General Mills

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  General Mills began beside a waterfall. At Saint Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, a flour miller grew into a corporation that now has its headquarters in Golden Valley, Minnesota.

  Cheerios, Wheaties and Lucky Charms carry its name into kitchens across North America. So do Betty Crocker, Pillsbury and Häagen-Dazs. Yet the company has never been only a cereal maker, and the strangest parts of its story have little to do with breakfast.

  How did a mill at a waterfall become a corporation with dozens of brands? Which of its experiments worked, and which did it hand off or sell? And what happens when a household name meets lawsuits, public backlash and a cereal that appears to make people sick? The answers begin with the water power at the falls.

  1238

• 2. Flour at the Falls

  ›

  The Minneapolis Milling Company was incorporated in 1856, and its founder was an Illinois congressman named Robert Smith. Smith leased power rights to the flour mills operating on the west side of Saint Anthony Falls. Cadwallader C. Washburn acquired the company soon afterward and brought in his brother, William D. Washburn, to help build it.

  In 1866 the Washburns began milling for themselves, putting up the Washburn "B" Mill at the falls. People at the time thought the building so large, and its output so vast, that it could never sustain itself. They were wrong. In 1874 an even bigger Washburn "A" Mill went up.

  A partnership with John Crosby in 1877 produced the Washburn-Crosby Company, which made winter wheat flour. That same year Washburn sent William Hood Dunwoody to England to open a market for spring wheat. Dunwoody succeeded and became a silent partner.

  In 1878 a flour dust explosion destroyed the "A" Mill and five nearby buildings. People came to call it the Great Mill Disaster. The fire that followed killed 18 workers. Construction of a replacement started immediately, and the new mill was both safer and better. Automatic steel rollers, the first ever used, took the place of the old grinding stones and produced a higher quality flour.

  In 1880, Washburn-Crosby flours took gold, silver and bronze medals at the Millers' International Exhibition in Cincinnati. The company answered by launching its Gold Medal flour brand.

  The firm soon looked beyond grain. In 1924 it bought a failing Twin Cities radio station called WLAG and renamed it WCCO, after Washburn-Crosby Company.

  45678

• 3. A Merger in 1928

  ›

  On the 20th of June 1928, Washburn-Crosby's president, James Ford Bell, merged the company with three other mills. The result was General Mills. In the same year the new company also bought the Wichita Mill and Elevator Company, which belonged to the industrialist Frank Kell of Wichita Falls, Texas. Kell took cash and stock in the corporation as payment.

  Shares of the new company first went on sale on the New York Stock Exchange on the 30th of November 1928, at $65 per share. General Mills paid a dividend that year. It has paid one every year since, which puts it among only a few companies with an unbroken record from the start.

  The next decade would bring an engineer named Thomas R. James and a machine that changed how cereal could be shaped.

  891034

• 4. Inventions and Altitude

  ›

  The machine built by Thomas R. James was called the puffing gun. It inflated or distorted cereal pieces into puffed-up shapes. General Mills used it in 1937 to create Kix, and in 1941 to create Cheerioats, the cereal known today as Cheerios.

  Packaging got the same inventive attention. In 1939 the engineer Helmer Anderson created the Anderson sealer. It let bags of flour be sealed with glue instead of merely tied with string. In 1956 the company produced the tear-strip, a way of opening packages with ease.

  Then the engineering turned skyward. In 1946 General Mills established an Aeronautical Research Division under chief engineer Otto C. Winzen. Working with the United States Navy Office of Naval Research, the division developed high altitude balloons, among them the Skyhook balloon.

  In 1956, hundreds of General Mills balloons carrying reconnaissance equipment were launched by the United States government. The effort was called Project Genetrix. Its target was Eastern bloc countries, and in particular their nuclear capabilities. Raven Industries later carried on the aeronautical work that General Mills had done around the time of the Second World War.

  The company's Electronics division went deeper in the other direction. It developed the DSV Alvin submersible, which was used to investigate the wreck of Titanic and on other deep-sea exploration missions.

