The Cereal Story

Many of us don't know the story behind what numerous people eat during breakfast, and that is cereal. Cereals became popular to eat for breakfast in the 1900's because it was promoted specifically for vegetarians. At the time, most humans would eat for breakfast eggs, bacon, sausage and beef. Cereals gave the advantage of a breakfast without that much protein and fat, a good alternative for the vegetarians. As you may have imagined, the ones behind the idea of this cold breakfast started with a vegetetarian moovement that took place in the ending of the nineteenth century. Most of the people from the movement were humans that belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including the founder of Kellogg's , William Keith Kellogg. In 1863, James Caleb Jackson created the first breakfast cereal named Granula which had very little success.

In 1877, John Harvey Kellogg, operator of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan accidentally created corn flakes by leaving a batch of boiled wheat soaking overnight and rolling it out. He gived this product to his patients at the hospital, and later his brother Will Keith Kellogg, took the corn flakes to sell as a cereal for the Kellogg Company, founded in 1906. Today both Kellogg and their competitor Post, have their headquarters in Battle Creek, for which the city is nicknamed ''cereal city''. Since then, many other brands entered into the competition including General Mills, Quaker, Alpen and others.

In recent years, many of these companies have sold their products targeted to specific groups of people. Special K has been aimed for women who want to loose weight. Oat Bran, Muesli, All-Bran, Frosted Mini-Wheats and others are sold for people who need an aid to digestive health. Most obviously, cereal is sold mostly for children, with products like Captain Crunch, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Fruit Pebbles, etc.

General Mills started selling cereals in 1924 (sold in South America as Nestle), and from then, the cereal companies made their commercials and products targeted for children. To help promote this, Kellogg's and General Mills, created several animal mascots for each cereal. Tony the Tiger was made for Frosted Flakes, Sam the Toucan was made for Froot Loops, the Trix Rabbit, Lucky the Leprechaun, Captain Crunch etc. Today the cereal industry has created more than 30 mascots throughout the last 50 years. We can see now, that the cereal industry is one of the most important food businesses today.