1950’s Crown Prince anchovie wooden crate used for the transportation of 25 2oz anchovie tins. The crate has a beautiful stencil & ink dyed sardine & Portugal above it along with Los Angeles & the Crown Prince brand in bright red. This crate displays nicely & had been beautifully preserved considering it’s usage. History: Family-owned & founded in 1948, Crown Prince, Inc. provides the finest quality canned seafood to cooks & customers throughout the United States & Mexico. Guided by three generations of the Hoffman family, Crown Prince has grown slowly & carefully, emphasizing quality products & sincere customer relationships above all else. Beginnings: From Holland to La Habra in 1918 long before Crown Prince was established, Corneleus Anton Hoffman, known as Case, was born in Arnum, Holland. At 11 months old, Case was brought by his mother to California where his father had been transferred for his job with Shell Oil, a Dutch company. Case, a fireball from the start, got his first job at age 12 selling local newspapers. By age 16 he was a supervisor. During WWII, he worked as a sales manager for an aviation parts manufacturer that supported military planes. After the war Case teamed up with two close friends to start an orange juice business. They manufactured their juice under the label Cold Gold at a small plant on Harbor Boulevard in La Habra, CA. Getting Started in Seafood It was at this orange juice factory, of all places, that Case was turned on to the prospect of specializing in seafood. The factory’s cost accountant was Norwegian & had a friend back home, Bjarne Ogne, who wanted to sell Norwegian sardines in the United States. Case & his fellow business owners agreed, & for a time they sold both orange juice & Norwegian sardines. But the pairing was an impractical one. The men decided to sell Cold Gold & did so at a good profit, but were left with an inventory of Norwegian sardines. Case offered to try & sell the fish, & the more he sold, the more interested he became in the products. He ordered more & in 1947 made his first big sale: to Alpha Beta, one of the leading regional grocery chains in California. With that sale, the company was born. Case named it “Norwegian Fish Importers,” & that name was used until Crown Prince was adopted in 1985. Second Generation: New Frontiers From 1947 to the late 1960s, Case worked tirelessly to make the business a success & was able to single-handedly expand sales throughout southern California. At first he was the only employee, & orders were small enough that he made the deliveries in person from the back of a station wagon. When business started picking up he hired his first worker, a part-time girl to type invoices & help keep records. Soon he also hired warehouse trucks to make larger deliveries. Case’s son, Bob Hoffman, entered the business in the late 1960s & took over many of the administrative & managerial responsibilities. This freed Case, a natural entrepreneur, to return to the field.
