“In 1933, A Chattanooga Couple Started Selling Cakes From The Back Of Their Car. Their Big Break Came 27 Years Later When They Put The Face Of Their Granddaughter, Debbie, On Every Box. Forbes Last Valued The McKee Family Fortune At $1.5 Billion.”
A couple selling homemade cakes from a beat-up 1928 Whippet during the Great Depression had no obvious path to a billion-dollar dynasty. The unlikely turn that changed everything came down to one four-year-old girl and a 49-cent family pack.
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Picture a Chattanooga street in the depths of the Great Depression. O.D. McKee is behind the wheel, and the back of his car is piled with homemade cakes that he and his wife, Ruth, are selling for whatever a struggling neighborhood can spare. According to Little Debbie, that car was a 1928 Whippet, a modest machine pressed into service as delivery van, warehouse and storefront all at once.
Little Debbie’s company history places the first sales in 1933, in the worst economy of the century.
A Nickel Cookie That Launched a Baking Empire
According to Little Debbie, O.D. created the Oatmeal Creme Pie in 1935, softening a hard oatmeal cookie with creamy filling, priced at a nickel each.
According to Wikipedia, the McKees bought King’s Bakery in 1954 and opened a modern production facility in Collegedale, Tennessee, in 1957. The business took the name McKee Baking Company in 1962.
Four-Year-Old Face That Filled Millions of Lunchboxes
Little Debbie dates the brand’s launch to August 23, 1960. O.D. chose his granddaughter Debbie, four years old, as the face for the cakes, according to Little Debbie. Artist Pearl Mann painted the first portrait that year. The signature red bow tie joined the portrait in 1964, according to Wikipedia.
According to Little Debbie, the launch introduced a family pack of 12 individually wrapped cakes priced at 49 cents, below the standard 60 cents. The portrait and price became the brand’s signature.
A Family Business That Never Sold Out
According to Forbes, the company became McKee Foods Corporation in 1991 and remains privately held, run by the founding family with four grandchildren of the founders leading the business.
Wikipedia reports McKee Foods bought Drake’s Cakes in 2013 for $27.5 million. Around the same time, the company shipped over 900 million cartons of Little Debbie products annually, according to Forbes.
Forbes cited annual revenue of roughly $1.4 billion, while Wikipedia reports $836 million for 2021. As a private company, McKee releases no audited results.
What That Wrapper Turned Into for the McKee Family Fortune
Forbes’ 2015 America’s Richest Families list estimated the McKee family’s net worth at $1.5 billion, ranking them No. 163. That figure is the estimate Forbes releases that year.
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AJ spent 10 years writing about financial markets at The Motley Fool. His coverage centers on technology stocks and the broader macroeconomic trends, from interest rates to geopolitics, that shape where markets are headed next. AJ is drawn to the stories where big-picture economics and individual companies collide.
