Businesses spawned in disaster prospered

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Apr 15, 2006 | by Francine Brevetti, Tim Simmers

Besides displacing people, the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 uprooted businesses and created new ones. Companies and entrepreneurs who could no longer operate in the devastation that remained of San Francisco migrated to the East Bay and to San Mateo County. They strove to start again or to create new enterprises to serve the relocated thousands who had been forced to move to those areas. Here are the stories of four of them that survived and thrived for a century.

Saroni Total Food Ingredients In 1856, Louis Saroni established an umbrella company called Pacific Coast Candy Co., which manufactured and sold confections, chewing gum and crackers. According to company annals, Louis was "the first on the West Coast to use steam to produce confectionery products."

Fifty years later, on April 18, 1906, the great quake leveled the Saroni factories and family residence situated on Van Ness Avenue near Sutter Street in what is now downtown San Francisco.

Because firefighters were forcing residents to evacuate buildings they wanted to dynamite, the Saroni family was driven from its home at bayonet point. Louis and his family boarded a horse-drawn truck piled with rescued household goods, and disembarked from Fort Mason to settle in Oakland.

Two days later, on April 20, Alfred Saroni established Saroni Sugar & Rice near the Oakland Embarcadero with his father Louis' backing. The company processed and sold sugar and other foodstuffs wholesale to industrial users and retailers.

"We started the same time C&H Sugar was formed, and we are their No. 1 distributor in Northern California," said Richard Garabedian, the current Saroni president and chief executive officer.

C&H Sugar Co. was founded in Crockett in 1906 to refine raw cane sugar from Hawaii.

Al Sr. with son Al Jr. stayed at Saroni's helm through the early 1950s. Al Jr., in a partnership, formed Liquid Sugars Inc. to complement Saroni.

In 1995, the Saroni family sold its food businesses to Garabedian, a food industry veteran, and other investors. Garabedian eventually bought control of the company.

Under Garabedian's leadership, Saroni Total Food Ingredients and its Veg-Oil Division remains a privately held company -- one that is approaching 100 million pounds in shipments a year. Today the 25- employee company occupies a 230,000-square-foot building and is accessed by 75,000 square feet of docking space. Its Web site is www.saronitotalfoods.com.

Besides supplying sweeteners, flowers, oils and starches, the company organizes and delivers to customers as a one-stop, just-in- time provisioner.

The company also started its own label of vegetable oils, Veg- Oil, which serves bakers, canners and confectioners in Northern California.

While Garabedian is keeping his eye on the opportunities in the ethanol and diesel fuel markets, he likes to say that "Saroni provides all the ingredients necessary to make a muffin."

Some of Saroni's major customers are well-known brand names such as Otis Spunkmeyer, Jelly Belly and Mother's Cookies, which last month said it will close its 230-employee Oakland bakery and distribution center May 31 and move production to plants in Ohio and Canada.

Garabedian also takes pride in his participation in the Economic Development Alliance for Business as an advocate for Alameda County's food processors, of which he says there are 200 today.

Takahashi Market When Japanese immigrant Tokutaro Takahashi saw how devastating the 1906 earthquake was in San Francisco, he decided right away to open a general merchandise store in San Mateo to serve the Japanese community.

He took a boat ride in the Bay around San Francisco and was shocked by the damage.

He knew he wasn't going back to work at the salt ponds in the Bay anymore and opened his store in late April.

Takahashi used a horse and buggy to deliver work jeans, boots, shirts and other merchandise to customers who didn't buy from the storefront.

He rented a building that still stands on the corner of Second and Claremont streets on the edge of downtown San Mateo.

To serve Japanese farmers in Pescadero, he took the horse and buggy on two- or three-day trips to deliver goods.

"My father told me how tough it was in the old days," said Kenge Takahashi, 85, son of Tokutaro. "He kept a horse in the field and put the buggy in a small garage."

Kenge worked with his father for years in the store.

In the 1930s, his father added more food to serve the Japanese community.

World War II brought difficult times. The Takahashi family was notified in 1942 that everyone would have to go live in an internment camp. First, they went to the Tanforan race tracks and stayed in the stables there before they were transferred to Utah.

The business was shut down during World War II. Kenge served in the U.S. Army during the war for two years, and he reopened the business after the war was over.

Kenge eventually took over the business for his father, who got sick and had a stroke after World War II.

Kenge was born, raised and still lives in a house across the street from the market, which is now half a block down Claremont Street from the original general store.