McKee Foods Corporation is a privately held and family-owned American

snack food A snack is a small portion of Human food, food generally Eating, eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including Food packaging, packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at ho ...

and

granola Granola is a food consisting of rolled oats, nuts, seeds, honey or other sweeteners such as brown sugar, and sometimes puffed rice, that is usually baked until crisp, toasted and golden brown. The mixture is stirred while baking to avoid b ...

manufacturer headquartered in

Collegedale, Tennessee Collegedale is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 11,109 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Collegedale is a suburb of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Chattanooga and is part of the Chattanooga metropolitan ...

. The corporation is the maker of Drake's Cakes, Fieldstone Bakery snacks and cereal, Little Debbie snacks, and Sunbelt Bakery granola and cereal. The company also formerly operated Heartland Brands.

History

The company was founded during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

by Oather Dorris "O.D." McKee and Ruth McKee. Oather started out selling cakes from his 1928

Whippet The Whippet is a British breed of dog of sighthound type. It closely resembles the Greyhound and the smaller Italian Greyhound, and is intermediate between them in size. In the nineteenth century it was sometimes called "the poor man's raceh ...

in the

Chattanooga Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

area. Wanting to expand, he bought a small bakery, Jack's Cookie Company. The bakery did well for a few years, but O.D. was still looking to expand. His father-in-law, however, did not share his ideas. O.D. decided to sell his business and start over. The McKees moved to

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 United ...

, into a new bakery designed by O.D. After some time, they sold the Charlotte plant. They moved back to Chattanooga in the early 1950s when Cecil King, Ruth's brother, was in poor health and needed help. They decided to buy back the

bakery A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based baked goods made in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, doughnuts, bagels, Pastry, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as Coffeehouse, cafés, servi ...

, which was renamed McKee Baking Company from King's Bakery in 1962, and run it themselves. McKee Baking Company moved to Collegedale in 1957. In 1991, McKee Baking Company became McKee Foods Corporation. Ellsworth McKee, the son of company-founder O.D. McKee, took over, but retired from day-to-day operations in September 2012 and retains the position of company chairman. It was announced on January 28, 2013, that McKee Foods would pay $27.5 million for

Hostess Brands Hostess Brands Inc. is an American bakery company formed in 2013. Its main operating subsidiaries are Hostess Brands, LLC, and Voortman Cookies Limited. The company owns several bakeries in the United States that produce snack cakes under the ...

' Drake's brand, which includes Ring Dings, Yodels, and Devil Dogs products. The bankruptcy court approved the purchase on April 9, 2013. As of 2013, McKee ships more than 900 million cartons of Little Debbie products each year.

Brands

Little Debbie

Little Debbie products are primarily

cookie A cookie is a sweet biscuit with high sugar and fat content. Cookie dough is softer than that used for other types of biscuit, and they are cooked longer at lower temperatures. The dough typically contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of ...

and

cake Cake is a flour confection usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elabor ...

-based

dessert Dessert is a course (food), course that concludes a meal; the course consists of sweet foods, such as cake, biscuit, ice cream, and possibly a beverage, such as dessert wine or liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly umami, ...

snack A snack is a small portion of Human food, food generally Eating, eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including Food packaging, packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at ho ...

s. They come in dozens of varieties, including the top-selling Swiss Cake Rolls, Nutty Bars, Fudge Rounds, Cloud Cakes, Cosmic Brownies, Zebra Cakes, and Oatmeal Creme Pies. Little Debbie products are available in most discount, grocery, and convenience stores, both in boxes and as individually wrapped items. In 1960, company founders O.D. and Ruth McKee decided to name a product after one of their grandchildren, four-year-old Debbie. Now Debbie McKee-Fowler serves as Executive Vice-President and serves on the McKee Foods Board of Directors. The original image of Debbie used on packaging and advertising, which began on August 23, 1960, was based on a black-and-white photo. Full-color portraits of Little Debbie started later in 1960. Artist Pearl Mann of

