{"product_id":"rare-vintage-sunshine-label-suwanee-food-treasures-gifts-rare","title":"Vintage 1943 Land O’ Sunshine Evaporated Milk Can Label 🥛 Suwannee Food \u0026 Baking, Jacksonville FL","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRation Stamps for a Can of Milk? 🥛 Vintage 1943 Land O' Sunshine Evaporated Milk Label, Suwannee Food \u0026amp; Baking, Jacksonville\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9 1\/2\" x 3 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UFtiHjYfPtg\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e🥛 \u003cstrong\u003eIn 1943 you could not just buy this can of milk. You had to spend stamps on it.\u003c\/strong\u003e The label carries its own copyright year on its face, and on \u003cstrong\u003e2 June 1943\u003c\/strong\u003e canned evaporated and condensed milk went onto the American ration book. A tin of \u003cstrong\u003eLand O’ Sunshine Evaporated Milk\u003c\/strong\u003e was, that summer, a thing you budgeted points for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🧷 Details\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApprox. \u003cstrong\u003e9 1\/2\" x 3 1\/2\"\u003c\/strong\u003e ~\u003cbr\u003e\nOriginal unused can label, lithographed on cream stock, blank reverse\u003cbr\u003e\nPrinted on the face: \u003cstrong\u003eLAND O’SUNSHINE\u003c\/strong\u003e over a Jersey cow’s head set in a blazing sunburst · \u003cstrong\u003eEVAPORATED MILK\u003c\/strong\u003e · \u003cem\u003eCONTENTS 14½ OZ. AVOIR. OR 13 FL. OZ.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nOn the right panel: \u003cem\u003ePACKED FOR\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eSUWANNEE FOOD \u0026amp; BAKING CO., JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA\u003c\/strong\u003e, and the copyright line \u003cem\u003e© 1943 S. F. \u0026amp; B. CO.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nUp the right edge, between two little union bugs, an oval at the top and a lettered diamond at the foot with \u003cem\u003e676\u003c\/em\u003e printed beside it: \u003cstrong\u003eINTERNATIONAL PLAYING CARD \u0026amp; LABEL CO., ROGERSVILLE, TENN.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nLittle to slight wear — you would not notice it on display, but see the photographs and judge for yourself\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🍼 What the directions panel says\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBetween the two cow panels the sheet carries the whole feeding instruction, and the first line stops a modern reader dead:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“Can be used for infant feeding. Use according to your doctor’s directions. Use undiluted on cereals and fruits, or in coffee. Add one part of water to one part of the contents of this can to obtain a milk product which will not be below the legal standard for whole milk. Land O’ Sunshine Evaporated Milk is produced in clean sanitary plants.”\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is not a stray claim — it is the ordinary practice of the period. Before commercial formula, \u003cstrong\u003eevaporated milk cut one-to-one with water was how a great many American babies were fed\u003c\/strong\u003e, on a doctor’s direction, and a tin that kept without refrigeration was the point of the product. Put that next to the ration stamp and you have the whole squeeze of the home front on one strip of paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏪 The house brand of the company that became Winn-Dixie\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSuwannee Food \u0026amp; Baking Co.\u003c\/strong\u003e was the manufacturing arm behind a Jacksonville grocery empire. \u003cstrong\u003eWilliam “Bill” Lovett\u003c\/strong\u003e founded \u003cstrong\u003eLovett’s Groceteria\u003c\/strong\u003e in \u003cstrong\u003e1928\u003c\/strong\u003e; baking began at the Suwannee Food \u0026amp; Baking plant in \u003cstrong\u003e1931\u003c\/strong\u003e; and Lovett’s grew to \u003cstrong\u003e78 stores across Florida and Georgia\u003c\/strong\u003e. In \u003cstrong\u003e1939\u003c\/strong\u003e Lovett persuaded \u003cstrong\u003eTable Supply\u003c\/strong\u003e to take a controlling \u003cstrong\u003e51 per cent\u003c\/strong\u003e of his company, and the two became \u003cstrong\u003eWinn \u0026amp; Lovett\u003c\/strong\u003e — the firm that would end up as \u003cstrong\u003eWinn-Dixie\u003c\/strong\u003e. The plant stood in Jacksonville’s \u003cstrong\u003eNew Town\u003c\/strong\u003e neighborhood, inside what became the chain’s original corporate headquarters and distribution center.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo \u003cem\u003eLand O’ Sunshine\u003c\/em\u003e is not a national brand and never was. It is a \u003cstrong\u003egrocery chain’s own label\u003c\/strong\u003e, packed for its own shelves — and the chain it belonged to is still on the map of the American South.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎟️ What 1943 meant for a tin of milk\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRationing of processed foods began on \u003cstrong\u003e1 March 1943\u003c\/strong\u003e with War Ration Book Two and its \u003cstrong\u003eblue stamps\u003c\/strong\u003e: \u003cstrong\u003e48 blue points per person per month\u003c\/strong\u003e, which for a family of four meant 192 points to cover everything tinned, bottled and packaged. Over \u003cstrong\u003e300 processed foods\u003c\/strong\u003e were rationed from March 1943 until \u003cstrong\u003eAugust 1945\u003c\/strong\u003e. Canned evaporated and condensed milk joined the ration on \u003cstrong\u003e2 June 1943\u003c\/strong\u003e, and here’s the twist: it didn’t go on the blue stamps with the canned vegetables. It went on the \u003cstrong\u003ered\u003c\/strong\u003e ones, right alongside the meat, butter and cheese.