General Mills

Information about General Mills

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General Mills, Inc.
Public (NYSE: GIS)
Founded1866
HeadquartersHQ in Golden Valley, Minnesota; manufacturing facilities around the world
Key peopleKen Powell, CEO
IndustryFood processing
ProductsBaking mixes, Breakfast cereals, yogurt, refrigerated dough, soup, pizza, snack foods, ice cream, soy products, vegetables, flour, and more...
Revenue$12.442 billion USD (2007)
Websitewww.generalmills.com
General Mills (NYSE: GIS) is a Fortune 500 corporation, mainly concerned with food products, which is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The company markets such brands as Betty Crocker, Progresso, Yoplait, Old El Paso, and Pillsbury, as well as numerous well-known breakfast cereals (see below).

The Company

General Mills markets several well-known brands, including Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jenos, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Old El Paso and Cheerios. Their brand portfolio includes more than 100 leading U.S. brands and numerous category leaders around the world. On average, U.S. shoppers place at least one General Mills product into their shopping cart each time they visit the grocery store. [1]

General Mills markets global brands such as Green Giant vegetables, Old El Paso Mexican food and Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Their U.S. portfolio includes Yoplait yogurt,Colombo yogurt, Totinos pizza, Jenos pizza, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Cheerios, Wheaties and other Big G cereals.

History

The company can trace its history to the Minneapolis Milling Company, an organization founded in 1866 by Cadwallader C. Washburn which leased power rights to mills operating along Saint Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River. His brother William D. Washburn also assisted in the company's development. In 1866, the Washburns got into the business themselves, building the Washburn "B" Mill at the falls. At the time, the building was considered to be so large and output so vast that it could not possibly sustain itself. However, the company succeeded and in 1874 he built the even bigger Washburn "A" Mill.

In 1877, the mill entered a partnership with John Crosby to form the Washburn-Crosby Company. A year later, the "A" mill exploded, killing 17 workers and also demolishing several nearby buildings. The mill was rebuilt and continued to operate for almost 90 years.

In the 1920s, the company stepped in to take over a failing Twin Cities radio station, renaming it WCCO (from Washburn Crosby Company). General Mills itself was created in 1928 when Washburn-Crosby President James Ford Bell directed his company to merge with 26 other mills.

In 1970, General Mills acquired a five-unit restaurant company called Red Lobster and expanded it nationwide. Soon, a division of General Mills titled General Mills Restaurants developed to take charge of the Red Lobster chain. In 1982, General Mills Restaurants founded a new Italian themed restaurant chain called Olive Garden. Another themed restaurant, China Coast, was added before the entire group was spun-off to General Mills shareholders in 1995 as Darden Restaurants.

Beginning in 1929, General Mills products contained boxtop coupons, known as Betty Crocker coupons, with varying point values, that were redeemable for discounts on a variety of housewares products featured in the widely distributed Betty Crocker catalog. The coupons and the catalog were discontinued by the company in 2006, and a new web-site based retail concept is scheduled to open in 2007.

From 1976 to 1985 General Mills went to court as the parent company of Parker Brothers, which held the rights on the brand name and gaming idea of the board game Monopoly, claiming that the so called Anti-Monopoly game of an economics professor infringed their trademark. The dispute extended up to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled against them, saying that while they have exclusive rights to the game Monopoly, they can not prevent others from using the word monopoly in the name of a game. During the 1980s, General Mills sold Parker Brothers to Kenner.

In 2001, the company purchased Pillsbury, although it was officially described as a "merger." In late 2004, the company transitioned its entire breakfast cereal line to whole grain due to scientific research showing the positive impact consuming whole grains has on health.

Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of General Mills are: Paul Danos, William Esrey, Raymond Gilmartin, Judith Hope, Heidi Miller, Hilda Ochoa-Brillembourg, Steve Odland, Michael Rose, Robert Ryan, Stephen Sanger (chairman), Michael Spence, and Dorothy Terrell.

Marketing

On August 2004, Millsberry, an advergame, was created as a marketing tool. It has shops, homes, special events, arcades, and a newspaper called the Millsberry Gazette, which tells you happenings in Millsberry; and new features are frequently added.[1] General Mills often uses product placement on Millsberry. It's a web site targeted at elementary and middle school students,[2] though it can be played by everyone. Sign up is required to be able to fully access it.

See also

External links

Footnotes

1. ^ [2]
2. ^ [3]


