Everybody loves Little Debbie.
They're a perfect dessert for kids, and a wonderful guilty pleasure for adults.
But while you may be familiar with the smiling girl on the box, you probably have no idea
who she is, or how the company came to dominate the world of pre-packaged snack cakes.
Here's a look at the untold truth of Little Debbie.
Humble beginnings
The company now known to most consumers as Little Debbie began in the late 1920s when
founders O.D.
McKee and his wife Ruth McKee began selling pre-made cakes out of the back of their car
in Tennessee.
In 1934, they took things to the next level when they bought out a failing bakery.
Just a year later, O.D. devised what would become the company's signature snack, the
Oatmeal Crème Pie, which he invented after trying to make his hard oatmeal cookies a
little softer.
Once that was perfected, he added some fluffy crème filling, and soon the new Oatmeal Crème
Pies were popular with everyone from dinosaurs to Coach Nick Saban.
"Ah, coach. Part of your gameday tradition, right?"
"You know it, two Little Debbies and a cup of coffee."
Little Debbie is real
While some company mascots are just made up marketing ploys, Little Debbie is actually
a real person.
And no, that person is not Will Ferrell.
"I'm the new face of Little Debbie snack cakes."
"I think there's been a mistake"
In 1960, founder O.D.
McKee decided to use the name of his four-year-old granddaughter for his latest product, and
slapped a photo of her in her favorite straw hat on the packaging.
Unfortunately, he forgot to mention this to Debbie or her parents, who were none too happy
to discover their daughter was being used to peddle grampa's snack cakes.
However, the story has a happy ending, as the grown up Debbie McKee-Fowler is now an
executive vice president of McKee Foods.
They started a big trend
In August 1960, McKee Foods made a splash in the snack aisle when they started selling
boxes of individually wrapped snack cakes under the new name "Little Debbie."
The boxes were called "family packs" and the first products to be sold in such a manner
were those classic Oatmeal Creme Pies.
The idea was an immediate success, and in the first 10 months of sales, over 14 million
cakes were sold, making Little Debbie a household name.
Swiss Rolls are a knock-off
Swirls of chocolate cake and creamy filling make the Swiss Rolls a must-have treat for
kids of all ages.
But, O.D.
McKee couldn't take credit for creating this snack.
His American version was inspired by a 1962 trip to a European trade show where he was
looking for "the next big thing."
The cake — a miniaturized version of a roulade dessert — was being crafted by several bakeries
he toured.
Once back in Tennessee, he started production on two lines and the Swiss Rolls were added
to the Little Debbie brand a year later, in 1963.
It remains one of the top three best-selling items in the lineup to this day.
Cosmic cupcakes have been to space
Little Debbie has quite a love of outer space, with snack names including Star Crunch and
Cosmic Brownies.
But it's not just the name that makes these treats out of this world — they've also
actually been to space!
In 2014, Little Debbie, in partnership with the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, literally
and figuratively launched their latest galactic offering: Cosmic Cupcakes.
The new snacks, along with a Little Debbie bobble head, were attached to a weather balloon
and, with a crowd counting down, were launched 18 miles into space.
No wonder Little Debbie tastes so...heavenly.
"Max altitude approaching 100,000 feet.
Mission completed.
Great job team."
What would you do for a Little Debbie snack cake?
In recent years, there have been some high profile incidents involving people willing
to break the law in order to satisfy their sweet tooth.
In 2015, some thieves in North Carolina cut through a fence and ransacked a delivery van,
stealing 65 cases of delicious snack cakes.
But that's nothing compared to a 2017 case where the perps just drove off with an entire
trailer carrying over $5,000 worth of Little Debbie products.
Luckily, the criminals were apprehended before they ate any of their stolen snackfoods.
Big profits
Little Debbie snacks aren't just one of the tastiest brands, they're also one of the most
profitable: in 2016, McKee Foods recorded over $800 million in sales, which is nearly
$150 million more than their closest competitor, Hostess.
That adds up to approximately one third of all snack cake sales in America, meaning Little
Debbie isn't quite so little after all.
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