Jay Hormel took over in 1929 and bet the meatpacker on canned food and SPAM

George A. Hormel, founder of the meatpacking firm in Austin, Minnesota, stepped back from daily management in 1927–28 at age 67, making his only son Jay acting president as the family headed toward retirement. The handover landed at the worst possible moment: the Great Depression was about to collapse demand and prices across the meat industry.

Jay's answer was to stop selling anonymous commodity pork and build branded canned products consumers could buy directly: a first canned ham reached the market in 1927, Dinty Moore beef stew followed, and in 1937 the company launched SPAM, a spiced canned ham. Despite the Depression, Hormel kept roughly 4,500 workers employed in Austin thanks to the canned-meat lines.

The bet scaled fast: the share of Americans eating canned meat jumped from 18% in 1937 to 70% by 1940, and by 1946 Hormel was the nation's largest independent meat processor. Jay also introduced management innovations such as a guaranteed annual wage and profit sharing, according to the company's own history.

Kept about 4,500 Austin workers employed through the 1930s; canned-meat use rose from 18% to 70% of Americans (1937–40); largest independent US meat processor by 1946

Selling canned meat directly to consumers bypassed butchers and made Hormel a brand rather than a commodity supplier.

Launching SPAM and the other lines during the Depression priced into hard times and created habits that outlasted the crisis.

The son was given real operating control early, letting him move on product and promotion without waiting for his father's death.

A second-generation owner can turn a commodity business into a brand by betting on packaged products and promotion early, and a down market is exactly when that bet wins share.

SPAM became one of the most recognized food brands of the 20th century, feeding armies and then spreading worldwide. Hormel Foods remains a Fortune 500 company built on those branded meat lines, and Jay's wage and profit-sharing innovations are cited as milestones in American labor-management history.