Will Keith Kellogg

Will Keith (W.K.) Kellogg, was born April 7, 1860. W.K., along with his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, was the co-inventor of flaked cereal. Although W.K. lacked a formal education beyond the sixth grade, the cereal giant forever changed the way we eat breakfast. In 1906, W.K. Kellogg entered the cereal business, as American eating habits began shifting from heavy, fat-laden breakfasts to lighter, more grain-based meals. W.K. discovered that a better flake was produced by using only the corn grit or "sweet heart of the corn." To help consumers distinguish Kellogg's Corn Flakes® cereal from the products of the 42 other cereal companies in Battle Creek, Michigan, W.K. put his signature on each package, saying that these Corn Flakes are the "The Original." The company succeeded because it believed the entire populace, not just those on special diets, might be interested in wholesome cereal foods, and because it continually improved its product line and packaging techniques to meet the needs of an ever-changing and evolving consumer base.

1950s

On October 6, 1951, Kellogg Company's legendary founder, W.K. Kellogg, died at the age of 91. His body lay in state for three days in the main lobby of the company office building so that hundreds of workers and Battle Creek residents could pay their respects. Throughout the 1950s the company introduced some of today's most beloved cereals including: Kellogg's® Corn Pops®, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes®, Kellogg's® Honey Smacks™, Kellogg's® Cocoa Krispies™ and Kellogg's® Special K®, which was the first high-protein breakfast cereal ever offered to consumers. Cereal icon, Tony the Tiger® also made his first appearance in the 1950s and became an instant hit as the spokescharacter for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes®. In 1956, a Battle Creek tradition was started when more than 32,000 people sat down together at "the world's longest breakfast table" in Battle Creek, Michigan to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary. Renowned artist Norman Rockwell produced a series of illustrations for the company featuring six children and Santa Claus. For Kellogg, the 1950s also meant national expansion into California and Tennessee, as well as internationally into Mexico and New Zealand.

Kellogg Company History http://www.kellogghistory.com/history.html

Kellogg Company, world’s largest manufacturer of ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. The company makes more than 50 different cereals, including Corn Flakes, Raisin Bran, Rice Krispies, Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, and Special K. The company also makes convenience foods, such as Pop-Tarts toaster pastries and Eggo frozen waffles. Kellogg is based in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Flaked cereals were invented by accident in 1894 at Battle Creek Sanitarium, a Seventh-Day Adventist health spa run by physician John Harvey Kellogg. For his patients Kellogg prescribed a rigorous regimen of exercise, a strict vegetarian diet, and abstinence from caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco. Kellogg and his brother, William Keith “W. K.” Kellogg, the sanitarium’s business manager, experimented with various foods for the patients’ diets. One day, an experiment with wheat dough was interrupted when Dr. Kellogg was called away for an emergency operation. When the two men returned the next day, the dough had dried out, but they decided to put it through a roller. Individual flakes resulted, which they baked and served to the patients. Soon former patients began requesting the popular wheat flakes, prompting Dr. Kellogg to start the Sanitas Nut Food Company to produce the cereal and distribute it by mail order. W. K. Kellogg managed the company, which also produced flakes from corn and rice.

Dr. Kellogg had no interest in expanding the company, but 42 other companies sprang up in Battle Creek to take advantage of the cereal-making process—including one started by C. W. Post, a former sanitarium patient. In 1906 W. K. Kellogg formed his own business, the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, to produce an improved corn flake he had developed. Kellogg made the new flakes using only the grit, or heart, of the corn kernel and added malt for flavor. He found success in the crowded cereal market by spending a substantial portion of his money on advertising. A $4000 ad in Ladies Home Journal increased sales from 33 cases of cereal boxes per day to 2900 cases. By 1911 the company’s advertising budget had reached $1 million. That year Kellogg erected what was then the world’s largest electric sign, in Times Square in New York City, featuring a K in Kellogg that was about 20 m (about 66 ft) tall.

