60 years of food research and innovation at "JFB"

How JFB started

In 1956, General Mills purchased the 112-acre site for what would become The Central Research Laboratories of General Mills, in the middle of several farms and the beginnings of new residential developments east of what is now Highway 169, and north of Plymouth Avenue. It also was just a mile or so north of the new “Main General Office” of General Mills (which had just relocated from downtown Minneapolis).

The new research facility almost ended up a half-hour away. The company had purchased land north of Anoka, Minnesota. But that site that ultimately was viewed as a challenge for our research staff because of its distance from Minneapolis and our new headquarters.

So Arthur D. Hyde, vice president for Research, and Warren B. Wade, began searching for a new location. They stumbled onto the available farmland in Golden Valley, which at one time was meant to be home to a Catholic high school (Holy Angels Academy, which ended up choosing a site in Richfield, Minnesota).

The location was considered an ideal replacement for the company’s existing research facilities, because of its essential city and community services of utilities, transportation and communications infrastructure.

JFB’s design and construction

The campus-like appearance of the first buildings in the complex was designed by a New York architectural firm, Voorhees, Walker, Smith, Smith & Haines. It had an attractive brick exterior, over long-span structural steel and concrete.

To preserve the natural beauty of the wooded site, a cylindrical 200,000-gallon water reservoir was placed underground. When the first phase of construction was completed, there were no houses on nearby Flag Avenue and only one off Boone Avenue, and a winding dirt road led up to the complex.

The initial construction had a central stem and wings expanding from it. The building was designed to be completed in three phases and allow for easy expansion of additional wings.

The interior of the initial building at was planned in standardized modules so laboratories and offices could be easily moved to accommodate the ever-changing needs of research.

It’s not all business at the facility, it also is known for the General Mills Research Nature Area – 57 acres left untouched to the north of JFB with walkways and trails that are open to the public.

Bell, an avid outdoorsman, would have appreciated that part of the complex, too.