Uncle Ben's

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This article is about the brand of rice and other foods. For the Spider-Man comic book character, see Uncle Ben.

Uncle Ben's is a brand name for parboiled ("converted") rice and related food products. It is owned by Mars, Inc.; in the U.S., by its subsidiary Masterfoods. The brand was first used by a company called Converted Rice, Inc., which was later bought by Mars.

Uncle Ben's rice was first marketed in 1943, and was the top-selling rice in the United States from 1950 until the 1990s.[1]

1 Uncle Ben
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Uncle Ben

Uncle Ben's products carry an image of an elderly African-American man dressed in a bow-tie, perhaps meant to connote a domestic servant, in the Aunt Jemima tradition[2] or perhaps a Chicago maitre d'hotel, Frank Brown.[3] According to Mars, Uncle Ben was an African-American rice-grower in Texas known for the quality of his rice. Eventually, entrepreneur Gordon L. Harwell, who had supplied rice to the armed forces in World War II, chose the name Uncle Ben's for his company to expand his marketing efforts to the general public.[4]. Mars does not supply any further biographical detail about original namesake.

Use of African-Americans as company or product mascots for agricultural and other commodities was a common practice in the U.S. in the 1800s, and continues to the present day, though to a far lesser extent. Blacks commonly were associated with rice when Uncle Ben's was introduced. When white South Carolina planters were unable to make their rice crops thrive, it was "slaves from West Africa's rice region [who] tutored planters in growing the crop." (Carney 2002)

In years past in the American South, whites commonly referred to elderly black men as "uncle," though they were not blood relations. The practice was considered patronizing and demeaning and largely has been discontinued.

[edit] References

Judith A. Carney (2002). Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-00834-0.