They're Grrrrreat!

The Kellogg's Company, headquartered in Battle Creek Michigan, is the world's largest producer of cereals with annual sales over nine billion.

Their cereal line is flagshipped by their venerable Corn Flakes, but also includes such famous brands as Rice Krispies, Frosted Flakes, and Special K among others. Additional food lines include Keebler, Pop Tarts, Eggo, and Nutri-Grain.

Kellogg's revolutionized breakfast in the USA. The Kellogg brothers were part of the first health movement in America that warned about the dangers of fatty, protein rich foods.

Instead, they advocated a diet based primarily on vegetables, grains and fiber. Their devotion to this dietary regime gave rise to the Kellogg's company and the large consumption of cereals that exists today.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) was a Seventh-day Adventist and vegetarian. He recommended a plain diet for medical and moral reasons.

His belief, reinforced by the prevailing religious thinking, was that a diet high in fat and protein, white bread, coffee and tea, as well as the use of tobacco, could not produce a person chaste in thought.

Dr. Kellogg was appointed the superintendent of a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. He believed the average invalid was suffering from bad intestinal flora and needed less protein and more roughage in his diet.

He placed the patients on a strict and bland diet based on numerous vegetable and nut products that he developed, the most famous being a flaked wheat cereal called Granose. Granose's popularity was limited partially because it, like many of his vegetable creations, was insipid and tasteless.

Constant experimenting with various recipes led to the invention in 1902 of a cereal based on flakes of corn and flavored with barley malt. The infamous Corn Flakes were born.

Will Keith Kellogg (1860-1951), better known as W.K. Kellogg, was the younger brother of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and a clerk in the Battle Creek sanitarium. He never had a formal education and worked as a stock boy and a traveling broom salesman before being employed by his older brother.

He assisted his brother in the search for new cereal products to support the vegetarian diet they both endorsed. Different sources credit one or the other brother as the inventor of Granose and Corn Flakes, but it was most likely a joint effort. W. K. Kellogg however, is the most famous since it is he who began the Kellogg's company in 1906. He relentlessly set forth to package, advertise, market, and sell their cereal products.

In 1924 W.K. expanded the business to Australia. Through the Great Depression, while many firms were shrinking, he increased his advertising and continued to expand the business.

• page 1 of 2
• next page