Kingsford (charcoal)

Kingsford
Product type Charcoal
Owner The Clorox Company
Country U.S.
Introduced 1920 (1920)
Tagline "Start Something"
Website kingsford.com

Kingsford is a brand of charcoal used for grilling, along with related products. The brand is owned by The Clorox Company. Currently, the Kingsford Products Company remains the leading manufacturer of charcoal in the US, enjoying 80 percent market share. More than 1 million tons of wood scraps are converted into charcoal briquets annually.[1]

History

Ford Motor Company sold more than one million Ford Model Ts in 1919, and each of those Model Ts used 100 board feet of wood for the parts such as frame, dashboard, steering wheels and wheels. Because of the amount of wood that had to be used in the cars, Henry Ford decided he wanted to produce his own supply. He enlisted the help of Edward G. Kingsford, a real estate agent in Michigan, to find him a supply of wood. Coincidentally, Kingsford’s wife was a cousin of Ford - making the partnership a reality.[2] In the early 1920s, Ford acquired large timberland in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and built a sawmill and parts plant in a neighboring area (which became Kingsford, Michigan). The mill and plants produced sufficient parts for the car but generated waste such as stumps, branches and sawdust. Ford suggested that all wood scraps were to be processed into charcoal.[3]

A University of Oregon chemist, Orin Stafford, had invented a method for making pillow-shaped lumps of fuel from sawdust and mill waste combined with tar and bound together with cornstarch. He called the lumps “charcoal briquettes.” [4] Thomas Edison designed the briquette factory next to the sawmill, and Kingsford ran it. It was a model of efficiency, producing 610 lb (280 kg) of briquettes for every ton of scrap wood. The product was sold only through Ford dealerships. Ford then named the new business Ford Charcoal and changed the name of the charcoal blocks to “briquets”. At the beginning, the charcoal was sold to meat and fish smokehouses, but supply exceeded demand.[5]

By the mid-1930s, Ford was marketing “Picnic Kits” containing charcoal and portable grills directly from Ford dealerships, capitalizing on the link between motoring and outdoor adventure that his own Vagabond travels popularized. “Enjoy a modern picnic,” the package suggested. “Sizzling broiled meats, steaming coffee, toasted sandwiches.” It wasn’t until after World War II that backyard barbecuing took off, thanks to suburban migration, the invention of the Weber grill and the marketing efforts. An investment group bought Ford Charcoal in 1951 and renamed it to Kingsford Charcoal in honor of Edward G. Kingsford (and the factory's home-base name) and took over the operations. The plant was later acquired by Clorox in 1973.[6]

Manufacturing

Kingsford Charcoal is made from charred softwoods such as pine and spruce which is then mixed with ground coal and other ingredients to make a charcoal briquette. As of January 2016, Kingsford Charcoal contains the following ingredients:[7][8]

  • Wood char - Fuel for heating
  • Mineral char - Fuel for heating
  • Mineral carbon - Fuel for heating
  • Limestone - Binding agent
  • Starch - Binding agent
  • Borax - Release agent
  • Sawdust - Speed up ignition

The raw materials, primarily wood waste from regional sawmills, are delivered to the factory. The wood waste is fed into pits to undergo magnetic filtration to remove any metallic parts. The wood waste is then ground into fine particles and whisked with hot air to remove any moisture.[9] The wood particles are later processed through a large furnace with multiple hearths (called a retort) in a controlled-oxygen atmosphere. The particles are stacked in batches in a kiln that chars the wood without burning in a controlled-oxygen atmosphere. The wood is progressively charred as it drops from one hearth to the next. The charred wood particles are combined with the other ingredients, press formed into pillow-shaped briquettes and dried out before being packaged to be sold.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Kingsford : : Our Heritage
  2. ↑ "Henry Ford's Connection to Charcoal". Knowledge Stew. September 26, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Ford Iron Mountain plant". Daily News. Iron Mountain, MI. Archived from the original on August 22, 2016.
  4. ↑ United States Grant US1609097 A, Stafford Orin F, "Process of making charcoal briquettes and product derived therefrom", published November 30, 1926
  5. ↑ Slater, Dashka (September 26, 2014). "Who Made that Charcoal Briquette?". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Kingsford Charcoal". Prezi. July 5, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  7. ↑ Kingsford Brand Charcoal ingredients
  8. ↑ "Home Depot Safety Data Sheet" (PDF).
  9. ↑ "Oregon's Kingsford plant is king". Billings Gazette. June 30, 2001. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Kingsford Brand Charcoal ingredients". California BBQ Association. August 2000. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
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