The Food That Built America - Season 2

First aired: 2/9/2021 16 episodes

Episodes

1. Pizza Wars

Aired: 2/9/2021

In the 1950s, two brothers from Wichita, Kan., aim to build their restaurant, Pizza Hut, by introducing America to Italian dish-pizza. Americans soon fall in love with their pizza, but rival, Domino's, threatens to derail their success.

2. The Chocolate Rush

Aired: 2/14/2021

In 1919, Milton Hershey is king of the chocolate, but everything changes when sugar prices drop in the new post-WWI era. Competitors spring up, including Hershey's former employee HB Reese, who goes on to create one of the bestselling candies ever.

3. The Kings of Burgers

Aired: 2/21/2021

In the 1950s, Ray Kroc franchises McDonald's nationwide, but right behind Kroc, a wave of other entrepreneurs try to cash in on the fast-food restaurant craze. Two Florida visionaries start up what will become Kroc's biggest rival, by re-inventing their kitchen's equipment into the pioneering "flame broiler."

4. American Cheese

Aired: 2/28/2021

At the turn of the 20th century, James Kraft challenges centuries of cheese-making tradition and forever alters the dairy industry with his new cheese innovation. Meanwhile, the Pabst brothers are desperate to keep their successful beer empire solvent through Prohibition.

5. Cola Wars

Aired: 3/7/2021

In the 1970s, one major cola brand launches a blind taste test marketing plan that takes direct aim at their biggest competitor. As a new era of competition heats up between the behemoth brands, each side selects a new leader who takes the companies to battle in a rivalry that will birth countless iconic soda products and memorable marketing stunts.

6. Chip Dynasties

Aired: 3/14/2021

Herman Lay takes regional and small-time chips business to a national scale with his cutting-edge sales techniques and world-changing packaging technology, while a rival innovator invents a new kind of snack chip that will challenge Lay's crown.

7. Cookie Wars

Aired: 3/21/2021

A business partnership gone wrong leads Adolphus Green to create one of the most iconic cookie and cracker companies in history, and revolutionize packaging.

8. Soup Wars

Aired: 3/28/2021

The fascinating stories of the families behind the food that built America, those who used brains, muscle, blood, sweat and tears to get to America's heart through its stomach, those who invented new technologies and helped win wars.

9. Godfathers of Fast Food

Aired: 4/4/2021

A short order chef invents the hamburger bun and engineers a new way of making a burger faster than ever before; Nathan Handwerker invests his life savings into a hot dog stand at Coney Island.

10. The TV Dinner

Aired: 4/11/2021

Gilbert Swanson inherits his father's frozen turkey company and partners with a food chemist to innovate a revolutionary dinner that Americans can heat up at home... they call it the TV Dinner. And when a restauranteur named Vernon Stouffer tries to bring his frozen meals to market, he's blown out of the water by the TV Dinner... until he harnesses a new technology called...the microwave.

11. Ice Cream Empires

Aired: 4/18/2021

A young boy accidentally discovers a frozen treat on a stick, and grows up to bring an endearing classic to the world. Plus, a candy store owner radically re-invents ice cream and launches the first ever ice cream truck. But when both men own a patent on the same thing, the resulting battle will destroy one man, and cement the other's fortune.

12. A Game of Chicken

Aired: 5/31/2021

In the 1970's, Ray Kroc is far ahead of the competition. But when a burger chain claiming to be king poaches his third-highest ranking executive, Don Smith, it's war. Smith re-engineers the emerging rival, using the best ideas of his former franchise to modernize the brand. In an unprecedented move, Ray Kroc brings on a world renowned chef to develop the chicken nugget, breakfast, and try to crush the would-be king once and for all.

13. When the Chips Are Down

Aired: 6/6/2021

As C.E. Doolin and Herman Lay are out to prove the potential of the chips business in the 1950's, their success inspires one of the biggest companies in the world to enter the chip market. When a chemist begins work on a secret project, designing a strong, saddle-shaped chip and a revolutionary container to ship them in, the companies go head to head for market dominance.

14. The Rise of a Rival

Aired: 6/13/2021

When candy company president Charles Guth gets shafted by a Cola salesman, he decides to buy a bankrupt rival company and go to war with the supplier who wronged him and its new CEO, the maverick businessman Robert Woodruff. The battle will help shape the world of soda for decades to come.

15. Gum Slingers

Aired: 6/20/2021

William Wrigley stumbles upon a new product that will kickstart a revolution across industries, but not before sparking a life-long rivalry.

16. Breakfast Barons

Aired: 6/27/2021

Dr. John Kellogg and his brother start a revolution in breakfast, while rival C.W. Post takes direct aim at an empire of his own. And the creation of an iconic food comes at a cost, as the brothers’ relationship reaches a boiling point under the weight of their success.