When Campbell’s Soup of Camden, N.J., acquired Snyder’s-Lance, Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., in 2018, food industry writers found joy in reporting that Campbell’s now was now fully engaged in making products ranging “from soup to nuts.”
Today,
Campbell’s continues its commitment to the Charlotte region, employing about
1,400 people in Mecklenburg County across its local Snacks Division network,
which includes two Lance crackers, nuts and snacks plants as well as
distribution and warehousing facilities located in Charlotte and Pineville.
Additionally, about 150 Campbell corporate employees who handle various supply chain and support roles are based in Charlotte.
(Campbell’s Mecklenburg County workforce is complemented by 1,250 employees assigned to the company’s enormous 2.2-million-square-foot Maxton plant in Robeson County, N.C., that makes soups and broths and drink products for the Meals & Beverages Division.)
Writing for NCPedia, historian Alex Coffin said Lance started in 1912 when Philip L. Lance, a Charlotte coffee salesman, purchased 500 pounds of Virginia peanuts for a customer who subsequently decided he could not use them.
“Reluctant to return the peanuts to the farmer, Lance took them home, roasted them, and sold them for a nickel a bag,” Coffin said.
People loved Phil Lance’s peanuts. He formed Lance Packing Company. The family-based peanut-roasting business was off and running.
Next, they tried peanut butter, spreading it on crackers – the first commercially sold peanut butter cracker.
Other products followed, including the famous ToastChee and NipChee varieties. Packages contained six square snack crackers, wrapped in cellophane.
Each packet was 5.3
inches long, 1.8 inches wide and 1.8 inches tall, which conveniently fit in
trouser pockets.
An amusing radio advertising campaign capitalized on the package size. “I’ve got Lance in my pants!” boosted awareness…and sales.
In 2010, Lance, Inc., and Snyder’s of Hanover, Inc., of Hanover, Pa., a global leader in pretzels and other salty treats, joined forces.
The two companies merged
to form Snyder’s-Lance, Inc. Eight years later in 2018, Campbell’s paid $6.1
billion to purchase Snyder’s-Lance.
Southern writers speculated whether the New Jersey-based Campbell’s executives had any inkling that they were buying a “bunch of Nabs” as part of the deal?
As everyone in these parts knows, “Nabs” is a Southern term. It originated in 1924, when the National Biscuit Company, commonly known as Nabisco, came out with its own version of a sealed packet of peanut crackers.
The route drivers who delivered the snack packs to soda fountains, factory lunchrooms, gas stations and corner groceries shortened the product name to just “Nabs.”
The name stuck with Southerners, and the term is used generically to
describe any type of snack crackers.
Nabisco had great success with its cookie-style products, including Fig Newtons, Nabisco Wafers, Barnum’s Animal Crackers, Cameos, Lorna Doones and Oreos.
Nabisco seemed content with the performance of its headliners and eventually abandoned its snack cracker packet lines in the 1970s or thereabouts.
This opened the door for Lance to dominate the market.
Food
writer Kim Holloway said: “Nabs are what you eat when you’re kind of hungry,
but not enough to eat an actual meal. Or if you ARE hungry enough to eat an
actual meal, but the meal you’re fixin’ to eat isn’t fixed yet.”
Dr. Tom Allen, a minister at First Baptist Church in Southern Pines, N.C., agrees that Nabs are the Southern go-to snack.
He says: “Throw a pack into a kid’s bookbag. Toss one to a hunting buddy. Nabs travel well in a golf cart.”
An article by Michael Graff in Our State magazine claimed “the ToastChee brand of Lance crackers, in particular, is a part of the Carolinas’ culture. The Lance ToastChee is ours.”
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