  1112131415

• 5. Sponsoring Childhood

  ›

  Beginning in 1929, General Mills products carried box top coupons known as Betty Crocker coupons. Each coupon had a point value and could be redeemed for discounts on housewares in the widely distributed Betty Crocker catalog. The company discontinued both the coupons and the catalog in 2006.

  In 1941 General Mills became the sponsor of the radio show The Lone Ranger. The show moved to television, and the sponsorship ended in 1961, after 20 years.

  From 1959 the company sponsored Rocky and His Friends, later known as The Bullwinkle Show. Until 1968, Rocky and Bullwinkle appeared in a range of General Mills advertisements. The company also sponsored Saturday-morning cartoons from the Total Television studio, including Tennessee Tuxedo. It backed the ABC western The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O'Brian, as well.

  Later came the animated Dennis the Menace series, based on Hank Ketcham's comic strip. General Mills and its subsidiary The Program Exchange backed DiC Entertainment in syndicating it. From 1997 until the 31st of May 2004, the company sponsored and barter syndicated the first 82 episodes of the original English dub of Sailor Moon.

  The cereal box became its own stage. In the 1970s General Mills introduced its monster cereals, which are now made and sold seasonally around Halloween. Other launches rode on outside names. E.T. Cereal ran from 1984 to 1986. There were also Pac-Man Cereal, Jurassic Park Crunch, a cereal based on the 2002 film Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, and Neopets Islandberry Crunch, drawn from the online virtual pet community. USA Olympic Crunch tied in with the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

  Some products were stranger. Wheat Stax, sold from 1966 to 1971, boasted "Now there's a cereal you can stack." Fingos was billed as "The Cereal Made to Eat with Your Fingers." Baron von Redberry and Sir Grapefellow lasted only from 1972 to 1975.

  The habit of borrowing a famous name has continued. Hershey Kisses Cereal arrived in January 2020, and an IHOP Blueberry and Syrup Mini Pancake Cereal followed in December 2022. Kelce Mix Cereal, made with Travis and Jason Kelce, launched in September 2024.

  1618656667

• 6. Toys, Restaurants and Retail

  ›

  In 1965 General Mills bought Rainbow Crafts, the manufacturer of Play-Doh. The purchase brought production costs down and tripled revenue. In 1967 the company bought the Kenner toy company, and in the following year it acquired Parker Brothers.

  Parker Brothers held the rights to the board game Monopoly. From 1976 to 1985, General Mills went to court as its parent company. It claimed that the Anti-Monopoly game, created by an economics professor, infringed its trademark. The dispute reached the United States Supreme Court, which ruled against the company. General Mills had exclusive rights to the game Monopoly, the court said, but could not stop others from putting the word "monopoly" in a game's name.

  In 1985 the toy division was separated from its parent as Kenner Parker Toys, Inc. Many potential buyers existed. Instead, the business was floated on the stock exchange, with General Mills shareholders receiving equivalent shares. That route was more tax efficient for General Mills.

  Restaurants had already become a second diversification. In 1970 the company acquired Red Lobster, then only a five-unit restaurant, and expanded it nationwide. A division called General Mills Restaurants took charge of the chain. In 1980 it bought the California health food chain Good Earth, and eventually converted those restaurants into other chains it ran, such as Red Lobster.

  In 1982, General Mills Restaurants founded an Italian-themed chain called Olive Garden. Another themed restaurant, China Coast, joined the group. In 1995 the whole restaurant group was spun off to General Mills shareholders as Darden Restaurants.

  Clothing was a shorter experiment. General Mills started a Specialty Retail Group and acquired the apparel companies Talbots and Eddie Bauer. A Japanese company then known as JUSCO purchased Talbots, and the Spiegel company purchased Bauer. Spiegel later declared bankruptcy, but Eddie Bauer survives, with a smaller presence in the United States.

  1920222425

• 7. Remaking the Portfolio

  ›

  A joint venture with Nestlé S.A. in 1990 created Cereal Partners. It markets cereals, including many General Mills brands, outside the United States and Canada under the Nestlé name. In 1996 General Mills acquired Ralcorp's cereal brands, among them Chex and Cookie Crisp.

  In 2001 the company purchased Pillsbury from Diageo, leaving out Burger King. The deal was officially described as a merger. In 2014 General Mills bought the organic food producer Annie's for around $820 million, as part of a push into the American natural foods market.

