Amedeo Obici and Planters Peanuts
Near Scranton, Pennsylvania
The building on South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre was once home to one of the most recognizable snack brands in America. Amedeo Obici arrived in the United States from Italy at the age of eleven, speaking no English, and found work at a fruit store. He taught himself the business, graduated to a peanut cart, then founded the Planters Peanut Company in nineteen oh six alongside fellow immigrant Mario Peruzzi.
Obici was an inventor as much as an entrepreneur, developing new roasting and processing methods that gave Planters its signature taste. The monocled Mr. Peanut trademark, dreamed up by a fourteen-year-old in a company contest in nineteen sixteen, became one of the most enduring mascots in advertising history.
Planters kept its corporate headquarters here in Wilkes-Barre from nineteen twenty-five until nineteen sixty-one.