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reason was the milk and the can both. The services needed the calcium, fresh milk was a headache to ship, so cheese, butter and canned milk were held back for them, and the tin itself was short. Japan controlled roughly \u003cstrong\u003e70 per cent of the world’s tin supply\u003c\/strong\u003e, and tin — shock-proof, moisture-proof, indifferent to temperature — was what the military needed for ration tins, ammunition boxes, plasma containers and morphine syrettes. Civilian tin had to be squeezed. That is why a housewife in Jacksonville counted points at the grocery counter, and why this cheerful sunburst of a label was printed in a year when the thing it wrapped was being counted out by the stamp.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🖨️ The printer, and the union man who built the plant\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe imprint up the right edge belongs to one of the best stories in American label printing. \u003cstrong\u003eGeorge L. Berry\u003c\/strong\u003e was president of the printing pressmen’s union for \u003cstrong\u003eforty years\u003c\/strong\u003e, and he came from the Tennessee hill country where the union built its own town. In \u003cstrong\u003eJuly 1927\u003c\/strong\u003e he engineered the purchase of the \u003cstrong\u003eF. Y. Kitzmiller and Sons\u003c\/strong\u003e knitting mill in \u003cstrong\u003eRogersville, Tennessee\u003c\/strong\u003e, which had gone into receivership, and had it rebuilt as a printing plant — for the plain reason that trained pressmen needed work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA team under \u003cstrong\u003eA. H. Pfiffner\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eR. J. Tieke Sr.\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eC. H. “Fritz” Geiger\u003c\/strong\u003e got the shop running, and it began printing \u003cstrong\u003eplaying cards in 1929\u003c\/strong\u003e with about twenty people. As card demand fell, food and tobacco labels were added; in \u003cstrong\u003e1930\u003c\/strong\u003e the firm was renamed the \u003cstrong\u003eInternational Playing Card and Label Company\u003c\/strong\u003e and moved to labels exclusively. It became one of the largest independently owned label printers in the country, working for \u003cstrong\u003eCampbell’s Soup, Gerber, Chef Boyardee, Life Savers, V-8, Pepsi\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eClabber Girl\u003c\/strong\u003e — and for hundreds of small regional packers like this one. It merged with \u003cstrong\u003eDennison Manufacturing\u003c\/strong\u003e of Framingham, Massachusetts in \u003cstrong\u003e1977\u003c\/strong\u003e, and the Rogersville plant was finally sold in \u003cstrong\u003e2011\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two small bugs stamped either side of that imprint, the oval and the diamond, are \u003cstrong\u003eunion labels\u003c\/strong\u003e — the printing trades’ mark that the sheet was set and run by union hands. On a plant founded by a union president to employ his own members, they are not decoration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🐄 The picture itself\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Jersey cow’s head, three-quarter view, in front of a hand-drawn sun whose rays are laid down in two tones of yellow and burnt orange, one sun on each of the two cow panels. The lettering is heavy sans-serif with a cast shadow, the kind of confident commercial type that was about to vanish under post-war modernism. \u003cem\u003eLand O’ Sunshine\u003c\/em\u003e is Florida selling Florida, on a can of milk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e❓ Questions People Ask\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow is it dated?\u003c\/strong\u003e The label dates itself — the packer’s 1943 copyright line is printed on the right panel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIs it a crate label?\u003c\/strong\u003e No — it is a can label, printed to wrap a tin of evaporated milk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWho made the milk?\u003c\/strong\u003e The label says \u003cem\u003epacked for\u003c\/em\u003e Suwannee Food \u0026amp; Baking Co. of Jacksonville, which means the brand was theirs and the packing was done to their order.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIs it a reproduction?\u003c\/strong\u003e No. Original unused label stock on period paper, with the printer’s imprint and union labels intact on the edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e🏡 Good for framing in a kitchen or pantry, Jacksonville and Florida history collections, Winn-Dixie and grocery-chain history, dairy and evaporated-milk collections, World War II home-front collections, and printing and union-label history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1920s-wayne-gold-embossed-label-newark-ny-treasures\"\u003eAntique 1920s Wayne Brand Cut Refugee Beans Can Label 🫘 General Anthony Wayne, Edgett-Burnham Company, Newark NY, Gold Embossed\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1920s-foodland-evaporated-milk-label-cleveland-cow-farm-decor\"\u003eAntique 1920s Foodland Evaporated Milk Label 🐄 Cleveland Ohio Farmhouse Art\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1920s-squaw-gold-embossed-can-label-2-centerville-md-native-american\"\u003eAntique 1920s Squaw Brand Petit Pois Extra Small Peas Can Label ✨ Centerville Canning Co, Maryland\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44563233341672,"sku":"VAG-8247199170792","price":11.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.5048571815_f42r.jpg?v=1785439690","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/rare-vintage-sunshine-label-suwanee-food-treasures-gifts-rare","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}