Renamed the Kellogg Company in 1922, the company grew quickly, adding All-Bran in 1916, Rice Krispies in 1928, and opening new cereal plants in Canada, Australia, and England. It weathered the Great Depression by forging ahead with production and advertising. In 1930 Kellogg established the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to support agricultural, health, and educational projects. One of the world’s largest philanthropic institutions, the foundation now owns about one-third of the company. In the early 1930s tiny gnomes named Snap!, Crackle!, and Pop! appeared on boxes of Rice Krispies, becoming the first cartoon characters associated with a Kellogg product.

After World War II (1939-1945) Kellogg expanded dramatically, adding more plants in the United States and opening new ones in South Africa, Mexico, Europe, South America, and New Zealand. The postwar baby boom and television advertising boosted sales. Kellogg marketed new lines of presweetened cereals to children, introducing Tony the Tiger in 1953 to promote Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes of Corn. By 1960 Kellogg had 40 percent of the ready-to-eat cereal market. In the 1980s Kellogg developed high-fiber cereals, such as Nutri-Grain and Mueslix, in response to a trend toward whole-grain foods.

In the 1980s and early 1990s sales flattened due to competition from General Mills, Inc., Post cereals (part of Philip Morris Companies Inc.), and low-cost cereals. Kellogg maintained profits by raising prices. In 1995 U.S. Representative Charles E. Schumer of New York alleged that Kellogg and other cereal companies had colluded to keep prices high. Philip Morris slashed its cereal prices and Kellogg followed, cutting the prices of 16 brands by an average of 19 percent. In 1996 Kellogg acquired Lender’s Bagels from Philip Morris subsidiary Kraft Foods, Inc. In 2001 Kellogg purchased the Keebler Food Company, a well-known cookie and cracker maker.

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He was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and practiced vegetarianism as a dietary principle taught by his church. Later, he founded the Kellogg Arabian Ranch and made it into a renowned establishment for breeding of Arabian horses.

Early career

As a young businessman, Kellogg started out selling brooms, before moving to Battle Creek, Michigan to help his brother John Harvey Kellogg run the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The Sanitarium was part of a pioneering effort by the Seventh-day Adventist church to attempt to make modern, commercial cereal foods based on grains. Together they pioneered the process of making flaked cereal. Because of the commercial potential of the discovery, Will wanted it kept a secret. John, however, allowed anyone in the sanitarium to observe the flaking process and one sanitarium guest, C.W. Post, copied the process to start his own company. The company became Post Cereals and later General Foods, the source of Post's first million dollars. This upset Kellogg to the extent that he left the sanitarium to create his own company.

Kellogg cereals

With the help of his brother John, Will Kellogg promoted cereals, especially corn flakes, as a healthy breakfast food. They started the Sanitas Food Company around 1897, focusing on the production of their whole grain cereals. At the time, the standard breakfast for the well-off was eggs and meat, and the poor ate porridge, farina, gruel and other boiled grains. The brothers eventually argued over the addition of sugar to their product. In 1906 Will founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, later becoming the Kellogg Company. In 1930 he established the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, ultimately donating $60 million to it. His company was one of the first to put nutrition labels on foods. He also offered the first premium for children to send in for[clarification needed]. Kellogg said, "I will invest my money in people." During the Great Depression, Kellogg directed his cereal plant to work four shifts, each lasting six hours. This gave more people in Battle Creek the opportunity to work during that time.

Arabian horse breeder

Kellogg had a long interest in Arabian horses. In 1925, he purchased 377 acres (1.5 km2) for $250,000 in Pomona, California, to establish an Arabian horse ranch. Starting with breeding stock descended from the imports of Homer Davenport and W.R. Brown, Kellogg then looked to England, where he purchased a significant number of horses from the Crabbet Arabian Stud, making multiple importations during the 1920s. The Kellogg ranch became well-known in southern California not only for its horse breeding program but also for its entertaining, weekly horse exhibitions, open to the public and frequently visited by assorted Hollywood celebrities. Among many other connections to Hollywood, the actor Rudolph Valentino borrowed the Kellogg stallion, "Jadaan," for use in his 1926 movie, Son of the Sheik. In 1932, Kellogg donated the ranch, which had grown to 750 acres (3 km²), to the University of California system. During World War II, the ranch was taken over by the U.S. War Department and was known as the Pomona Quartermaster Depot (Remount). In 1948, the ranch was transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and in 1949, the land was deeded to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Later in 1949, title to the then 813-acre (3.3 km2) ranch and horses was passed to the State of California, with the provision that the herd of Arabian horses must be maintained. The ranch became part of the Voorhis unit of what was then known as the California State Polytechnic College in San Luis Obispo. This became known as the Kellogg campus, and in 1966 it separated to form California State Polytechnic College Pomona (now California State Polytechnic University, Pomona). Some of Kellogg's property near Battle Creek, Michigan, was donated to Michigan State College (later known as Michigan State University) and is now the Kellogg Biological Station.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Keith_Kellogg

posted by his fifth cousin 2 x removed Walter G. Ashworth

His aging years.

