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Home || Ministries & Organizations || Our History || Calendar || Contact Us || Donations Harry Kockos Autobiography - Chapter 5 Kockos Introduction || <--Go to Chapter 4 || -->Go to Chapter 6 Two years after the sale of the Pacific Coast Review, I began to publish the Commercial Guide. It included a price list as well as other material pertinent to the grocery business. And I'm glad to say that this publication did not in any way bother The Pacific Coast Review. While I had been promoting the Pacific Coast Food Store organization, my brother Andrew had been fully in charge of the wholesale operation. And while the business was in excellent condition, I found Andrew an entirely different man. And because of our various differences of opinion, I decided to end my business association with him. I thought that it would be best if I dropped the wholesale grocery business and went into the manufacturing line. So without telling Andrew what I had been planning, I began looking for a place to move our jams, jellies, and preserves, and our coffee and peanut butter roasters. Because San Francisco was growing so fast, I wanted to find a location out of the central city area. I found a lot, 200 feet by 225 feet, on Fitzgerald and Jennings. The land included some buildings made of galvonized iron and the price for the entire lot was $11,000; we paid cash. I immediately started the construction of a 200 foot by 100 foot concrete building that extended from Fitzgerald to Edward. Building costs were $28,500, including most of the equipment which I had gotten from Kockos Bros. And Kockos Bros. put approximately $10,000 on the building, leaving the balance on credit. As soon as the building was completed, I moved all our manufacturing equipment and took full charge. A few months thereafter, I spoke to my brother about seperating our businesses. Andrew was willing to hear the idea and we agreed that I would keep the manufacturing business, the lot and the building. Kockos Bros. would pay for the balance of the building and give me some cash as well. Andrew loved the wholesale operation -- he would stay with that. And we began doing business seperately for our own account; Andrew, now as Kockos Bros. Limited Wholesale Grocers, and I, as Enjoy Packing Co. When Andrew passed away his son William took over the business. As the father of the Kockos Bros. Wholesale Grocers, I am very proud at the successful manner in which William handled the business. In 1970, it merged with the Fleming Co., an eastern concern, and Kockos Bros. now stands as one of the largest wholesale grocers west of Chicago. When I took over the Enjoy Packing Co., I didn't even have one dollar in my pocket though my credit was unlimited. But the business grew so rapidly that I was selling the merchandise so fast as I could produce it and making thousands of dollars each month. The Pacific Coast Food stores were all behind me and World War II also provided a demand for merchandise. For example, I had a fruit broker who got me a $50,000 government contract for peach jams, packaged in one gallon cans. I went to Fresno and bought 3000 cases of peaches; they were selling as low as one cent per pound. I hired two or three trucks and had two truckloads of of peaches delivered to the National Cold Storage Warehouse and one truckload to the Enjoy Packing Co. Also, a certain canning company in Oakland was packing some fancy peaches and much of the fruit was not of the required quality. These peaches were put into barrels and I went to the plant, inspected the peaches and found them to be pretty good. I arranged to buy the fruit at $5/barrel. I bought a new pick up truck and had my two sons driving to Oakland and picking up ten barrels every day. I hired an additional fifty girls to clean up the peaches and two extra cooks to help the regular man, Danny, a pretty fast worker. My wife and my oldest daughter, Amanda, were also helping me out. We were mixing the "barrel" peaches with the better ones that I had purchased in Fresno. The work-out room was such a mess that my wife asked me to leave the Enjoy Packing Co. But I told her that I wouldn't quit until I was five feet under the ground. Within a month or so, we finished manufacturing the peach jam. And at that time, my sons advised me that our country was in trouble; they would be joining the Navy within a week. I told them that even though I needed them here, our country was more important. One day at the end of the week, John was driving the truck and he stopped and told me that his time was up and he'd leave the truck there. I said, "Thank you, John, and I wish you all the luck in the world." Well, when I tried to start the truck, I had a heck of a time but I managed to get it into the warehouse. And a few days thereafter, both boys joined the Navy. Business was extremely good and Mr. Le Baron was bringing in more orders all of the time. For example, while we were working on the peach jams, he brought in a $23,000 order from the Safeway stores in Salt Lake City and another order worth $35,000 against a government contract. He was also selling large quantities of other jams to some big grocers. A few days after the boys had gone I went to San Jose to sell some preserves. One of the fellows asked me if I wanted to purchase some fried apricots. There were five tons of apricots, and looking them over, I found them to be fairly good. He told me that he'd take no less than a hundred dollars, but he would deliver to my plant in San Francisco. When the order came in, the girls sorted out the damaged apricots and threw this small amount away. And we started packing apricot and pineapple jams in 1 lb. and 2 lb. containers as well as in gallon cans. We had packed serveral thousand cases when Mr. Le Baron came to the office. I opened up a jar and he loved it very much; and he went out and sold several hundred cases without any trouble. Still, there were many, many apricots left and I decided to make mince meat from the apricot and peach jams. I bought 200 cases of fine, big raisins and mixed the apricot jam with the peach jam, adding plenty of raisins. I called Mr. Le Baron to have him examine the mince meat and he thought it was wonderful; the raisins gave it a good appearance. We kept making mince meat until we had over a hundred barrels and then we continued with the apricot and pineapple jams, packaging the preserves in jars and gallon cans. Mr. Le Baron sold all the gallon cans that we had on hand, as well as all the mince meat; and I was glad to hear such good remarks about our products. Kockos Introduction || <--Go to Chapter 4 || -->Go to Chapter 6 |