West
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OF THE YEAR • 2014
March 2014
A Southern California history lesson
Smart & Final Has Offered Top-Notch Products and Services for 143 Years Haas, is now open to private tours as a San Francisco Historical Home. On a parallel basis, the Santa Ana Grocery Co., which was founded in 1912 and mainly supplied feed and grain to local farmers, was sold in 1914 to J.S. “Jim” Smart, a banker from Saginaw, Mich. Jim was then joined by partner H.D. “Hildane” Final, and the company name changed to Smart & Final
Hellman, Haas Grocery Co. was housed in a two-story brick building on Los Angeles Street. Smart & Final is unique in that it combines today’s state-of-the-art technologies and management practices with the historical perspective of one of the West’s pioneer companies. The year was 1871, and Los Angeles was a small, dusty, ranching town. Streets were unpaved, buildings were modestly wood or adobe, and the enclave’s 6,000 residents— many of Mexican and Indian descent— probably were outnumbered by the sheep and cattle. Los Angeles mainly produced hides, wool and tallow. Indeed, Los Angeles couldn’t begin to compare with its northern neighbor, bustling, cosmopolitan San Francisco. But Los Angeles’ rural ambiance didn’t deter partners Herman Hellman, Jacob Haas and Bernard Cohn from launching a new grocery business. Housed in a two-story brick building on Los Angeles Street, Hellman, Haas Grocery Co. sold necessities of the day, including flour, brown sugar, salt, patent medicines, rope, sheepherding supplies, chewing tobacco and gunpowder. Packaged goods were unknown; Hellman, Haas’ food staples arrived in bulk and typically were sold by weight. There were prunes in huge casks, barrels of currants from Greece and rice for the town’s burgeoning Chinese population. So vital was the store that Hellman, Haas was one of seven names in the first Los Angeles phone directory. Indeed, the entrepreneurs behind Hellman, Haas were a distinguished group. • Herman Hellman later succeeded his brother, Isias, as head of the then-esteemed Farmers and Merchants Bank, which also was founded in 1871. Isias was among the group of community leaders who donated the land upon which the University of Southern California was built. • Abraham Haas, Jacob Haas’ younger brother who had joined Hellman, Haas in 1873, launched the first flour milling and cold storage businesses in Los Angeles, along with several electricity and gas companies—the forerunners of current Southern California power
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companies. • Bernard Cohn later entered politics and briefly served as mayor of Los Angeles. By the turn of the century, Hellman, Haas had changed hands. The sole owners became Abraham Haas and Jacob Baruch, who bought out Herman Hellman. The company name was changed to Haas, Baruch & Co. in 1889. Meanwhile, Haas, Baruch introduced its private label, “Iris,” on canned tomatoes and launched a tradition of artistically designed labels to emphasize the cans’ highquality contents. By 1895, the grocer’s sales reached $2 million—a huge sum at the time. By 1900, Haas Baruch was the burgeoning city’s preeminent wholesale grocer. Over the
next two decades, a chain of events—including construction of the L.A. Aqueduct, the discovery of oil in Long Beach and the opening of the Panama Canal—pushed the local population to nearly 1 million. Abraham Haas left Southern California at this time and moved to San Francisco to found Haas Wholesale Grocers, which became the leading wholesaler in the Bay Area. His son, Walter, who worked with his father in the food business, left to join a struggling clothing manufacturer, Levi Strauss. Under his direction, the company flourished, and Walter served as president for three decades, bringing Levi Strauss to international fame. The Haas mansion in San Francisco, the original home of Abraham
Jim Smart and Hildane Final Wholesale Grocers. The business relocated near the docks in San Pedro and immediately prospered. By 1919, sales surged to $10 million. The grocery industry was changing. As retail grocers gained strength, many were negotiating discounts directly with manufacturers, avoiding wholesalers altogether. Competition turned brutal: Of the city’s 16 wholesale grocers in 1920, only seven were left a decade later. Smart & Final survived by offering bet-
The first Smart & Final bannered store, in L.A.
THE SHELBY REPORT OF THE WEST
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