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McKee Foods history
McKee Foods company history timeline
By 1934 O.D. had purchased his own delivery truck.
McKee Foods Corporation was founded in 1934 when young couple, O.D. and Ruth McKee, bought Jack's Cookie Company, a small bakery in Chattanooga, Tenn., and started baking small cakes.
In 1935 the couple moved the business to a new location and began making soft cookies and cakes.
In 1946, O.D., who "always had a gift for innovation and automation," built a new, state-of-the-art plant.
In 1954 O.D. and Ruth purchased the company stock, and the foundation for the McKee Baking Company was born.
McKee Baking Company moved to Collegedale in 1957.
The first full-color Little Debbie portrait was created in 1960 and was introduced on packaging later that year.
They decided to buy back the bakery, which was renamed McKee Baking Company from King's Bakery in 1962, and run it themselves.
A proliferation of snack cake varieties since that time--including the introduction of the Sunbelt line in 1981--has been fueled by the momentum of these two landmark events.
In 1982 the McKee family launched a third plant in Gentry, Arkansas; a fourth followed eight years later in Stuarts Draft, Virginia.
By 1982 McKee Baking, with $130 million in sales, ranked 22nd in the industry, behind such billion-dollar giants as Continental and Interstate.
The Official Snack Cake of the 1982 World's Fair
By 1987 the company was able to boast annual sales growth of ten to 15 percent since the advent of Little Debbie, a product line that had now expanded to 32 varieties available in 41 states.
Marylee, a member of the McKee Foods family, poses with her sister in 1990 at the giant Oatmeal Creme Pie.
The company changed its name in 1991 to McKee Foods Corporation.
In 1991, McKee Baking Company became McKee Foods Corporation.
In 1996, LittleDebbie.com launched! A lot has changed since then, but we're still #1!
Although sales were up only a modest 0.7 percent in 1998, to $831 million, the company still dominated the snack cake market segment.
Nutty Bars, Figaroos, Oatmeal Creme Pies, Caravellas, Golden Cremes, Devil Cremes, Swiss Rolls--some 66 varieties in all graced the Little Debbie snack cake line in 1999.
By 1999 the bakery in Gentry was employing 1,265 people, and the one in Stuarts Draft employed 925 people.
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.
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.
2020 marked the 60th Anniversary for the Little Debbie brand.
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McKee Foods competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rudolph Foods | 1955 | $138.3M | 350 | 19 |
| Barrel O'Fun Snack Foods | 1973 | $160.0M | 400 | 26 |
| Precision Strip | 1977 | $2.3B | 7,500 | 36 |
| Biery Cheese | 1929 | $100.0M | 250 | - |
| Ocean Spray Cranberries | 1930 | $2.0B | 2,000 | 96 |
| INVISTA | 2003 | $115.0B | 10,000 | 8 |
| Michael Foods | 1908 | $1.9B | 3,675 | - |
| Dawn Foods Global | 1920 | $1.3B | 5,000 | 36 |
| OraLabs | 1990 | $920,000 | 7 | - |
| Dickinson Frozen Foods | - | $31.0M | 350 | - |
McKee Foods history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of McKee Foods, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about McKee Foods. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at McKee Foods. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by McKee Foods. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of McKee Foods and its employees or that of Zippia.
McKee Foods may also be known as or be related to McKee Foods, McKee Foods Corp., McKee Foods Corporation and Mckee Foods Corporation.