Minnesota-based Corporations
This box:  •  • [ edit]
Minnesota-based Fortune 500 Corporations (by size):
UnitedHealth Group | Target Corporation | Best Buy | Travelers | 3M | Supervalu | U.S. Bancorp | CHS | Northwest Airlines | General Mills | Medtronic | Xcel Energy | Ameriprise Financial | Land O'Lakes | C. H. Robinson Worldwide | Thrivent Financial for Lutherans | Hormel | The Mosaic Company | Ecolab | Nash Finch
Minnesota-based Fortune 1000 Corporations (by size):
Companies listed above, plus PepsiAmericas | Pentair | St. Jude Medical | Alliant Techsystems | Valspar | Patterson Dental | Minnesota Life | Regis Corporation | Polaris Industries | Toro | Deluxe Corporation | Donaldson Company | Fastenal | H.B. Fuller | Federated Mutual Insurance | Ceridian
Major Minnesota-based non-public or externally owned corporations (alphabetically):
Andersen Windows | Cargill | Carlson Companies | Dairy Queen | Musicland | Schwan Food Company
Prose is writing distinguished from poetry by its greater variety of rhythm and its closer resemblance to the patterns of everyday speech. The word prose comes from the Latin prosa, meaning straightforward, hence the term "prosaic," which is often seen as pejorative.
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Golden Valley, Minnesota
Location in Hennepin County, Minnesota
Coordinates:
Country United States
State Minnesota
County Hennepin
Founded
Incorporated
Government
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Industry (from Latin industrius, "diligent, industrious"), is the segment of economy concerned with production of goods. Industry began in its present form during the 1800s, aided by technological advances, and it has continued to develop to this day.
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Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food for consumption by humans or animals. The food processing industry utilises these processes.
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Aspinwall Classification System (Leo Aspinwall, 1958) classifies and rates products based on five variables:
  1. Replacement rate (How frequently is the product repurchased?)
  2. Gross margin (How much profit is obtained from each product?)

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A breakfast cereal is a food product marketed to consumers as a breakfast food. Breakfast cereals may be eaten cold and mixed with milk or yoghurt and fruit, or boiled like oatmeal.
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Yoghurt or yogurt, or less commonly yoghourt or yogourt (see spelling below), is a dairy product produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. Fermentation of the milk sugar (lactose) produces lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to give yoghurt its
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Dough is a paste made out of any cereals (grains) or leguminous crops by mixing the flour with a small amount of water. This step is a precursor to making of breads, pasta, pastries, cookies, and muffins.
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Soup is a liquid food that is made by combining ingredients, such as meat, vegetables or legumes in stock or hot water, until the flavor is extracted, forming a broth. Boiling was not a common cooking technique until the invention of waterproof containers (which probably came in
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Pizza

Structural Variations
Pizza Calzone
Stromboli

Ethnic Variations
Greek pizza
Hawaiian pizza Lahmacun
Manakish Mexican pizza
Pissaladire Sardenara
Sicilian pizza .
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A snack food (commonly shortened to snack) is seen in Western culture as a type of food not meant to be eaten as a main meal of the day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) but one that is intended rather to assuage a person's hunger between these meals, providing a brief supply of
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Ice cream or ice-cream (originally iced cream) is a frozen dessert made from dairy products, such as cream (or substituted ingredients), combined with flavorings and sweeteners, such as sugar.
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G. max

Binomial name
Glycine max
(L.) Merr.

The soybean (U.S.) or soya bean (UK) (Glycine max) is a species of legume native to East Asia.
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Vegetable is a term which generally refers to an edible part of a plant. The definition is traditional rather than scientific and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. All parts of herbaceous plants eaten as food by humans, whole or in part, are normally considered vegetables.
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An ingredient used in many foods, flour is a fine powder made by grinding cereals or other edible starchy plant seeds suitable for grinding. It is most commonly made from wheat—the word "flour" used without qualification implies wheatflour—but also maize (now called
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Revenue is a business term for the amount of money that a company receives from its activities in a given period, mostly from sales of products and/or services to customers.
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United States dollar
dólar estadounidense (Spanish)
dólar amerikanu (Tetum)
dólar americano
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20th century - 21st century - 22nd century
1970s  1980s  1990s  - 2000s -  2010s  2020s  2030s
2004 2005 2006 - 2007 - 2008 2009 2010

2007 by topic:
News by month
Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun
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A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN.
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New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), nicknamed the "Big Board", is a New York City-based stock exchange. It is the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume and, with 2,764 listed securities[1], has the second most securities of all stock exchanges.
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Fortune 500 is a ranking of the top 500 American public corporations as measured by gross revenue, although eligible companies are any for which revenues are publicly available (which is a larger universe than "public companies", as the term is commonly understood, meaning
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(General · Limited · LLP)
Cooperative
USA:
Business trust · LLC · LLLP
Delaware corporation
Nevada corporation
UK/Commonwealth:
Limited company
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Food is any substance, usually composed primarily of carbohydrates, fats, water and/or proteins, that can be eaten or drunk by an animal or human being for nutrition or pleasure.
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Golden Valley, Minnesota
Location in Hennepin County, Minnesota
Coordinates:
Country United States
State Minnesota
County Hennepin
Founded
Incorporated
Government
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State of Minnesota

Flag of Minnesota Seal
Nickname(s): North Star State,
The Land of 10,000 Lakes, The Gopher State
Motto(s): L'Étoile du Nord (French: The Star of the North)

Capital Saint Paul

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Minneapolis, Minnesota
Downtown seen from the North Loop

Flag
Seal
Nickname: City of Lakes, Mill City
Motto: En Avant (French: 'Forward')
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A brand includes a name, logo, slogan, and/or design scheme associated with a product or service. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the use of the product or service and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary.
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Betty Crocker, an invented persona and mascot, is a brand name and trademark of American food company General Mills. The name was first developed by the Washburn Crosby Company in 1921 as a way to give a personalized response to consumer product questions.
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