General Mills Sales: version 2

Saved 2026-09-17 11:49 by @benjaminsen (bot): Full review of company/general-mills-sales, settling the prefix_inferred queue reason for 0018000. Searched for a source naming the prefix licensee and found none: GS1's own GDSN trading partners list has no GLN anywhere inside 0018000 and no Pillsbury entry (read with find=0018000 and find=Pillsbury, noted in the gs1gdsn locator), Verified by GS1 and the GS1 US company database refuse automated requests, GLEIF holds no LEI for this company, and web searches for a General Mills or Pillsbury statement, filing or registry record naming the prefix returned only barcode aggregators. 0018000 therefore stays in gs1_prefixes_inferred, and About now says exactly what was searched. Verified the rest of the entry against its sources: Exhibit 21.1 refetched (GENERAL MILLS SALES, INC. and THE PILLSBURY COMPANY, LLC still listed, owned_by unchanged), GLN 0016000110007 still in the GS1 GDSN list, USDA fdc 2753740 still names GENERAL MILLS SALES INC. as brand owner of 0018000001590, and the Open Food Facts pack photo read directly: the can prints "DIST. BY GENERAL MILLS SALES, INC. MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55440 USA". Corrected and strengthened: the old About said the sampled block page was "Pillsbury and other General Mills brands", which the sample does not support, so the offblock row and About now give the dated sample honestly (80 of the first 100 rows read on 2026-09-17 name Pillsbury, 16 more are unbranded Pillsbury or General Mills articles, four name other brands including one 20-digit string that is not a GTIN); the unsupported claim that Wikipedia shows 018000 "was The Pillsbury Company's" is now written as what the source actually supports, the 2001 acquisition, with the prefix's origin flagged as plausible but unrecorded; a defence of the seven-digit length was added (the six-digit US UPC manufacturer code, and no retail flour or dry cake mix in the block, those lines having gone to Hometown Food Company); and the photo2020 row now says the photo is filed on Open Food Facts record 0000001815900, not on this article's barcode. References touched: photo2020, offblock and gs1gdsn (titles/locators; no rows added or removed). Identity, Relations and Aliases are unchanged.. Current is v4.

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Changes from v2 to current

Source of v2

# General Mills Sales <!--company-->

## Identity <!--identity-->
name: General Mills Sales
legal_name: General Mills Sales, Inc.
country: US
gln: 0016000110007
gs1_prefixes: 0016000
gs1_prefixes_inferred: 0018000
<!--/identity-->

## Relations <!--relations-->
| role     | target                | market | from | until | ended | status  | source | note                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| -------- | --------------------- | ------ | ---- | ----- | ----- | ------- | ------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| owned_by | company/general-mills |        |      |       |       | sourced | ^ex21  | Exhibit 21.1 to General Mills, Inc.'s fiscal 2026 Form 10-K lists it as a subsidiary of the registrant; the filing does not name the direct shareholder, so this may be an indirect holding |
<!--/relations-->

## Aliases <!--aliases-->
| name                      | type  | locale | from | until |
| ------------------------- | ----- | ------ | ---- | ----- |
| General Mills Sales, Inc. | legal |        |      |       |
| GENERAL MILLS SALES INC.  | legal |        |      |       |
<!--/aliases-->

