Green Giant Company
Creator:
Eric W. Weber
Bibliography
Bengston, Roger E. "A History of the Green Giant Company." PhD. diss, University of Minnesota, 1991.
Memoirs of a Giant: Green Giant Company's First 75 Years, 1903–1978, Le Sueur: The Green Giant Company, 1978.
Chronology
1903
Minnesota Valley Canning Company is founded; it produces 11,750 cans of cream-style corn that year.
1907
The company first begins to pack peas.
1924
The Minnesota Valley Canning Company produces Del Maiz Golden Cream-Style Corn with yellow sweet corn instead of the white that was standard at the time.
1925
The first cans of Green Giant Peas appear. The name Green Giant originally referred to the pea itself rather than the company or a mascot. The Giant began to appear on packaging, but he was not yet green.
1928
The Giant becomes the Green Giant, with a corresponding change in skin color.
1929
The company markets a new style of vacuum-packed corn under the brand name Niblets. That same year, the company introduces a research and development department to help them grow more corn and peas.
1934
The Minnesota Valley Canning company develops the heat unit method, used to predict the peak ripeness of a field of crops and the best time to pick them.
1935
The Minnesota Valley Canning Company hires the Leo Burnett ad agency. That agency would be key to the development of the Jolly Green Giant as a mascot.
1939
They begin to can asparagus, adding to their corn and pea operations for the first time since a failed experiment with canned pumpkin two decades earlier.
1950
The Minnesota Valley Canning Company becomes the Green Giant Company.
1961
The first Green Giant television advertisement airs. The Green Giant Company begins marketing frozen vegetables.
1973
To appeal to kids, Little Sprout is added as a companion to the Jolly Green Giant in advertisements.
1979
The Green Giant Company merges with Pillsbury.
2001
Pillsbury is bought by General Mills and becomes a division of the larger company under the Green Giant brand name.
2015
B&G Foods acquires all Green Giant brands.
Bibliography
Bengston, Roger E. "A History of the Green Giant Company." PhD. diss, University of Minnesota, 1991.
Memoirs of a Giant: Green Giant Company's First 75 Years, 1903–1978, Le Sueur: The Green Giant Company, 1978.