View source for Breakfast cereals

==Grand Rapids: two Kelloggs and a Post==
New breakfast-food concepts came from John K. Kellogg and Charles W. Post. The Battle Creek, Michigan, cereal industry rose from a combination of sincere religious belief and commercial interest in health foods. Dr. John H. Kellogg (1851-1943), son of an Adventist factory owner in Battle Creek was encouraged by his church to take an MD at the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City in 1875. He became medical superintendent at the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, established in 1866 by the Adventists to offer their natural remedies for illness.   Many wealthy industrialists came to Kellogg's sanitarium for recuperation and rejuvenation. They were accustomed to breakfast of ham, eggs, sausages, fried potatoes, hot biscuits, hotcakes, and coffee. In Battle Creek they found fresh air, exercise, rest, "hydrotherapy," a strict vegetarian diet, and abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea.  Kellogg experimented with granola; it resembled toasted bread crumbs.  He boiled some wheat, rolled it into thin films, and baked the resulting flakes in the oven; he acquired a patent in 1891. In 1895 he launched [[Corn flakes|Corn Flakes]], which overnight captured a national market. Soon there were forty rival manufacturers in the Battle Creek area. 

Charles W. Post, a former Kellogg patient, discovered a new angle, with Postum, a cereal coffee substitute that eliminated most of the caffeine found in regular coffee. "It Makes Red Blood," the Postum ads proclaimed.  In 1898 he introduced Grape-nuts, the concentrated cereal with a nutty flavor and in the late 1890s Post joined the cornflake wars with Post Toasties. Good business sense, determination, and powerful advertising produced a multimillion-dollar fortune for Post in a few years.  After his death in 1914 his company acquired the Jell-O company in 1925, Baker's chocolate in 1927, Maxwell House coffee in 1928, Birdseye frozen foods in 1929, and changed its name to General Foods in 1929.  Philip Morris tobacco bought General Foods for $5.6 billion in 1985, merged it with its Kraft division, then spun off Kraft as independent.

William K. Kellogg (1860-1951) was a private and humorless man who had dropped out of high school and stood in the shadow of his flamboyant brother John. William, after working many years for his brother, in 1906, broke away, bought the rights from his brother and set up the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company.<ref>John dropped out of the cereal industry but continued to operate his sanitarium.</ref>  William Kellogg discarded the health food concept, opting for heavy advertising and commercial taste appeal. His signature on every package became the company trademark and insurance of quality. 
[[Image:KELLOGG2.JPG|thumb|250px|1910 magazine ad]]

An experimental full-page ad in the ''The Ladies Home Journal'' in 1906 sent corn flake sales skyrocketing to nearly three thousand cases a day. By 1915 the company was investing one million dollars a year in product promotion. There were premiums, games, and inserts for children and teenagers, and lucrative contests for retailers. "Wink at your grocer and see what you get," invited one ad.<ref>The winker got a free box of corn flakes.</ref> Kellogg devised a trade character—the "Sweetheart of the Corn," exemplar of the wholesome American girl—who smiled from every box of corn flakes. 
During the 1920s the company expanded by embracing technological advances and new products; in 1925 Rice Krispies exploded on the market, using better packaging and sealed wax paper liners to insured freshness and better shipping. By 1930 Kellogg's nine plants nationwide controlled 40% percent of the American ready-to-eat cereal industry, with an expanding international trade as well.
[[Image:KELLOGG3.JPG|thumb|left|250px]]