Page brothers (Charles and George) and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company

In 1856, Gail Borden invented and received the patent for his process of condensing milk. Canned condensed milk proved invaluable as a military ration in the 1860s.

Charles Page founded the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company as a limited company in Cham, Switzerland, in 1866. The company's name was meant to flatter the British, to whom Page hoped to sell a great deal of his condensed milk.

His first partner is his brother George, who goes on to become director of the company, which is founded in 1866, and has the task of learning about the manufacture of condensed milk from Gail Borden in the US. This involved heating milk to evaporate some of the water, then adding sugar as a preservative.

Page brothers had seen the growth of condensed milk in the United States and wanted to manufacture milk near to a large, quality source.

A year later, the Pages opened Europe’s first condensed milk factory in Cham, and their Milkmaid Brand began to roll off the production line. The company expanded its operations beyond Switzerland's borders in 1872, when it opened a factory in Chippenham, England.

In 1874, Anglo-Swiss undertook further expansion in England by purchasing the Condensed Milk Company in London. In 1881, the company opened a plant in Middletown, New York. Soon Anglo-Swiss competed successfully with Borden.

In 1905, Nestlé merged with Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company.
Page brothers (Charles and George) and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company

History of instant coffee

It history is link to wars; military commanders had long sought a way to give their troops in the field a caffeine boosts without having to carry along cumbersome brewing equipment.

In 1771, the British granted a patent for a ‘coffee compound’ and in the late nineteenth century a Glasgow firm invented Camp Coffee, a liquid ‘essence’.

In the 1900 the Tokyo chemist Sartori Kato made a version of instant coffee. In 1901, he began introducing the American public to powdered coffee at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, new York.

In United States, the earliest experiments with and patent for, instant coffee date to the civil war. As an outgrowth of these experiments, a European immigrant named George Washington produced the first commercially viable instant coffee in the United States beginning in 1906.

While aiding Brazil in marketing a surplus of beans, Nestle, developed its instant coffee, Nescafe, which retained flavorful oils through a process of freeze drying. Nestle started marketing Nescafe in 1938 and quickly dominated the market.

After World War II, instant coffee became popular in America, prompting an increase in the growth of inferior robusta beans for the cheap blends used for soluble coffee.
History of instant coffee