Trivia # 18 : Spam

• Spam stands for Shoulder Pork and hAM. 
• This ground pork-shoulder and ham product would become the world's largest selling canned meat. It was created to make use of surplus pork shoulder, mixing it with ham, salt, sugar and sodium nitrite. To distinguish Hormel's "spiced ham" from similar products, the company held a contest to come up with a unique name. Kenneth Daigneau, brother of a Hormel executive, won the $100 prize with 'Spam.'
• Spam was developed by George A. Hormel & Co. and first marketed in 1937.
• The 1 billion cans of spam was sold in 1959.
  The 6 billion cans was produced in 2002..
• Spam even has a mascot -- Spammy, the miniature pig. In 1991, for its 100th anniversary, Hormel Foods opened the First Century Museum. The exhibit of Spam memorabilia quickly became the most popular. In the United States alone, 3.6 cans of Spam are consumed every second, making it the number one product in its category (canned meat) by far. On the island of Guam, more than eight cans of Spam are consumed by every person each year.
• More than 60 years after it was first produced, Spam is still enormously popular. More than 6 billion cans have been sold!
• Richard LeFevre holds the world record for eating SPAM by eating 6 pounds in 12 minutes.