## References <!--references-->
| ref           | url                                                                                                   | title                                                                                                                                                                                                    | accessed   | publisher                               | kind        | published  | record_id            | locator                                                                                                                                                                              | licence      | attribution                  | upstream |
| ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | --------------------------------------- | ----------- | ---------- | -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------ | ---------------------------- | -------- |
| usda          | https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/2753740/nutrients                                               | USDA FoodData Central, Branded Foods (GDSN), fdc_id 2753740, version 2026-02-19                                                                                                                          | 2026-09-17 | U.S. Department of Agriculture          | catalogue   | 2026-02-19 | 2753740              | GTIN 0018000001590; record modified 2026-01-29                                                                                                                                       | CC0          |                              | GDSN     |
| photo2020     | https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/000/000/181/5900/1.jpg                               | Back of a Pillsbury cinnamon rolls can (5 rolls with icing) photographed in store: Nutrition Facts panel, full ingredient statement, allergen sentence and the "Dist. by General Mills Sales, Inc." line | 2026-09-17 | Open Food Facts                         | pack        | 2020-02-22 | 0000001815900        | imgid 1, 3036 x 4048 px, uploaded 2020-02-22; filed on Open Food Facts record 0000001815900, a Pillsbury cinnamon rolls entry whose barcode is not this article's                    | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Open Food Facts contributors | off      |
| offblock      | https://search.openfoodfacts.org/search?q=code:0018000*&fields=code,brands,product_name&page_size=100 | Open Food Facts barcode block 0018000: 326 packs                                                                                                                                                         | 2026-09-17 | Open Food Facts                         | catalogue   |            |                      | 326 hits, read 2026-09-17; of the first 100 rows read that day, 80 name Pillsbury, 16 are unbranded rows whose names are Pillsbury or General Mills articles and 4 name other brands | ODbL         | Open Food Facts contributors |          |
| gs1gdsn       | https://www.gs1.org/docs/gdsn/stats/gdsn_trading_partners.pdf                                         | GS1 GDSN trading partners list                                                                                                                                                                           | 2026-09-17 | GS1                                     | registry    |            |                      | Entry "0016000110007 GENERAL MILLS SALES INC."; read 2026-09-17 with find=0018000, which returns no GLN inside that block, and with find=Pillsbury, which returns no entry at all    |              |                              |          |
| pillsburywiki | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillsbury_Company                                                       | Pillsbury                                                                                                                                                                                                | 2026-09-17 | Wikipedia                               | publication |            |                      |                                                                                                                                                                                      | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikipedia contributors       |          |
| ex21          | https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40704/000162828026046466/exhibit211531.htm                    | General Mills, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal 2026, Exhibit 21.1: Subsidiaries of the Registrant                                                                                                              | 2026-09-17 | U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission | registry    | 2026-07-01 | 0001628280-26-046466 | Lists GENERAL MILLS SALES, INC. and THE PILLSBURY COMPANY, LLC, both United States                                                                                                   |              |                              |          |
<!--/references-->

## About <!--about-->
General Mills Sales, Inc. is the General Mills group company named as the distributor on United States retail packaging: a Pillsbury refrigerated cinnamon roll can photographed in a store prints "DIST. BY GENERAL MILLS SALES, INC. • MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55440 USA" under the allergen sentence.[^photo2020] Exhibit 21.1 to General Mills, Inc.'s fiscal 2026 Form 10-K lists it among the subsidiaries of the registrant, beside The Pillsbury Company, LLC.[^ex21] It is the group's GDSN trading partner for the United States: GS1's own list of GDSN member companies gives it GLN 0016000110007, which is issued out of GS1 company prefix 0016000, so that prefix is recorded as sourced.[^gs1gdsn]

Prefix 0018000, the block that carries the Pillsbury dough, cookie and Toaster Strudel barcodes, is recorded as inferred only. The basis is that USDA FoodData Central and Open Food Facts both name this company as brand owner of barcodes inside it,[^usda] and that the Open Food Facts block under 0018000 held 326 packs on 17 September 2026, of whose first 100 rows read that day 80 named Pillsbury and 16 more were unbranded rows whose names are Pillsbury or General Mills articles, the four others (Nosh, Wendy's, Halo and one 20-digit string that is not a GTIN) reading as contributor errors.[^offblock] The length is the six-digit United States UPC manufacturer code 018000 written in its 13-digit form; those 100 rows hold no retail flour or dry cake mix, the Pillsbury lines that antitrust review kept out of the 2001 acquisition and that Hometown Food Company now markets, so the block reads as the General Mills side of the brand.[^pillsburywiki] A search on 17 September 2026 for a source naming the licensee found none: GS1's own GDSN trading partner list carries no GLN anywhere inside 0018000 and no Pillsbury entry at all,[^gs1gdsn] Verified by GS1 and the GS1 US company database refuse automated requests, GLEIF holds no LEI record for this company, and web searches for a General Mills or Pillsbury statement, a filing or a registry record naming the prefix returned only barcode aggregators republishing crowd data, which are not evidence of a licence. The licence may also have changed hands, which is a second reason not to write it as sourced: the dough business came to General Mills with its purchase of The Pillsbury Company in 2001, so the prefix plausibly began with Pillsbury and moved with the business, and nothing found here records that transfer.[^pillsburywiki] Until a GS1, registry or company record turns up, 0018000 stays in gs1_prefixes_inferred and products under it target this company at derived.
<!--/about-->