The Story of Crisco

Hydrogenation of organic substances was first developed in 1897. In 1907, a German chemist, Edwin Kuno Kaiser, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, the hometown of the Procter & Gamble soap maker. Shortly after arrival, Kaiser entered into a commercial deal with Procter & Gamble and submitted two cotton oil hydrogenation technologies to the company for the purpose of creating raw materials for soap production. But, since the product looked like lard outwardly, Procter & Gamble began selling it in June 1911 as a cooking oil called “Crisco,” which is an acronym for crystallized cottonseed oil.