Duncan Hines: A formidable competitor to Betty Crocker

In contrast to make-believe homemaker Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines was a real flesh-and-blood guy. Except he never measured up in “culinary skills.” 

Duncan Hines was neither a chef nor a baker. “He could barely cook,” wrote Nicole Jankowski of National Public Radio News. And in Hines’ wildest dreams, he never would have imagined he would go down in history as a “cake mix mogul.”

 

Hines was born in 1880 in Bowling Green, Ky. Through the Great Depression years, he was just a hard-working businessman trying to survive…and find a decent meal on the road. 

He was working as a traveling salesman for RR Donnelley & Sons, a large printing company based in Chicago, when it dawned on him that there was a wealth of useful information contained in the tiny journal that he kept in his coat pocket. 

Hines had eaten at so many local restaurants that he had begun “keeping score”…many blue plates ago. 

Jankowski said: “Hines considered himself an authority on a great many things: hot coffee, Kentucky country-cured ham and how to locate a tasty restaurant meal (in 1935) for under a dollar and a quarter.”

 

“Desperate for a clean place to dine, Hines became an investigative epicurean and self-made restaurant critic,” Jankowski said. 

“He meticulously recorded the names of the most pristine diners, the inns with the tastiest prime roast beef, where to find the stickiest honey buns and where to stop for fried chicken (Kentucky-style).”

 

In 1935, Hines and his wife, Florence, sent out a pamphlet with their Christmas cards containing a list of 167 restaurants across 33 states that he could safely recommend,” Jankowski said. 

In 1936, Hines published his first edition of “Adventures in Good Eating.” It contained the names and locations of 475 restaurants that had merited “Hines’ rigorous seal of approval.” 

“Each year, Hines broadened his exploration and published an updated edition. Millions of discerning travelers kept his book in their glove compartments to guide them as they rumbled down gravelly country roads in unfamiliar locations,” as rural America was still “a land of culinary mystery and inconsistency,” Jankowski noted. 

In the 1950s, Hines joined with Roy H. Park to form Hines-Park in Ithaca, N.Y., allowing “the Duncan Hines name to appear on everything from cartons of ice cream to the now-famous cake mixes.”

The Duncan Hines logo has been tweaked several times during the history of the brand. 

The above logo was used from 2004-2019.

 

In 1957, the entire franchise was sold to Procter & Gamble. The Duncan Hines brand is now owned by Conagra Brands…and is nipping at the heels of Betty Crocker for market supremacy.

 

Here is the current logo.

The late Cora Jane Spiller, a great niece of Duncan Hines, offered this perspective: 

“Uncle Duncan was always in a coat and tie and always wore a felt hat. He drove a Cadillac, and he saw a world of possibility through his windshield,” Spiller said. 

Historian David Hoekstra said one of Hines’ closest friends was Janet Riebman, who once portrayed Betty Crocker at restaurant conventions. 

Lots of food writers like to rank cake mixes for their readers to react. A quick analysis of the reviews indicates a split-decision. 

In general, Duncan Hines tends to score higher than Betty Crocker in the chocolate cake varieties. However, it’s just the reverse in the yellow cake categories, where Betty Crocker gets the nod. 

Take the Duncan Hines versus Betty Crocker challenge again and again. As one cake lover is fond of saying: “It’s always cake-o-clock.”