How SPAM Got Its Name

Hormel Foods, makers of SPAM canned lunch meats, cannot be happy. SPAM is now synonymous with that crap clogging up your email and social media feeds:

• A Nigerian Prince wants to send you a million dollars.
• Here’s a once in a lifetime career opportunity. You can make thousands of dollars per week in your pajamas!
• Your bank account has been hacked. Please login now with your account number and password. (We won’t take all of your money … *wink wink*)

Spam emails are the worst, but how did they get that name?

The origin actually starts with the lovable lunch meat, SPAM. SPAM is the registered trademark of Hormel Foods, and the name is always spelled in capital letters.

Hormel Foods introduced the wonder product in 1937. George Hormel wanted to increase the sale of pork shoulder, which was not a very popular cut at the time. He and his team tested a variety of products and came up with a versatile cured pork product. You can slice it, cube it, fry it, bake it, or eat it straight from the can.

To name the new product George Hormel created a naming competition. The competition offered two benefits:

1. It was cheap. Rather than paying an ad agency to name the product, they recruited employees, customers and citizens to submit their ideas.
2. It generated publicity. Promoting the naming competition helped to introduce and launch the product to the public.

Within a few weeks the company had a new brand name, SPAM. Kenneth Daigneau, an actor and brother of a Hormel executive, submitted the winning name. In his submission he said the name was short for “spiced ham.”

Hormel paid Daigneau $100 for his creativity and winning the competition. $100 may seem like a paltry amount, but that’s equivalent to almost $2,000 today. Not a bad reward for a public competition.

SPAM proved to be the perfect product for its time, because fresh meat was expensive and hard to come by. The product was launched in the middle of the Great Depression and WWII started two years later. With its long shelf life and durable can, SPAM quickly became a staple for soldiers and civilians alike.

Within 22 years, Hormel Foods sold 1 billion cans of SPAM. In 2007 it crossed the 7 billion milestone, and by 2012 it surpassed 8 billion.

I will confess, I have never once tasted the product. The thought of it turns my stomach.