National Sugar Refining Company stock certificate 1950's (Jack Frost brand)

Nice food collectible. Great vignette of a the company's sugar refinery in Philadelphia (former Pennsylvania Sugar) that made the Jack Frost brand. Issued and cancelled. Dated 1950's.

As a result of a sugar price war, the few independent refineries that were built in the 1890s began to experience financial difficulties. Taking advantage of this, H.O. Havemeyer moved to acquire the remaining independent firms: the Mollenhauers Refinery in Brooklyn, National Sugar Company in Yonkers, New York Refining Company in Long Island City. He did so anonymously, using James H. Post, partner in the independent sugar broker firm B. H. Howell, Son & Company.

The three refineries were consolidated into the National Sugar Refining Company of New Jersey, with James H. Post as president and B.H. Howell, Son & Company handling the mercantile side of the business. On May 31, 1900, the National Sugar Refining Company of New Jersey was incorporated in New Jersey. Although independent of the Sugar Trust, the American Sugar Refining Company owned half its stock and the National received preferential treatment from the Sugar Trust. By 1900 Havemeyer eliminated the little remaining competition in the region by consolidating the surviving refineries into the National Sugar Refining Company of New Jersey, with the American Sugar Company being the most important firm of the Sugar Trust. American accounted for 98% of the national sugar production by 1907. By acquiring the Pennsylvania Sugar Company in 1941, the company held trade names of Jack Frost and Arbuckle sugar.

National Sugar was bankrupt by 1984.  The company was privately owned at the end, having been purchased by in 1975 for $19.5 million dollars by NUNA Corp. The company's reasons for closing was the changing habits of Americans' diets, increasing competition from producers of high-fructose corn syrup, which had become a staple for industrial users, plus the fact that there was an oversupply on the market.