Antique Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes Advertising Flyer Circa 1910. Depicts a small girl begging her mother for more delicious corn flakes. 

Size: 16 x 10 3/4 x 3/4 in. 

#7434 . 

In 1876 John Harvey Kellogg became the superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium (originally the Western Health Reform Institute founded by Ellen White), and his brother, Will Keith (W. K.) Kellogg, worked as the bookkeeper. For years W. K. assisted his brother in research to improve the vegetarian diet of the Battle Creek Sanitarium’s patients, especially in the search for wheat-based granola, until one night John left a batch of wheat-berry dough out on the counter and it grew mold. Rather than throwing it out the following day, he sent it through the rollers and was surprised to obtain delicate flakes, which could then be baked to a crunchy consistency and were named “corn flakes.” W. K. persuaded his brother to serve the food to guests both at and after they left the Sanitarium, but John forbade him to distribute the cereal beyond their own consumers. As a result the brothers fell out, and W. K. launched the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company on February 19th, 1906, eventually convincing John to relinquish rights to the product. It was renamed the Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1909, and the name was shortened to Kellogg’s Company in 1922. By then they were producing over 120,000 cases of Corn Flakes daily, permanently altering the battlefield of the Cereal Wars that had begun in 1895 when C.W. Post, a former patient of John’s, created his own recipe based off of John’s initial granola product. In 1964 Kellogg’s introduced its first non-cereal product, a pastry that could be heated in a toaster called a Pop-Tart. From 1969 to 1977 Kellogg’s acquired various small businesses, including Salada Tea, Fearn International, Mrs. Smith’s Pies, Eggo, and Pure Packed Foods. It was later criticized for not diversifying further, as General Mills and Quaker Oats had, when its U.S. market share hit a low of 36.7% in 1983. Board chairman William E. LaMothe directed all focus to appeal to the demographic of 80 million baby boomers, rather than marketing children-oriented cereals as their competitors had. Their focus on “healthy” and “nutritional” aspects of their cereals single-handedly brought the U.S. ready-to-eat cereal market, worth $3.7 billion at retail in 1983, to $5.4 billion by 1988. Kellogg’s also introduced new products including Crispix, Raisin Squares, and Nutri-Grain Biscuits, and reached out internationally with Just Right aimed at Australians and Genmai Flakes for Japan. In 2001 Kellogg’s acquired the Keebler Company for $3.87 billion, quickly followed by Morningstar Farms, Kashi, Bear Naked, Cheez-It, Famous Amos, and numerous other brands. In 2012 Kellogg’s became the world’s second-largest snack food company (after PepsiCo) by acquiring the potato crisps brand Pringles from Procter & Gamble for $2.7 billion. After a series of missteps in the mid 2010s Kellogg’s sold off Famous Amos, Murray’s, Keebler, Mother’s, and Little Brownie Bakers to Ferrero SpA in late 2019 for $1.4 billion. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic the conglomerate has been plagued by labor strikes and lawsuits, leading to a proposed three-way split into smaller enterprises, named Global Snacking Co., North American Cereal Co., and Plant Co. In 2023 the decision was made to keep Plant Co. part of Global Snacking (which was renamed Kellanova), while North American was renamed WK Kellogg Co. In 2024, Mars Inc., owner of M&M’s and Snickers, purchased Kellanova for nearly $30 billion, leaving the WK Kellogg company the last remaining vestige of the brothers’ legacy.