Bama Company

Bama Company (originally ANCCO, later Bama Foods division of Borden Company) was a Birmingham-based manufacturer of jams, jellies, peanut butter, mayonnaise and other products. The company was founded in 1921 by A. N. and S. M. Chappell. The company's name was derived from A. N. Chappell's initials.

ANNCO operated from a plant in Smithfield and originally specialized in products made from Alabama-grown blackberries, which, beginning in 1924, it marketed under the "Bama" brand name. It filed for a trade mark for that name in 1926. In 1928 they changed the name of the company to match the successful brand.

The Bama Company opened a second plant in Houston, Texas in 1933, which was expanded in 1937. By 1950 it was distributing products across the South, from North Carolina to New Mexico. It reported gross sales of more than $4.5 million and employed more than 120 people.

In 1940 Ben Goltsman, head of the Montgomery-based Alabama Growers Association, began distributing "Bama Wine" made in Atlanta, Georgia from Chilton County-grown blackberries. The Chappells filed a trademark infringement suit, but were unsuccessful as the court ruled that the name was a common contraction for the name of the state.

The Chappell's sold the business to the Borden Company in 1965. Borden continued to operate a Bama Foods plant at 3900 Vanderbilt Road in Birmingham's Harriman Park neighborhood (across from Inglenook). William Hanks worked as president of the division in the 1970s. Borden manufactured products sold by a variety of other distributers under various names at the Birmingham plant.

Borden sold the Bama Foods brand to Welch's Inc. of Concord, Massachusetts in 1994, a time when the Birmingham plant was reporting around $70 million in annual sales.

Welch's discontinued the jelly and jam brand in 2019. The Bama Mayonnaise brand was acquired by Sauer Brands of Greenville, South Carolina.

References

• "Borden sells Bama Foods" (July 11, 1994) United Press International