posted 6 years ago
163 yeas ago, my Great Uncle waddled from Maine to Minneapolis and decided to buy a fledgling grain milling company along the banks of the mighty Mississippi. He built such a large milling complex that many said it would never be profitable. When it burned down, he built an even bigger one that was safer, and used steel rolls for grinding instead of granite wheels. Many said that it would never work. When steel proved superior to stone, many said that there was no way the farmers could supply his mills enough wheat.
Today, if you go on their website that fledgling company pays homage to the rock strewn fields of Maine which my great Uncle left, never forgetting its roots in Maine, and for the family that has remained, we are proud of their success. Today that company employs 38,000 employees, has 84 seperate food brand companies, grosses over 2.5 billion dollars, and sends their scientists into third world countries around the world to help feed the starving. Since 1928, it has ALWAYS paid a stock dividend, one of few companies to continuously do so, and continues to feed the world, including my own family.
Last year I bit into a rock and notified te company of what I had found. When I asked if they wanted to me to send them the rock they said no, that their customers would never lie to them. I politely said that I was honest to a fault, but others might not be, and the women assured me, "Our customers would never lie", she stated emphatically, and proceeded to treat me well over the mishap.
My great uncle would have been proud, both for General Mills being so big and yet retaining its old fashioned values after all those years, and at his family "back east" still farming as well.
Happy National Cereal Day
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