{"id":12731,"date":"2014-01-21T13:05:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T18:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=12731"},"modified":"2014-01-22T11:21:37","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T16:21:37","slug":"a-look-back-at-a-discontinued-classic-toms-full-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=12731","title":{"rendered":"A Look Back at a Discontinued Classic – Tom’s Full Dinner!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CC_Toms<\/p>\n

The history of confection is rich with brands that have had the briefest flashes of life and others that have withstood the test of time.\u00a0 But even some stalwarts of the candy isle that stuck around for generations eventually fade into sweet obscurity.\u00a0 Such is the case with the topic of today’s post – Tom’s Full Dinner.<\/p>\n

Inventor Tom Huston founded the Tom Huston Peanut Company in April of 1925 out of the city of Columbus, Georgia.\u00a0 Just a few years later in 1932 Huston lost the company due to a combination of over-expansion and a failed other venture.\u00a0 The Tom’s name remained and over the course of the decades that followed the company branched out heavily into candy.\u00a0 One of the company’s most well-known and strangely-named bars through those years was Tom’s Full Dinner.<\/p>\n

I was not able to zero in on exactly when the Full Dinner bar was introduced, but my best estimate is during The Great Depression of the 1930’s, when sugary treats were sometimes marketed as a replacement for a costly meal.\u00a0 Tom’s Full Dinner may have also taken inspiration from the Sperry company’s successful Chicken Dinner bar.<\/p>\n

\"Sperry

Sperry – Chicken Dinner – 5-cent candy bar wrapper – 1940’s<\/p><\/div>\n

The oldest Full Dinner wrapper I have dates back to the early years of the brand:<\/p>\n

\"Tom

Tom Huston Peanut Co – Tom’s Full Dinner – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1930’s 1940’s<\/p><\/div>\n

A regional brand known largely to those in the South, the 1940’s would see Tom’s begin to receive national recognition.\u00a0 This was in large part due to Tom’s candy and snack products being stocked at Army bases in the south and the flood of soldiers training and being stationed in those bases during World War II.<\/p>\n

Tom’s would purchase the McAfee Candy Company, located in Macon Georgia, in 1962.\u00a0 That acquisition would lead to a large expansion of their existing confectionery lineup.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1966, General Foods purchased Tom’s from the group of investors who had held it since the 1930’s.\u00a0 [Correction: General Mills, not General Foods, purchased Tom’s in 1966.]<\/p>\n

Though Tom Huston hadn’t been a part of the company since 1932, it still retained his name until the late 1960’s as the Tom Huston Peanut Company:<\/p>\n

\"Tom

Tom Huston Peanut Co – Tom’s Full Dinner – 10-cent chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1967<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1970 the name of the company officially became Tom’s Foods, finally dropping the surname of its founder.<\/p>\n

I have a pair of wrappers from the early 1970’s that are nearly identical, though one is remarkable in that it’s the earliest Full Dinner wrapper I have that lists milk chocolate as an ingredient.<\/p>\n

\"Tom's

Tom’s – Full Dinner candy bar wrapper – milk chocolate – 1970’s<\/p><\/div>\n

I can’t say for certain which wrapper came first, or if the milk chocolate was added or dropped but my guess is that it was added sometime in the late 60’s and dropped later on.<\/p>\n

\"Tom's

Tom’s – Full Dinner candy bar wrapper – 1970’s<\/p><\/div>\n

By the mid-1970’s it would seem that milk chocolate had been dropped from the recipe as there is no mention of it on this next trimmed down partial wrapper or the two that follow it.\u00a0 This is the first time that an illustration of the bar is included on the wrapper design.\u00a0 [Note: Inflation, as well as unstable sugar and other ingredient prices in the 1970’s caused many manufacturers to drop milk chocolate from their products.]<\/p>\n

\"Tom's

Tom’s Foods – Tom’s Full Dinner – 15-cent chocolate candy bar wrapper – trimmed – 1975<\/p><\/div>\n

Moving away from the fanciful logo of that 1975 wrapper, the 1978 Full Dinner design became more straightforward:<\/p>\n

\"Tom's

Tom’s Foods – Tom’s Full Dinner – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1978<\/p><\/div>\n

This next wrapper in my collection is from 1981 and lists Tom’s Foods as a division of CPG Products Group – which I believe was the toys and games subsidiary of General Foods.\u00a0 If I’m correct, I find it a strange group to place a candy and snack division into.<\/p>\n

\"Tom's

Tom’s Foods – Tom’s Full Dinner – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1981<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1983 the British Confectioner Rowntree-Mackintosh purchased Tom’s Foods and they would operate it for the next five years.\u00a0 I believe the most recent Full Dinner wrapper in my collection comes from this period, though there is no indication of the Rowntree-Mackintosh affiliation on it.\u00a0 [Note the return of milk chocolate as an ingredient.]:<\/p>\n

\"Tom's

Tom’s Foods – Tom’s Full Dinner – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1980’s<\/p><\/div>\n

Tom’s Foods would undergo more ownership changes in the subsequent years, finally becoming a subsidiary of Lance Incorporated in 2005<\/a>.\u00a0 [Note: I do believe that by the 1990’s Tom’s left the candy business to focus solely on their snack products.]<\/p>\n

It is those snack products that Tom’s is still known for today and their reputation as a quality snack manufacturer remains, nearly a century after Tom Huston founded his Peanut Company.\u00a0 And though Tom’s is no longer in the candy business, their place in confectionery history is solidified due in no small part to the decades when Tom’s Full Dinner bar was in candy isles across the country.<\/p>\n

And that’s everything for today and our look back at a discontinued confectionery classic – Tom’s Full Dinner.<\/p>\n

See you next time!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The history of confection is rich with brands that have had the briefest flashes of life and others that have withstood the test of time.\u00a0 But even some stalwarts of the candy isle that stuck around for generations eventually fade … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,49,24,6,56,119],"tags":[321,316,328,351,332,14,324,78,333,1014,38,21,222,1015,15,348,11],"class_list":["post-12731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1950s","category-1960s","category-1970s","category-1980s","category-chocolate-2","category-peanut-butter","tag-candy-collecting","tag-candy-collection","tag-candy-collector","tag-candy-wrapper-collection","tag-candy-wrapper-collector","tag-collectible","tag-collecting-candy","tag-confectionery","tag-confections","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-packaging","tag-peanut-butter-2","tag-retrospective","tag-sweets","tag-vintage-candy-wrapper","tag-wrapper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-3jl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12731"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12761,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731\/revisions\/12761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}