    
Corn Flakes
The history of Corn Flakes begins with religion. In 1860, the Seventh-Day Adventist church established its headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan, USA. The Church believed in healthful living, and built a health institute in Battle Creak to promote their dietary ideals, which included vegetarian diets. The Kellogg family were Adventists, and John Harvey Kellogg (born 26 February 1852) became the director of the Institute in 1876. He invented the word "Sanitarium", and applied the word to the name of the Institute ("The Medical and Surgical Sanitarium"). The Sanitarium became wildly popular.
He hired his younger brother, William Keith, to work for him. William had been born in 1860, the same year as the headquarters were established. He came to work for his brother in 1880 at the age of 20, and he was 34 when the great discovery was made in 1894. Will often helped his brother in experimenting with new ways of preparing nutritious food. The two brothers that year were experimenting with masses of boiled wheat dough, put through rollers to make it into sheets. One night, Will left the dough out overnight before rolling it. The next morning, instead of a flat sheet coming out through the rollers, the dough broke up into flakes. Nothing daunted, he put it on the menu for breakfast for patients at the Sanitarium, and it was a hit -- the patients asked for more. In fact, patients wanted the flakes even after they had left the Sanitarium and returned home, so a mail-order business was set up, 15 cents for a 10 ounce (280 g) package. In 1896, Will sold 113,400 pounds (51,450 kg) of the Corn Flakes this way -- without any advertising.
John Harvey didn't want to expand the Corn Flake business: he was afraid that the commercialism would affect his reputation as a doctor. By 1906, however, Will (at the age of 46) decided to go for it. He bought out the commercial rights from his brother, sweetened the flakes with malt (which patients loved but his brother hated on health grounds) and started the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company.
On Wednesday, 7 June 1907 his first truly major advertising campaign began in New York City. Housewives were told to go wink at their grocer on Wednesday and they would get a free box of Corn Flakes. The city loved the campaign and sales increased 15 times because of it.
He then went on to promote other products such as Rice Krispies and All Bran. He became a multi-millionaire, and during the Great Depression, in 1934, he put most of his fortune, about $66 million US, into a foundation he created, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He died in 1951 at the age of 91.
Equivalents
3 cups Corn Flakes equals 1 cup crushed
History
Sale of Corn Flakes in Germany began in 1929.
Also called:  Getreide Flocken (German) Copos de maíz tostados (Spanish)
Other entries for Corn Flakes
Corn Flakes
Other entries for Corn
Blue Corn, Corn Grits, Corn Husks, Corn Kernels, Corn Smut, Cornmeal, Corn, Creamed Corn, Dent Corn, Flint Corn, Flour Corn, Popcorn
Other entries for Grains
Amaranth, Barley, Buckwheat, Cereals, Farina, Flax, Kamut, Millet, Oats, Quinoa, Red River Cereal, Rice, Rye, Semolina, Sorghum, Spelt, Teff, Triticale, Wheat
Top...
| |
|