Mrs. Butterworth's First Name is Revealed

The Pinnacle Foods Group plans to announce on Thursday morning the long-unknown given name of Mrs. Butterworth, the make-believe character for whom Mrs. Butterworth's syrup is named. The mysterious first name is Joy.

Mrs. Butterworth's was introduced, sans given name, in 1961, and is now owned by Pinnacle, which also owns the Log Cabin syrup brand among other pantry staples. Pinnacle sponsored a contest among consumers to guess the character's first name and the winners are being announced along with the name: A 15-year-old from Logansport, Ind., Shayla Doty, and a 44-year-old from Champaign, Ill., Cynthia Harmon.

The winners each receive $500 and a year's supply of Mrs. B's syrup. The contest is among many being sponsored by consumer-product marketers to stimulate interest in venerable brands.

Montblanc's Controversial $25,000 Gandhi Pen

The decision to turn a man who shunned foreign-made products and pushed simple living to new extremes into a "brand ambassador" - as one local website put it - for a global luxury goods maker has left some Indians puzzled and others angry.

One group filed a lawsuit Thursday to try and halt distribution of the pen.

"Mahatma Gandhi advocated a simple lifestyle," Dijo Kappen, who filed the suit and is managing trustee of the Center for Consumer Education in the southern state of Kerala, told the Associated Press. "He was, of course, a nationalist and, in the nature of the independence struggle, the only thing he promoted was Indian-made goods. It is a mockery of the great man and an insult to the nation ... to use him as a poster-boy."