H and H Coffee

Dedicated to the history of the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. founded 1899 in San Antonio, Texas.

Warren Burns — Sales manager of Master Chef Food Products Corp., the Continental Coffee of Chicago subsidiary operating the former Hoffmann-Hayman plant at 601 Delaware Street in the post-1962-acquisition era. Documented in one December 1966 San Antonio Express source.

Role

Burns is identified as sales manager, Master Chef Food Products in:

  • 30 December 1966 San Antonio Express p. 17 — “Master Chef Expanding” feature (HH-CLIP-1966-0003). Burns is paired with Jack Moore, president, as the two-named-executive announcement of the San Antonio market expansion program after a survey “showed great growth potential for this area.” Burns joined Moore in San Antonio with Jordan Sawyer (“the Master Chef”) and Karla Kreft (“the Master Chef girl”) to “kick off the expansion program.”

Context

Burns is a Continental-era H&H/Master Chef officer. The 1959-60 H&H sales hierarchy was led by John C. Burkholder as General Sales Manager (1959) → VP of Sales (May 1960). Whether Burns succeeded Burkholder directly or after an interregnum is undocumented; the 1962 Continental sale and the c.1962 retirement pattern (Kivlin, T. J. Menger) makes it likely that Burkholder retired with the sale and Burns came in under Continental.

Open questions

  • Continuity from Burkholder to Burns. No primary source documents the sales-manager handover. Burkholder’s period field is 1945–c.1964 (now narrowed to c.1962) — leaving a 4-year gap before Burns’s 1966 attestation.
  • Burns’s tenure end-date. December 1966 is the only direct attestation. Burns is not named in any 1968+ Master Chef brand source on the site (the H. L. Green / Handy-Andy 1968 grocery ads don’t name executives).
  • Burns’s career before and after Master Chef Food Products. San Antonio business directories, Continental Coffee corporate filings, or trade-press records would document.

See also