Kellogg Company
Although most businesses are created with one purpose to make a profit for the developer the Kellogg Company was created to promote a philosophy. Dr. Kellogg wanted to improve the health of others and believed the source of that improvement would be to improve one’s eating habits.
As business manager for an internationally famous Seventh Day Adventist hospital, he experimented with his brother W.K. Kellogg to develop a food that would be grain based that would improve the health of the rich and famous patients who were there in hopes of bettering their health.
The brothers experimented with various production methods to find a way to make grain into a palatable food for the patients. The method that worked after many experiments was to run boiled wheat dough through rollers to produce thin sheets of wheat. The sheets had to be smaller to be edible and they accomplished this by toasting the sheets and then grinding them into meal.
Wheat flakes were developed by accident in 1894. The cooked wheat was by accident exposed to air for more than a day when the methods were unintentionaly interrupted. The brothers rand the wheat through the rollers anyway and to their amazement what before would have been a sheet of wheat not fell from the rollers as single flakes. These were the first cereal flakes.
The ‘San’ was an internationally famous Seventh Day Adventist hospital and health spa which offered its rich and famous patients a regime of exercise and fresh air, plus a strict diet that prohibited caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and meat.
They served these new wheat flakes to their patients. Many patients after leaving the Sanitarium wrote requesting supplies of those wheat flakes they loved.
More than 40 different cereals in plants in 19 countries on six continents are marketed in more than 160 countries. More than 15,667 employees are part of this worldwide organization.
At Battle Creek, Michigan, is a fun tour they call Kellogg’s Cereal City USA. They have a simulated cereal production line where one can learn how Kellogg’s Corn Flakes cereal is made. A multimedia presentation is included and one can watch the cereal commercials that were developed over the years.