La choy chop suey vegetables 14 oz how to#

In just a few years the company was making a tidy sum of money.Īlthough New left the company for personal reasons in 1930 and Smith was killed by lightning in 1937, the company continued to flourish. This innovative idea was so successful that Smith and New decided to incorporate their own business, La Choy Food Products Company, in 1922, and to use metal to can a variety of Oriental vegetables in addition to bean sprouts.

La choy chop suey vegetables 14 oz how to#

New said he was well acquainted with how to grow bean sprouts, and the two men came up with the idea of canning bean sprouts in glass jars. He thought of his old friend New, a Korean by birth, and asked him whether he had any knowledge or expertise in the matter. Smith, an American who owned his own grocery store in Detroit, Michigan, wanted to sell bean sprouts that were fresh grown to bring a more varied product line to his customers. The two men met and developed a close friendship while students at the University of Michigan during the early years of the 20th century, and both had become successful businessmen. La Choy Food Products Company was the brainchild of two friends, Wally Smith and Ilhan New. Yet, for all its emphasis on high-quality ingredients, the company has experienced difficulty increasing its sales volume during the 1980s and 1990s, because of the introduction of tastier frozen foods and the proliferation of quick-service, Chinese take-out restaurants. The company has become famous for preparing its products with fresh ingredients: it ships shortening from Indiana bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and pineapple from Taiwan, Thailand, and China mung bean seeds from Oklahoma pepper and carrots from California and Idaho and large amounts of chicken, beef, and pork from a number of Midwestern states.

La Choy's food product line includes soy sauce, bean sprouts, chow mein noodles, pepper steak dinners, fancy mixed vegetables, chop suey vegetables, and a host of other items. The company has a strong hold on more than 40 percent of the shelf-stable Oriental food market in the United States, with its closest rival Chun King maintaining approximately a 20 percent share of the market. is the oldest and most successful American-based producer of Oriental food products for the grocery or supermarket shelf.