Ben's Original, formerly called Uncle Ben's, is an American brand of parboiled rice and other related food products that were introduced by Converted Rice Inc., which is now owned by Mars, Inc. Uncle Ben's rice was first marketed in 1943 and was the top-selling rice in the United States until the 1990s. In 2020, it was rebranded as "Ben's Original" in the US and Canada.

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. This increased the rice's nutritional value, reduced cooking time, and made it resistant to weevils. 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. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

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 the 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 until 1999 when it moved to

Greenville, Mississippi Greenville is the List of municipalities in Mississippi, ninth-most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, and the largest city by population in the Mississippi Delta region. It is the county seat of Washington County, Mississippi, Was ...

Marketing

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

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

man dressed in a

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, which is said to have been based on a Chicago maître d'hôtel named Frank Brown with the name "Ben" being a possible reference to a shrewd rice farmer from Houston. In 2020, Mars told '' Ad Age'', "We don't know if a real 'Ben' ever existed." Previously, Mars had described Uncle Ben as an African-American rice grower known for the quality of his rice, and claimed that 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 (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, 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 rice sold under the Uncle Ben's brand to encourage local farmers to opt for the best agricultural methods. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, 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 the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

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

changed the name and logo of its Aunt Jemima brand amid accusations of racism. As advertised on September 23, 2020, Mars Inc. replaced both the name "Uncle Ben's" along with the brand's historic logo depicting a well-dressed and bald black man in a

; rebranding itself as simply "Ben's Original", with the new packaging becoming widely available in the United States and Canada 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 Rice in the United States

History

Marketing

See also

References

External links