Ben's Original, formerly called Uncle Ben's, is an American brand of

parboiled rice Parboiled rice (also called converted rice and easy-cook rice) is rice that has been partially boiled in the husk. The three basic steps of parboiling are soaking, steaming and drying. These steps make the rice easier to process by hand, while ...

and other related food products that was introduced by Converted Rice Inc., which is now owned by

Mars, Inc. Mars, Incorporated is an American multinational manufacturer of confectionery, pet food, and other food products and a provider of Animal welfare, animal care services, with United States dollar, US$40 billion in annual sales in 2021. Mars wa ...

Its headquarters are in

Denver Harbor, Houston Denver Harbor is a historic community located in eastern Houston, Texas, United States near the Houston Ship Channel. The community, bounded by Wallisville Road, the Union Pacific Railroad, and the Port Terminal Railroad Association, was first se ...

, Texas. Uncle Ben's rice was first marketed in 1943 and was the top-selling rice in the United States from 1950 until the 1990s. In 2020, it was rebranded as "Ben's Original" in the US following the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internat ...

. The brand has historically capitalized on the long history of rice in African-American food culture and rice production in the United States.

History

In the 1910s, the German-British chemist Erich Huzenlaub (1888–1964) and the British chemist Francis Heron Rogers invented a form of parboiling designed to retain more of the nutrients in rice, now known as the Huzenlaub Process. The process entailed vacuum drying the whole grain, then

steaming Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. This is often done with a food steamer, a kitchen appliance made specifically to cook food with steam, but food can also be steamed in a wok. In the American southwest, steam pits used for cooking ha ...

, and finally vacuum drying and removal of the

husk Husk (or hull) in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. In the United States, the term husk often refers to the leafy outer covering of an ear of maize (corn) as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the protective ...

. This increased the rice's nutritional value, reduced cooking time, and made it resistant to

weevil Weevils are beetles belonging to the superfamily Curculionoidea, known for their elongated snouts. They are usually small, less than in length, and herbivorous. Approximately 97,000 species of weevils are known. They belong to several families, ...

s. In 1932,

Forrest Mars Sr. Forrest Edward Mars Sr. (March 21, 1904 – July 1, 1999) was an American billionaire businessman and the driving force of the Mars candy empire. He is best known for introducing Milky Way (1924) and Mars (1932) chocolate candy bars, and M&M's ( ...

, moved to the United Kingdom with a remit to expand the

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

food company internationally. While in the United Kingdom, Mars learned of Erich Huzenlaub's work with rice. Huzenlaub's London-based company was Rice Conversion Ltd. The two eventually formed Mars and Huzenlaub in Houston, Texas, which gave Forrest Mars partial ownership of the Huzenlaub Process rice conversion patent. In 1942, through Mars's guidance and sponsorship, Huzenlaub created, together with Houston food broker Gordon L. Harwell, the company Converted Rice, Inc., which sold its entire output to the U.S. and British armed forces. The advantage of this product was that it could be air-dropped to troops in the field without risk of weevil infestation, and it could be cooked more quickly than other rice products. Additionally, the converted rice product would retain more nutritional value. In 1944, with additional financing from the Defense Plant Corporation and an investment by Forrest Mars, it built a second large plant. In 1959, Forrest Mars purchased Erich Huzenlaub's interest in the company and merged it into his Food Manufacturers, Inc. Uncle Ben's milling plant was on the

Houston Ship Channel The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston, one of the busiest seaports in the world. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico, and it serves a ...

until 1999, when it moved to

Greenville, Mississippi Greenville is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 34,400 at the 2010 census. It is located in the area of historic cotton plantations and culture known as the Mississippi Delta. H ...

Marketing

From 1946 to 2020, Uncle Ben's products carried the image of an elderly

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

man dressed in a

bow tie The bow tie is a type of necktie. A modern bow tie is tied using a common shoelace knot, which is also called the bow knot for that reason. It consists of a ribbon of fabric tied around the collar of a shirt in a symmetrical manner so that t ...

, which is said to have been based on a

house negro A house slave was a slave who worked, and often lived, in the house of the slave-owner, performing domestic labor. House slaves performed largely the same duties as all domestic workers throughout history, such as cooking, cleaning, serving meals, ...

waiter. In 2020, Mars told ''

Ad Age ''Ad Age'' (known as ''Advertising Age'' until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. ''Ad Age'' appears in mul ...

'', "We don't know if a real 'Ben' ever existed." According to Mars, Uncle Ben was an enslaved African-American "house negro cook" known by the

plantation owner A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

and overseers for the quality of his rice dishes. Gordon L. Harwell, an entrepreneur who had supplied rice to the armed forces in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, chose the name "Uncle Ben's" as a means to expand his marketing efforts to the general public. In March 2007, Uncle Ben's image was "promoted" to the "chairman of the board" by a new advertising campaign. In September 2017, Mars, Inc. started to certify the sustainability of

basmati Basmati, , is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which is traditionally grown in India, Pakistan, and Nepal.

rice sold under the Uncle Ben's brand, in order to encourage the local farmers to opt for the best agricultural methods. In the aftermath of the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...

, Mars, Inc. announced on June 17, 2020 that it would be "evolving" the brand's identity, including the logo. The move followed just hours after

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manufa ...

changed the name and logo of its

Aunt Jemima Pearl Milling Company (formerly known as Aunt Jemima from 1889 to 2021) is an American breakfast brand for Baking mix, pancake mix, syrup, and other breakfast food products. The original version of the pancake mix for the brand was developed i ...

brand amid accusations of racism. As advertised on September 23, 2020, Mars Inc. replaced the "Uncle Ben's" name with "Ben's Original", with the new packaging becoming widely available in the United States from about June 2021.

References

External links

official website
{{Mars global brands Rice products Products introduced in 1943 Fictional African-American people Food advertising characters Companies based in Houston Mars brands American brands Male characters in advertising Race-related controversies in advertising and marketing Name changes due to the George Floyd protests