Country of origin United States Nonfiction topics food Founded 1858 | Official website www.urnerbarry.com | |
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Publication types Books, newsletters, directories, wall charts, magazines Founders Benjamin Urner, L. Frank Barry | ||
Urner Barry (or Urner Barry Publications Inc.) is a business publisher which was founded in 1858. Over the years, they have published a variety of market information pertaining to the food industry, with a focus on providing access to timely, accurate and unbiased information through a variety of print and non-print media.
Contents
Currently, Urner Barry focuses on providing market information related to red meat, poultry, egg and seafood through its reports and websites as well as administrating the sale of ancillary products and services.
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History
In 1857, Benjamin Urner was working as a printer in New York City. As a printer, he would encounter many merchants coming to port and requesting price circulars for use at the markets. He began to notice discrepancies in the prices and decided to publish a universal report called the Producers' Price Current, which was later called the Urner Barry Price-Current The report eventually became a daily circular and the data were collected by visiting with buyers and sellers in New York marketplaces. He and his son founded the Urner Publishing Company in 1882, which was able to offer one year subscriptions for $1.00.
Meanwhile, in 1873, L. Frank Barry had a similar project. He started the New York Daily Market Report, which covered all produce markets. It was the first such daily publication in the country. Since the two were engaged in a similar type of business, they recognized an area of mutual interest and together formed the Urner-Barry Company, which was originally located on 173-175 Chamber Street in New York City. The two were lauded for their expertise in the industry, and even consulted during the publication of L.D.H. Weld's The Marketing of Farm Products In the 1960s, the company moved to Jersey City, NJ and eventually moved to the Toms River area.
COMTELL
COMTELL (short for "Commodity Intelligence") began as a computer platform that transmitted price quotes daily via satellite. It was the company's answer to the growth and progression of their report publishing business, which prior to this had been done by mail. In the mid-1990s, COMTELL went live as a website and continues to be used by industry professionals to access spot and historical quotations for a variety of cuts, as well as market projections, futures quotes, market commentary, news, and analytical tools such as User-Defined Relationships.
Acquisition of the Yellow Sheet
Urner Barry's Price-Current primarily focused on the poultry and egg market, with the Seafood Price-Current being introduced in 1973. In the early 1990s, Urner Barry acquired Yellow Sheet, a Red Meat quotation service similar to the Price-Current, from National Provisioner. This gave Urner Barry the ability to provide protein-focused market information to a variety of businesses through the same philosophy of timely, accurate and unbiased information.