Pillsbury Co.

U.S. food-products company. It was established in Minneapolis in 1871 as C.A. Pillsbury & Co. Its founder, Charles Alfred Pillsbury (1842–99), built the company into one of the world's largest milling concerns in the 1880s, expanding the business by obtaining favourable freight rates and building his own grain elevators throughout the Northwest. He sold the firm to an English syndicate but remained its managing director until his death. Pillsbury later became a successful manufacturer of food products, acquiring subsidiaries such as Burger King, Häagen-Dazs, and Green Giant. It was acquired by Grand Metropolitan PLC (now Diageo PLC) in a hostile takeover in 1989, and in 2001 it was sold to former rival General Mills, Inc.

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