General Mills Celebrates 75 Years of Innovation in the Kitchen and Beyond.

Feature Editors/Business Editors

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 18, 2003

Company's Innovative History Includes Development of the Black Box; First Solid Food Eaten in Space; Creators of Alvin, the Submarine That Took the First Photos of the Titanic on the Ocean Floor; and Much More

This year, General Mills is celebrating 75 years of being listed on the New York Stock Exchange along with a heritage of food and marketing innovation that expands far beyond the kitchen. The company that brought Betty Crocker, Wheaties and Pillsbury into the kitchens of generations of families has been instrumental in the development of several revolutionary products that have shaped not only how we eat today, but many other aspects of our lives.

"While our food products are familiar to consumers around the world, we also have shaped broadcast airwaves across the country, what astronauts eat in space and even the way airplanes communicate," said Steve Sanger, General Mills chairman and CEO.

In 1953, General Mills' Mechanical Division teamed up with the University of Minnesota to develop the Ryan Flight Recorder, commonly known today as a data flight recorder, or the black box. The black box records flight communications data and is key to disaster investigations by the airline industry.

General Mills' Pillsbury division created specially packaged space food for NASA, the first solid food eaten in space by astronauts. First used during F. Scott Carpenter's May 1962 mission on Aurora Seven, the innovation was later marketed to consumers as Space Food Sticks.

Also in 1962, General Mills' Electronic Division created ALVIN, a deep-diving submarine for the U.S. Navy and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. ALVIN was used to take the first photographs of the Titanic on the ocean floor in 1986 and is still used today in ocean exploration.

While General Mills is known for its breakfast cereal, the company also has a history in radio serials, creating the very first national radio serial, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy in 1933. The talk radio series was centered on high school student Jack Armstrong and his friends, Billy and Betty Fairfield. The show was enormously popular for nearly two decades and was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1989. Sponsored by Wheaties during its entire run, Jack Armstrong transformed the "Breakfast of Champions" into a major marketing phenomenon. Uncommon objects that figured into the show's storyline, such as a wrist compass and a dragon's eye ring, were offered as a "premium" to listeners who mailed in a dime and a Wheaties box top.

In the 1930s, Wheaties pioneered the sponsorship of baseball game broadcasts throughout the country. One of the stations was WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, where a young broadcaster named Ronald "Dutch" Reagan delivered play-by-play recreations of Chicago Cubs games from telegraph reports. In 1937 Reagan was voted the most popular Wheaties announcer in the country and was awarded a trip to the Cubs training camp in California, all expenses paid, courtesy of Wheaties. While there, he took a Warner Brothers screen test. The rest, as they say, is history.

Back in the kitchen, the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook became one of the best-selling books in the country in 1950, second only to the Bible for a period of time. The cookbook led to another General Mills breakthrough with the introduction of audio cooking instructions for the blind. In 1956, General Mills produced and sold three 10-inch records featuring directions for Betty Crocker cake, pie crust, cookie mixes and Bisquick recipes. Betty Crocker recipes are still published in Braille today.

"General Mills' history of innovation has made us No.1 or No. 2 in nearly every product category in which we compete," said Sanger. "Our products today are found in virtually every aisle of the grocery store. And while our focus now is food products, we'll continue our legacy of innovation to build our brands and drive our business."

Editor Note: A list of 75 of the company's most notable innovations both inside and outside the kitchen and historical photos can be found on http://www.generalmills.com/press/75th/anniversary.html

General Mills is a leading global manufacturer and marketer of consumer foods products, with annual worldwide net sales of $10.8 billion. Its global brand portfolio includes Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Haagen-Dazs, Old El Paso, Bugles and more. It also has more than 100 U.S. consumer brands, more than 30 of which generate annual retail sales in excess of $100 million. Included in the U.S. portfolio are some of the nation's most popular brands including Cheerios, Wheaties and other Big G cereal brands; Yoplait and Colombo yogurts, Betty Crocker desserts and dinner mixes; Betty Crocker and Nature Valley snacks; Totino's frozen pizza and snacks and Progresso ready-to-serve soups. General Mills is also a leader in the bakeries and foodservice business as a major supplier of baking and other food products to the foodservice and commercial baking industries.