He was blinded by advancing glaucoma over the last decade of his life, and said he would give all his wealth "just to see the sun and the green grass again". His guide dog, named Rinson, was the son of Hollywood's Rin Tin Tin. In his last years, Kellogg said his greatest joy came from being driven to the cereal factory and simply sitting in the parking lot, hearing the machinery hum and smelling the toasted grain. WGA

Will Keith Kellogg Birth 	7 Apr 1860 Battle Creek, Calhoun County, Michigan, USA Death 	6 Oct 1951 (aged 91) Battle Creek, Calhoun County, Michigan, USA Burial 	 Oak Hill Cemetery Battle Creek, Calhoun County, Michigan, USA Show Map Memorial ID 	570 · View Source Business Entrepreneur. Inventor of corn flakes, he founded the Kellogg Cereal Company and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Born in Battle Creek, Michigan, he was the younger son of John Preston Kellogg and Ann Janette Stanley Kellogg. Just before he was born in 1860, the family moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where his father, John Preston Kellogg, established a broom factory. Growing up, he left school after the sixth grade, and began working as a stock boy in his father's broom factory, which he would later attribute as the source of his work ethic. As a young man, he obtained work from his brother, John Harvey Kellogg, working as a bookkeeper in his brother's Sanitarium, and later, became the manager of the Sanitarium. There he also assisted his brother in research to improve the vegetarian diet of their patients, and in 1894, Will accidentally discovered what would become wheat flakes, when he left a pot of boiled wheat to overcook. When the wheat was put through a rolling process, it emerged as a large, thin flake, which quickly became a favorite breakfast cereal among the patients. As patients rotated in and out of the sanitarium, they would write back for shipments of the brothers' wheat flakes, and Will quickly set up a small company, filling the requests for the flakes. Shortly afterwards, Will substituted corn for wheat, and the new cereal became an overnight success. In 1897, Will and his brother, John, started the Sanitas Food Company, to meet the demand for their cereals, but nine years later, when Will wanted to add sugar to the flakes, he and his brother parted ways. Will began his own company, the W. K. Kellogg Company, to produce the new cereal, while John kept the Sanitas Food Company. To avoid confusion with other company's cereals, Will had his signature posted on the top front of the box, so that people would know it was his cereal they were buying. By using good economics, a sense of the market place, and hard work, the W. K. Kellogg Company continued to grow, even during the Great Depression. Although he soon became a millionaire, Will never felt comfortable being rich, and continued to live a modest lifestyle, living in a two-story stucco house in Battle Creek. His only splurge of spending was on Arabian horses, and in 1925, he established a 377-acre horse ranch in Pomona, California. It was here at his Pomona Ranch that he would entertain Hollywood movie stars and other celebrities. During the Great Depression, Kellogg invested much of his wealth into helping people, becoming the first to put nutrition labels on the foods he produced, and changing his plant to work four shifts, which enabled more people to be put to work. In 1932, he donated his horse ranch to the University of California, which eventually used the land to start the California State Polytechnic College in San Louis Obispo; the ranch land buildings eventually became the Kellogg campus. Fearing that his children would become lazy or dependent upon inherited wealth and would forget the importance of hard work, Kellogg gave away much of his money to charity. In 1934, he established the Kellogg Foundation, donating more than $66 million to it. Much of his money was spent to help others in his hometown of Battle Creek, and during the 1930s, he built a school for handicapped children, a civic auditorium, a junior high school and youth recreation center. In 1930, President Herbert Hoover named him to the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. Kellogg would continue working at his Foundation for the next twenty years, until his death of heart failure at age 91.

Bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson