Pillsbury is owned by General Mills (the United States, NYSE: GIS), which acquired the brand on 31 October 2001 from Diageo, as part of a $10.5 billion deal that also included Old El Paso and Häagen-Dazs.[1][2] Before General Mills, Pillsbury was owned by Diageo from 1989 to 2001.[2]
Evidence: General Mills, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-07-01, SEC EDGAR, 1 July 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Pillsbury was a rival Minneapolis flour miller founded in 1872, whose refrigerated dough business and Doughboy mascot made it a fixture of American baking. General Mills acquired it from Diageo in 2001 after selling Pillsbury's dessert business to International Multifoods to satisfy regulators.
Sentences about Pillsbury from General Mills's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
The Pillsbury brand and the Pillsbury Doughboy character are subject to an exclusive, royalty-free license that was granted to a third party and its successors in the shelf-stable baking categories in the United States and under limited circumstances in Canada and Mexico.
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named more often than it was three years earlier.
The USPTO record for the Pillsbury mark lists The Pillsbury Company, LLC as the owner of record (serial number 75675297). A trademark is often held by a group company rather than the listed parent, so the registrant's name can differ from the owner named above.[3]
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full General Mills ownership tree →
See the full General Mills brand portfolio (18) →
General Mills controls 18 brands on Brandtree, 17 of them in food.
The 72 brands in baking mixes & ingredients on Brandtree belong to 45 owners. The largest is Bidco Africa, with 5; General Mills has 2.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| Cowboy | Bidco Africa | 🇰🇪 Kenya |
| EXE | Unga Group | 🇰🇪 Kenya |
| Golden Penny | Flour Mills of Nigeria | 🇳🇬 Nigeria |
| Al Horra | Lesieur Cristal | 🇲🇦 Morocco |
| Florencia | Molino Cañuelas | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
| Amuleia | Nisshin Seifun | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Clabber Girl | B&G Foods | 🇺🇸 United States |
| BUA Sugar | BUA Foods | 🇳🇬 Nigeria |
General Mills is a publicly listed company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, founded in 1856. Brandtree records 18 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: GIS.
General Mills grew out of Minneapolis flour milling in the nineteenth century and incorporated under its present name in 1928. Cereal, snack bars, yoghurt and pet food are its largest businesses, and it holds Häagen-Dazs in North America.
General Mills: full profile, brands and acquisition history →
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Pillsbury is not one of them.
General Mills bought Pillsbury from Diageo, roughly doubling its size. The Federal Trade Commission required the divestiture of Pillsbury's dessert and specialty products business to International Multifoods before clearing the deal.
The parent company of Pillsbury is General Mills, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Yes. Pillsbury originated in the United States in 1872 and its owner, General Mills, is also headquartered in the United States.
General Mills completed its acquisition of Pillsbury on 31 October 2001, after announcing the deal on 17 July 2000. The deal, which also included Old El Paso and Häagen-Dazs, was valued at $10.5 billion (enterprise value).
Before General Mills, Pillsbury was owned by Diageo from 1989 until 2001.
Yes. As of 10 October 2026, Pillsbury is still owned by General Mills. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
Report a correction Opens a pre-filled GitHub issue. See our corrections policy.
Brandtree needs to remember this choice and does not set any other cookie unless you accept.
If you choose “Accept all”, we also use Google Analytics cookies to count visits and see which pages help, so we can improve the site.
If you choose “Accept required”, no analytics cookie is set. Google Analytics still receives a cookieless ping with the page address and your IP address. No advertising is used either way. Privacy policy