Benjamin Eisenstadt (1906 – 1996) designer of the modern sugar packets and developed Sweet'N Low. He was the founder of the Cumberland Packing Corporation.
Personal Life & Career
He was born in New York City on December 7, 1906. He attended Brooklyn College then operated a cafeteria across from the Brooklyn Naval Yard. He switched to making tea bags after his cafeteria business declined.He came up with the idea of single servings of table sugar to utilize his tea bag machinery. He shopped the idea to the major sugar producers, but since he didn't get a patent, they used his idea without paying him proper royalties.
In 1957 he came up with a formula for a powdered saccharin sweetener. Previously saccharin was sold as liquid drops, or tiny tablets. He mixed the saccharin with dextrose to bulk it up to a teaspoon sized portion, added cream of tartar, and calcium silicate as anti-caking agents. He marketed it in bright pink packets.His company was also the first to package soy sauce and other single serving condiments. After his company was successful he became chairman of the board of the foundation for Maimonides Medical Center.
He married Betty Gellman (1910-2001) on October 27, 1931 while living at 1250 44th Street in Brooklyn. They had the following children: Marvin Eisenstadt who married Barbara; Gladys Eisenstadt; Ira Eisenstadt who married Deirdre Howley, and Ellen Eisenstadt who married Herbert Cohen.
Death
Benjamin died at age 89 after complications from open heart surgery. When Betty died in 2001 she had removed Ellen and her children from her will.