The Food That Built America: Season 2
Season 2 Lore Primer
Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.
- Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of The Food That Built America Season 1.
- Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
- Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
- Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Episode Guide
Season 2 Progress Shield
Pizza Wars
Feb 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,
The Chocolate Rush
Feb 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
The Kings of Burgers
Feb 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 visionar
American Cheese
Feb 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 Pa
Cola Wars
Mar 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 be
Chip Dynasties
Mar 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
Cookie Wars
Mar 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.
Soup Wars
Mar 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, tho
Godfathers of Fast Food
Apr 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
The TV Dinner
Apr 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 t
Ice Cream Empires
Apr 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
A Game of Chicken
May 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-engi
When the Chips Are Down
Jun 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
The Rise of a Rival
Jun 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 CE
Gum Slingers
Jun 20, 2021
William Wrigley stumbles upon a new product that will kickstart a revolution across industries, but not before sparking a life-long rivalry.
Breakfast Barons
Jun 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