The Royal Cake Company, one of the oldest and largest bakeries in the United States, was established in Winston-Salem in 1925 as Easley Cookie Company, with David W. Easley as owner. Gray G. Welch and Henry Hicks bought the company in 1926. With Welch as president and Hicks as secretary-treasurer, the firm became Royal Cake Company in the mid-1930s. By the 1950s, Royal Cake's cream-filled oatmeal cookies (the firm's best seller) and 20 other types of pastries-including chocolate chip cream-filled cookies, banana marshmallow pies, Swiss rolls, brownie rounds, and fruit-filled cereal bars-were available in convenience stores, grocery chains, vending machines, and other venues in all states east of the Mississippi River. In the early 2000s Royal Cake Company, headed by CEO James B. Whitney, had 200 full-time employees and more than $30 million in annual sales.
The Royal Cake Company declared bankruptcy in 2005 and was subsequently purchased by Flowers Foods. Additionally, Flowers Foods no longer sells cookies under the Royal Cake brand name, according to a Flowers Food representative in 2015. "Our company no longer sells cookies under the Royal brand. However, we do use the Royal recipe for oatmeal cookies sold under the Southern Home label, the store brand of BI-LO grocery stores, which are located in NC, SC, TN, and GA."