  Cutting followed buying. In October 2014 the company announced plans to eliminate 700 to 800 jobs, mostly in the United States, through a restructuring due to finish by the end of 2015. In December 2016 it announced another restructuring, splitting into four business groups based on global region and cutting as many as 600 jobs.

  The corporation ranked 181st on the 2012 Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations, and 161st in 2015. In those years it was the third-largest food consumer products company in the United States.

  In February 2018 General Mills entered the pet products industry, paying $8 billion for Blue Buffalo Pet Products, Inc. On the 15th of May 2021 it announced a $1.2 billion purchase of Tyson Foods's pet treat business, including True Chews, Nudges and Top Chews. The acquisition was completed on the 7th of July 2021.

  The spring of 2022 brought more moves. On the 12th of May, the company announced it would acquire TNT Crust, a supplier of frozen pizza crusts, from Peak Rock Capital. On the 25th of May it announced the sale of Hamburger Helper and Suddenly Salad to Eagle Family Foods Group for $610 million, completed on the 5th of July. On the 9th of November 2023 it acquired a pet supplement business, Fera Pets, Inc.

  Yogurt went next. On the 12th of September 2024, General Mills announced the sale of its North American yogurt division. Groupe Lactalis would buy the American brands, and Sodiaal the Canadian ones. The Canadian sale closed on the 27th of January 2025, bringing all of Yoplait's international operations under Sodiaal. The American sale closed on the 30th of June.

  On the 17th of March 2026, the Brazilian food company 3 Corações announced it would buy General Mills's Brazilian operations for R$800 million. Regulatory approval was pending, and the deal was expected to conclude at the end of 2026.

  2829314752

• 8. Scrutiny and Promises

  ›

  In April 2014, General Mills changed the legal terms on its website to add an arbitration clause. Disputes would go to small claims court or arbitration, not to a class action. The change came shortly after a judge's denial, on the 26th of March 2014, of a motion to dismiss a class action over Nature Valley marketing. The terms bound users who did things like download coupons or join forum discussions on the site.

  The New York Times reported that the agreement could be read to cover buying products at a grocery store or liking the company's Facebook page. General Mills called that a "mischaracterization". Consumer groups and social media erupted anyway, and the company restored its original terms after only a few days.

  On the 12th of February 2020, the United Nations published a database of companies doing business in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Golan Heights. General Mills appeared on it because of the activities of its subsidiary General Mills Israel in Israeli settlements, which some argue is illegal under international law. By the update of the 30th of June 2023, the company was no longer involved and had been removed.

  In June 2012, the company's vice-president for diversity said General Mills opposed a Minnesota amendment banning gay marriage, citing the value of "inclusion". The company also drew criticism for social media campaigns and dietitian education linked to the "anti-diet" movement, which were tied to promoting its own sugary foods.

  In April 2022, news reports and complaints said Lucky Charms was making people ill, mostly with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. No recall followed from the company or the FDA. An FDA spokesperson said the agency was investigating approximately 100 reports. Norovirus was circulating in parts of the country at the time. Microbial contamination is rare in cereal, since it must be baked, though unsanitary conditions can allow it.

  Since 2004 the company has made more products for health-conscious shoppers. It switched its entire breakfast cereal line to whole grain, and it cut sugar in every cereal advertised to children to 11 grams per serving.

  Pledges on animals and climate came later. In April 2011 General Mills announced that all 1 million eggs it uses each year would be cage-free. In 2015 it set a timeline for ending products made with eggs from caged chickens, promising cage-free United States products by 2025. In 2017 that pledge expanded to chickens across its global operations. Also in 2015, citing climate change, it promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent over 10 years.

  The company launched its first regenerative agriculture pilot program in March 2019. It plans to improve soil health on 1 million acres of farmland by 2030. It has partnered with Regrow Agriculture, which uses satellite imagery, weather data and soil data to measure carbon sequestration in soil. In February 2020, CDP placed General Mills on its "A List" for both climate change and water security. Under pressure from activist groups and shareholders, it has also committed to cut emissions from its dairy operations by 40% by 2030.

  3940444954