Vintage fat-shaming weight loss ads from Ry-Krisp, 1930-1950

Rye-Crisp, a brand of rye crisp bread, was founded by Arvid and Erik Peterson, who immigrated to the United States from Sweden, and brought with them a recipe for traditional Swedish "crisp bread".

Crisp bread or knickerbread was a staple of the Scandinavian diet of the 19th century. It was often made from rye, did not require yeast, and had an incredible shelf life.

In fact, these types of firecrackers were traditionally produced only twice a year and were made with a hole in the center so that they could be stored efficiently on a single rod.

While their early advertisements appealed to Scandinavian immigrants who found comfort in eating traditional rye crackers, the brand later changed its strategy after being sold to Purina in 1926.

According to Pretty Sweet magazine, starting in the 1930s, Rye-Crisp marketed its products as "reducing" (another word for "weight loss") products to women and young girls.

Ry-Krisp's marketing team typically focuses on timeless and effective topics, like "Your husband is going to leave you for a skinny girl," and "Caddy girls are going to laugh at your fat ass if you don't own our product." buy.

For years he also ran ads like "Nobody loves a fat girl" in Seventeen magazine. In this article, we've collected the offensive, rough-and-tumble old magazine ads from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s for Ry-Krisp crackers.

Many of the Ry-Krisp ads of the 1940s were produced by popular cartoonists from the New Yorker magazine. Ry-Krisp was the sponsor of 1940s radio shows that included famed New York hostess Elsa Maxwell and opera star Marion Talley.

In 1994, the Ralston portion of Ralston Purina was spun off into a new company called Ralcorp Holdings, including the RyKrisp operations. Ralcorp was acquired by ConAgra Foods in 2013.

In January 2015 ConAgra Foods announced that the factory that produced the RyKrisp would be closed and the product would be discontinued due to a drop in demand. The last consignment of firecrackers was manufactured at the Minneapolis factory in March 2015.

RyKrisp Inc. bought the brand in April 2015 with plans to rejuvenate it after getting a new manufacturing partner. Large-scale commercialization was planned for October 2015, with commercial production expected sometime later.

Until the fall of 2021, production had not started. The owners of the RyKrisp brand cited legal issues as the reason.