The maker of SPAM now reaches 81 percent of U.S. households with a portfolio that runs from peanuts to pepperoni. Its real product is a system for putting familiar food almost everywhere people eat.
CJ CheilJedang turned Korean pantry staples into a global frozen-food business. Behind the dumplings is a second company built on fermentation, amino acids and a bet that microbes can make better materials.
It began as one flour mill on the Mississippi in 1866. A century and a half later, General Mills fills roughly nine in ten American pantries - and is betting its next chapter on cereal, snacks and, increasingly, the dog bowl.