James L. Kraft

James Lewis Kraft (December 11, 1874 – February 16, 1953) was a Canadian-American entrepreneur and inventor and the founder of Kraft Foods Inc. Kraft immigrated to the United States from Canada in 1902. He developed a patented pasteurization process for cheese, allowing it to be shipped long distances, making him the first to patent processed cheese. Life and career J. L. Kraft was born on December 11, 1874, near Stevensville, Ontario, Canada, located just north of Fort Erie, to Mennonite parents Minerva Alice née Tripp (1848–1933) and George Franklin Krafft (1842–1914), a farmer of German descent. He was the second of eleven children. Kraft was educated in the Stevensville area (S.S. No. 9) and worked nearby at Ferguson's General store in Fort Erie from 1901 to 1902. According to Ruth Kraft Anderson, daughter of Kraft's brother Will, the name was indeed originally spelled with two fs, but Kraft decided to remove one f when he began the company. Kraft immigrated to Buffalo, New York, in 1902, taking a position as secretary and treasurer of the Shefford Cheese Company. He became a partner in the company the following year, but his partners abruptly dissolved the agreement while he was on a business trip to Chicago—either to inspect the local branch of the company or to supervise it. Stranded in the big city, Kraft used his remaining $65 in capital to rent a horse and wagon and established his own business of buying cheese wholesale and selling it to local grocers. A year later, he would write to a friend: "I haven't got a comparatively large business now, but I know what I can do and in less than five years I am honest in saying I expect to have one of the best wholesale cheese businesses in this City." His business faltering, company tradition has it that Kraft decided to "make God a partner" in his business in 1907; as business improved in the next few years, he brought his brothers Charles Herbert, Frederick, Norman and John Henry into the business.