Same Place/Food Different Name

Here it is folks! Something that has been weighing heavy on my mind. Ok that might be a little dramatic... but this topic keeps coming up so I thought I'd blog about it.

There are some businesses but more food brands that seem to have a different name out here on the west coast than they do on the east coast. Strange? Yes!

The first time this was brought to my attention was actually when we were driving across the U.S. Do you know another name for Panera Bread? Well in the areas surrounding St. Louis, it is known as the St. Louis Bread Company. Same exact place...different name. Reason?? Well I'm not really sure, but the Panera headquarters are in a suburb of St. Louis so maybe that is why.

Next up? Hellmann's. Do you know what Hellmann's is called on the west coast? I'll be really impressed if you guessed this one. Here on the west coast Hellmann's is known as Best Foods. Reason? Well according to Wikipedia, this guy from Germany...a Mr. Hellmann...created Hellmann's in NY and then a company called Best Foods created an equally liked Mayo. When Best Foods bought Hellmann's, they decided that since both Mayo recipes were liked so much they would keep them the same and sold in their specific halves of the country. Best Foods took on the blue ribbon marketing look of Hellmann's.

Let's talk ice cream. Edy's. Here on the west coast it's called Dreyer's. Essentially what happened here is that these two guys, Dreyer's and Edy's, started their ice cream business here on the west coast and then when they moved east they went with the name Edy's so they wouldn't be confused with Breyers. Guess what though...Breyers is also sold here on the west coast, so I'm not sure that's the actually story, but that's all I could find.



The last one I have for today is Hardee's. Here on the west coast Hardee's is known as Carl's Jr. So here I sit with that same old question of "WHY?" Wikipedia was again a little helpful in this area. The company that owns Carl's Jr. acquired Hardee's and pretty much revamped Hardee's by giving them the same logo and same foods as Carl's Jr.

This is so strange to me. I've seen more, but I can't remember names right now...I suppose I'll add to the list as I find them. I know this was more of an informational post, but did you know all of this already? I didn't have a clue. Do you know of any other brands?