Butter-Krust Bread

Compass nestled between red text over yellowed background. 

This promotional compass was a gift-with-purchase from the Butter-Krust Bread Co. of Sunbury Pennsylvania. Started in 1915 as a bakery, founder B. Frank Bastian partnered with Benjamin Apple five years later to form Butter-Krust, a wholesale baking shop.  Their business flourished and they embraced the innovations of the day - a bread slicing machine in the 1930s,  cellophane wrapping in 1950 - and they were the first commercial bakery to use unbleached flour.  

By 2005, Butter-Krust Bread had reached sales of 80 million.  The following year, however, saw the company bought out by the Sara Lee Corporation although family members of co-founder Benjamin Apple continued to hold management positions.  By 2011 Butter-Krust was sold again this time to Grupo Bimbo, the world's largest bread maker based in Mexico City.

Butter-Krust has won several industry awards for their bread during its 100 year history in production.