Welch’s Food is the manufacturing and marketing unit of the National Grape Cooperative Association. Welch’s is especially famous for its grape juice, though it offers other products as well.
Dr. Thomas Bramwell Welch, a dentist and the inventor of grape juice had learned of the experiments of Pasture in the control of fermentation.
He successfully pasteurized the juice of the Concord grape to create an ‘unfermented sacramental wine’ that he marketed to churches.
Welch took advantage of the Colombian Exposition of 1893 to set up a stand and distribute samples of grape juice to the crowds gathered in Chicago, as he did later at the St. Louis World’s Fair and at other expositions.
Soon after, Dr. Welch’s Grape Juice became simply Welch’s Grape Juice. In 1903, the Welch company was re-chartered and three years later it built a second factory in Westfield because its original plant could not meet the demand even though it was producing 350,000 gallons per year.
In 1911, the company expanded again, buying a large manufacturing facility in North Eats, Pennsylvania.
Welch’s received a free publicity boost in 1913 when Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan served Welch’s Grape Juice instead of wine at a diplomatic gathering honoring retiring British ambassador James Bryce.
The success of Welch’s Grape Juice was truly remarkable, with fifty thousand gallons sold in 1897 and one million a decade later.
In 1956, the company was purchased by the National Grape Co-operative Association, a coalition of grape growers and was renamed Welch Foods.
In 1981, the Dr Pepper Company purchased the rights to Welch’s Sparkling Grape Soda and it other soft drinks.
History of Welch’s Grape Juice
