What did you have for breakfast this morning? Whatever it was, chances are that its seeds were sown months back, irrigation and farming techniques were applied suitably and then the produce was bought and cooked to suit your taste before being served to you as a healthy breakfast before going to school. Occasionally, you might have a bowl of cereals at your breakfast table, to go along with your milk. If you are a cereal enthusiast, you may have heard of Kellogg’s corn flakes.
The story of Kellogg’s corn flakes dates back to the nineteenth century. Brothers John Harvey Kellogg, a doctor, and Will Keith Kellogg were from a protestant Christian family.
Even though they had little access to education, John Harvey managed to get a medical degree and took charge of the Battle Creek sanitarium in Michigan. As a staunch Adventist, he was a believer of the healthy living tenets of the church and advocated strict vegetarianism, no alcohol and tobacco, and minimal quantities of eggs and dairy products.
Along with Will Keith, who worked as the manager, they implemented a strict diet for the patients in the sanitarium. And needless to say, the patients found it to be tasteless and monotonous. This is when the brothers set up Sanitas Food Company and tried making products including biscuits, peanut butter and even a substitute for coffee.
For a type of granola that they produced, the ingredients were forced through rollers and rolled into long sheets of dough. One night in 1894, they left their work midway while cooking some wheat. By the time they returned, the wheat had become stale. Despite the wheat’s condition, they forced it through the rollers.
To their surprise, each wheat berry was flattened and came out as a thin flake, instead of long sheets of dough. By baking these flakes they realised that they had discovered a new type of cereal, accidentally inventing a whole new industry.
While John Harvey was more interested in reforming eating habits and not in business, his brother clearly recognised the commercial value of what they had done. A fall out between the brothers was inevitable when Will Keith added sugar to the flakes and sold it as breakfast food. John Harvey’s attempt to sue Will Keith in order to stop him from marketing the cereal proved to be a futile.
By 1898, Will Keith had developed the first flaked corn cereal, a version with longer shelf-life of which followed in 1902. He set up a company in 1906 that went on to become Kellogg’s as we know it today. Will Keith marketed his product like never before, pumping in millions for advertising and making his own signature as the company logo.
A touched up version of his signature is still used as the logo nearly a century after the company was first set up.
ganesh.a.s@thehindu.co.in
