The Pillsbury Company is a

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

-based company that was one of the world's largest producers of

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

and other foodstuffs until it was bought by

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...

in 2001. General Mills brands consist of Annie's, Betty Crocker, Nature Valley, Yoplait, Haagen-Dazs, and Blue Buffalo. It also has ownership in various cereal products including Cheerios, Chex, Lucky Charms, Trix, and Cocoa Puffs.

Antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

law required General Mills to sell off some of the products, so the company kept the rights to refrigerated and frozen Pillsbury branded products, while dry

baking Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferred " ...

products and frosting were sold to the

Orrville, Ohio Orrville is a city in Wayne County, Ohio, United States. It is about 9 miles east of Wooster and 20 miles southwest of Akron. The population was 8,380 at the 2010 census. The J.M. Smucker Co., owner of the Smucker's brand, is headquartered in ...

–based Smucker company under license.

Brynwood Partners Brynwood Partners is an American private equity investment firm focused on leveraged buyout and other control investments. Since its founding in 1984, the firm, headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, has raised five private equity fund, invest ...

agreed to purchase Pillsbury from Smuckers for 375 million in July 2018. In September 2018, the sale was completed along with other brands including

Martha White Martha White is an American brand of flour, cornmeal, cornbread mixes, cake mixes, muffin mixes, and similar products. The Martha White brand was established as the premium brand of Nashville, Tennessee-based Royal Flour Mills in 1899. At that ti ...

and Hungry Jack. Advertising company

Leo Burnett Worldwide Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc., also known as Leo Burnett Company, Inc., is an American advertising company, founded on August 5, 1935, in Chicago by Leo Burnett. In September 2002, the company was acquired by Publicis Groupe, the world's third l ...

created Pillsbury's

Doughboy Doughboy was a popular nickname for the American infantryman during World War I. Though the origins of the term are not certain, the nickname was still in use as of the early 1940s. Examples include the 1942 song "Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in ...

and

Jolly Green Giant Green Giant and Le Sueur (spelled Le Sieur in Canada) are brands of frozen and canned vegetables owned by B&G Foods. The company's mascot is the Jolly Green Giant. Company and brand history The Minnesota Valley Canning Company was founded in ...

, which are two of the agency's top brand icons.

History

Founding and early development

"C.A. Pillsbury and Company" was founded in 1869 by

Charles Alfred Pillsbury Charles Alfred Pillsbury (December 3, 1842 – September 17, 1899) was an American businessman, flour industrialist, and politician. He was a co-founder of the Pillsbury Company. Education and early business career Pillsbury was born December ...

and his uncle

John S. Pillsbury John Sargent Pillsbury (July 29, 1827 – October 18, 1901) was an American politician, businessman, and philanthropist. A Republican, he served as the eighth Governor of Minnesota from 1876 to 1882. He was a co-founder of the Pillsbury Co ...

. The company was second in the United States (after Washburn-Crosby) to use steel rollers for processing grain. The finished product required transportation, so the Pillsburys assisted in funding railroad development in

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. In 1889, Pillsbury and its five mills on the banks of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

were purchased by a British company. The company also tried to purchase and merge with the Washburn Crosby Company (a precursor of

), but the principals at Washburn prevented the takeover. In 1923, the Pillsbury family reacquired "Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company, Limited" which subsequently was incorporated in 1935 as "Pillsbury Flour Mills Company".

1950s

New Kensington, Pennsylvania (8483278088)

In 1949, the company introduced a national baking competition, which came to be known as the

Pillsbury Bake-Off The Pillsbury Bake-Off is an American cooking contest, first run by the Pillsbury Company in 1949. History The first contest was held in 1949 as the Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest and hosted in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The grand priz ...

; it was nationally broadcast on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

for many years. Only seven products used the Pillsbury name in 1950, but the company began adding to its product line. The early 1950s brought the acquisition of Ballard & Ballard Company and the beginning of packaged biscuit dough, which would become one of the company's most important and profitable product lines in later decades. The company began advertising heavily on television. In 1957, Pillsbury commissioned a TV commercial jingle (from its advertising agency

Leo Burnett Leo Burnett (October 21, 1891 – June 7, 1971) was an American advertising executive and the founder of Leo Burnett Company, Inc. He was responsible for creating some of advertising's most well-known characters and campaigns of the 20th cent ...

) with the main lyrics "Nothin' says lovin/Like somethin' from the oven/And Pillsbury says it best". The jingle became a well-known signature of the company and was used, with modifications, for at least 20 years. Later corporate acquisitions included restaurants such as

Burger King Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based res ...

