What ingredients are used to make SPAM?

SPAM is a trademarked meat product made mainly of ground pork and ham. The other ingredients consist of salt, sugar, potato starch, water, and sodium nitrite. These ingredients are mixed with the ground meat before being transferred to cans, vacuum-sealed, and cooked. After cooling, the cans are ready for distribution. SPAM, a portmanteau for spiced ham, was introduced in 1937. By 2022, Hormel claimed that around 13 cans of SPAM were consumed every second.

How is SPAM made and packaged?

SPAM is a trademarked meat product made mainly of ground pork and ham. To make SPAM, the meat is ground and mixed with ingredients like salt, sugar, potato starch, water, and sodium nitrite. The mixture is then put into cans, vacuum-sealed, and cooked inside the cans. After the cans cool, they are ready to be sold. SPAM was introduced to the market in 1937. The name, coined by Ken Daigneau, is a portmanteau for spiced ham. SPAM gained popularity as an affordable and easily prepared food. Over 100 million pounds of SPAM were consumed by Allied soldiers during World War II. Today, there are more than 10 varieties of SPAM available.

When and why was SPAM first created?

SPAM, a trademarked meat product primarily made of ground pork and ham, was first introduced in 1937. The name SPAM is a portmanteau for spiced ham, coined by Ken Daigneau, a New York actor whose brother was an executive at Hormel Foods, the manufacturer. SPAM was created as an easily prepared, inexpensive food. It gained widespread popularity during World War II when over 100 million pounds were consumed by Allied soldiers and civilians. By 1959, one billion cans had been sold, climbing to eight billion by 2012.

How did SPAM become popular around the world?

SPAM, a trademarked meat product of ground pork and ham, gained global popularity after World War II, when over 100 million pounds were consumed by Allied soldiers and civilians in Allied and Axis countries. SPAM was an easily prepared, inexpensive food that could be baked or fried. By 1959, one billion cans had been sold, climbing to eight billion by 2012. Today, more than 10 varieties of SPAM are available. It is a popular food item worldwide, especially in Hawaii, where SPAM musubi is a favorite dish, and in Filipino cuisine. South Korea is the world’s second-largest consumer of SPAM.

What are some common ways people cook and eat SPAM in different countries?

SPAM , a trademarked meat product of ground pork and ham, was introduced in 1937 and gained popularity for being an inexpensive food that was easy to prepare. During World War II, SPAM became a staple for soldiers and civilians. Today, SPAM remains a popular food item in many countries. In Hawaii, SPAM musubi is a combination of Japanese techniques with the product where a slice of SPAM is sandwiched around a layer or between layers of rice and sesame seeds and wrapped in seaweed. SPAM is also a staple of Filipino cuisine, and South Korea is the world’s second largest consumer of SPAM.

SPAM

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Tray of SPAM musubi with slices of SPAM on rice, wrapped with nori seaweed, garnished with lemon slices and herbs on a bamboo mat.

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Tin can of SPAM SPAM is considered a type of ultra-processed food, owing to its industrial formulation, which includes processed meats combined with preservatives and stabilizers.

SPAM

meat product

Written by

Gregory Lewis McNamee

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 1, 2026 •History

Top Questions

What is SPAM?
SPAM is a trademarked meat product made mainly of ground pork and ham. Introduced in 1937, the name is a portmanteau for spiced ham, coined by Ken Daigneau. SPAM gained popularity as a convenient, affordable food during the Great Depression and became a staple for Allied soldiers during World War II; future Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev credited SPAM with saving the Russian army during the war.

SPAM is made of pork, ham, salt, sugar, potato starch, water, and sodium nitrite. The ingredients are mixed, put in cans, vacuum-sealed, and cooked. There are more than 10 varieties of SPAM. It is especially popular in Hawaii, where SPAM musubi is a local favorite, and in Filipino cuisine. South Korea is the world’s second-largest consumer of SPAM.
1 Britannica Source
1. SPAM
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What ingredients are used to make SPAM?
SPAM is a trademarked meat product made mainly of ground pork and ham. The other ingredients consist of salt, sugar, potato starch, water, and sodium nitrite. These ingredients are mixed with the ground meat before being transferred to cans, vacuum-sealed, and cooked. After cooling, the cans are ready for distribution.

SPAM, a portmanteau for spiced ham, was introduced in 1937. By 2022, Hormel claimed that around 13 cans of SPAM were consumed every second.
2 Britannica Sources
1. Spam. A Lot of Spam.
2. SPAM
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How is SPAM made and packaged?
SPAM is a trademarked meat product made mainly of ground pork and ham. To make SPAM, the meat is ground and mixed with ingredients like salt, sugar, potato starch, water, and sodium nitrite. The mixture is then put into cans, vacuum-sealed, and cooked inside the cans. After the cans cool, they are ready to be sold.

