Betty Crocker kitchens
The Betty Crocker Kitchens (Engl. Betty Crocker Kitchens ) are part of the test kitchens at the headquarters of General Mills in Golden Valley , Minnesota. They bear the name in honor of the well-known advertising character Betty Crocker , a fictional person who still stands for one of the General Mills product lines. The test kitchens have been officially named Betty Crocker Kitchens since 1946. At that time, the kitchens were still in the Minneapolis borough. The kitchens moved to their current location in 1958.
The Betty Crocker kitchens were completely renovated and overhauled in 2003. They currently consist of 19 individual kitchens. The kitchens are deliberately designed to resemble kitchens that would be found in a private house or apartment. They are used to try out recipes published by General Mills and take into account the fact that a professional kitchen cooks under different conditions than a private kitchen.
Informal tours of these kitchens were already available for individual groups of visitors in the mid-1930s. Susan Marks estimates that by 2007 more than two million domestic and international tourists had availed themselves of this opportunity.
history
Washburn Crosby Company, one of the companies that later became General Mills, manufactured a flour that was sold under the name Golden Flour. In order to be able to respond to customer inquiries with a personal letter, the advertising department developed the fictional character Betty Crocker in 1921.
However, Betty Crocker was further developed very early on as a guarantee for the quality and value of the product. Washburn Crosby advertised the flour produced by the company with the “kitchen test” by Betty Crocker:
“First of all, the millers from Gold Medal Flour carefully select the best wheat with their expertise that they have acquired over the past 60 years. Before grinding it, they wash each individual grain in fresh, clear water. Then they send samples of each batch to the Gold Medal kitchen. Betty Crocker and her kitchen team then bake it in this friendly kitchen "
Advertisements stressed that Washburn Crosby failed to sell large quantities of manufactured flour because it failed that very kitchen test. This message was reinforced by the nationwide radio programs in which various actresses developed the role of Betty Crocker from 1924.
Betty Crocker repeatedly advertised General Mills flour by pointing out how carefully published recipes were tried out in the company's test kitchen. Such assurances played a large role in US advertising in the 1930s. Products such as Jell-O , Kelloggs Corn Flakes or chocolate from Hershey have been shown to sell better when consumers were provided with tried and tested recipes. At that time, individual companies such as the HJ Heinz Company invited the public to tours of the company's kitchens and cooking events. Heinz's Pittsburgh company at the time drew more than 70,000 visitors annually. Betty Crocker's informal tours began in 1934 when the kitchens, where the team responsible for trying the recipes, moved within the General Mills building. On her radio show, Betty Crocker enthusiastically described her new kitchens and emphasized that they would be kept in the packaging colors of the products that Betty Crocker was promoting: Softasilk Cake Flur, Busquick and Wheaties. The great interest of the public in tried and tested recipes also came from the fact that the availability of electricity had brought about a fundamental change in the way food was handled and prepared.
Marjorie Child Husted , the person who developed the advertising character Betty Crocker at General Mills, believed that housewives would weigh or measure ingredients differently and handle recipes differently than professional chefs would. In a competition where careful testing was no longer enough and companies like Libby advertised that the recipes in which their products were used had not only been tested in the kitchen but also passed the taste test at the dining table, the presence of a test kitchen was sufficient no longer off. General Mills introduced the "triple test", a triple test. After the first round of tests in Betty Crocker's kitchens, housewives from different regions and socio-economic origins tried out the recipes. They provided feedback through questionnaires where they rated whether the ingredients were too expensive or just right, whether they saw opportunities for improvement to the recipe, how the family had received the recipe, and whether they would cook the recipe again.
The test kitchens have had the official title of "Betty Crocker Kitchens" since 1946. The kitchens occupied the entire fifth floor of a General Mills building, and 48 employees were part of the team that was still headed by Marjorie Child Husted. The premises had variously furnished individual kitchens, a large dining room, a terrace, a large reception room that could also be used for cooking events and for making advertising films, as well as a large office for the editorial office, a post office, a radio station and a library. The kitchens also included a “kitchen of the future” in which new baking techniques and new technologies were tried out. The most unusual feature was a huge rotating stainless steel oven in which ten to twelve cakes could be baked at the same time. The kitchen, in which photos were taken for recipe brochures, advertising or packaging, was also open to visitors. The large dining room, on the other hand, was deliberately kept in contrast to the modern kitchens. Panels from a New England house built around 1750 were used for its furnishings. It had an open fireplace, antiquarian chairs, and was decorated with old bronze utensils.
The tours through the Betty Crocker kitchens were initially free. However, the demand for them was so great that they had to be booked well in advance.
In 1958, the kitchens were moved to their current location, the Golden Valley, one of the suburbs of Minneapolis. In 1966 the kitchens were renovated again. Seven “kitchens in the world” were created. including a Mediterranean kitchen with a forest painting showing the Amalfi coast and a Latin American kitchen, which was held in bright orange and red tones. The Scandinavian cuisine, on the other hand, was kept very simple. From 1985 onwards, kitchens were closed to the public - General Mills had come to believe that keeping products secret was not compatible with tours of the kitchens. Since 2003, visits have been temporarily possible again. After General Mills acquired the Pillsbury Company in 2001, it was deemed appropriate to promote both product lines with new kitchens.
literature
- Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8166-5018-7
Web links
Single receipts
- ↑ a b c Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 196.
- ↑ General Mills: History of Innovation: The History of Betty Crocker . General Mills.
- ↑ a b Laura Shapiro: And here she is… your Betty Crocker! . In: American Scholar . 73, No. 2, 2004, pp. 87-99.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 184
- ^ Betty Crocker Tours Minneapolis , accessed April 12, 2014.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 181.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 9
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , pp. 16-17.
- ↑ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 19. The original quote is: First the Gold Medal millers with their 60 years of experience carefully select the choicest water. Then samples of each batch are sent daily to the Gold Medal Kitchen. In this cheerful kitchen, Miss Betty Crocker and her staff bake from these examples.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 18.
- ↑ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , pp. 183-184.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 185.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , pp. 191-193.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 193.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 195.
- ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker , p. 203.