You've probably seen the Gold Medal flour bag
countless times. But did you know the history behind its iconic symbol?
From millstones to mergers, and even one explosion, we'll take you there!
Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly General Mills. Instead, it was General Mills' predecessor,
the Washburn-Crosby Company. According to Gold Medal and General Mills' history,
Cadwallader [cad-WALL-uh-der] Washburn built his first flour mill in Minnesota in 1866. It was
located along the powerful St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River. This initial mill was six
stories tall with 12 pairs of millstones, and it could produce about 840 barrels of flour per day.
Even back then, Washburn's millers were at the forefront of the industry.
At the time, Minneapolis flour mills were known for producing dark flour
made from spring wheat, even though white flour was more popular with consumers.
A Washburn miller created a "middlings purifier,"
which was a device that would remove the dark grain husks from the flour
as it was processed, resulting in that stark white hue that consumers preferred.
The change not only benefited the Washburn-Crosby Company,
but also other Minneapolis millers who took advantage of the technology.
Minneapolis would stand as the world's top flour producer for the next half-century.
A flour explosion occurred in 1878,
completely destroying the original Cadwallader Washburn mill and killing nearly 20 people.
We know what you're thinking. How in the world does an innocent pantry staple like flour explode?
Flour explosions are usually the result of a combination of large quantities of flour dust,
an ignition source, and oxygen, among other things.
And, yes, flour dust is combustible; in fact, HafcoVac says it's:
"More explosive than gunpowder and 35 times more combustible than coal dust."
While today, the risk of these kinds of explosions is lessened thanks to employee training,
changing working conditions, and flour dust extraction systems, they're hardly a thing of
the past. As recently as 2018, a flour dust explosion in Nebraska injured two people.
Within two years after the flour dust explosion, Cadwallader Washburn
had rebuilt his mill — but not without a large amount of criticism. The new mill,
as Gold Medal describes, was considered too big to be successful. Circulating rumors proclaimed
that Washburn would never be profitable and the mill would make more flour than it could sell.
"There's the sugar, behind the flour."
"I'll get it." "It's quite all right." "Nah, it'll be easier if I get it."
Not only did this prediction prove untrue, but the new mill
introduced better processes that reduced the risk of future flour explosions.
According to General Mills, Washburn used the expertise of a Bavarian engineer
to create new explosion-preventing technology after the destruction of his first mill.
Although he could have kept these innovations to himself, he shared them with other mill owners.
He wanted the flour industry as a whole to benefit from his technology, saying:
"My mills are only a small part of the whole.
I can't make all the flour people want, even if I wished to."
Up until 1880, Gold Medal Flour was known as Superlative Flour, but that would change after
Cadwallader Washburn took his product to the First Millers International Exhibition. There,
Superlative Flour was graded alongside flour from millers from all over the world.
According to Bakery Online, not only did Superlative Flour win
the gold medal in its category for spring wheat patent process flour,
but Washburn's lower grades of flour also won silver and bronze.
After winning this award, he decided to change his product's name from Superlative
to Gold Medal. Washburn began shipping out flour with that branding as early as
August 1880 — only a few months after the First Millers International Exhibition concluded.
Both the awards and the branding worked in his favor,
and Gold Medal Flour became more popular than ever.
That popularity would kickstart marketing efforts that the brand would become known for
over the next century, as well as inspire other millers to follow in Washburn's footsteps.
While Cadwallader Washburn was building his large mill and pioneering technological
advances in milling, Charles Pillsbury was taking notes. He decided to get into the
business himself and purchased a mill right across the river from Washburn.
Though his business track record wasn't the greatest and he didn't
have any experience in the milling industry, Pillsbury still managed a
profitable first year and became one of Washburn's largest competitors.
Like Gold Medal, Pillsbury flour was advertised as the best flour on the market.
Starting in the late 1800's, Pillsbury packaging included a distinctive quadruple-X trademark.
The four X's were a spin on the triple X's that would be used in medieval days
to mark flour that was of such good quality that it could be used for religious ceremonies.
Since Pillsbury thought his flour was even better than that, he tacked on an extra X.
As the Minnesota Historical Society reports,
advertising was a big part of the milling industry. And the two major competitors,
Washburn-Crosby and Pillsbury, were some of the largest advertising players in the country.