Steak and Ale Steak and Ale was an American chain of casual dining restaurants that went bankrupt in 2008. However the brand, recipes and other intellectual property associated with the former chain is currently owned by Legendary Restaurant Brands, LLC, t ...

Bennigan's Bennigan's is an Irish pub-themed American casual dining restaurant chain founded in 1976 in Atlanta by restaurateur Norman E. Brinker as one of America's original casual dining concepts. The chain operated under the restaurant division of Pills ...

Godfather's Pizza Godfather's Pizza is an American privately owned restaurant chain headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, that operates fast casual Italian franchises and Pizza Express locations. History Godfather's Pizza was founded in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1973. Wil ...

Häagen-Dazs Häagen-Dazs ( , ) is an American ice cream brand, established by Reuben and Rose Mattus in The Bronx, New York, in 1960. Starting with only three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee, the company opened its first retail store in Brooklyn, Ne ...

, and Quik Wok, plus popular grocery store food brands such as

Green Giant Green Giant and Le Sueur (spelled Le Sieur in Canada) are brands of frozen and canned vegetables owned by B&G Foods. The company's mascot is the Jolly Green Giant. Company and brand history The Minnesota Valley Canning Company was founded in ...

1960s-1970s

In the 1960s, Pillsbury added Sweet* 10 made with

cyclamate Cyclamate is an artificial sweetener. It is 30–50 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar), making it the least potent of the commercially used artificial sweeteners. It is often used with other artificial sweeteners, especially saccharin; ...

, which became the most popular

artificial sweetener A sugar substitute is a food additive that provides a sweetness like that of sugar while containing significantly less food energy than sugar-based sweeteners, making it a zero-calorie () or low-calorie sweetener. Artificial sweeteners may be d ...

. In 1964, Pillsbury introduced Funny Face Drink Mix with the names Goofy Grape, Rootin' Tootin' Raspberry, Freckle Face Strawberry, Loud Mouth Lime, Chinese Cherry (later Choo-Choo Cherry), and Injun Orange (later Jolly Olly Orange). Lefty Lemon followed in 1965, along with other flavors. The Funny Face characters, as well as the Funny Face brand were created in 1963 by Hal Silverman, a Creative Director at Campbell Mithun Advertising. When cyclamate was banned, Sweet* 10 and Funny Face were eliminated, resulting in a $4.5 million loss. Both products were re-introduced after changes, and the drinks became available sweetened and unsweetened. Another

drink mix A drink mix is a processed-food product, designed to mix usually with water to produce a beverage resembling fruit juice or soda in flavor. Another type of drink mix is represented by products that are mixed into milk. It is traditionally made i ...

introduced in 1966 was Moo Juice, a flavored powder that when combined with milk in a shaker, produced a

milkshake A milkshake (sometimes simply called a shake) is a sweet beverage made by blending milk, ice cream, and flavorings or sweeteners such as butterscotch, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, fruit syrup, or whole fruit into a thick, sweet, cold mixture ...

. Moo Juice was also created by Hal Silverman. Its TV commercial featured a talking animation of the product's cartoon cow head mascot voiced by comedian

Frank Fontaine Frank Fontaine (April 19, 1920 – August 4, 1978) was an American stage, radio, film and television comedian, singer and actor. Early years and personal life Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fontaine came from a family of entertai ...

. Moo Juice was short-lived, as its milkshakes tended to be thin compared to similar products such as Borden's Frosted and

Birds Eye Birds Eye is an American international brand of frozen foods owned by Conagra Brands in the United States, by Nomad Foods in Europe, and Simplot in Australia. The former Birds Eye Company Ltd., originally named "Birdseye Seafood, Inc." had be ...

's Thick and Frosty. Among the other kid foods that Silverman created for Pillsbury was Nugget Town, chocolate flavored nuggets that came in eight different, collectable packages that when popped open and folded made into a whole western town. The TV commercial featured comedian

Buddy Hackett Buddy Hackett (born Leonard Hacker; August 31, 1924 – June 30, 2003) was an American actor, comedian and singer. His best remembered roles include Marcellus Washburn in ''The Music Man'' (1962), Benjy Benjamin in ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Wo ...

as the voice of the town's little bear sheriff. Also, there was Gorilla Milk—"...you'll go ape for Gorilla Milk, a glass in the morning and you'll swing all day"—a protein additive that turned milk into an instant breakfast. This product, aimed at teenagers, was not successful going against

Carnation ''Dianthus caryophyllus'' (), commonly known as the carnation or clove pink, is a species of ''Dianthus''. It is likely native to the Mediterranean region but its exact range is unknown due to extensive cultivation for the last 2,000 years.Med ...

