Convenience foods — packaged soups, frozen meals, prepared sauces and flavorings —date back more than a century. With the Industrial Revolution came factory jobs for women and less time to prepare meals.

The problem was so widespread that it became the object of intense study in 1882 by the Swiss Public Welfare Society, which offered a series of recommendations, including an increase in the consumption of vegetables.

The Society commissioned Julius Maggi, a miller with a reputation as an inventive and capable businessman, to create a vegetable food product that would be quick to prepare and easy to digest. The results — two instant pea soups and an instant bean soup — helped launch one of the best known brands in the history of the food industry. By the turn of the century, Maggi & Company was producing not only powdered soups, but bouillon cubes, sauces and flavorings.

Maggi merged with Nestlé in 1947. Buitoni, the authentic Italian brand, which has been producing pasta and sauces in Italy since 1827, became part of the Nestlé Group in 1988.

Read how a Nestlé Sustainable Agriculture Initiative ensured the best basil went into Buitoni's pesto sauce.