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IN 1876, Dr John Harvey Kellogg, a well-known physician and author, took over as head of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The famous medical spa attracted thousands of patients each year to the small town of Battle Creek, Michigan. John’s younger brother, William Keith Kellogg, ran the day-to-day operations, while John sought to give his patients fresh air and a vegetarian, whole-grain diet, which he termed “biological living”.
The diet inspired the brothers to develop a formula for a healthy breakfast recognisable today as flaked cold cereal. John Kellogg viewed the cereal as a remedy for his sick patients and created the Sanitas Food Company to manufacture it for the sanitarium guests. At the same time, while Will thought healthy people might also enjoy the product, neither brother acted on the idea until they saw the success of a similar product — manufactured by a patient of the sanitarium.
That patient’s name was Charlie Post and since he couldn’t afford to pay full room and board fee at the sanitarium, he worked in the kitchen, gaining access to Dr Kellogg’s recipes. After leaving the sanitarium, Post started his own company, Postum Cereal Company, in 1894 and brought the first ready-to-eat cold cereal to the broader market.
Post’s success led Will Kellogg to leave the sanitarium business in 1906 to found the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. The company was renamed the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1909 and the Kellogg Company in 1922.
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The method for creating cold cereal was discovered by accident and then perfected through trial and error over time by the Kellogg brothers. Although there are slightly different versions of the origin story for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, the gist is that after rolling out wheat dough and forgetting it overnight, the brothers found that the stale dough flaked easily into thin pieces that could be used to create cold cereal. Will later produced the flakes with corn, which had more crunch.
CW Post adopted — some may say stole — the method for commercial use without needing to spend time inventing and perfecting the product. However, while Post may have won the cold cereal battle in the product’s early days, Kellogg’s was victorious in another battle.
Following Post’s death in 1914, his daughter Marjorie Merriweather Post took over the company when she was just 27 years old, becoming one of the first American female chief executives. And it was an announcement by Marjorie in February 1964, of a forthcoming product — “Country Squares”, shelf-stable, fruit-filled pastries — that gave Kellogg’s the idea to create their own version. Within six months, and before Country Squares even hit store shelves, Kellogg’s released “Fruit Scones”. They were quickly renamed Pop-Tarts after the era’s popular Pop Art movement.
Pop-Tarts were a hit. In 1967, Kellogg’s added frosting that wouldn’t melt in the toaster and additional flavours to complement the original four: blueberry, strawberry, brown sugar cinnamon and apple currant. As for Post’s Country Squares? They became Toastem’ Pop Ups in 1965, and the brand was sold in 1971 to Schulze and Burch Biscuit Co, now the largest supplier of store-brand toaster pastries in the world.
Laurel Ofstein is faculty director, Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, at Michigan State University. This article has been excerpted and modified from an essay originally published on The Conversation.
