Schoolmates from the University of Washington, Brayton Wilbur, Floyd Ellis and Thomas Franck open a small import-export brokerage trading company in San Francisco on California St. with a $5,000 investment. The small company was founded in a two-room office and focused on trading fishmeal, fish oil and by-products (1921).
Brayton Wilbur, Sr., president and chief executive officer.
Wilbur-Ellis becomes incorporated on July 1, 1923.
Later in the same decade, the fishmeal and oil business expands to Japan (1926). By the late-1920s, Wilbur-Ellis markets fishmeal to feed companies in the Midwest and East Coast as the product’s use in poultry grew rapidly amid new research that found it contained amino acids, making it a great value as a supplement to protein sources.
Wilbur-Ellis initiates a presence in the Pacific Rim with the acquisition of a highly respected distributor of food and other products, Connell Brothers (1931).
Wilbur-Ellis expands into new product lines, including soybean meal and oil, vitamin oil, shark-fin oil, dried fruit and meat by-products.
Despite a painful Great Depression in the United States, Wilbur-Ellis continues to expand and turn a profit.
Wilbur-Ellis opens agricultural chemical and fertilizer locations for the first time, starting in California and Arizona.
World War II produces far-reaching changes in Wilbur-Ellis--many of the young men in the company enter the armed services. Fishmeal accumulates as the market falls (1941), and skyrockets in value overnight.
Wilbur-Ellis enters into a partnership with Hurley Marine Works to operate a ship repair yard to keep Connell Brothers active during the war years.
