Golden Flake Snack Foods
Back in 1923, Mose Lischkoff and Frank Mosher had a deceptively simple idea - an idea that grew over the past 80 plus years from two gentlemen and a sack of potatoes into more than 1200 employees and 100 million pounds of potatoes a year. For it was Lischkoff and Mosher whose fresh, kettle-cooked potato chips formed the foundation of the snack food company known today as Golden Flake.
From Magic City Foods, a tiny basement operation located in a Hill's grocery store, the company grew quickly. In fact, before the curtain closed on 1923, Lischkoff and Mosher had already added two salesmen to meet the public demand for Magic City peanuts, peanut butter crackers, horseradish, and its principle product -- crispy, delicious potato chips. Birmingham, the "Magic City" for which the company was named, took a definite liking to the company's snack foods, as did the surrounding area. And the company developed a reputation for service to the food industry that became legendary.
Then, there was the "Golden Flake Girl", Helen Friedman, an early employee who was to play a pivotal role in the expansion of Magic City Food Products. Friedman became an owner when she and her mother bought out co-founder Mose Lischkoff. Then in 1928, Helen married Lischkoff's partner, Frank Mosher. While the marriage did not last, Helen's association with Magic City Food Products was to endure, because upon her divorce from Mosher, she received the entire company in the property settlement. Under Helen Friedman's dynamic leadership, Magic City Food Products reached sales of nearly one million dollars - making it an attractive acquisition for the Bashinsky family, who bought the company in 1946.
In 1956, the company sold again. But this time, it stayed in the family, because the new owner was Mr. Sloan Bashinsky, who bought the company from his father and uncle. The younger Bashinsky brought with him a hands - on knowledge of the business for, although he was a charter member of the Board of Directors, he had worked his way up to the top job through route sales and production. One of his first moves was to change the name from Magic City Food Products to the more descriptive moniker: "Golden Flake, Incorporated". And it was Sloan Bashinsky who initiated the construction of the fifty-acre Birmingham corporate headquarters and extensive manufacturing facility.
Golden Flake went public in 1968. Diversifying into insurance, real estate, fasteners and advertising. In 1977 Golden Flake Snack Foods became a wholly owned subsidiary of Golden Enterprises, Incorporated continuing to manufacture and sell a variety of snacks including potato chips, pork skins and cheese curls!
Utz Quality Foods, LLC acquired the brand in 2017 and has led the continual growth of the Golden Flake brand as it approaches it’s 100 year anniversary! Simple. Southern. Goodness….continues to be the driving force for delivering delicious snacks across the South with an added new focus of expanding distribution nationally on the popular Pork Skins!
To learn more about Golden Flake and the products they make visit www.goldenflake.com.
