The other Ford company  

This is a repeat article from June 2021, but with a twist: it will help you save money on your Labor Day Grilling and forever after. But you’ll have to read to the end to get the savings!

Last week, I came across an interesting bit of history about Henry Ford and his “Other Company,” which I was unaware of. I thought I’d share it to see if it’s as intriguing to you as it was to me. 

I was reminded of it Saturday night when I started a charcoal fire to grill some homegrown steaks. My salivating glands were already working overtime when the sky dropped buckets full of rain on the grille before I could even get the fire going. So, my wife pivoted and saved the steaks for Sunday dinner.

The “other company” is Kingsford, as in the charcoal that 80% of grilling Americans use on their grills (80% is their market share!) Here’s the interesting connection that I never knew until last week.

Between 1918 and 1920, the Ford Motor Company built approximately 2.6 million Model T’s, and they all used a lot of wood; each one used about 100 board feet of wood for parts such as the dashboard, steering wheel and wheels. From the very beginning, Henry Ford used a vertical business model, so he liked to provide as much content in each vehicle as possible. So, he got the idea to try to supply his own wood instead of buying it. 

That led him to enlist the help of Edward G. Kingsford, a real estate agent in Michigan, to locate a supply of wood. In the early 1920s, with Kingsford’s help, Ford acquired timberland in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and built a sawmill and parts plant in a neighboring area, which became Kingsford, Michigan. It’s still a small town on the northern tip of Lower Michigan, with a population of only 5,133 as of the 2010 census.

With the help of Thomas Edison, Ford built a plant next to the sawmill to convert the mill waste of stumps, branches and sawdust into charcoal using a process that A University of Oregon chemist, Orin Stafford, had invented. The plant produced 610 lb of briquettes for every ton of scrap wood.

By the mid-1930s, Ford was marketing “Picnic Kits” containing charcoal and portable grills at Ford dealerships, capitalizing on the link between motoring and outdoor adventure. 

It wasn’t until after World War II that backyard barbecuing took off, thanks to suburban migration and marketing efforts. An investment group bought Ford Charcoal in 1951 and renamed it  Kingsford Charcoal in honor of Edward G. Kingsford (and the factory’s home base). And now you know “The rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey was so fond of saying as he signed off his radio broadcast.  

So, here’s the money-saving tip that I promised. I discovered this about a year ago after gasping at the price of charcoal lighter fluid, currently trading at $26 per gallon on Amazon (4-32 oz bottles of Kingsford Charcoal Lighter Fluid for $25.99)! I decided to use diesel fuel instead, and it worked, and continues to work, perfectly every time I use my grill, which is more often now that I can afford to light up! With diesel currently at about $3.50  per gallon, that’s 7-1/2 times cheaper! Try it, and I promise you’ll never know the difference. You will have no smell or taste while you’re cooking or eating. With all that extra money in your pocket, you could afford to buy everyone an ice cream cone for dessert!

Thanks for reading All About Seniors… see you next week!

Bill Milby is a Director of Visiting Angels® of Central Georgia, a non-medical, living assistance service for seniors. If you have questions or comments about this column, you can reach him at william.mercylink@gmail.com or search for us at  https://www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA/