During World War II, the company that would become Uncle Ben's supplied rice to the U.S. Armed Forces under a government contract—their parboiled rice was prized because it could be air-dropped to troops without weevil infestation and cooked faster than regular rice.
Uncle Ben's Rice Was Born on WWII Battlefields
Before Uncle Ben's rice became a kitchen staple in American homes, it was combat rations. The distinctive converted rice that millions know today was developed specifically to keep soldiers fed on battlefields from Europe to the Pacific.
A Rice Revolution in a Junkyard
In 1942, Houston food broker Gordon L. Harwell saw an opportunity that would change American dining forever. Working with Erich Huzenlaub, a German-British chemist who had developed a revolutionary parboiling process, Harwell salvaged a boiler and pressure tank from a junkyard, rented warehouse space, and started Converted Rice, Inc.
The U.S. government took immediate interest. The rice had properties that made military quartermasters drool:
- Weevil-proof — It could be air-dropped to troops without infestation
- Fast-cooking — Critical when soldiers needed hot food quickly
- Nutrient-rich — The parboiling process locked in vitamins that normal rice lost
One high-ranking Army officer called the converted rice "one of the war's most important breakthroughs."
Feeding the Front Lines
By late 1944, Harwell's operation had exploded. Two mills were processing roughly 200 tons of rice daily—all of it destined for military mess halls and combat rations. The Defense Plant Corporation and candy magnate Forrest Mars Sr. poured money into expansion.
Until the war ended, this special rice was exclusively military property. Civilians couldn't buy it.
From Soldiers to Supermarkets
Peace brought a pivot. In 1946, Harwell's company rebranded and released its military-grade rice to the American public under a new name: Uncle Ben's. The company marketed it with the familiar portrait of a rice farmer, reportedly inspired by an African-American Texas grower known for exceptional quality grain.
Consumer response was explosive. Within six years, Uncle Ben's Converted Brand Rice became the number one packaged long grain rice in the United States—a position it held for decades until the 1990s.
The Science That Won a War
The parboiling process that made this possible wasn't new. Huzenlaub had developed it in the 1910s in Europe, creating a method that vacuum-dried whole grains, steamed them, then dried and husked them. The result was rice that cooked better, stored longer, and delivered more nutrition.
What Harwell did was industrialize it for war—proving that sometimes the best innovations come from desperate necessity.
In 2020, the brand underwent another transformation, rebranding as "Ben's Original" and removing the portrait that had been its trademark for over 70 years. But the rice itself? Still made using the same converted process that once helped win a world war.