Quaker Foods North America - Introduction

Introduction

Quaker Tower
555 West Monroe, Suite 16-01
Chicago, Illinois 60604-9001
U.S.A.
Telephone: (312) 821-1000
Web site: http://www.quakeroats.com

Division of PepsiCo, Inc.
Incorporated: 1901 as The Quaker Oats Company
Employees: 3,000
Sales: $1.53 billion (2004)
NAIC: 311211 Flour Milling; 311212 Rice Milling; 311230 Breakfast Cereal Manufacturing; 311423 Dried and Dehydrated Food Manufacturing; 311822 Flour Mixes and Dough Manufacturing from Purchased Flour; 311823 Dry Pasta Manufacturing; 311999 All Other Miscellaneous Food Manufacturing

Quaker Foods North America has inherited the mantle of the Quaker Oats Company, which was acquired by PepsiCo, Inc. in August 2001. The product of a rocky union between three 19th-century millers, Quaker Oats originally centered around oats, but it was its Gatorade sports drink brand that was its most coveted asset by the late 20th century. Responsibility for Gatorade, however, was shifted post-merger to PepsiCo's beverage operations, while Quaker Oats' snack business, consisting of granola bars and rice cakes, was transferred to PepsiCo's Frito-Lay snack unit. This left the newly named Quaker Foods North America with a predominantly breakfast-oriented product lineup: the flagship Quaker oatmeal, Quaker grits, Cap'n Crunch and Life cereals, Aunt Jemima syrups and pancake mixes, and the Rice-A-Roni, Pasta Roni, and Near East side dish brands. Several Quaker Foods brands—including both Quaker oatmeal and grits, Aunt Jemima syrup, and Rice-ARoni—lead their category in the U.S. market, though Quaker's cold cereals rank a distant fourth. Quaker Foods focuses exclusively on the United States and Canada, its former international operations having been transferred to other PepsiCo units following the takeover. Quaker is the smallest of PepsiCo's four divisions, generating about 5 percent of the parent company's revenues and 8 percent of its operating profits.