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

created the original color artwork. Following instructions, she made the little girl look older, around 8 or 9. Minor changes were made to the logo in 1985 and again in 2013. The Little Debbie brand has sponsored

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

teams since the 1990s, most notably the Wood Brothers No. 21 Ford Fusion in the NASCAR

Sprint Cup Series The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the NASCAR, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), the most prestigious stock car racing series in the United States. The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, ...

from 2006 to 2008. The brand switched to the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing team in the 2009 season, after sponsoring both teams in 2008. From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, known as the

Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, Ten Commandments, commanded by God to be kept as a Holid ...

, the Little Debbie logos are covered or removed, and the crew wears non-Little Debbie attire as a condition of sponsorship because McKee Foods was founded and is run by owners who are

Seventh-day Adventists The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabba ...

. As of late 2022, the cakes will not be sold in US

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

Defense Commissary Agency The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), headquartered at Fort Gregg-Adams, Virginia, is an agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) that operates nearly 240 commissaries worldwide. American military commissaries sell groceries and ...

and

Navy Exchange Navy Exchange is a retail store chain owned and operated by the United States Navy under the Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM), part of the Naval Supply Systems Command. The Navy Exchange offers goods and services to active military, retirees ...

commissaries. McKee has saidGoodbye, Little Debbie: Snack cakes to gradually disappear from commissary shelves
Kelly Agee, Stars and Stripes, 2022-09-02, accessed 2022-09-14 that the regulatory standards required of McKee Foods are too costly to continue supplying the commissaries. Also as of late-2022, the cakes will not be sold in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. The company said that their only distributor chose to "terminate their business relationship" and McKee was not actively looking for another Canadian distributor.

Drake's

Drake's is a

baking Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but it can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot Baking stone, stones. Bread is the most commonly baked item, but many other types of food can also be baked. Heat is ...

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

Wayne, New Jersey Wayne is a Township (New Jersey), township in Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Home to William Paterson University and located less than from Midtown Manhattan, the township is a bedroom suburb of New ...

. Originally an independent company, Drake's was owned by Hostess from 1998 to 2012; McKee Foods acquired Drake's line when Hostess liquidated in bankruptcy in 2012. The Drake's brand distributes snack cakes such as Ring Dings, Yodels, Devil Dogs, Yankee Doodles, Sunny Doodles, Funny Bones, and coffee cake. Their mascot is Webster, a smiling drake (a male duck) holding a spoon and wearing a chef's hat and neckerchief.

Fieldstone Bakery

Products sold under the Fieldstone Bakery brand include whole grain snacks, granola, pastries, and cookies.

Sunbelt Bakery

Sunbelt Bakery products include a variety of

granola bar Granola is a food consisting of rolled oats, nuts, seeds, honey or other sweeteners such as brown sugar, and sometimes puffed rice, that is usually baked until crisp, toasted and golden brown. The mixture is stirred while baking to avoid bu ...

fruit snack In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

s, and

cereals A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize (Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, suc ...

Heartland Brands

The company previously sold granola cereals and pie crusts under the Heartland brand. McKee acquired the brand, which dated to 1968, in 1998. The brand was in use until at least 2018.

Bakeries

* Gentry, Arkansas * Stuarts Draft, Virginia *

Kingman, Arizona Kingman is a city in and the county seat of Mohave County, Arizona, United States. It is named after Lewis Kingman, an engineer for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. The population was 32,693 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Hi ...

References

External links

McKee Foods website

Little Debbie Snacks website

Sunbelt Bakery website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mckee Foods Snack food manufacturers of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Tennessee Food and drink companies based in Tennessee Privately held companies based in Tennessee Southern Adventist University American brands Seventh-day Adventist food and drink companies American companies established in 1928 Food and drink companies established in 1928 1928 establishments in Tennessee Hamilton County, Tennessee Family-owned companies of the United States Adventism in the United States