Difference between revisions of "F. Nephi Grigg"

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Francis Nephi "Neef" Grigg was the inventor of the Tater Tot. With his brother Golden T. Grigg, he co-founded Ore-Ida Foods.

In the late 1930s, he and his brother Golden bought rights to homestead some land in Vale, Oregon. Among their customers was Joe Albertson, who started the Albertson's supermarket chain. The brothers bought a bankrupt frozen food plant in Ontario, Oregon, at an auction in 1951.

After World War II, a frozen-food craze swept the US: Americans bought 800 million pounds of frozen food between 1945 and 1946—and Neef wanted in on the business. So he and his brother Golden mortgaged their farms so they could afford a down payment on a flash-freezing plant in Northeastern Oregon. They paid $500,000 for it (over $4.5 million today) and named their new company Ore-Ida because the plant sat on the border of Oregon and Idaho. It was a bold move for two Idaho farm boys, but Neef was one who never seemed to lack in confidence. Records say his motto was always “Bite off more than you can chew, and then chew it.”[1]

By 1951, Ore-Ida was the largest supplier of frozen sweet corn in the US, but Neef knew the real money was in French fries. As French fry production picked up, however, Neef was frustrated by all the scraps that were discarded after the potatoes had been cut down into fries. Those scraps were sold for a pittance and fed to cattle, but Neef was determined to find a way to feed them to people. So he decided to boil ’em, mash ’em, and stick ’em in a … totally new kind of frozen food.[2]

The potato scraps were mashed together, seasoned, and baked, and a creative member of Ore-Ida’s marketing team came up with an all-too-cute and perfect name for the new product: Tater Tots.[3]

Ore-Ida owns the copyright to the name “Tater Tots.” Thanks to Tater Tots, Ore-Ida gained 25 percent of the frozen potato market in the 1950s. A second plant was opened in 1961. In 1965, Ore-Ida was sold to the H. J. Heinz Company for $30 million (equivalent to about $411 million today). Grigg joined the Heinz board of directors and continued working at the plant until 1969. He often modeled in the company’s ads.

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

During his career, he served as president of the Frozen Potato Institute of America and director of the board of the National Frozen Foods Association.

Grigg was born on May 6, 1913, in Nampa, Idaho, to Parley Mormon Grigg Jr. and Thankful Halsey Gardner. He was raised on a small cattle and dairy farm with his 12 brothers and sisters. At age 12, he began peddling fresh produce from the family garden door-to-door around his Nampa neighborhood.

He married Addie Christine Crummett on Christmas Eve in 1936. The ceremony was held on the running board of an old Dodge car in Ontario, Ore. A local car dealer had promised to give the car to the first person married in his parking lot on Christmas Eve.

He and his wife, were the parents of six daughters and two sons.

Grigg was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and presided over the Scottish Mission. He served in the Boy Scouts of America organization and received both the Silver Beaver and Silver Antelope awards. Grigg was a great-grandson of apostle Parley P. Pratt.

He was a philanthropist and contributed to the LDS Hospital Deseret Foundation. The cardiovascular research laboratory at LDS Hospital bears his name.

He died on January 6, 1995, in Salt Lake City.