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Monday 19 October 2015

Kellogg's

John Harvey Kellogg, a Seventh-day Adventist surgeon, was the superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanatorium. Kellogg was interested in nutrition, and he earnestly strived to develop bran-rich foods that weren't too bland. A vegetarian, he wished to replace meat on the breakfast table.

In 1896, John Harvey Kellogg along with his younger brother and general office assistant at the Sanatorium, William Keith Kellogg, developed, after much experimentation, a breakfast food that was easy to chew. A cereal flake made of wheat, they called it Granose.

A new cereal, an improvement on the Granose idea, was developed by John Harvey Kellogg. This new product came about by chance, after some boiled corn was left alone, one of his cooks found it had broken into crispy flakes. The profit-minded younger William Keith Kellogg broke away from his brother to found the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company on February 19, 1906 to market the cereal.

First Kellogg's package

The Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company prospered through innovative advertising techniques and improvements in the quality of the cereal. An ad campaign in 1907 let woman shoppers have a free sample if they winked at their grocer.

In 1922 they adopted the shortened name of  Kellogg's as by this stage, they were manufacturing cereals other than cornflakes.


In 1924 John L. Kellogg developed a new cereal, All Bran. It was a convenient way of using up bran left over from other products.

During the Great Depression, W.K. Kellogg structured his cereal plant to work four six-hour shifts instead of three eight-hour shifts, providing employment for more people.

John Harvey Kellogg was a skilled surgeon, who had many notable patients at his clinic. They included former president William Howard Taft, arctic explorer Roald Amundsen, aviator Amelia Earhart, Nobel prize winning playwright George Bernard Shaw, actor and sportsman Johnny Weissmuller, businessman Henry Ford, inventor Thomas Edison, and actress Sarah Bernhardt.

In their later years the Kellogg brothers were estranged. In 1943 John Harvey Kellogg wrote a letter seeking to reopen the relationship. but his secretary decided her employer had demeaned himself in it and refused to send it. The younger Kellogg did not see it until after his brother's death.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

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