Instant Breakfast Instant breakfast typically refers to breakfast food products that are manufactured in a Drying (food), powdered form, which are generally prepared with the addition of milk and then consumed as a drink.Space Food Sticks to capitalize on the popularity of the space program. Space Food Sticks were developed by Robert Muller, the inventor of the

HACCP Hazard analysis and critical control points, or HACCP (), is a systematic preventive approach to food safety from biological, chemical, and physical hazards in production processes that can cause the finished product to be unsafe and designs mea ...

standards used by the food industry to ensure food safety. When

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

Scott Carpenter Malcolm Scott Carpenter (May 1, 1925 – October 10, 2013) was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury ...

launched into space on

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

capsule

Aurora 7 Mercury-Atlas 7, launched May 24, 1962, was the fourth crewed flight of Project Mercury. The spacecraft, named ''Aurora 7'', was piloted by astronaut Scott Carpenter. He was the sixth human to fly in space. The mission used Mercury spacecraft No ...

in 1962, he was carrying with him the first solid

space food Space food is a type of food product created and processed for consumption by astronauts during missions to outer space. The food has specific requirements of providing balanced nutrition for individuals working in space while being easy and sa ...

small food cubes developed by Pillsbury's research and development department. Taking Pillsbury scientists more than a year to develop, space food cubes were followed by other space-friendly foods, such as cake that was not crumbly, relish that could be served in slices and meat that needed no refrigeration. Pillsbury acquired the

fast food chain in 1967. Pillsbury bought the Green Giant Company in 1979.

1980s and after

The Pillsbury Company bought

in 1983. Then in 1985, Pillsbury acquired Diversifoods, the largest Burger King franchisee in the U.S. and parent company of

. In 1988, Pillsbury sold the Godfather's Pizza chain to a management-led group as part of the company's restructuring moves. In 1989, the British company

Grand Metropolitan Grand Metropolitan plc was a leisure, manufacturing and property conglomerate headquartered in England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it merged with Guinness plc to form ...

(later

Diageo Diageo plc () is a Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic beverage company, with its headquarters in London, England. It operates from 132 sites around the world. It was the world's largest distiller before being overtaken by Kweich ...

) purchased the food maker, and during this ownership period the company divested itself of all production and distribution facilities (contracting these functions to other companies), making itself simply a marketing entity for its own brands (Pillsbury, Green Giant,

Old El Paso Old El Paso is a brand of Tex-Mex-style foods from American food producer General Mills. These include dinner kits, tacos and tortillas, taco seasoning, sauces, condiments, rice, and refried beans. Old El Paso products are marketed across the ...

Totino's Totino's and Jeno's are brands of frozen pizza products owned by General Mills. History Rose Totino and her husband, Jim, founded a take-out pizzeria in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1951. They later expanded it to a full-service restaurant, whic ...

, etc.) Pillsbury sold all of their restaurant brands and exited the business completely by the late 1990s.In 1999, Pillsbury and Nestlé merged their U.S. and Canadian ice cream operations into a joint venture called Ice Cream Partners. In 2001 Nestlé exercised its contractual right to buy General Mills' interest in Ice Cream Partners, which included the right to a 99-year license for the Häagen-Dazs brand. Pursuant to that license, the Dreyer's subsidiary of Nestlé produced and marketed Häagen-Dazs products in the United States and Canada. In 2001, Diageo sold Pillsbury to General Mills. The baking products division was sold to International Multifoods Corporation, which was later acquired by

Smucker's The J.M. Smucker Company, also known as Smuckers, is an American manufacturer of food and beverage products. Headquartered in Orrville, Ohio, the company was founded in 1897 as a maker of apple butter. J.M. Smucker currently has three major bus ...

Notable achievements

Pillsbury once claimed to have the largest grain

mill Mill may refer to: Science and technology * * Mill (grinding) * Milling (machining) * Millwork * Textile mill * Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel * List of types of mill * Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...

in the world at the

Pillsbury A-Mill The Pillsbury A-Mill is a former flour mill located on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was the world's largest flour mill for 40 years. and Completed in 1881, it was owned by the Pillsbury Company and o ...

overlooking

Saint Anthony Falls Saint Anthony Falls, or the Falls of Saint Anthony ( dak, italics=no, Owámniyomni, ) located at the northeastern edge of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the only natural major waterfall on the Mississippi River. Throughout the mid-to-late 1 ...

on the

in Minneapolis. The building had two of the most powerful direct-drive

waterwheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...

s ever built, each putting out 1200

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the ...

