a postwar market. But G.I. memories were short, and postwar teen-agers never knew that they were not supposed to savor Spam. Since 1945, Spam sales have climbed from 30 million cans a year to 48 million. Sales of its maker, George A. Hormel & Co. of Austin, Minn., are racing 12% ahead of last year’s pace, will probably top $400 million in 1959. This week Spam passed its proudest milestone: Hormel & Co. produced its one billionth can.

All through the years, Hormel has ignored the wartime barbs, figuring that any publicity was good publicity. Last week Chairman Horace Harold Corey sought to correct history. The chewy, watery product that wartime G.I.s damned as Spam was really a lower-grade concoction, made under Army specifications: no ham (Spam itself has 6%-8%), cheaper cuts of pork, longer cooking of meat in the tin so that ersatz Spam could withstand tropical heat or Arctic cold. Naturally, the product had a certain unforgettable stick-to-the-ribs quality that provided a unique gastronomical experience. But it should not have been confused with real Spam. To prove its difference, Hormel claims that “94% of all Americans” now happily eat Spam.