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Bugles were developed by a food engineer, Verne E. Weiss of Plymouth, Minnesota. Bugles were test-marketed in 1965 and introduced nationally in early 1966 as one of several new General Mills snacks, including flower-shaped Daisies; wheel-shaped Pizza Spins; tube-shaped Whistles; cheddar cheese-flavored Buttons; and bow-shaped, popcorn-flavored Bows, all of which were discontinued in the 1970s.
From the time of their creation in the 1960s, General Mills' Bugles were manufactured at a plant in West Chicago, Illinois, until that plant's closure in 2017. Bugles and the other snacks were also produced in Lancaster, Ohio starting in 1981. It is now a Ralston Foods Plant part of Con-Agra.