Sunshine Biscuits

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Sunshine Biscuits, Inc., originally the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company, was an American bakery that made cookies, crackers, and cereals. It started in 1902 in Kansas City, Missouri, founded by Joseph and Jacob Loose and John H. Wiles after leaving Nabisco. They chose the name Sunshine for a sunny factory and soon opened plants in Boston and New York City. In 1912 they built the Thousand Window Bakery in Long Island City, which was the largest bakery in the world for decades. The company officially changed its name to Sunshine Biscuit, Inc. in 1946.

Sunshine created many snacks and competed with Nabisco. Notable products included Animal Crackers and Toy Cookies, and they even produced the Hydrox chocolate sandwich cookie (discontinued in 1999 and brought back by Leaf Brands in 2015). Sunshine is best known today for Cheez-It crackers, but over the years several Sunshine products were discontinued after mergers.

The company changed hands several times: it was bought by the American Tobacco Company in 1966, later merged with Keebler in 1996, and then Keebler was acquired by Kellogg's in 2001. After that, the Sunshine brand was largely folded into Kellogg’s. The Sayreville, New Jersey plant produced Shredded Wheat and mainly served markets east of the Mississippi.