The bacterium was isolated in 1935 by T. Hof from fermented salted beans preserved in brine.
[1] Hof named it Pseudomonas beijerinckii and identified it as the organism responsible for the purple color of that food.
The pigment was the calcium salt of tetrahydroxy-p-benzoquinone Ca2C6O6, derived from the beans' myo-inositol.
[5][6] In 2006, comparison of the DNAs of P. beijerinckii's DNA with that of other Chromohalobacter bacteria indicated that it definitely belonged to that genus, and in fact was virtually identical to a species of Chromohalobacter recently isolated from salted herring of the Baltic Sea.
[5] It is very similar but distinct from the species Chromohalobacter japonicus, isolated in 2007 from a Japanese salty food.