‘Jolly Green Giant’s Valley’ Exists in Minnesota

Today’s post updates information that first appeared in columns on June 24 & 28, 2020.

Within the fertile Minnesota River Basin lies “The Valley of the Jolly Green Giant.” Stretching roughly 70 miles from Le Sueur south to Blue Earth, the valley is where the Green Giant Company took root.

 

Local farmers and investors came together in 1903 to build the Minnesota Valley Canning Company factory in Le Sueur to process cans of white cream-style corn. Peas came next.

 

(The Le Sueur community takes its name from French explorer Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, the first European to set foot in the Minnesota territory in about 1695. He became a successful fur trader.)

Edward Bradley “Ward” Cosgrove, a son of one of the original founders of the cannery (Carson Nesbit Cosgrove), assumed a leadership role within the business in 1914. Soon thereafter, he developed the famous Le Sueur brand of “very young small sweet peas,” which appealed to consumers with “sophisticated palates.”

 

Ward Cosgrove realized it took a lot of little peas to fill a can. He went to Europe in 1925 and gathered jumbo-sized “Prince of Wales peas” that were both “tender and sweet.” The seeds thrived in the fields around Le Sueur. Cosgrove called them “Green Giant Great Big Tender Peas.”

 

Ward Cosgrove’s son, E.B. Cosgrove, from the third generation, assumed the company presidency in 1929. His vision was to make Green Giant a national brand, “like Campbell Soup,” but not many people believed him, said the late Don Osell, who worked nearly 40 years alongside the various Cosgrove family members at the canning company.

“By happenstance, we met a young Chicagoan named Leo Burnett (shown below), who had dreams of his own – to start an advertising agency. He did so in the early 1930s with a commitment from E.B.: ‘You open your own agency, and we’ll be your first account.’”

 

It was risky, Osell said. “Leo Burnett opened his Chicago advertising agency in the midst of the Great Depression. Observers predicted failure and said that in no time at all he would be selling apples on the streetcorner.”

“From those comments, Burnett made the apple a symbol for his agency. Every day, on every reception desk, in every Burnett office, there was a bowl of big Red Delicious apples for callers to munch on,” Osell said.

The “Jolly Green Giant” mascot fully emerged in 1935, when Burnett introduced an enormous fellow who was solid green with a sunny smile, wearing a skimpy toga of leaves.

“Burnett created the entire ‘concept of the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant...a mythical, Shangri-La place where the soil was richer, the rains softer and gentler, where the sun shone warmly on the fields...and where the vegetables grew like no place else in the world,’” Osell noted.

“The caretaker who overlooked this idyllic place was a jolly, friendly giant.” His role was to produce “Good Things from the Garden…Ho, ho, ho.” (The booming, deep bass voice came from the late Elmer “Len” Dresslar Jr., a vocalist with The Singers Unlimited.)

All of this was highly successful, prompting the cannery to change its name to the Green Giant Company in 1950.

In the 1960s, Green Giant perfected the science of packaging frozen vegetables and turned up the heat on its marketing.

Perhaps the most innovative commercial pairing of all time was the campfire scene from 1963 with Tennessee Ernie Ford singing to children about the Jolly Green Giant, as the giant basked in the light of a rising full moon.

This novelty mini-album was titled “When Pea-Pickers Get Together.” Ford earned the nickname as “the Ol’ Pea-Picker” due to his catchphrase, “Bless your pea-pickin’ heart!”

 

There was yet another surge is 1965 when “The Jolly Green Giant” was released as a novelty song, creating a minor hit for the band known as The Kingsmen from Portland, Ore., who had recorded the rock’n’roll classic “Louie Louie” in 1963.

In 1972, a newcomer arrived in the Green Giant’s valley. He, too, was green and dressed in leaves. But “he was pint-sized, to the point where he could easily fit into the palm of the Jolly Green Giant,” wrote Heather Taylor for AdvertisingWeek magazine.

He was the Little Green Sprout, and his arrival…“introduced kids to the healthy goodness of veggies,” Taylor added.

 

 

Where Is the ‘Jolly Green Giant’ now?

Things began to change in 1979 after the Green Giant Company was merged into The Pillsbury Company. The entire community of Le Sueur (about 4,000 people) mourned when Pillsbury shuttered the original Minnesota Valley Canning Company plant in 1995.

Next, Pillsbury was acquired in 2001 by General Mills.

 In 2015, General Mills sold the Green Giant and Le Sueur brands to B&G Foods of Parsippany, N.J. (At the time, B&G Foods owned more than 50 food brands. Current familiar labels include Ortega, Cream of Wheat, Crisco, Skinny Girl, Baker’s Joy, Durkee, Old London and Underwood.)

 

Although the Jolly Green Giant had effectively moved out of Minnesota, B&G Foods fulfilled its promise to refurbish the long-standing Green Giant billboard along U.S. Route 169 on a hillside outside Le Sueur that welcomes visitors to the Green Giant’s valley.

 

In 2022, a B&G Foods spokesperson said: “It’s very important to highlight the roots of Green Giant, where it started and all the wonderful people in that area of the country who helped grow the brand to what it is today. It’s a brand that has a rich history, so it’s on us to keep it going.”

Then, in November 2023, B&G Foods sold the Green Giant canned goods vegetable product line to Seneca Foods Corporation of Fairport, N.Y. B&G Foods announced it would retain ownership of the Green Giant trademarks, licensing the Green Giant brand name to Seneca Foods. The sale did not include Green Giant frozen foods or the Le Sueur brand.

 

Seneca Foods has had a presence in this section of Minnesota for a long time and has ongoing relationships with local farmers.

