General Mills Celebrates 75 Years of Innovation, Invention, Food and Fun and AsksKids, “What Will You Bring to the Table?” (NAPSA)—Whatwill the foods of the future look like? What will future foods taste like? Peanut butter and jelly Cheerios cereal? Fluorescent green vegetables that glow in the dark? The sky’s the limit—and anything is possible. Really. What will you bring to the table in the next 75 years? That’s the question General Mills is asking of kids, challenging contes- tants to let their imaginations run wild to dream up a food innovation they will enjoy in the next 75 years. The beginning. The General Mills of 75 years ago—whenthe companywasfirst listed on the New York Stock Exchange—hadjust two consumer foods products: Gold Medal flour General Mills’ World Headquar- ters to be President of Future Innovations for a day. Four runners up will win 75 shares of General Mills stock and 75 of their favorite General Mills products. “We have a lot of fun develop- ing new products and new ideas to make meals easier and tastier for and Wheaties cereal. No Kix. No Trix. No Pillsbury Doughboy. Even (gasp!) no Cheerios! All of those products, plus hundredsof others, came in just the last 75 years of families,” says Lisa Schroeder, vice president of Research and Development for General Mills. fun at General Mills. Did you know that General ebrate our 75th anniversary and we’re expecting some wild and innovation, invention, food and Mills has developed a number of innovative food firsts? The Pillsbury division createdthefirst solid food eaten in space when it devel- oped Space Food Sticks for NASA in 1962 for F. Scott Carpenter’s mission on Aurora Seven. Other innovative food firsts include GoGURT—thefirst yogurt packaged in a freezable tube, and Hamburger Helper dinner mixes, which created an entire new productcat- egory. A list of the company’s top 75 innovations is located at www.generalmills.com. Creative contest. The contest, open to kids ages 8 to 14, welcomes any new food idea —anything from a new food prod- uct or flavor, new food shapes or packages, new product categories or meal ideas. Winners will be selected primarily on the creativity of their entries and how well their drawing depicts their ideas. One grand prize winner will win 75 shares of General Mills stock, a $7,500 scholarship and a trip to “So we decided to share the fun with the innovators of the fu- ture—kids. It’s a great wayto celwonderful entries.” Howto enter. Kids can log on to www.gen eralmills75.com and download an official entry form. Entrants are required to write an essay of 250 wordsor less about their new food idea that will change the way we eat over the next 75 years andcreate a namefor it. The entry also must include an illustration of the idea. Judgingcriteria will be primarily based on creativity and how well their drawing depicts the ideas they submit. Complete con- test rules can be found on www.generalmills75.com. The contest is open only to legal residents of the United States between the ages of 8 and 14 and is void in Puerto Rico and where prohibited by law. All entries must be re- ceived by January 15, 2004. No purchase necessary to win. A qual- ified panel of independent judges will select the winners in February 2004. The winner will be notified by phone, email or postal mail.
