|
Choc-Ola® is an American chocolate beverage that was formulated in the 1940s by Harry Normington, Sr. from Pennsylvania. Harry, born in England, was the son of Young and Mary Normington. In 1907, his father brought him to the United States, along with the rest of his family, when he was 7 years old. Coming from England on the RMS Lusitania, they arrived like many immigrants of the time through Ellis Island. The family settled in Lanark, Pennsylvania and started a dairy farm called The Normington Dairy. The Normington Dairy was quite successful and later was renamed Dairyland after it became part of Lehigh Valley Dairy. Lehigh Valley Dairy eventually became Avondale Dairy & Ice Cream. Harry worked at the dairy until his father's retirement, at which time he purchased his father's shares of stock in Avondale Dairy & Ice Cream. At the age of 34, Harry established a chain of ''Avondale'' ice cream parlors and restaurants in and around the Allentown, PA area and was quite successful for a period of time. However, an extended down-turn in the economy eventually took its toll on his parlors and restaurants and he was forced to close all of his businesses in around 1941. Afterwards, Harry left Pennsylvania in search of work, and in 1943 he eventually found a job at Meadow Gold Dairy (now part of Dean Foods) in Vincennes, IN. After moving his family down to Vincennes, he began making plans for a new business in which he planned to bottle and sell a 6 oz chocolate drink; which is what would eventually become Choc-Ola®. His business planning started with visiting nearby big cities to scout out locations for a building suitable for bottling. While he wasn't doing that, he was out acquiring some of the equipment and materials he would later need at the plant, such as motors, wood crates, glass bottles, etc. Much of this would come from junk yards due to the limited supply of materials as a result of WWII. By 1944, Harry had finally found an adequate building in nearby Indianapolis, which also happened to have a house available right next to it into which he could move his family. The building was located at 2301 Churchman Ave. and the house was at 2323 lChurchman Ave. That same year, after moving his family to Indianapolis and establishing Choc-Ola Bottlers Inc., Harry purchased a route truck and in conjunction with larger distributors like 7UP, he began having Choc-Ola® distributed throughout central Indiana and eventually to all of Indiana and the bordering areas of Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan. Choc-Ola® would eventually gain an enormous and loyal following over the years. But that would all begin to change in the late 1970s. ==1977: Choc-Ola® sold to Moxie Industries== Choc-Ola continued to gain popularity throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In 1977, at the height of its success, Harry sold the company to Atlanta-based Moxie Industries. Moxie continued to operate the Indianapolis plant and distribute Choc-Ola in much the same way that Harry Normington had; however, periodic problems with cocoa quality and issues with changing FDA regulations caused some challenging production issues. Eventually, unable to meet the new FDA regulations without incurring substantial costs, Moxie opted to close the Indianapolis plant in 1983 and relocate the packaging operation to a contract manufacturer in Doraville, Georgia called Consolidated Chocolate. Packaging of Choc-Ola® continued at the Doraville facility until at least 1985. So any cans or bottles that list Doraville, GA as the packaging location were all manufactured in 1983 or after. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Choc-Ola」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|