McCormick & Company, Inc.

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The McCormick name has appeared on spices, seasonings, and other products for more than a century.

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McCormick & Company, Inc., is an American food company that manufactures, markets, and distributes spices, herbs, seasonings, condiments, and sauces. Its products include McCormick spices and seasonings, French’s mustard, Frank’s RedHot, Cholula hot sauce, Old Bay seasoning, Lawry’s seasonings, Zatarain’s foods, and Stubb’s barbecue sauces.

In addition to selling packaged products to consumers, McCormick supplies seasonings, flavorings, and other ingredients to food manufacturers, food service companies, and restaurants. Founded in the late 19th century, the company is headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland. As of 2025, it had about 14,100 employees worldwide. Its common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol MKC.

McCormick’s business consists of two segments. Its consumer unit sells packaged herbs, spices, seasonings, condiments, sauces, and other products through grocery stores and other retailers. The company’s commercial side develops customized seasonings, flavorings, coatings, condiments, and other ingredients for food manufacturers and restaurants. In fiscal 2025, the consumer segment accounted for about 58% of the company’s net sales, with the commercial business generating the remaining 42%.

McCormick traces its roots to 1889, when 25-year-old Willoughby M. McCormick began selling root beer concentrate, fruit syrups, flavoring extracts, and other products door-to-door in Baltimore under the Bee Brand name. His brother, Roberdeau McCormick, joined the business a few years later.

In 1896, McCormick acquired F.G. Emmett Spice Company, giving the business an entry into the spice trade. After relocating the company’s machinery to Baltimore, McCormick began selling spices in small, branded packages at a time when spices were often sold in bulk and without a brand name. The shift to branded, packaged spices helped make McCormick a recognizable name among home cooks.

McCormick incorporated in Maine in 1903, a common practice at the time because of the state’s flexible corporate laws. As a corporation, McCormick could more readily raise capital and expand its operations.

A year later, the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 destroyed McCormick’s factory, equipment, inventory, and most company records, although Willoughby McCormick managed to save the company’s financial books before the building was lost. A new five-story factory was rebuilt on the same site within a year, and the company resumed operations.

In 1912, Willoughby McCormick’s nephew, Charles P. McCormick, joined the company while still in high school.

Following the death of Willoughby McCormick in 1932, Charles became president and chairman at age 36. He led the company through the Great Depression and introduced what he called multiple management, encouraging employees at different levels of the business to contribute ideas about how the company was run.

Charles McCormick also strengthened the company’s identity by standardizing the “Mc” trademark across most of the company’s products and retiring the original Bee Brand name.

During the 1940s, McCormick created an international division to oversee foreign operations and established a commercial division to supply manufacturers, bakeries, meat packers, and restaurants, and in 1947 formed McCormick de Mexico to produce and distribute its products there.

That same year, McCormick purchased San Francisco–based A. Schilling & Company, a well-known producer of coffee, spices, and extracts. Schilling’s products and coast-to-coast distribution transformed McCormick from a regional company into a national one. Rather than replacing the Schilling name, McCormick continued selling the products under that well-established brand name in the western United States.

The company’s expansion continued into the 1950s with the acquisitions of Ben-Hur Products, a California-based spice maker, and Gorman Eckert & Co. Ltd., a Canadian food and spice manufacturer. The deals coincided with the postwar growth of packaged foods and supermarkets and marked the beginning of McCormick’s international expansion.

Over the next two decades, McCormick expanded into industrial flavorings, food ingredients, and packaging through acquisitions that included Gilroy Foods, Baker Extract Co., Cake Mate, and Golden West Foods.

Charles McCormick retired in 1969 after leading the company for nearly four decades. He died the next year.

In 1971, McCormick introduced seasoning packets for slow-cooker recipes. The timing coincided with Rival Manufacturing’s introduction of the Crock-Pot, which helped popularize slow cooking in U.S. households. The seasoning packets became one of the company’s successful entries into the growing market for convenience foods.

McCormick furthered its international presence in 1977 with the opening of a facility in the Netherlands, marking its entry into continental Europe.

McCormick continued expanding through acquisitions during the 1980s, beginning with the purchase of Paterson Jenks in 1984, whose products included the Schwartz brand of herbs, spices, and seasonings in the United Kingdom. Two years later, it acquired Armanino Farms, a Northern California producer of herbs and food ingredients, followed by Gentry Foods, Parsley Patch, and The Herb Farm in 1987.

McCormick’s acquisition strategy continued into the 1990s with the purchases of Maryland-based Old Bay seasoning in 1990 and Mojave Foods Corporation a year later. Mojave specialized in spices, dried chile peppers, and other foods geared largely toward Hispanic cooking. Unlike McCormick’s earlier acquisitions, Old Bay and Mojave were closely associated with particular regional cuisines and cooking traditions.

In the early 2000s, McCormick’s international growth increasingly came through the acquisition of established local brands rather than exporting American products into overseas markets.

In 2000, McCormick acquired Ducros, one of Europe’s leading spice and herb companies, which later became part of McCormick France. In 2003, the company purchased Zatarain’s, the New Orleans food maker known for Cajun and Creole cuisine.

Five years later, it completed what was then its largest acquisition, purchasing Lawry’s seasoned salt and Adolph’s meat tenderizer from Unilever (UL) for about $605 million.

The acquisition drew scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which argued that combining Lawry’s with McCormick’s Season-All brand would give the company control of nearly 80% of the U.S. branded seasoned salt market. McCormick resolved the case by selling the Season-All brand to the Morton salt company and agreeing not to acquire another seasoned salt or spice blend brand for 10 years without notifying the FTC.

In the 2010s, McCormick’s acquisitions increasingly targeted companies in faster-growing economies. McCormick acquired leading Polish spice company Kamis S.A. in 2011. It also entered a joint venture agreement with India-based Kohinoor Foods Ltd. that same year, purchasing an 85% stake.

In 2013, McCormick purchased Wuhan Asia-Pacific, picking up two of China’s best-known bouillon brands: DaQiao and ChuShiLe.

From 2015 to 2020, McCormick concentrated many of its largest acquisitions on condiments, sauces, and flavorings.

In 2015, McCormick acquired One World Foods, Inc., primarily for its line of Stubb’s barbecue sauces, rubs, and marinades. The purchase expanded McCormick’s presence in premium barbecue products. Two years later, it completed its largest acquisition to date, paying about $4.2 billion for RB Foods from Reckitt Benckiser. The deal added Frank’s RedHot sauce, French’s mustard, and Cattlemen’s barbecue sauce.

In 2020, the company added Cholula hot sauce and FONA International, a manufacturer of natural flavorings for food and beverages.

In 2026, McCormick agreed to acquire most of Unilever’s food business. Expected to close in 2027, the transaction would significantly expand McCormick’s lineup of seasonings, condiments, and other food products.