Ben's Original, formerly known as Uncle Ben's, is an American parboiled rice brand owned by Mars, Inc., first marketed in 1943 and based on the Huzenlaub Process—a nutrient-preserving parboiling method invented by chemists Erich Huzenlaub and Francis Heron Rogers. Initially sold to the U.S. and British armed forces during WWII, it became the top-selling rice in the U.S. until the 1990s, with its iconic logo featuring an elderly African-American man in a bow tie, reportedly modeled on a Chicago maître d'hôtel named Frank Brown. In June 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and amid accusations of racism, Mars announced it would "evolve" the brand, officially rebranding it as Ben's Original in September 2020, with new packaging widely available in the U.S. and Canada by June 2021. The brand also began certifying the sustainability of its basmati rice in 2017 to encourage better agricultural methods among local farmers.