“We are excited to add the iconic Green Giant brand and shelf-stable products to our portfolio of canned vegetable offerings,” said Paul Palmby, president and CEO of Seneca Foods.

“Having co-manufactured much of this product for B&G Foods for many years, we have long admired the strength of the brand in the market and look forward to its continued success.”

Seneca Foods currently operates a canning facility located at the southern end of the Minnesota River Valley in Blue Earth, Minn. It traces its history to the original Blue Earth Canning Company that opened in 1926 and became a subsidiary of the Minnesota Valley Canning Company in 1929.

Today, Seneca Foods is one of North America’s leading providers of packaged fruits and vegetables. In addition to its Libby’s, Aunt Nellie’s, Green Valley, Read and Seneca Snacks brands, the company holds a large share of the market that serves retail private label accounts, food service businesses and restaurant chains.

Although change within the food products industry can occur at a “dizzying” pace, Osell commented, “the Green Giant brand has survived and prospered. The moral: Companies are transient; brands and products – if they’re built on a stable platform and nurtured – can ride out the changes and prosper.”

 

Case in point: In 1999, Advertising Age magazine listed its choice of the 20th century’s top 10 advertising icons and placed the Green Giant third (behind the Marlboro Man and Ronald McDonald…and ahead of Betty Crocker, the Energizer Bunny, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Aunt Jemima, the Michelin Man, Tony the Tiger and Borden’s cow, Elsie).

(Interestingly, the Burnett agency created not only the Green Giant, but the Marlboro Man, the Pillsbury Doughboy and Tony the Tiger as well.)

Jolly Green Giant Statue Towers over Visitors

Blue Earth, Minn., promises its citizens an interesting quality of life combination: “Small City, GIANT Living.” Could that be related to a towering 56-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant who watches over the community of about 3,160 residents? You bet.

Over the years, there’s been a bit of competition between Blue Earth and Le Sueur, located about 70 miles apart in southern Minnesota, related to which municipality has the right to claim the Jolly Green Giant as its own.

Technically, the Green Giant’s domain within the Minnesota River Valley encompasses both Blue Earth and Le Sueur. Each community had a canning plant that once operated under the Green Giant Company umbrella.

An entrepreneur in Blue Earth seized an opportunity in the 1970s to erect a colossal, fiberglass statue of the Green Giant…for all to look up to.

The statue was the idea of Paul Hedberg, owner of the local radio station (KBEW) in Blue Earth. His “Welcome Travelers” segment featured interviews with motorists who were passing through town on their westward journey to scenic landmarks such as the Black Hills and Yellowstone National Park.

At the end of each interview, Hedberg presented his guests with cans of peas and corn from Blue Earth’s Green Giant canning plant along with a sample of blueish dirt, as a souvenir depicting “the hue of the riverbed clay that gave the town its name.”

 

Hedberg had no trouble raising $50,000 in private funds to have the Green Giant statue built as an investment in tourism for the town. The route chosen for the construction of the east-west Interstate 90 was going to skirt Blue Earth.

I-90 is reportedly the “longest road in America,” stretching 3,081 miles from Boston to Seattle. Its east and west paving crews met just outside of Blue Earth, and Hedberg orchestrated a big ceremony on Sept. 17, 1978.

Reminiscent of the “Golden Spike” that symbolized completion of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad in 1869, Hedberg convinced transportation department officials to tint a small section of I-90’s pavement gold.

Susan Perkins Botsford of Middletown, Ohio, who was Miss America 1978, participated in the “Golden Spike” ceremony in Blue Earth.

The event included the unveiling of the 4-ton Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth’s Giant Park. It is mounted on an 8-foot pedestal. There are stairs so visitors may climb up and stand next to the statue to have their photos made.

Here is Paul Hedberg with the unpainted head of the Jolly Green Giant.

Heidi Van Heel of the MinnPost news service observed: “The Giant’s feet are 6-feet long; that’s the equivalent of size 78 shoes.”

Every Christmas season, Santa Claus visits the Giant. Lifted up in a bucket truck, Santa places a long red scarf around Giant’s neck to keep him warm for the winter.

The Blue Earth Fire Department also gives the Giant a bath at least once a year...and he  recently received a new coat of paint.

 

 

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“Paul Hedberg never had a negative comment about anyone or anything; always all positive,” said Larry Anderson, former executive director of the Blue Earth Area Chamber of Commerce. “If every community had a Paul Hedberg kind of leadership in everything, we would all be better off.”

 

Before Paul Hedberg died in 2021 at age 81, he provided funding to install six giant-sized musical percussion instruments at Giant Park in Blue Earth, yet another example of how “Paul was always looking for ways to promote Blue Earth and the local area,” Anderson said.

 

Anderson told Chuck Hunt, editor of the Faribault County Register, published in Blue Earth: “I remember when KBEW radio was celebrating its 10th anniversary in 1973. Paul convinced Paul Harvey (a radio broadcaster with a national audience) to come here for the celebration.”

 

Hedberg picked up Paul Harvey at the local airport in Fairmont, about 20 miles away, and took him all around Blue Earth to “sell him” on the community, Anderson said. “It worked, too, because later that week Paul Harvey talked about wonderful Blue Earth on his radio show.”

(Paul Harvey’s “News and Comment” programs reached as many as 24 million people per week, as these accounts were carried on 1,200 radio stations, on 400 American Forces Network stations and in 300 newspapers across the country.)

 

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Visitors to Blue Earth are invited to “seek and find” the 24 statues of “Little Sprouts” that are located around town.

Launched in 2018 as a project of the Business Improvement Committee, which is fostered by the Blue Earth Area Chamber of Commerce, each Sprout has a custom paint job, courtesy of local artists and sponsoring businesses and organizations. 

Find all 24 and win a prize at the chamber office.