“The mother of Nikola Tesla, “the unluckiest genius of all time who was more powerful than Thomas Edison, invented the egg beater in the 19th century. But it wasn’t until Best Manufacturers, almost a century later, that the whisk became truly popular.
Portland, Oregon, USA, is a favored location for small manufacturing companies. Egg beater manufacturer Best Manufacturers is one of them, located on a 10,000-foot lot in an industrial area near the Portland airport.In a concrete-stacked, warehouse-like building, Best Manufacturers’ 13 employees repeat a daily task: bending stainless steel wire into different shapes.
In the 1950s, John Merrifield’s father, Joe Merrifield, founded Best Manufacturers.In 1950, Joe Merrifield was just a traveling greeting card salesman, but he always had an entrepreneurial heart inside him.It wasn’t until 1959 that Joe Merrifield saw an ad in the Oregonian newspaper for a hand-made egg beater for sale. He was intrigued.
“My dad was a salesman,” says John Merrifield, “and he decisively bought the little company, confident that he could sell more egg beaters.”
In the beginning, Best Manufacturers sold egg beaters primarily to the restaurant industry, which was booming due to the increase in spendable income and the growth of car culture. There were other whisk products on the market, both made in the U.S. and imported. But Best manufactures the only whisk that meets the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) specifications, which means that Best whisks are dishwasher safe and don’t leave a gap for bacteria to enter.
While this appealed to restaurants, the home cooking market was depressed, even in the days when Julia Childs (a famous American chef, author and TV host) was raving about making meringue on TV. Joe Merrifield abandoned his attempts at retail sales after a failed partnership with mega-department store Fred Meyer.
Things changed for the better in the 1970s, however, when home giants Crate & Barrel, Bed Bath & Beyond, Williams Sonoma and Sur La Table began expanding their national chains, and all of these companies became Best customers. “As people expand their own kitchens, they want better kitchen tools.” Joe Merrifield says, “When the distribution channel opens up, it’s a big deal for us.” Both John Merrifield and his brother Jeff Merrifield grew up in this industry environment with their father, and as soon as school was out, they went to his father’s factory to sell their lives, embedding wire into the heads of mixers and getting paid 3 cents each. in 1978, after graduating from college, John Merrifield gave up Nine years later, his brother Jeff Merrifield also joined Best. 1990, his father Joe Merrifield retired, and the brothers continued to succeed him. 2008, brother Jeff chose to leave, and John Merrifield In 2008, his brother Jeff chose to leave and John Merrifield became the natural choice to take the helm of Best.
That’s part of the history of the whisk, and if you’d like to continue to learn how it evolved next, please continue to like and follow along, and we’ll continue to bring you the legend of the whisk in the next issue!
