It was 1949 when The Pillsbury Co. ran its first Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest. One-hundred amateur cooks arrived at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel ready to prepare their treasured recipes, an edible showcase of day-to-day life in America’s kitchens.
The event, almost immediately dubbed Bake-Off by the media, was created in celebration of Pillsbury’s 80th birthday and to brand Pillsbury’s BEST flour in a crowded category. The winner of the first contest, Theodora Smafield of Michigan, wowed the judges with her No-Knead Water-Rising Twists, which called for the dough to be wrapped in a tea towel and submerged in warm water to rise.
Now, preparing to hold its 41st event, the contest has earned itself a spot in PROMO’s Hall of Fame. The award distinguishes the Bake-Off for its tenacity as one of the oldest, longstanding promotions in the country.
“It’s a brand in and of itself,” says Ann Carr, VP General Mills Promotion Marketing Group in Minneapolis.
Over the years, the contest has brought in more than 4,000 finalists — 100 per event — vying for the grand prize (including three men at the very first Bake-Off). Food professionals and trend trackers noted homemakers’ every move as the years swirled by. The contest was contemporized to reflect the changing trends in American kitchens while maintaining the Bake-Off’s core elements.
“The power of the Bake-Off has been its ability to stay relevant and really reflect consumer needs,” Carr says.
Required ingredients in the contest evolved from “scratch” cooking using fresh eggs and flour, to the more liberal inclusion of canned and packaged goods as homemakers’ lives turned increasingly busy. By the 1960s, Pillsbury’s “Busy Lady” theme featured simplified recipes and incorporated convenience products such as refrigerated doughs, frozen vegetables and cake mixes. The 1970s recipes mirrored the “Lowfat & Natural” craze, while the 1980s shifted to focus on “Fast & Healthy.” The contest had come a long way from that day in 1949 when the single required ingredient in recipes was Pillsbury’s BEST Flour.
In an early example of the power of the contest, grocery store shelves from coast to coast were cleaned out of sesame seeds after grand prize winner Dorothy Koteen’s 1954 recipe for Open Sesame Pie created a stampede for the seeds.
The contest’s categories also matured to reflect trends in taste and the globalization and access people had to ethnic foods and spicy flavors. As the 1990s rolled around, recipes called for a fusion of unusual ethnic flavors and gourmet ingredients. And the number of male participants continued to grow. In 1996, 14 of the 100 finalists were men. That year, the first Bake-Off finalist to win the newly instituted $1 million grand prize was Kurt Wait, who showed off his Macadamia Fudge Torte.
Two major changes have taken place over the years. The first, in 1976, moved the event from annually to every two years as logistics became difficult. In 1996, the grand prize was increased from $50,000 to $1 million to increase the program’s visibility.
The contest is promoted in FSIs, in-store displays, ad circulars and an enormous p.r. campaign that includes touting past winners via end-aisle displays and point-of-sale materials at the very grocery stores where they shop.
As technological advances emerged over the years, Bake-Off kept pace. Slipping entry forms into bags of flour in the early days became a distant memory. A Web site, www.bakeoff.com, is dedicated to the promotion, where half of the entries for the last contest were entered. “The contest is 50 years old, but the techniques and tactics to get the word out are very contemporary,” says Jeff Peterson, director of corporate promotion marketing for General Mills.
Pillsbury is now positioned to grow even larger under parent General Mills, which purchased Pillsbury from Diageo for $10.5 billion in 2001. Bake-Off watchers, wondering when General Mills products will make the list of required ingredients, will find the answer when the 2004 contest-qualifying products and categories are released in December 2003 (they will be a well-guarded secret until then).
New partners will join the festivities as well. General Electric, a partner since 1949, provides the ranges contestants cook on and awards a full GE kitchen to the grand-prize winner, in addition to other prizes.
“The ground work for innovation by bringing in new brands and product categories was laid a long time ago,” Peterson says. “We’re just continuing on in that tradition.”
Have a delicious secret recipe of your own? The next Bake-Off will be held June 26-29, 2004 at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, CA. Entries forms will be available in December. Bon Appetit!
Rolling through the years
1949: The first contest is held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Theadora Smafield wins. A call to a finalist in Wyoming is answered by her husband, atop the telephone pole fixing the line.
1950s: Scratch cakes represent the largest category of recipes. Few main dishes are seen in the finals.
1954: When Dorothy Koteen takes the top prize for her Open Sesame Pie, supermarkets nationwide sell out of sesame seeds.
1966: The “Busy Lady” theme features simplified recipes that incorporate convenience products such as refrigerated doughs and cake mixes as women enter the workforce.
1976: The event is scheduled for every two years instead of annually.
1980s: To the judges’ astonishment, a teenage contestant from Texas uses a hammer she brings from home to crunch up mints on her range top. Refrigerated pie crusts revive pie baking. Fancy desserts are popular entries.
1990s: Unusual ethnic and “gourmet” ingredients and flavors enter the mainstream and are reflected in the recipes.
1996: The grand prize jumps from $50,000 to $1 million, boosting the program’s visibility. The first man to ever win the event, Kurt Wait, takes home the $1 million grand prize.
2003: Kris Burns and Jeff Peterson accept the award for the Bake-Off’s induction into PROMO’s Hall of Fame.
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