Fannaly's Frozen Food, Tangipahoa Parish , Louisiana Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Vicky Fannaly, Jun, 2005 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ In the Enterprise of September 2, 1948: "INTERNATIONAL EDITION OF NEWSWEEK TELLS STORY OF FANNALY'S FROZEN FOOD - It should be called the port of Tangipahoa! Until recently, when a national magazine devoted in its Business Section a 750 word story and three column photograph featuring Ponchatoula's Marion T. Fannaly, few people in Tangipahoa much less those living in other sections of Louisiana, and in the Deep South realized to what degree in value and prestige the Fannaly enterprises mean to the nation's food industry. Results of the article carried in the August 2 International and Pacific editions of Newsweek magazine, have brought to Mr. Fannaly's desk a variety of queries and congratulations from well wishers and interested readers from several foreign countries including China, Japan and Germany. But the article despite its new look is an old story to the Fannaly trademark. For the past ten years, both as a primary packer, and with products bearing the Fannaly label - the bulk of this business has been handled in approximately 20 states and five foreign countries listed as either contributors or recipients of various food processes, packed and frozen at Ponchatoula. Although Tangipahoa and its surrounding parishes supply the chief Fannaly product - strawberries - and also black berries and vegetables, other areas as far west as California, as far north as Michigan, and as far east as North Carolina, contribute numerous fruits and seafoods to the world's largest strawberry and shrimp freezing plants. Peaches, for example, are purchased from California, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Illinois and Michigan. Pineapple is transported from Mexico and Cuba, while blueberries are brought from Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. One of the largest ice producers in the South, Fannaly ships huge quantities to various points in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, Alabama, Texas and as far west as Colorado. His frozen food specialties reach consumers in Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh, Dayton, Baltimore, Detroit, San Antonio, and Washington DC while smaller orders bearing the Fannaly label are shipped daily to towns and cites throughout the entire Untied States. Regarded nationally as an authority on foods, Fannaly's an original Director of the national Association of Frozen Food packers, and has been for the past eight years a member of Louisiana State Board of Commerce and Industry, and served during the war on several foods advisory committees appointed by eh Secretary of Agriculture. Tangipahoa Parish has made tremendous strides in agricultural progress over the past number of years, and it is through the foresight and progressive ideas of such men as Marion Fannaly and the type of industry he has developed that the parish and its people will prosper and reap nationally the prestige and benefits they seek. Baltimore, Detroit, San Antonio, and Washington DC while smaller orders bearing the Fannaly label are shipped daily to towns and cites throughout the entire United States. Regarded nationally as an authority on foods, Fannaly's an original Director of the national Association of Frozen Food packers, and has been for the past eight years a member of Louisiana State Board of Commerce and Industry, and served during the war on several foods advisory committees appointed by eh Secretary of Agriculture. Tangipahoa Parish has made tremendous strides in agricultural progress over the past number of years, and it is through the foresight and progressive ideas of such men as Marion Fannaly and the type of industry he has developed that the parish and its people will prosper and reap nationally the prestige and benefits they seek." The first cake of ice was pulled in March 1936. He developed this business into the largest freezing operation in the South at this time and was held in very high esteem through the food processing industry. His friends included Clarence Birdseye, Charley Seabrook, Ralph Dulaney and other pioneers in the freezing industry. Covering more than 200,000 square feet of floor space on five city blocks of ground, the plant was capable of handling several million pounds of berries during an average 60-70 day season. Besides the refrigeration plant, there was a broiler raising plant, a poultry processing plant, a seafood processing plant, a cannery and preserving plant, a veneer mill which makes berry boxes, vegetable hampers and crates, a machine shop, a storage warehouse and a modern cafeteria for employees which served 200 people at a time. In a good year the plant froze in the neighborhood of 8 million pounds of strawberries alone. Louisiana farmers grossed $6,225,250 on their 1948 crop, and nearly a third of it was processed at the plant. There were divisional plants at Albany, Gonzales, Springfield and Maurepas plus many buying stations throughout the surrounding parishes. The main plant housed a bank of Bird's Eye plate freezers which were used to quickly freeze consumer type packages. The cold storage was added on to, twice after the original construction. This resulted in a freezing capacity of over 150,000 pounds per day from 600 tons of refrigeration and 600,000 cubic feet of refrigerated storage space. A facility for the manufacture of 168 tons of ice every 24 hours was also contained in this plant. In its biggest year, 24 million pounds of product were processed - including 12 million pounds of strawberries, seven million pounds of shrimp, five millon pounds of assorted Southern vegetables. Seasonally during the peak of the strawberry season, Fannaly had over 800 people on his payroll. Shrimp was a major product at this plant. Shrimp freezing assembly lines could wash, grade, weigh, pack, glaze and repack 20,000 pounds of de-headed shrimp an hour for 2 1/2 cents per pound. Along with downturn of the business, a number of small plants were built along the Louisiana coast. Once these small plants were operating, people in the shrimp sales effected a freight saving by using these instead of trucking shrimp 150 miles inland to the Fannaly plant. This contributed to the demise of the shrimp production. From Ginger Romero's book The Louisiana Strawberry Story: "Marion T. Fannaly, Sr. had fought the Louisiana Farmer's Protective Union primarily for the right to label his product with his name, a name of which he was justifiably proud. Now on the barrels of cold-pack strawberries, some containing sugar but most containing a chemical preservative that substituted for sugar during World War II, when a round label proclaiming FANNALY's. On the crates went a square label proclaiming FANNALY'S. On the preserves went a small label proclaiming FANNALY'S. On the wine bottles went one of four labels, all proclaiming FANNALY'S! He had used this label soon after he went into business in 1925. His brother Gerald used LUZIANNE. If they had shipped ten carloads in one day, five would bear the FANNALY'S name and five would bear the LUZIANNE. The latter was gilt-edged, but no samples of it are available. (The FANNALY'S exists only as a black and white negative; the colored rendition was painted by Vicky Fannaly, wife of Marion T. Fannaly, Jr.) From this beginning Marion T. Fannaly had gone on with enterprises which eventually covered five city blocks. He owned a 'large refrigeration plant, a broiler-raising plant, a poultry processing plant, a seafood processing plant, a cannery and preserving plant, a veneer mill, which makes berry boxes, vegetable hampers and crates, a machine shop, a storage warehouse and a modern cafeteria for employees, which serves 300 persons at one time...packing plants and buying stations at Albany and Maurepas...and a machine shop and buying station at Springfield...six large trucks (to) deliver Fannaly's fine food to retail dealers and institutions throughout Louisiana.' (quote was from Louisiana Business and Professional Directory of 1954)