Type Subsidiary Products Salt Headquarters Chicago Parent organization K+S | Industry Food
Manufacturing Website mortonsalt.com Founder Joy Morton | |
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Key people Christian Herrmann, CEO
Tim McKean, CFO Founded 1848, Chicago, Illinois, United States CEO Christian Herrmann (1 Oct 2012–) Profiles | ||
Morton Salt is an American food company producing salt for food, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use. Based in Chicago, the business is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt. It is a subsidiary of the German mining company K+S.
Contents
sponsored by morton salt co
History
The company began in Chicago, Illinois, in 1848 as a small sales agency, E. I. Wheeler, started by the Onondaga salt companies to sell their salt to the Midwest. In 1910, the business, which had by that time become both a manufacturer and a merchant of salt, was incorporated as the Morton Salt Company. It was named after the owner and founder, Joy Morton, the son of J. Sterling Morton who founded Arbor Day. Joy Morton starting working for E. I. Wheeler in 1880, buying into the company for $10,000, with which he bought a fleet of lake boats to move salt west. In 1982, the business was purchased by Thiokol Corporation, producing Morton Thiokol Incorporated (MTI). Morton Thiokol divested itself of Morton in 1989, following the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which was blamed on Morton Thiokol products. Morton received the company's consumer chemical products divisions, while Thiokol retained only the space propulsion systems concern.
In 1999 Morton Salt was acquired by the Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas Company, Inc. and operated as a division of that company along with the Canadian Salt Company (which Morton had acquired in 1954).
On 2 April 2009, it was reported that Morton Salt was being acquired by German fertilizer and salt company K+S for a total enterprise value of US$1.7bn. The sale, completed by October 2009, was in conjunction with the Dow Chemical Company's takeover of Rohm and Haas.
In or about 1919, Morton acquired Bevis Rock Salt Company, a family business then run by A. Bevis Longstreth, who took the reins upon his return from active duty in World War I. Longstreth had designed and invented a container for Bevis Salt that included both a spout for pouring and a grill for shaking. It depicted a little girl holding the container over a bird and pouring salt on its tail. Longstreth went on to found Thiokol Chemical Corporation, which in 1982 acquired Morton Salt.
Company information
The Morton Salt Company's current headquarters office is in the River Point building at 444 West Lake Street in Chicago, becoming its first tenant in December 2016. Its previous headquarters was at 123 North Wacker Drive. Prior to its acquisition in 1999, the firm's corporate headquarters was at 100 North Riverside Plaza (later the headquarters of Boeing) and before that at 110 North Wacker Drive and 208 West Washington Street
Acquired in 1954, the company owns the second-largest solar saline operation in North America, in Matthew Town, Inagua, The Bahamas.
Morton Salt's logo features the "Morton Salt Girl," a young girl walking in the rain with an opened umbrella and scattering salt behind her from a cylindrical container of table salt, and is one of the ten best-known symbols in the United States. The company's logo (from 1914) and its motto, "When it rains it pours" (from 1911), were developed to illustrate the point that Morton Salt was free flowing even in rainy weather after the company began adding magnesium carbonate as an absorbing agent to its table salt in 1911 to ensure that it poured freely; calcium silicate is now used instead for the same purpose. The Morton Salt Girl, also known as the Umbrella Girl, has gone through seven different iterations, including the latest update in 2014 for its "hundredth birthday", with other updates being in 1921, 1933, 1941, 1956, and 1968; the company sells associated memorabilia and makes some of its vintage advertisements freely available. In addition to the Morton Salt Girl being updated, its centennial in 2014 was celebrated with 100 parties in 100 cities, Morton Salt Girl Centennial Scholarships to benefit certain fine arts and culinary arts students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts, Morton Salt Girl day at Wrigley Field, Facebook and Instagram lookalike contests, and other activities. Also in 2014, the Morton Salt Girl was voted into the Advertising Week Walk of Fame on Madison Avenue in New York City; it is the first girl icon to be inducted.
Morton Salt is the sponsor of the Morton Arboretum, a 1,700-acre (6.9 km2) botanical garden in Lisle, Illinois. It was established by Joy Morton, the company's founder, in 1922 to encourage the display and study of shrubs, trees, and vines. About 300,000 visitors a year hike on miles of trails, and over 3,600 kinds of plants are displayed.
The world's largest salt plant, owned by Morton, is located in Manistee, Michigan, USA.
In popular culture
Morton Salt is one of three official endorsements by Ron Swanson on "Parks and Recreation".
The Timbers Army used the Morton Salt Girl in a large tifo display and T-shirts during the kickoff match to the 2013 Major League Soccer season between the Portland Timbers and the New York Red Bulls.
As part of their 2016 "Walk Her Walk" campaign, Morton Salt funded the development of the music video "The One Moment" by the band OK Go, released on November 23, 2016.