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The fortune: Peter Eckrich (1864–1942) arrived from Waldsee, Germany at seventeen and opened a Fort Wayne meat market in 1894, selling the sausages of his childhood. He went wholesale in 1907 and incorporated as Peter Eckrich & Sons in 1925; by 1932 the firm had closed its last retail shop and sold only wholesale. All eleven of Peter's children worked delivering meat for the company; his brother Henry succeeded him, and his grandson Donald P. Eckrich rose to become president and chief operating officer of Beatrice Companies itself. The business entry is in the Business section.
Its scale: The family's exit was the 1972 sale of Peter Eckrich & Sons to Beatrice Foods of Chicago, thirty years after Peter's death; no sale price was published in the sources consulted, and no estate figure for Peter Eckrich has been found. The measure of the fortune is the company itself: Beatrice made Eckrich a national brand, sales tripled in six years under Beatrice's distribution, and the Fort Wayne plant's closing in 1986 — 303 employees, ending 92 years in the city — was national business news. The brand passed to ConAgra in 1990 and to Smithfield Foods in 2006.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society, Peter Eckrich biography and Eckrich company collection, Genealogy Center — the 1894 founding, 1925 incorporation, the family succession.
- Beatrice Companies historical record — the 1972 acquisition of Peter Eckrich & Sons.
- The Pharos-Tribune (Logansport), January 23, 1986 — the Fort Wayne plant closing, 303 employees, 92 years.