Dare Foods > History

History

With 7 manufacturing plants, over 1300 employees and after 115 years of operating, Dare Foods has a wonderful history as a privately-owned, Canadian family business. Following is a chronological story of Dare Foods Limited, starting with our current exciting times, back through the years to our original founder.
	TODAY - Dare Foods continues over one hundred years of dedication to producing innovative, high quality food products. From seven factories in Canada and the U.S., its cookies, crackers, candies and fine breads are sold throughout North America, in Mexico, Sweden, the Far East and over 25 other countries around the world.
	2006 – Dare launches grainfirst, made with 10 whole grains and seeds
	2005 - Dare introduces its delicious Crispy Baguettes to the U.S.
	2003 - In response to growing consumer concerns over nut-based food allergies, Dare becomes one of North America's first major food manufacturers to declare all of its manufacturing facilities "peanut free" (for details, click HERE)
	2002 - Dare is chosen as exclusive supplier of cookies for the Girl Guides of Canada.
	2001 - Dare acquires the cookie and "fine bread" (i.e. melba toast) business of Culinar, Inc. of Montreal, Quebec, adding to its line such popular chocolate-coated cookie favourites as Whippet, Wagon Wheels and Viva Puffs and becoming Canada's number one supplier of melba toast and other fine breads, sold under the Grissol brand name.
	1999 - Dare acquires the 134-year-old Bremner Biscuit Company of Denver, Colorado, adding the famous Bremner Wafers to its line of specialty cracker products in the U.S.
	1994 - Determined to grow as a truly North American food company, Dare constructs a new cracker bakery on a 33-acre green-field site in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
	1989 - A fully-automated soft candy plant is built in Milton, Ontario. Soon, Dare introduces it's highly-successful range of RealFruit Gummie candies, which bring sophisticated European tastes in soft candy to North America for the first time.
	1982 - Dare's flagship cracker brand, Breton, is introduced with extraordinary success! Within a few years, Breton and its companion brands, Cabaret and Vivant, are available across North America - in all 10 provinces of Canada and 48 states of the United States.
	1956 - Now a well-established name in all parts of Canada, Dare introduces it's quality cookie products to U.S. consumers.
	1954 - Taking an idea from coffee packaging, Dare Foods introduces chocolate chip cookies in a bag sealed with a "tin tie" strip, allowing consumers to reseal the bag without sacrificing freshness. It's an immediate success and becomes the standard packaging for cookies in Canada.
	1945 - The company and family name is legally changed to "Dare" to ease pronunciation outside of the local community as the company starts to expand distribution to all regions of Canada.
	1933 - Carl Doerr joins the company and progressively learns the business from his grandfather, Charles. With the passing of the founder in 1941, Carl takes over leadership of the company.
	1919 - Now a manufacturing business distributing throughout the region, the C. H. Doerr Company incorporates & expands its baking and candy-making facilities.
	1892 - Charles H Doerr begins a tradition of favourites by producing & selling cookies and candies from his small grocery store in Kitchener (then, Berlin), Ontario, Canada. It's not long before these quality products replace sales of general merchandise in the Doerr store.