Rosenberg Brothers

Summary

Business	Dried Fruit Packer
Main Location	San Francisco, CA
Active	1893-1947
Predecessors	H.E. Losse and Company
Successors	Consolidated Grocers, Mayfair Packing, Bonner Packing

Rosenberg Brothers was a major San Francisco-based dried fruit packer. The company was started in 1893 by Max Rosenberg, Abraham Rosenberg, and Adolph Rosenberg to pack and ship California fruit to the east. The brothers were Californians, born to German immigrant parents who had arrived in the 1850's. The "Sunsweet Story" refers to them as "the most successful of the speculative packers", commenting on their business model of buying fruit and hoping it would sell for more when actually sold.

The company had packing houses in the Santa Clara Valley, Oregon, the Sacramento Valley, and San Joaquin Valley, and bought and sold several kinds of dried fruits. A 1911 ad in California Fruit News shows they packed dried fruit and raisins.

The last of the original brothers died in 1931; Arthur C. Oppenheimer ran the company for many years, but died in 1950.. The company survived independently until December 1947 when it was bought by a Consolidated Grocers Corp. of Chicago. Rosenberg stayed as a separate company but a subsidiary of Consolidated Grocers, while United States Products, a San Jose canner, became part of the canning arm and lost its independent name.

Rosenberg Brothers finally went out of business in 1957. Mayfair Packing bought the dried fruit and walnut operations, Bonner Packing bought the raisin business, and Trico bought Rosenberg's almond business.

Rosenberg Brothers was a particularly strong competitor:

"Oppenheimer was generally regarded as sort of a genius among the proprietary packers. Unquestionably, he was the most successful of the speculative packers, and he was similarly successful in the other commodity fields in which the Rosenberg firm specialized: tree nuts, rice, beans, and honey. In the case of dried fruits, his practice was to circulate propaganda in the orchard districts, mainly through his buyer-fieldmen, to convince growers that economic conditions at the time would justify only a low field price. He frequently succeeded in depressing the field market, when he would buy all of the fruit his firm required. He would then get the packers together to elicit their support of some kind of a scheme he had devised to strengthen the market for packed goods. He succeeded remarkably, usually remaining personally in the background of these activities, but often persuading the other packers to fall into line and to address grower meetings and otherwise to convince growers that they were doing all they could for the growers. It was common knowledge in the dried fruit industry that at one period, Rosenberg Bros. and Company accumulated supplies from three successive crops before a favorable wholesale market developed that enabled the firm to make its speculation pay off handsomely. The object of all this, of course, was to buy low and sell high."

Rosenberg Brothers in San Jose

Rosenberg Brothers had a long-time presence in the San Jose and Santa Clara area, moving between packing houses many times.

An early location was on Ryland Street, at the west end of the street in a former C. M. Webber warehouse. Rosenberg's building had significant machinery and even had overhead shafting to power some equipment. A fire on morning of November 10, 1906 burned that plant to the ground. George Hyde was the manager. The night watchman was feared burned, but he turned out to be safe as he'd been at home sick for several nights The fire burned several thousand tons of prunes - 50 freight cars worth. 11 full cars burned, and two warehouses; the fire was encouraged by 5000 gallons of crude oil. The building itself supposedly belonged to Mrs. J. C. Webber of Chicago

The Ryland Street fire chased Rosenberg Brothers away, both north of downtown to Stockton Ave. and to the west side of San Jose. Their new plant was in the former Santa Clara Valley Fruit Exchange on the northwest corner of Auzerais and Sunol St., with Orrin Harlan as manager in 1908. There was a lumberyard was across Sunol Street, and Standard Oil across the railroad tracks.

Another fire on August 7, 1915 destroyed the Sunol Street plant. The manager at the time was H. M. Barngrover. Rosenberg Brothers had been located in the Santa Clara Valley Fruit Exchange warehouse, a large brick building with multiple firewalls. Rosenberg was leasing; lost "many dried apricots and some prunes". The loss to the firm at $300,000. The fire started in pile of apricot pits near the tracks. 5000 gallons of fuel oil still burning in the tank at noon the next day. Fire was blamed on IWW, supposedly threats had been made. Later news reports blamed an International Workers of the World supporter, according to October 2, 1915 Sausalito News.

After the Sunol St. fire, Rosenberg Brothers took over the former California Cured Fruit Association warehouse] next to the Santa Clara depot in 1916.

The company bought H.E. Losse and Company in 1917.

Details of a 1921 lawsuit over farmer who did not deliver contracted prunes.

Locations

Location	Years	Address	Details
Edenvale	1922	"One mile away from Richmond Chase plant at Edenvale station"	Receiving station
Fresno	1922	Broadway Street	South end. Largest raisin packing operation in world in 1920's.
Medford	None		Medford: Spur historically named after Rosenberg Brothers on topoquest.com
San Francisco	1906	211-213 California Street	Burned in 1906 earthquake
San Francisco	1912	153 California Street
San Francisco		275 Brannan St.	Warehouse. From History of Rincon Hill.
San Jose	1906	Ryland Street near San Pedro St.	Burned Nov. 10, 1906.
San Jose	1907	West San Carlos St.	Former Luehning packing house.
San Jose	1907-1915	Sunol Street at Auzerais St.	Northwest corner. Burned August 1915.
Santa Clara	1917, 1927	Railroad Avenue	Shows up in City Directory in 1917.
Talent, Oregon	None
Winters, CA	1951	Main St.
Yuba City	1903

Photos

Rosenberg Brothers packing house, Yuba City. From U.C. Libraries.

Rosenberg Brothers packing house near Medford, Oregon.