SPAM was introduced to the market in 1937. The name, coined by Ken Daigneau, is a portmanteau for spiced ham. SPAM gained popularity as an affordable and easily prepared food. Over 100 million pounds of SPAM were consumed by Allied soldiers during World War II. Today, there are more than 10 varieties of SPAM available.
2 Britannica Sources
1. Spam. A Lot of Spam.
2. SPAM
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
When and why was SPAM first created?
SPAM, a trademarked meat product primarily made of ground pork and ham, was first introduced in 1937. The name SPAM is a portmanteau for spiced ham, coined by Ken Daigneau, a New York actor whose brother was an executive at Hormel Foods, the manufacturer.

SPAM was created as an easily prepared, inexpensive food. It gained widespread popularity during World War II when over 100 million pounds were consumed by Allied soldiers and civilians. By 1959, one billion cans had been sold, climbing to eight billion by 2012.
2 Britannica Sources
1. Spam. A Lot of Spam.
2. SPAM
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How did SPAM become popular around the world?
SPAM, a trademarked meat product of ground pork and ham, gained global popularity after World War II, when over 100 million pounds were consumed by Allied soldiers and civilians in Allied and Axis countries. SPAM was an easily prepared, inexpensive food that could be baked or fried. By 1959, one billion cans had been sold, climbing to eight billion by 2012.

Today, more than 10 varieties of SPAM are available. It is a popular food item worldwide, especially in Hawaii, where SPAM musubi is a favorite dish, and in Filipino cuisine. South Korea is the world’s second-largest consumer of SPAM.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What are some common ways people cook and eat SPAM in different countries?
SPAM, a trademarked meat product of ground pork and ham, was introduced in 1937 and gained popularity for being an inexpensive food that was easy to prepare. During World War II, SPAM became a staple for soldiers and civilians. Today, SPAM remains a popular food item in many countries. In Hawaii, SPAM musubi is a combination of Japanese techniques with the product where a slice of SPAM is sandwiched around a layer or between layers of rice and sesame seeds and wrapped in seaweed. SPAM is also a staple of Filipino cuisine, and South Korea is the world’s second largest consumer of SPAM.
1 Britannica Source
1. SPAM
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

SPAM, trademarked meat product consisting primarily of ground pork and ham.

SPAM, usually rendered as Spam, was introduced to the market in 1937, its name a portmanteau for spiced ham. The brand name was coined by a New York actor named Ken Daigneau, whose brother was an executive at Hormel Foods, the manufacturer. Daigneau later remarked that he had conceived of the name before there was a product to attach it to, thinking it was memorable. In whatever case, the product was quickly patented and trademarked, with pork shoulder, a cut not much in use otherwise, as its main ingredient.

SPAM was well received in its early years as an easily prepared inexpensive food that lent itself to baking and frying; initially marketed as a lunch meat, it found a place on the dinner table in the lean late years of the Great Depression. However, it did not become a household word until after World War II, for more than 100 million pounds of SPAM were consumed by Allied soldiers and, after the war, by civilians in Allied and the defeated Axis countries alike; future Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev credited SPAM with saving the Russian army during the war. It was not universally popular, however; Hormel maintains in its corporate archives letters from disgruntled service personnel who were tired of being served SPAM meal after meal. Even so, one billion cans of the product had been sold by 1959, a figure that climbed to eight billion by 2012, the last year for which Hormel published sales figures. The company opened a museum devoted to the meat product at its corporate headquarters in Austin, Minnesota, in 1991.

Chef tossing vegetables in a frying pan over a burner (skillet, food).

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What’s on the Menu? Vocabulary Quiz

More than 10 varieties of SPAM are available on the market. It remains a popular food item wherever it is sold, but in the United States perhaps no more so than in Hawaii, for which market the company developed a variety with Portuguese sausage seasonings. One popular Hawaiian rendering, SPAM musubi, combines Japanese techniques with the product: a slice of SPAM is sandwiched around a layer or between layers of rice and sesame seeds and wrapped in seaweed, as if a form of sushi. SPAM is also a staple of Filipino cuisine, and South Korea is the world’s second largest consumer of SPAM today.

SPAM has entered the popular lexicon in several ways. In keeping with its widespread use in military kitchens, it has been appropriated in British service slang to mean to be assigned some unpleasant task, such as standing guard duty in a driving rainstorm. More ubiquitously, it has come to denote unwanted mass-targeted e-mails, a sense apparently derived from a well-known skit in the British television comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus in which every dish in a restaurant contains SPAM, whether the diner wishes to have it or not. It was even the basis of Monty Python’s award-winning musical comedy Spamalot, a 2005 spoof on the legend of King Arthur.

SPAM is made of a pork and ham mixture, salt, sugar, potato starch, water, and sodium nitrite. The meat is ground and the other ingredients added to it before the mixture is transferred to cans, vacuum-sealed, and cooked inside the cans. After cooling, the cans are ready for sale. In 2022 Hormel claimed that some 13 cans of SPAM were consumed every second.

Gregory Lewis McNamee

SPAM

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