John Deere & SPAM.... Midwestern Icons
No matter where in the world you live, and certainly in America, you'd recognize the "Nothing Runs Like A Deere" logo. John Deere was born in 1804 in Vermont and moved to Illinois in 1836 and began manufacturing tools. He made pitchforks, shovels and plows. In those days, a product was not made until ordered, which was a very slow business model. By 1857, the company was manufacturing a variety of farm equipment; that year their sales reached 1120 implements per month. John Deere as an American business icon was off and running. There are three main John Deere museums and a big selling item these days are the John Deere tractor toys. SPAM is another iconic midwestern product. I always thought the letters stood for "Special Processed American Meat," meat that was portable and sent to the troops in Europe during WWII. SPAM is a brand of cooked pork introduced by Hormel in 1937. The origin of the name is not fully documented (so maybe I'm right?). SPAM...