An Indianapolis bakery, a teaser campaign and a sky full of balloons.

Wonder is an American brand of sliced bread owned in the United States by Flowers Foods, the Thomasville, Georgia, baker. Its story starts in Indianapolis, Indiana, where, English Wikipedia says, the Taggart Baking Company began producing the bread and launched it on 21 May 1921. JSTOR Daily, marking the centenary in an article by Allison Miller published on 21 May 2021, also places the first loaves in Indianapolis on that date.

The launch was staged as a small mystery. Wikipedia says it followed a blind promotion in which advertisements stated only that a “Wonder” was coming on that date, without saying what it was. The name itself, according to Wikipedia, came from Elmer Cline, Taggart’s vice president for merchandising development, who was inspired by the International Balloon Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Wikipedia says Cline was filled with “wonder” by the sight of hundreds of balloons in the sky, and that the scene led to the red, yellow and blue balloons on the Wonder logo.

The balloons have been part of the package from the start. JSTOR Daily wrote in 2021 that the white loaf had been “festooned with balloons of blue, red, and yellow from the beginning”. Wikipedia credits the logo to the commercial artist Drew Miller, who it says was then on staff at a Chicago advertising agency.

Taggart did not keep the brand for long. Wikipedia says the Continental Baking Company bought Taggart in 1925, a move that made Wonder a national brand, and that the words “It’s Slo Baked” were added to the logo under Continental. During the 1930s, Wikipedia says, Continental began selling Wonder in sliced form nationwide, and shoppers at first needed reassurance that the “wonder-cut” loaf would not dry out. JSTOR Daily adds that Continental showed the brand in the Food Zone of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, where Wikipedia says its Wonder Bakery exhibit included a wheat field.

Continental, Interstate, Hostess and a return under Flowers Foods.

Continental Baking kept Wonder until the mid-1990s. Wikipedia says Interstate Bakeries Corporation bought Continental Baking in 1995. Interstate filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004 and, Wikipedia says, emerged in February 2009; in November 2009 it changed its name to Hostess Brands.

The Interstate years brought a packaging update. The trade publication of the Path to Purchase Institute reported on 1 July 2009 that Interstate Bakeries had partnered “once again” with Willoughby Design of Kansas City to redesign Wonder’s red, yellow and blue packaging so that it would appeal to buyers of all ages. The report said the balloon design had been tweaked with contemporary typography and a more horizontal logo, aimed at a slightly older consumer, and that a short tagline was added to the bag. Anne Simmons, a brand strategist at Willoughby Design, described the change in that report as “more of an evolution rather than a revolution”. The report said the agency also produced sales brochures, coupons and in-store floorstands so the look ran across every point of sale.

Hostess did not survive in its old form. Wikipedia says that on 16 November 2012 Hostess Brands asked the federal bankruptcy court in New York for permission to close its business and sell its assets, and that production of Wonder stopped for a time.

Flowers Foods bought the bread brands. Wikipedia says Flowers agreed the purchase of Hostess’s bread brands, including Wonder, in early 2013, completed the deal on 22 July 2013, and resumed deliveries of Wonder to stores on 23 September 2013. BakeryandSnacks.com reported on 24 September 2013 that Flowers was distributing four former Hostess brands that week, Wonder, Merita, Home Pride and Butternut, with their old recipes kept. Flowers Foods has owned Wonder in the United States since 2013, alongside brands such as Tastykake and Nature’s Own.

Outside the United States the name has had other owners. Wikipedia says Grupo Bimbo acquired the Mexican rights to Wonder in 1986 with Continental Baking’s Mexican subsidiary. In Canada, Wikipedia says, Weston Foods sold the Canadian brand to FGF Brands in 2022.

Design and documentation.

The seven names in this group are all packaged bread and roll brands, the kind sold from a supermarket shelf in a printed plastic bag. A bread brand’s identity is carried less by the loaf than by that bag: a name, a colour, a window onto the bread inside and a printed panel that has to be read across an aisle in a few seconds.

Because one maker usually sells many breads under a single name, the bag also has to do two jobs at once. It has to look like the family the shopper already knows, and it has to tell one product from its neighbour, so colour, pattern and type often change from bag to bag while the name and the overall layout stay put. Over decades the same bag can be redrawn many times, and its owners can change more than once.

That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, where its bread is baked and how its bags and logos have changed. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself, and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A logo born at a speedway, tidied in 2009 and taken back to the archive in 2013.

The core of the Wonder identity is the set of coloured balloons. Wikipedia ties them directly to Elmer Cline’s afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the early 1920s, and JSTOR Daily describes blue, red and yellow balloons on the loaf from its first appearance.

Under Continental Baking, Wikipedia says, the words “It’s Slo Baked” were added to the logo. Under Interstate Bakeries, the Path to Purchase Institute reported in 2009, Willoughby Design kept the balloons but set the name in contemporary typography with a more horizontal logo, and the agency’s brand strategist called the work an evolution of what was already on the shelf.

When Flowers Foods brought the brand back, it looked backwards. Keith Aldredge, Flowers’ vice president of marketing, told BakeryandSnacks.com in September 2013 that the company had redesigned the bread packs using old designs from its archives. “We’re bringing back the classic Wonder and Merita logos and colors,” he said, adding that the company hoped the nostalgic look would create happy memories for many and attract new shoppers with its retro appeal. Aldredge also said, in the same report, that Wonder had been part of the American food scene since 1921. The 2013 relaunch, the publication said, covered classic white, whole grain white and whole wheat loaves together with hamburger and hot dog buns and rolls.

Flowers’ chief executive at the time, Allen L. Shiver, described Wonder as a “powerhouse brand” at an investor conference that month, BakeryandSnacks.com reported, and the company positioned it as its national white bread brand while Merita, Home Pride and Butternut stayed regional.

For a design guide, Wonder shows how one simple, colourful device, born from a single afternoon at a balloon race, can survive changes of owner, a bankruptcy and a spell off the shelves, and come back by returning to its own archive. Compare it with Nature’s Own, its stablemate at Flowers Foods, and Bimbo, the Mexican baker that has held the Wonder name in Mexico since 1986. For this guide we use balloon red, balloon yellow, balloon blue, navy ink and bag white with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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