McKee Foods

History

McKee Foods got its start in 1934 when Oather Dorris "O.D." McKee and his wife Ruth began selling cakes from his 1928 Whippet around Chattanooga. O.D. purchased Jack's Cookie Company to grow the business, but after a few good years, he sold it and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he built a new bakery. That plant was also sold, and the McKees returned to Chattanooga in the early 1950s to help Ruth's ailing brother, Cecil King. They bought back the bakery, which had been renamed King's Bakery, and in 1962 changed its name to McKee Baking Company.

The company relocated to Collegedale in 1957, and in 1991 it became McKee Foods Corporation. The founders' son, Ellsworth McKee, took over leadership, stepping down from daily operations in September 2012 while remaining chairman. In early 2013, McKee Foods bought Hostess Brands' Drake's brand—including Ring Dings, Yodels, and Devil Dogs—for $27.5 million, a deal approved by bankruptcy court on April 9. By 2013, the company was shipping over 900 million cartons of Little Debbie products annually.

Brands

Little Debbie snacks are mostly cookies and cakes, sold in many varieties like Swiss Cake Rolls, Nutty Bars, Fudge Rounds, Cloud Cakes, Cosmic Brownies, Zebra Cakes, and Oatmeal Creme Pies. You can find them in discount stores, grocery stores, and convenience stores, either in boxes or as single-wrapped items. The brand started in 1960 when founders O.D. and Ruth McKee named a product after their four-year-old granddaughter, Debbie. Today, Debbie McKee-Fowler serves as Executive Vice-President and sits on the McKee Foods Board of Directors.

The first Little Debbie image, taken from a black-and-white photo, appeared on packaging on August 23, 1960. Full-color portraits came out later that year, created by Atlanta artist Pearl Mann, who was told to make the little girl look about 8 or 9 years old. The logo got small updates in 1985 and again in 2013. Since the 1990s, Little Debbie has sponsored NASCAR teams, including the Wood Brothers No. 21 Ford Fusion from 2006 to 2008 and the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing team starting in 2009.

Because McKee Foods was founded and is run by Seventh-day Adventists, the sponsorship requires that from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday—the Sabbath—Little Debbie logos are covered or removed, and the crew wears non-Little Debbie clothing. McKee also pulled permission for Little Debbie to appear in the animated movie Foodfight! after learning the filmmakers planned to have another character catcall her. As of late 2022, the cakes are no longer sold in U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Commissary Agency, and Navy Exchange commissaries, because McKee said the required regulatory standards were too expensive.

Also as of late 2022, they are not sold in Canada; the company said their only distributor ended the business relationship, and McKee is not looking for a new Canadian distributor.