Obituaries : Charles W. Lubin; Sara Lee Founder

Charles W. Lubin, who got his first job scraping pans in a bakery at 14 and went on to found the Kitchens of Sara Lee 37 years ago, has died of a heart attack. He was 84.

Lubin began the Kitchens of Sara Lee--named for his then 1-year-old daughter--in 1951 with only $21,000 capital and 2,000 square feet of space. Baking only cheesecakes, which then sold for 79 cents each, Lubin grossed $400,000 in his first year.

Lubin perfected a process by which his baked goods were frozen in metal pans, then rushed to store freezers so “all the housewife had to do was pick it up and heat it,” he once explained.

Lubin sold his business to Consolidated Foods Inc., now Sara Lee Corp., for $2.8 million in 1956. He retained the position of president of the corporation but left in 1964 after a dispute over the financing of a new plant in Deerfield, Ill.