Beyond the Fence: The Sweet‘N Lowdown
By Anselm Doering and Franz Wisner
When Cumberland Packing Company chairman Marvin Eisenstadt is your guide for a tour of the company’s Sweet’N Low plant, the visits come with a healthy dose of history.
“My father, Benjamin Eisenstadt, came here [to a building at the corner of Cumberland Street and Flushing Avenue] in 1940 to open up a cafeteria,” Marvin said. “He had four children, a wife and a sick mother-in-law to take care of.”
The Cumberland Café exploded in popularity following the outbreak of World War II thanks to thousands of new (and hungry) employees constructing ships at the Brooklyn Navy Yard across the street. Seven-year-old Marvin bused tables on weekends and watched his father handle the crowds. Once, he recalled, an unruly customer hurled a pie at his father after being chastised for cutting a line.
“I thought I was going to be an orphan,” joked Marvin. “But my father took the pie and threw it back at his face and said, ‘Get the hell out of here.’ Everybody in line clapped.”
The lunch crowds thinned following the end of the war, but the elder Eisenstadt had bigger plans. He decided to manufacture sugar packaged in tea bags, the first company in the country to do so, according to Marvin. The Cumberland Packing Corporation was born and the café morphed into a sugar production facility, where Marvin worked during breaks from school.
After graduating from college with a degree in chemistry, Marvin agreed to come work with his father and help develop products that would grow the family business.
“We developed mustard, salt, pepper – all these condiments in packets,” he said.
A request from a drug company for a “sugar substitute” would trigger a discovery that would change the company – and the industry – forever.
“At that time there was saccharin, which is 300 times sweeter than sugar, and cyclamate, which is 30 times sweeter than sugar,” said Marvin. “I read in a bakers’ magazine that lactose – which is milk sugar – would leach out the taste of coffee. I thought, maybe it’ll leach out the aftertaste of the saccharin.”
So he made a new formula, a combination of saccharin, cyclamate and lactose. The new product tasted better than saccharine and contained a fraction of the calories found in refined sugar. The Eisenstadts dubbed the concoction Sweet‘N Low after Benjamin’s favorite song.
“That’s why it has the musical treble clef in the logo,” Marvin said. “We made the packaging pink so it would stand out, and people would know it wasn’t sugar.”
In 1965, after Coca-Cola and Pepsi had sparked a low-calorie beverage craze with the introduction of Tab and Diet Pepsi, Marvin received a call from the A&P grocery chain.
“They said, ‘We want to put it in all our supermarkets.’ Serendipity!” he said. “About a month later we were in every A&P thanks to the soft drink industry, which really started the diet revolution in this country.”
When the company decided to expand operations, they found space nearby in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which was just beginning its transition from a military facility to an industrial center.
“We were one of the first [commercial tenants],” Marvin said. “It was barren and it was still military. There was a prison there for soldiers. You’d see prisoners marching along.” The company has been at the navy yard ever since.
Marvin marvels at the transformation of the navy yard and feels the decision to expand there is one of the best decisions the company has ever made.
“The navy yard has been a godsend to us,” he said. “They give us good rent. They take responsibility for the building if there’s something wrong. Every complaint they take care of.”
Marvin Eisenstadt celebrated his 80th birthday this year. He has turned over company operations to his sons. That doesn’t stop him from daily rounds at the Cumberland facilities, where he doles out hugs and asks longtime workers about their children.
“Every person that’s here, whatever they do, helps the family business,” he said. “I want them to take pride in what they’re doing. It’s one big family.”
Anselm Doering is the CEO of EcoLogic Solutions, a Navy Yard-based manufacturer and supplier of eco cleaning products for commercial institutions. He can be reached at anselm@ecologicsolutions.com
Franz Wisner is a freelance writer living in Fort Greene. He can be reached at franz@storydrivenink.com