On a small table in one of the executive offices of the Borden Company there reposes a tall, graceful silver loving cup that somehow seems to rivet attention upon itself. Admiring glances are cast at it, Company officials, salesmen from the veteran down to the “cub” are shown it, guests are escorted to the inner sanctum and shown the cup with pride.
Why all this ceremony? Why all the attention? Perhaps the inscription on the cup may serve as the key to the mystery. For neatly engraved on tie cup are the following words. “Presented by the Bronx Grocers and Dairymens Association.”
It was the first time in the history c### manufacturer-independent retail ##ocers relations that a silver cup had been presented to the manufacturer by a grocers’ Association. And it was Borden’s, the largest manufacturers of dairy products in the United States, a company that recognizes the importance of the Jewish grocer and has always extended to him its fullest cooperation, that had won the cup.
To all those who read the inscription it recalls that memorable scene at the 10th Annual Reunion held by the Bronx Grocers & Dairymen’s Association, affiliated with the United Independent Retail Grocers Association, when the silver cup was awarded to Borden’s as a company showing its cooperation by being represented at the reunion by the greatest number of its men.
Festivities were at their height that evening when the representatives of the manufacturers were called upon by the Committee of Judges to march past in parade. The bands on the platform played the official song of the United Independent Retail Grocers Association. With pencils and pads, the Judges kept careful count. Then came the decision. The Borden Company, having been represented by the greatest number of men, had won the cup.
The great number of men on the company’s sales staff was an indication in itself of the great army necessary to bring Borden products to the public, and of the tremendous consumer demand that exists for them.
The silver loving cup was the independent retail grocers’ tribute to a company that had proven its keenest interest in their affair, and it is for that reason that the cup today occupies its proud position in one of the Borden Company’s inner sanctums.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