(900 kW). The Pillsbury A-Mill was converted to artist lofts by the Dominium company in 2016. In 1960, Robert J. Keith, then Vice President of Pillsbury, published an article entitled the "Marketing Revolution" in the leading marketing journal, ''Journal of Marketing.'' The article, which was based on Keith's personal recollections, set out the way that the Pillsbury Company had evolved. He pointed out that the company had shifted from a focus on production in the 1860s to sales focus in the 1930s through to a consumer focus in the 1950s. The characteristics of these three distinct eras in Pillsbury's evolution include: the ''production oriented era'' from 1869 -1930s – characterized by a 'focus on production processes'; the ''sales oriented era'' from the 1930s to the 1950s – characterized by investment in research to develop new products and advertising to persuade markets of product benefits and the ''marketing oriented era'' from the beginning of the 1950s – characterized by a focus on the customer's latent and existing needs. In addition, Keith hypothesized that a ''marketing control era'' was about to emerge. Although Keith's article explicitly documented Pillsbury's evolution, the article appears to suggest that the stages observed at Pillsbury constitute a normal evolutionary path (production→sales→marketing) for most large organizations. Marketing scholars quickly picked up on Keith's evolutionary stages for marketing organizations and it was integrated into marketing texts and became "'accepted wisdom.'' One content analysis of 25 introductory and advanced texts found that Keith's eras were reproduced in all but four. Keith's notion of distinct eras in the evolution of marketing practice has been widely criticized described as "hopelessly flawed". Specific criticisms of Keith's tripartite periodization include that: * It ignores historical facts about business conditionsGilbert, D. and Bailey, N., "The Development of Marketing: A Compendium of Historical Approaches," (originally published in ''Quarterly Review of Marketing,'' vol. 15, no. 2, 1990, pp 6-13) and reproduced in ''Marketing: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management,'' Vol. 2, Michael John Baker (ed), London, Routledge, 2001, p. 81 * It mis-states the nature of supply and demand * It cites the growth of marketing institutions Systematic studies carried out since Keith's work have failed to replicate his

periodization In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis.Adam Rabinowitz. It's about time: historical periodization and Linked Ancie ...

. Instead, other studies suggest that many companies exhibited a marketing orientation in the 19th century and that the business schools were teaching marketing decades before Pillsbury adopted a marketing-oriented approach.Brown, S., "Trinitarianism: The Eternal Angel and the Three Eras Schema," in Brown, S., Bell, J. and Carson, D., ''Marketing Apocalypse: Eschatology, Escapology and the Illusion of the End,'' London, Routledge, 1996, p. 26 Jones and Richardson also investigated historical accounts of marketing practice and found evidence for both the sales and marketing era during the so-called production era and concluded that there was no 'marketing revolution.'Fullerton, E.A., "How Modern Is Modern Marketing? Marketing's Evolution and the Myth of the 'Production Era' ", ''Journal of Marketing,'' Vol. 52, No. 1, 1988, pp. 108-125 Keith's eras have become known, somewhat cynically, as the ''standard chronology''.Jones, D.G.B. and Shaw, E.H., “A history of marketing thought”, in Weitz, B.A. and Wensley, R. (Eds), Handbook of Marketing, Sage, London, 2002, pp. 39-66; Shaw, E.H., “Reflections on the history of marketing thought”, Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 2, 2009, pp. 330-345. In spite of such criticisms, Keith's descriptions of the different eras continue to influence marketing thought.

Footnotes

References

* N.S. Gill.
Charles Alfred Pillsbury.
Minneapolis.about.com * Andrew Haeg (July 17, 2000)
General Mills Acquires Pillsbury.

Minnesota Public Radio Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), is a public radio network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, YourClassical MPR and The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest. MPR ha ...

External links

*
Pillsbury Baking website (J.M. Smucker Company)
{{Authority control Food product brands Baking mixes General Mills Manufacturing companies based in Minneapolis Defunct companies based in Minneapolis American companies established in 1869 Food and drink companies established in 1869 1869 establishments in Minnesota 2001 disestablishments in Minnesota General Mills brands The J.M. Smucker Co. brands Pillsbury family 2001 mergers and acquisitions