Old Bay Seasoning

Old Bay Seasoning is a blend of herbs and spices that is marketed in the United States by McCormick & Company and originally created in Baltimore, Maryland.

The seasoning is a mix of celery salt (salt, celery seed), spices (including red pepper and black pepper) and paprika. Some of the other spices that may be used are bay leaves, mustard, cardamom, cloves and ginger as listed in the original product in the Baltimore Museum of Industry. It is regionally popular, specifically in Maryland, as well as in the Mid-Atlantic States, the Southern States, parts of New England and the Gulf Coast.

Old Bay Seasoning is named after the Old Bay Line, a passenger ship line that plied the waters of the Chesapeake Bay from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, in the early 1900s. In 1939, a German-Jewish immigrant named Gustav Brunn started the Baltimore Spice Company.

The origins of the company can be traced back to Wertheim, Germany, where Brunn started a wholesale spice and seasoning business selling to food industries, seeing an opportunity as spices were in especially short supply amidst hyperinflation in the aftermath of World War I. Due to rising antisemitism as the Nazi Party rose to power, the company moved to Frankfurt, Germany; however, on the night of November 9, 1938, a massive pogrom against Jews, known as Kristallnacht, led to Brunn being arrested by Nazi soldiers and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.

According to Brunn's son, Gustav's wife paid a large sum of money to a lawyer for him to be released; as they had already applied for and received American visas, they were able to escape with their two children to New York City and later Baltimore, Maryland, where Brunn had family. There, having brought with him only a small spice grinder, Brunn founded the Baltimore Spice Company and produced the "Delicious Brand Shrimp and Crab Seasoning", which was later renamed Old Bay.

The rights to the seasoning brand were purchased by McCormick & Co in 1990. McCormick continued to offer Old Bay in the classic yellow can.

McCormick has a number of other products under the Old Bay banner, including seasoning packets for crab cakes, salmon patties and tuna; tartar sauce; cocktail sauce; and seafood batter mix. They also make other seasoning blends that mix Old Bay seasoning with garlic, lemon, brown sugar, herbs, and blackened seasonings. McCormick has offered a lower-sodium version of Old Bay Seasoning.

In 2017, McCormick changed the packaging (along with McCormick's own line of Pure Ground Black Pepper) from metal cans to plastic containers in an effort to reduce the packaging costs. McCormick has since changed back to metal cans for its line of Pure Ground Black Pepper, however, the plastic containers for Old Bay Seasoning remain the same.