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SOON other stores were clamoring for the bread. Maggie Rudkin lined up distributors, borrowed $15,000 capital, later rented two Norwalk, Conn, buildings for a bakery. With the help of husband Henry, she kept the business under family control by financing growth out of earnings, which will reach an estimated $1,250,000 this year. In 1947 they built a modern bakery in Norwalk, floated $450,000 worth of preferred stock (since retired) to get the cash. Maggie Rudkin shrewdly sent representatives to medical conventions, played up her bread's healthful qualities.
Today, Pepperidge Farm delivers 1,200,000 loaves of bread a week through 500 distributors and some 50,000 stores. Mrs. Rudkin still controls the bread as carefully as if it were baked in her own kitchen. A benevolent perfectionist, she has restored four old gristmills to get the stone-ground flour she favors. When she was faced with the problem of what to do with bread returned after two days in the store (the maximum allowed by the company), she used a typical housewife's solution: she made it into poultry stuffing, is now one of the biggest stuffing makers. Mrs. Rudkin has also branched out into cookies, brown-and-serve rolls (which she at first opposed as too much bother), and a new line of frozen pastries.
Decisions are made by a family council consisting of Mrs. Rudkin, her husband, and sons Henry Jr., 36, and William, 34, both vice presidents. Henry Rudkin became company chairman, gradually retired from Wall Street; when people ask him if he is still in the Street, he likes to quip: "No, I'm in the dough." Mrs. Rudkin is just as enthusiastic about baking today as when she started in her own kitchen. She is full of plans for expanding her products, would even like to move into Europe "to show them how to make good bread."