Jim Bradshaw: Rice cereal was atop Gueydan's breakfast menu
When planter, politician and entrepreneur Henri Gueydan began to manufacture his Rice-O-La breakfast cereal in 1923, he also launched an advertising campaign that could have been the inspiration for the flamboyant Hadacol promotions decades later.
The campaign might have been anticipated. The son of town builder Jean Pierre Gueydan unveiled his plans to produce the cereal amid much hoopla in a well-publicized meeting in Crowley.
The Crowley Signal reported that Dr. E. M. Ellis, “a prominent Crowley surgeon,” said the Rice-O-La manufacturing process using brown unpolished rice “retains the maximum nutriment” including “vitamins and other sturdy ingredients.” Cleora Heibing, Louisiana supervisor of home economists, pronounced it tasty and nutritious. Dr. Robert Osborne, a New Orleans dietitian, said the cereal was good not only for grown-ups, but was a great food for infants. Every one of the 100-plus people in the crowd got to try a bowl of Rice-O-La and milk and, the Signal said, loved its “slight nut flavor.”
Nearly 200 investors had put up a total of $100,000 by the time ground was broken for a factory on Avenue J in Crowley. Gueydan said the plant would house machinery especially made to process the rice.
A Signal editorial at the time said, “The outlook for Rice-O-La is one that promises much for it and for its home, the Rice City of America. There is evidence that its importance to the city will increase as the demand for the product grows … with consequent additions to labor employment and money received and paid out.”
Gueydan promised that the plant would be up and running in three months, and the builders met the deadline.
At first, Rice-O-La was sold just in the region, then statewide, then Henri began to promote it nationwide. Testimonials in newspapers and national publications such as the Saturday Evening Post extolled Rice-O-La’s virtues.
“Last night we had Rice-O-La served for our ‘starter’ at dinner,” one letter read. “We used it just as you would have for breakfast. It was great.”
Said another one: “This morning for breakfast we had pancakes, using one-half flour and one-half Rice-O-La. Never ate better cakes than the ones this made.”
A letter on White House stationery from his secretary only said that President Calvin Coolidge received the box of cereal that was sent to him, not that he actually ate it. But that was enough to be included among the testimonials, using the headline, “President Eats Rice-O-La.”
A note below the letter said, “Mr. Coolidge’s Massachusetts taste is sure to respond to Rice-O-La’s appeal.” Silent Cal never said whether he liked it, disliked it, or even tried it.
In December, 1,112 cases, each containing 24 boxes, were shipped to just one New Orleans wholesale grocer. Wholesalers in Arkansas and Texas were interested.
Things were looking up
By early February 1924, Rice-O-La was “featured on the dining cars of the Southern Pacific, Texas and Pacific, Gulf Coast Lines, Louisiana and Nashville, and Illinois Central,” on Morgan Line steamships that plied the Gulf, and “in the Charity Hospital and Touro Infirmary, the State Normal College [now Northwestern in Natchitoches] and Louisiana Polytechnic [Louisiana Tech in Ruston].”
College cafeterias even then were probably known for the quantity of their food, not the quality, but the dining cars were different. This was a time when railroad dining cars were beginning to reach the quality of fine restaurants as they competed for travelers.
That endorsement prompted the Abbeville Meridional to speculate that “in the near future … we may expect that … fully half of the rice produced in the southern states will be used in the manufacture of Rice-O-La.”
But, as with Hadacol, the promotions eventually outran the ability to produce the product, with the same result.
Abrom Kaplan, another big rice planter and town builder, bought “the plant and equipment, the good will, the patent rights, and other paraphernalia” for $7,000 when Rice-O-La’s remains went up for bankruptcy sale in May of 1925. Kaplan banker A. M. Smith bought the office furniture and “sundry supplies” for $1,100.
The office furniture may have been the better buy. A new investor tried to launch a comeback for the company in 1926, but documents filed in Baton Rouge show that it fizzled out pretty quickly.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.