La Choy

La Choy is a brand of canned and prepackaged American Chinese food ingredients. It was founded in 1922 by Ilhan New and Wallace J. Smith, who met at the University of Michigan; their first product was canned mung bean sprouts, sold initially out of Smith's grocery store in Detroit. The company grew from bean sprouts into a wider line including soy sauce, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots and chow mein noodles, packaged for American home cooks making Chinese style dishes. Beatrice Foods later owned the brand before selling it in a leveraged buyout, and ConAgra Foods has owned La Choy since 1990.