SPAM

The company, Hormel Foods, the maker of SPAM®, was started by George A. Hormel in Austin, Minnesota in 1891. Originally, the company started as a local butchery and meal procurement business, whose business quickly expanded across the state and country. By the late 1920s, the company took up the canning of meats to expand its business. It created the first canned ham available for sale in the United States. In the 1930s, it added to its canned products by creating Chili Con Carne® and Dinty Moore Beef Stew®, both produced in 1935. In 1936, the Hormel Corporation began to look for ways to use an underutilized resource in their stock, pork shoulder. Developers at the company came up with processed pork shoulder, which was fully cooked and packed in a tin can. SPAM was born.

Prior to its release in 1937, Hormel executives held a naming contest for the new pork product. The winning entry was SPAM. While there has been much speculation about the meaning of the abbreviation SPAM, Hormel has never revealed the truth behind the name. Many have speculated on the meaning of the name, including “Spiced Ham”, “Specially Processed American Meat”, and “Shoulder of Pork and Ham”. But the mystery behind the name remains.

In the economic downturn of the Great Depression, SPAM served as an available, inexpensive food to feed families on a tight budget. The quantity of the food contained in the can was designed to comfortably feed a family of four. The nature of the product as long lasting and shelf stable was particularly welcome to consumers, many of whom did not own a refrigerator, enabling them to have a ready meal on hand. Through nation-wide advertising, SPAM became a well known product in the U.S. But it would gain international notoriety during the coming war.

World War II began in September 1939. Swift German actions on land and sea saw huge losses for the Allied militaries, including Britain, France and Poland. In particular, German submarine activities cut off vital food supplies to Britain, forcing the island to begin rationing in January 1940. Desperate for supplies, the U.K. turned to the U.S. for help.

President Roosevelt Portrait, 1936

Until the Japanese bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, the U.S. remained a neutral country. But many in the nation were sympathetic to the Allied cause, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In an effort to support the U.K. and other Allies’ efforts to combat Nazi aggression, Roosevelt worked with Congress to create the Lend-Lease Act, which came into law in March 1941. The Act enabled the U.S. to remain neutral, but provided the Allies with all necessary military, medical and food supplies. These provisions included SPAM, which became an important part of the British rationing system.

By 1941, many foods, including meat, cheese, butter, and sugar, were rationed in the U.K. The reduction of meat resulted in much lower levels of protein in the British population as compared to pre-war levels, and the shift to meals that were largely vegetarian in nature. So, the appearance of SPAM on British shores in the spring of 1941 was viewed by many as welcome relief to a protein starved population. SPAM was added to the list of rationed canned and dry goods, providing a vital boost to the caloric intake of those living on the island.

In the United States, food rationing began in the spring of 1942. Foods rationed included sugar, meat, cheese, coffee, dried and canned goods. SPAM was among the foods that were included on the system of food controls. However, the ration points needed to obtain SPAM was less than those required for other proteins, such as meat, boosting the canned foods popularity among busy housewives. As a result, it served as an important ingredient, which enabled women in war work to provide easy meals, which sustained families in wartime. 

Office of Price Administration Poster, 1943

SPAM, or its wartime cousin, “Defense Ham”, served as a key component in many mess hall meals for British, American, and other Allied soldiers. During the war, the U.S. government commissioned American meat companies, such as Hormel and others, to produce a luncheon meat similar to SPAM, known as “defense ham”, which had a longer cure, enabling the food to last longer and stand up to the difficult conditions in the battle zone. The steady stream of defense ham resulted in mixed reactions from Allied soldiers. Defense ham’s close resemblance and texture to SPAM, if not taste, also caused soldiers to use the term “SPAM” as a blanket term for all luncheon meat, whether or not it was produced by Hormel or was actual SPAM.

In successive wars in which the U.S. was involved, including the Korean War, SPAM continued to be carried into the field by soldiers, as well as eaten by local populations in times of food insecurity. In South Korea specifically, Koreans needed to scrounge for any available food scraps, including discarded pieces of SPAM from American bases, to be able to feed their families in wartime. Koreans took the mishmash of food and produced inventive dishes to sustain themselves. One such dish was Budae Jjigae, a mélange of Korean and American ingredients, which varied widely depending on the availability of food. Common ingredients in the dish could include SPAM, ramen noodles, hotdogs, kimchi (spicy, fermented cabbage), American sliced cheese, mushrooms, and baked beans.

Budae Jjigae

Today, the legacy of war continues to perpetuate the consumption of SPAM around the globe. It is available in 48 countries throughout the world, including the United Kingdom and South Korea. According to the SPAM Museum’s website, 12.8 cans of the pork product are eaten every second. In South Korea, SPAM has a high value and is given in gift sets to family members, friends and colleagues during the important national holidays of Chuseok (autumn harvest festival) and Seollal (Lunar New Year). Indeed, the country has the highest sales level of SPAM outside of the United States. In Britain, you can buy SPAM at every major supermarket, including Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s. It is also available in some local fish and chip shops as SPAM fritters, which are fried and battered pieces of SPAM.

In the United States, SPAM is available in the lower 48 states, Alaska and Hawaii, and U.S. protectorates, including Guam. Hawaii holds the record for the highest consumption of the canned product in the entire U.S. It also holds the annual Spam Jam, a festival dedicated to celebrating the area’s devotion to the processed pork product. Guam, which played a vital and strategic military role for the U.S. forces in World War II, serves as one of the main consumption hubs of SPAM. The island holds the record for the highest consumption rate of the pork product outside of the U.S.

SPAM’s versatility and self-stable nature ensures that its place in American and global foodways is assured now and into the future. It will continue to serve as a useful form of food aid, sustaining those in need. It will also continue to connect people with their past, creating a generational bridge through consumption of the canned product.

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