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Revision as of 18:56, 21 June 2012
Uncle Ben's is a brand name for parboiled rice and related food products. The brand was introduced by Converted Rice Inc., which was later bought by Mars, Inc. It is based in 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.[1]
Origins
In the 1930s, the German-British scientist Eric(h) Huzenlaub (1899–1964) invented a form of parboiling designed to retain more of the nutrients in rice, now known as the Huzenlaub Process. It involves first vacuum drying of the whole grain, then steaming, and finally vacuum drying and husking.[2][3]Besides increasing rice's nutritional value, it also made it resistant to weevils and reduced cooking time.[2]
In 1942, Huzenlaub partnered with a Houston food broker, Gordon L. Harwell, forming Converted Rice, Inc., which sold its entire output to the U.S. Armed Forces.[4] In 1944, with additional financing from the Defense Plant Corporation and an investment by Forrest Mars, Sr., it built a second large plant.[5] Not long afterwards, Mars bought out the founders and merged the company into his Food Manufacturers, Inc..
Marketing origins
When white South Carolina planters were unable to make their rice crops thrive, “slaves from West Africa’s rice region tutored planters in growing the crop.”[6]
Uncle Ben’s products carry the image of an elderly African-American man dressed in a bow tie, said to have been the visage of a Chicago maitre d’hotel named Frank Brown.[7] According to Mars, Uncle Ben was an African-American rice grower known for the quality of his rice. Gordon L. Harwell, an entrepreneur who had supplied rice to the armed forces in World War II, chose the name Uncle Ben’s as a means to expand his marketing efforts to the general public.[8]
Uncle Ben's promotion
In March 2007, Uncle Ben's image was "promoted" to the "chairman of the board" by a new advertising campaign designed to distance the brand from its iconography depicting a domestic servant.[9]
See also
References
- ^ Palmeri, Christopher. “Wake Up, Mars!” Forbes. (December 13, 1999)
- ^ a b M.C. Kik and R.R. Williams, "The Nutritional Improvement of White Rice", Bulletin of the National Research Council 112 (June 1945) p. 61ff
- ^ British Patents 519,926 (10 April 1940) and 522,353 (17 June 1940); U.S. Patents 2,239608 (22 April 1941), 2,287,737 (20 December 1941), 2,287,737 (23 June 1942), cited in Kik and Williams
- ^ "Science: Richer Rice", Time, 28 June 1943 full text
- ^ "Business & Finance: Rice for G.I.s", Time, 28 August 1944 full text
- ^ Carney, Judith A. (2002). Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-00834-0.
- ^ Kendrix, Moss H. “The Advertiser’s Holy Trinity: Aunt Jemima, Rastus, and Uncle Ben” Moss H. Kendrix, A Retrospective. The Museum of Public Relations. (2006)
- ^ Mars, Incorporated. “About Uncle Ben’s” (2005, archived at the Internet Archiveon April 27, 2006)
- ^ Elliott, Stuart. “Uncle Ben, Board Chairman” New York Times. (March 30, 2007, retrieved April 16, 2007)
External links
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