Chattanooga Bakery Company

Founded in 1903, Chattanooga Bakery Company is best known for the production of a single product–Moon Pies. The company began operations as an attempt at vertical integration by Chattanooga's Mountain City Flour Mill in an attempt to take advantage of its excess flour production. During its early years the bakery produced a variety of cookies, crackers, fig bars, and other baked goods. About 1919 one of the company's traveling salesmen returned with client requests for a baked good that was more than a cookie, something both filling and cheap. Experimentation led to the creation of a concoction of marshmallow creme smeared on a cookie and covered with chocolate. Thus was born the Moon Pie, a large snack which cost only a nickel. The product quickly caught on, becoming a staple snack across the South.

After the mid-1950s the company focused solely on the Moon Pie line, and today Moon Pies are available throughout most of the United States. By the early 1990s the bakery was producing some three hundred thousand Moon Pies per day. Over the years various flavors have joined the basic chocolate, widening the snack's appeal. The Mountain City Milling Company was eventually acquired by Dixie Portland Mills and later by ADM Milling Company, but Chattanooga Bakery remains an independent, family-owned enterprise.