Manufacturers :
General Mills
They started with two flour mills in the 1860s and revolutionized the milling industry, producing flour with superior baking properties.
By the 1960s they were marketing beloved childrens products that included Play-Doh Easy Bake Ovens, Spirograph, Monopoly and Nerf balls.
In between, they became involved with such memorable characters as Betty Crocker, Bullwinkle, the Lone Ranger and the Pillsbury Doughboy.
And no one could have written a movie script about what happened when their Wheaties brand began sponsoring baseball radio broadcasts in 1933, when the cereal became known as The Breakfast of Champions.
One of their announcers, Ronald Dutch Reagan was voted the countrys most popular Wheaties baseball announcer in 1937, which earned him a free trip to California. He traveled from Des Moines, Iowa, for a screen test, became a Hollywood star and, as you know, eventually was elected president of the United States.
You might not know that when oceanographer Robert Ballard explored the sunken Titanic in 1985, he had some help from ALVIN, a three-person submarine designed and built at General Mills in the early 1960s. ALVIN made 11 dives to that Titanic site.
These days, their focus is on food — making lives around the world healthier, easier and richer.
If you have a greater curiosity or questions about their past, the following fact sheets - in Adobe PDF format - provide more details.
