Ben's Original, formerly called Uncle Ben's, is an American brand of parboiled rice 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 care services, with US$40 billion in annual sales in 2021. Mars was ranked as the fourth-largest private ...

Its headquarters are in Denver Harbor, Houston, 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 Rice production is the third largest among cereals in the United States, after corn and wheat. Of the country's row crop farms, rice farms are the most capital-intensive, and have the highest national land rental rate average. In the US, all ric ...

History

In the 1910s, the German-British chemist

Erich Huzenlaub Erich Gustav Huzenlaub (27 October 1888 – 12 September 1964) was a German-British chemist. He invented the Huzenlaub process for parboiling rice. Life Huzenlaub studied chemistry in Germany, served in the German military, and emigrated to ...

(1888–1964) and the British chemist Francis Heron Rogers invented a form of

parboiling Parboiling (or leaching) is the partial or semi boiling of food as the first step in cooking. The word is from the Old French 'parboillir' (to boil thoroughly) but by mistaken association with 'part' it has acquired its current meaning. The wo ...

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 hav ...

, 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., 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 atmos ...

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 an in ...

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. ...

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 Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

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 ...

, which is said to have been based on a house negro waiter. In 2020, Mars told '' Ad Age'', "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 and overseers for the quality of his

rice dishes This is a list of rice dishes from all over the world, arranged alphabetically. Rice is the seed of the monocot plants ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). As a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple foo ...

. 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 India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the secon ...

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 n ...

, 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 Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

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 man ...

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 pancake mix, syrup, and other breakfast food products. The original version of the pancake mix for the brand was developed in 1888–18 ...

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