Chief Cook

The chief executive of the General Foods Corp. is one of the most important men in the life of the American housewife. For the eleven years that he has held the job, Chairman Charles Greenough Mortimer has led the mothers' march to chipped, chopped, frozen, freeze-dried, premixed, precooked convenience foods. Last week, approaching mandatory retirement at 65, Mortimer turned over the General Foods basket (Maxwell House and Yuban coffees, Post cereals, JellO, Birds Eye, Minute Rice, Tang, Gaines's dog food, etc.) to an aptly named successor. Replacing him as chief: President Chauncey William Wallace Cook, 55, an aggressive, Texas-raised six-footer.

Mortimer is an advertising and marketing expert in an industry that leans on that type of executive, but "Tex" Cook is different. An engineer, he spent eleven years with Procter & Gamble as a plant man before moving to General Foods in 1942 to oversee new building. Not until 1951 did he switch to marketing. He became product manager of Maxwell House instant coffee, which the company was about to introduce with a "tiny flavor buds" campaign. Instant Maxwell bloomed. The company's coffee sales jumped from 10% of the U.S. market to a commanding 34% , brought in one-third of General Foods sales ($1.4 billion last year). Says Cook, a modest man in the kitchen: "I think instant Maxwell pulled me along with it."

As befits the head of a company that makes 300 products, Cook thrives on variety, every day drives a different route from his Larchmont, N.Y., home to his office in nearby White Plains to enjoy the scenery. Tex and Wife Frances still have roots in Texas, make a yearly trip back to their home town of Loneview.

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