As early as 1889, Washburn-Crosby was sending out the historical equivalent of posters
to flour buyers and shipping agents to hang in their offices. By the time the 1900s rolled
around, Gold Medal was advertising directly to consumers through unique marketing materials,
such as trade cards, pamphlets, calendars, envelopes, and package inserts.
Just like today, the marketers were smart and attempted to appeal straight to the buyers;
they featured images of women in their marketing materials in an attempt to court
female consumers. In 1907, Washburn-Crosby would produce its most famous slogan:
"Eventually — Why Not Now?"
Pillsbury, meanwhile, was hot on Gold Medal's tail with the slogan,
"Pillsbury's Best," appearing in magazines and ads.
In the 1920s, Gold Medal became even further entrenched in the lives of its consumers by
founding a test kitchen and providing useful content — not just ads — to its target audience.
The kitchen brought in home economists to test the flour in a range of baked goods and supposedly
verified the quality of product shipments before they were sent out into the world. Meanwhile,
the Gold Medal Home Service Department answered consumers' flour-related questions.
The Department also produced recipes. One antiquer and writer for My San Antonio
describes how she discovered one of the Department's recipe boxes in 2012.
She could tell that the box originated between 1921 and 1928, as it featured Betty Crocker,
but predated Washburn-Crosby's rebranding as General Mills.
One of the Washburn-Crosby Co.'s largest marketing schemes was the
invention of a household name: Betty Crocker.
Crocker came about in 1921 as a result of one of the company's other marketing campaigns,
according to PBS. Gold Medal had placed an ad in The Saturday Evening Post that included a puzzle.
If readers completed the puzzle and mailed it in,
they'd receive a pincushion shaped like a bag of flour.
Marketing manager Samuel Gale didn't want to sign these letters with his own name,
so the company created Betty Crocker.
From there, the Betty Crocker name was used in letter responses, as well as in a cooking radio
show that aired in 1924. But Betty Crocker didn't actually appear on any grocery items until 1941
when Washburn-Crosby Co. added her to a soup mix.
She was later featured on a cake mix — the item for which she's likely most well-known today.
No one really knows the Washburn-Crosby Co. name today.
Instead, they know General Mills. So how did this name change come about?
According to General Mills, in 1928, Blair & Co., an underwriting firm in New York,
offered to purchase Washburn-Crosby Co. for $40 million. Leadership took
the deal — until one member of that leadership team called off the sale.
So, they decided to reshape the company rather than sell out.
They looked for new investors and pitched the idea of a new kind of milling company — one
that wasn't so reliant on mere flour. Later, in 1928, Washburn-Crosby started anew with
the General Mills name and went public on the stock exchange at $65 per share.
Even though the upcoming Great Depression was devastating for many brands,
General Mills managed to not only survive, but thrive, offering new items such as Bisquick, Kix,
and Cheerios, all while amping up its marketing efforts.
The greatest milling industry innovation during the 1940s was the addition of enrichments to
flour, as studies proved that many Americans were not getting the nutrients they needed from their
diets. Gold Medal followed the U.S. government's recommendations and engaged in this practice.
This period was the first time that U.S. doctors and scientists had specifically identified
deficiency disease syndromes. In 1941, the FDA established a strict standard for what could
and couldn't be considered "enriched" flour,
according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
These enrichment standards would go on to impact the production of white bread.
By 1942, manufacturers were enriching 75 percent of the white bread they produced.
Today, Gold Medal offers eight different types of flour: all-purpose, bread, organic all-purpose,
self-rising, unbleached all-purpose, white whole wheat, whole wheat, and Wondra Flour.
For those who don't know, Wondra Flour is designed to dissolve in liquids faster,
creating a smoother and less lumpy texture in things like gravy.
And, of course, Gold Medal is still offering tips, tricks, recipes, and advice to help home
cooks around the kitchen. But you won't find Betty Crocker anywhere on the Gold Medal site;
she's been spun off into her own brand — one of many beneath the General Mills umbrella.
Gold Medal isn’t quite the marketing master that it once was.
A quick look at the brand's Twitter page shows a paltry 2,350-plus followers, compared to the
144,000-plus users who follow Pillsbury which, incidentally, is now also part of General Mills.
Gold Medal Flour might not be as prominent as it was in the early 1900s, but one thing's
for certain — no one can deny that this was the product that launched the General Mills empire.
"It gives you a feeling of confidence right down to your fingertips."
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