Who Invented Corn Flakes?

Before the invention of packaged breakfast cereals, American families ate big breakfasts that included such foods as steak, fried potatoes, corn meal mush or oatmeal, thick slices of bread with molasses, and maybe a piece of pie.

A man named Will Kellogg changed all that and put cold corn flakes, or some other cold cereal, in your bowl. Actually, the two Kellogg brothers developed their cereals while trying to create new, interesting and healthy foods for the patients of a hospital they ran in the town of Battle Creek, Michigan.

At that time, a flake of cereal was unknown. Nobody knew how to make anything that looked like a corn flake. Then, as with so many other inventions, an accident occurred, and the Kelloggs found that they had invented the flake.

When the two brothers decided to sell their corn flakes to the public, the younger brother insisted that sugar be added to make them taste better. The older brother disagreed. He didn’t believe sugar was good for people, and he never again had anything to do with the Kellogg Company.

It was left to the younger brother to make all future generations of Kelloggs rich.

Corn Flakes were patented in 1884 and in 1897, the Sanitas Food Company started producing them.

In 1906, Will Keith Kellogg started his own company called the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which later became the Kellogg Company.