Betty Crocker

One of the most famous U.S. food-product brands, Betty Crocker, is symbolized by the smiling face of a young homemaker. Her picture, together with a trademarked logo of a red spoon, appears on more than two hundred items manufactured by General Mills, ranging from Hamburger Helper to cake mixes, dessert products, and snacks. The Betty Crocker brand name accounts for $1.5 billion in sales annually, nearly one-third of all General Mills sales.

The Betty Crocker name originated in 1921 when Washburn Crosby Company, an earlier name for General Mills, created the image as a way of personalizing its products and services. It was chosen by advertising manager James A. Quint, who selected "Betty" because it was considered a friendly nickname and "Crocker" as a tribute to William Crocker (1876–1950), a retired General Mills executive. The Betty Crocker brand first appeared on a food product in 1947, when General Mills introduced her Ginger Cake Mix, now known as Gingerbread Cake and Cookie Mix. By the 1990s, her face and name was appearing on dessertlike products like Betty Crocker Cinnamon Streusel and cereal products like Dutch Apple cereals. The name has also been licensed for a line of small appliances, cooking utensils, and kitchen clocks.

In the eight decades since her creation, the image of Betty Crocker has been altered to suit changing styles, but "Betty" has remained a trusted figure to several generations of families. Although she is not a real person, she has received millions of letters and phone calls and now appears on General Mills Web sites dispensing information about cooking and nutrition to a new generation of computer-savvy consumers. Her weekly advice column appears in more than seven hundred newspapers in the United States. She is listed as the author of several cookbooks, including Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, first published in 1950 and reprinted in 1998.

—Edward Moran

For More Information

General Mills. "The Story of Betty." Betty's Kitchen.http://www.bettycrocker.com/meetbetty/mb_tsob.asp (accessed January 22, 2002).

Shapiro, Laura. "Betty Goes Back to the Future." Newsweek (October 19, 1998).