Willoughby M. McCormick (1864–1932) started the business in Baltimore at age 25 in 1889. From one room and a cellar, he sold his initial products door-to-door, which included
root beer, flavoring extracts,
fruit syrup, and juices. Seven years later, McCormick bought the F.G. Emmett Spice Company and entered the spice industry. In 1903, Willoughby and his brother Roberdeau incorporated the company in Maine; they reincorporated in Maryland in 1915. The
Great Baltimore Fire of February 1904 destroyed most of the company's assets and records. However, they constructed a new five-story building on the same site within 10 months in 1905. Willoughby's nephew,
Charles P. McCormick, began working for the company in the summer of 1912, during his high school years at
Baltimore City College. After graduating in 1915, he attended
Johns Hopkins University, and was later elected to the company board of directors in 1925. McCormick continued to use the Schilling name for its Western division until the 1990s, with the last product containers marked Schilling produced in 2002; since then, all of the company's products have been marketed under the McCormick name nationwide. It acquired Ben-Hur Products, a similar California-based company, in 1953, and Canada's largest spice firm, Gorman Eckert & Co. Ltd. of
London, Ontario, in 1959. Gilroy Foods of
Gilroy, California, became a wholly owned subsidiary in 1961. Other acquisitions included Baker Extract Co. in 1962, Cake Mate cake decorating in 1967, Childers Foods (later part of Golden West Foods) in 1968, and Tubed Products, an
Easthampton, Massachusetts contract food packer and producer of plastic tubes, also in 1968.
Charles P. McCormick retired in 1969, was named chairman emeritus, and died of a heart attack the following year. McCormick acquired Golden West Foods, a frozen foods manufacturer and distributor in Gilroy, California, in 1973 and entered that field under the Schilling brand label. The McCormick (east) and Schilling (west) retail units were consolidated to form a Grocery Products Division in 1975 with headquarters in Baltimore. Additional acquisitions included All Portions in 1975, TV Time Foods of
Chicago in 1976, Astro Foods of
San Rafael, California, in 1977, and Han-Dee Pak of
Atlanta in 1979. In October 1979, Swiss pharmaceutical firm
Sandoz, Ltd. announced its intention to purchase the company. McCormick sued Sandoz in May 1980 and by September Sandoz agreed to relinquish its efforts to purchase McCormick and sold the shares that it acquired in its attempt to purchase the company. Setco, a plastic bottle producer in
Culver City, California, and Stange, Chicago's specialty flavorings and colorings company, became subsidiaries in 1981. The company acquired Paterson Jenks, a publicly held United Kingdom corporation, in 1984, and Schwartz, the largest British spice line. Other acquisitions included Armanino Farms, the world's largest grower and processor of chives, from Armanino & Son, Inc., of San Francisco in 1986; and three California companies in 1987: Gentry Foods of Gilroy, Parsley Patch of
Windsor, and The Herb Farm of
Encinitas. In 1990, McCormick purchased an interest in the
Old Bay seasoning brand, famous in the
Chesapeake Bay region for its use in preparing and steaming the local seafood delicacy of
blue crabs. It then acquired Mojave Foods Corporation of
Los Angeles in 1991, and the consumer products business of Golden Dipt Company in 1993. McCormick's 1994 acquisitions included Grupo Pesa of Mexico, Tuko Oy of Finland, Butto of Switzerland, and Minipack of
Southampton, United Kingdom. Chairman Emeritus Charles P. McCormick Jr. was re-elected chairman in 1994. The company sold Golden West Foods in 1995 and Minipack of Southampton in 1996. Also sold in 1996 were Gilroy Foods, Gilroy Energy, and Giza National Dehydration of
Cairo, Egypt. McCormick Canada acquired the French's dry seasoning line in 1997. In 2008, McCormick acquired Billy Bee Honey Products of Canada, and the
Lawry's brand of seasonings and marinades in its largest acquisition in company history for the next ten years. To gain
FTC approval for the purchase of Lawry's, McCormick agreed to sell its Season-All business to
Morton Salt. In 2011, the company acquired Kitchen Basics, an Ohio-based brand of shelf-stable liquid stock, for $38 million. During that year, it also acquired Kamis S.A., a privately held Polish company with leading brands in spices, seasonings, mustards and other flavor products in Poland for $291 million. It also bought an 85% stake in Kohinoor Speciality Foods India for $115 million, a joint venture with India-based
Kohinoor Foods Limited to market and sell basmati and ready-to-eat food products in India. In mid-2013, the company completed its acquisition of Wuhan Asia-Pacific Condiments Co. Ltd. (WAPC), a seasoning manufacturer in the central region of China with the Daqiao and ChuShiLe bouillon products. In June 2015, McCormick purchased
Stubb's marinades, BBQ Sauce and rubs for $100 million. In December 2015, McCormick announced that Lawrence E. Kurzius, head of global operations, would become CEO effective February 2016. Kurzius was a leader at McCormick for 12 years before the announcement and previously held positions at
Uncle Ben's, Mars Inc., and
Quaker Oats Company. The company dropped its bid to acquire
Premier Foods in April 2016 after determining that Premier's asking price would not benefit shareholders. Late in 2016, the company acquired Enrico Giotti SpA, a private Italian flavorings company, in a $127 million deal. In 2017, McCormick purchased Reckitt Benckiser's Food Division ("RB Foods"). At over four billion dollars, it topped Lawry's acquisition a decade earlier to become the largest acquisition in the company's history. The addition of French's and Frank's RedHot to McCormick's global portfolio represent the second and third largest brands, respectively, behind the McCormick brand. In November 2020, McCormick agreed to buy
Cholula Hot Sauce from
L Catterton. In December 2020, McCormick acquired FONA, a leading North American manufacturer of flavors. In March 2026, Unilever announced that it was merging Unilever’s foods business with McCormick & Company, as part of the restructuring of a portfolio with revenues exceeding $20 billion.
Research and development In February 2019, McCormick announced that it worked with
IBM to build an
artificial intelligence (AI) system to analyze decades of data to develop new flavor combinations and seasoning mixes. The company brought its first AI-developed line of seasoning mixes to market in 2019, which were called "One" for making one-dish meals.
TV sponsorship In December 2021, McCormick announced their sponsorship of
Elinor Wonders Why on
PBS Kids, and the
PBS sponsorship group noted ''
Let's Go Luna'' as another such series; this is the first PBS programming to be funded by McCormick. ==Headquarters==