How can something so tiny cause such a huge change in the way we eat? It all started in the 1930s, when a British food chemist Eric Huzenlaub developed a new steeping and steaming process to increase the nutritional value of white rice. Simultaneously, Houston food broker Gordon Harwell was also experimenting with converting rice. Huzenlaub had a lab in London, and Harwell used gadgets in Texas, but both were on to something deliciously new.

Once both rice pioneers met, a deal was born. Shortly after, Forrest E. Mars put the money behind the process and acquired rights for easy-to-cook parboiled rice in 1942. They all helped put ORIGINAL CONVERTED^® Brand Rice into homes across the nation, and later, the world. ORIGINAL CONVERTED^® Brand Rice had several advantages.

• It contained more natural rice vitamins, thus making rice a more important food
• It rejected weevil infestation, allowing for higher quality
• It was easy to prepare plus firm and separate, not starchy or sticky

This was the beginning of a new healthy eating movement.

Sometimes it's the small things that matter most. Like in 1942, the ORIGINAL CONVERTED^® Brand Rice became a staple of many soldiers' diets during WWII.

With rice's growing popularity, Converted Rice Inc. (Mars' and Harwell's company) successfully accomplished the application of something called photo-electric grading to rice in 1945. This is a fancy way for saying that only the most superior rice makes it into every box.

Once consumers had a taste of this in 1946, word has it that rice growers proudly compared it to the high quality grains grown by "Uncle Ben," a black Texan farmer, who grew rice so well that other farmers used UNCLE BEN'S^® great taste as a standard of excellence. So it became known as UNCLE BEN'S^® ORIGINAL CONVERTED^® Brand Rice.

With this came the beaming UNCLE BEN'S^® character-the first time a raw commodity was given a brand name.

How can something so small rock the food world?

In 1951, just six years after its premiere to the marketplace, UNCLE BEN'S^® ORIGINAL CONVERTED^® Brand Rice became the #1 packaged long grain rice in the United States. Today, more than 60 years later, it has the largest share among branded rice in the United States and it's the # 1 rice brand in the world.

The following year, Tappan introduced the home microwave, a device that would eventually bring the delicious UNCLE BEN'S^® READY RICE^® to millions.

Then in 1958, the United States established its main seed bank, the National Seed Storage Laboratory, in Ft. Collins, Colorado, where over 250,000 seed samples are maintained.

It is amazing how motivating a tiny grain of rice can be.

Through acquaintances with legislators in the region, 46,650 acres of second-growth forest were added to the 13,200 acres of virgin forest in the Mississippi Delta, officially establishing the Delta National Forest in 1961.

The same year, UNCLE BEN'S^® Long Grain & Wild Rice Original Recipe was introduced.

In 1972, UNCLE BEN'S^® Select Brown Rice was introduced. This was also the year the United States sold grain to the Soviet Union for $750 million. Apparently, everybody wanted to be in the rice business, and by 1974, UNCLE BEN'S^® rice sales reached the $100 million milestone.

But it was back in the heart of the Mississippi Delta that was closest to UNCLE BEN'S^® heart. That's why in 1977 a sparkling new location for UNCLE BEN'S^® rice was added in beautiful Greenville, Mississippi.

By the 1980s, people became more widely traveled and were looking for more variety in their rice. That's why in 1987 UNCLE BEN'S^® introduced special flavor varieties and the COUNTRY INN^® Rice product line, to continue the innovation of rice tastiness.

But UNCLE BEN'S^® didn't stop there. If there's one thing rice should be besides delicious, it's convenient. For that reason, in 1988, the Boil-In-Bag line was added to the already-convenient microwaveable rice, rice-in-an-instant, and fast-cooking brown rice.

In the 1990s, there were a couple themes developing in the food world-the first being a larger focus on nutritional eating. Luckily, rice attracts colorful vegetables, savory spices and leaner cuts of meat.

As a result, UNCLE BEN'S^® acquired the largest market share of branded rice in the United States by 1990, furthering the long-held belief that good is its own reward.

A second theme was a higher emphasis on food's entertainment value, with consumers looking for a much wider variety of tasty cuisines. That's why, in 1998, UNCLE BEN'S^® added FLAVORFUL™ Rice to the product line.

For those who couldn't enjoy the taste of rice fast enough, READY RICE^®, delicious rice in just 90 seconds was launched in 2004.

For those who are looking for healthier rice options at dinner, UNCLE BEN'S^® introduced Whole Grain Brown Boil-in-Bag in 2009.

Because health and nutrition are so important, UNCLE BEN'S^® is committed to reducing salt and adding whole grains to its products. In 2011, it is reformulating and adding whole grains to its COUNTRY INN^®. And because children, as well as adults, need to eat better, UNCLE BEN'S^® has developed a line of whole grain rice products that are kid tested and exceed nutritional standards for school luncheons.

In 2011, UNCLE BEN'S^® launched a new advertising campaign to "Begin with Ben^™", an effort to help deliver consumers to a world of better eating, a wider variety of ethnic cuisines and more family time at the dinner table.