Kellogg's

• 1. Introduction

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  The Kellogg Company, known to shoppers as Kellogg's, traces its origins to a batch of wheat-berry dough that a doctor left behind one night. By 2018 the company made and sold its products in over 180 countries. Its largest factory stood at Trafford Park, in Greater Manchester, and it held a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II until her death in 2022. That same year, its mission statement promised "Nourishing families so they can flourish and thrive."

  Yet the firm began in a vegetarian sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, and it nearly tore a family apart. Who actually discovered the cereal flake? Why did one brother sue the other over the right to a surname? How did a company built on Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies and Eggo slump, recover, and then break itself in two? And what did it cost the company when its own advertising, packaging and labor policies came under scrutiny?

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• 2. Sanitarium Kitchen

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  In 1876, John Harvey Kellogg became superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The institution had begun as the Western Health Reform Institute, founded by Ellen White. His younger brother, Will Keith Kellogg, worked there as the bookkeeper.

  For years Will also assisted John in research aimed at improving the vegetarian diet served to patients. Their special hope was a wheat-based granola. The breakthrough that followed in 1894 produced the flaked cereal, but nobody agrees on exactly how.

  Ella Eaton Kellogg, John, Will and other relatives each described the episode in their own way. They disagree about who took part and what each person contributed. The accounts converge on one point. The next day, John chose not to throw the dough away. He sent it through the rollers instead, and he was surprised to find delicate flakes that could then be baked.

  Will saw a future in the idea and persuaded his brother to serve the food in flake form. Soon the flaked wheat was being packed up to answer hundreds of mail-order requests from guests who had already gone home. Those requests would soon set the two brothers against each other.

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• 3. Brothers at War

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  Dr. John Harvey Kellogg did not want the cereal leaving his sanitarium's circle of customers, and he forbade Will from distributing it any wider. The brothers fell out over the ban. On the 19th of February 1906, Will launched his own enterprise, the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company.

  John, who resented his younger brother's success, filed suit that same year for the right to use the family name. The legal fight included a trial that lasted an entire month. It dragged on until December 1920, when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in Will's favor.

  Meanwhile, disaster struck the young business on the 4th of July 1907, when a fire destroyed the main factory building. Will had a new plant in full operation six months later. By 1909, his company was producing 120,000 cases of Corn Flakes every day.

  Will also convinced John to give up his rights to the product. His firm was renamed the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1909. It took the name the world now knows, the Kellogg Company, in 1922.

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• 4. Shorter Workdays and a Long Strike

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  In 1931, the Kellogg Company announced that most of its factories would move from the usual 40-hour week to a 30-hour week. W. K. Kellogg said his reason was to employ an additional shift of workers and help people through the depression era. The practice lasted until World War II and continued briefly afterward. Some departments and factories stayed locked into 30-hour weeks until 1980.

  Ninety years later, labor relations looked very different. In October 2021, workers at the company's cereal plants in the United States went on strike. The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union led the walkout over the terms of a new labor contract.

  On the 3rd of December 2021, negotiators reached a tentative deal. Union members overwhelmingly rejected it. Management then announced it would seek to replace all 1,400 striking workers.

  Accounts of the dispute add that the company had threatened to move jobs to Mexico and had filed a lawsuit against the union. Calls for a boycott went viral. On the 21st of December 2021, about 1,400 workers approved a collective bargaining agreement, ending a strike that had lasted 77 days.

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• 5. Slump and Comeback

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  From 1969 to 1970, the slogan "Kellogg's puts more into your day" aired on Sunday morning television shows. Between 1969 and 1977, the company bought several small businesses, including Salada Tea, Fearn International, Mrs. Smith's Pies, Eggo and Pure Packed Foods. Critics later said it had failed to diversify as far as General Mills and Quaker Oats did.

  The company also spent less than its rivals on marketing and product development. By 1983, its share of the American market had fallen to a low of 36.7%. A prominent Wall Street analyst called it "a fine company that's past its prime," and the cereal market itself was being regarded as "mature."

  Those remarks stirred chairman William E. LaMothe to act. His plan focused on the 80 million baby boomers rather than on children's cereals, and it stressed convenience and nutritional value. Americans aged 25 to 49 came to eat 26% more cereal than people of that age had five years earlier.

  The market grew from $3.7 billion at retail in 1983 to $5.4 billion by 1988. That was three times as fast as the average grocery category. New products included Crispix, Raisin Squares and Nutri-Grain Biscuits. The company also created Just Right for Australians and Genmai Flakes for Japan, while General Mills stuck mostly to children's cereals and Post struggled with adult buyers.

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• 6. Deals and Divisions

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  In 2001, the company paid $3.87 billion to acquire the Keebler Company. Over the following years it added Morningstar Farms and Kashi, and in 2007 it bought Gardenburger. Its portfolio also grew to include Bear Naked, Cheez-It, Famous Amos and Plantation.

  In 2012, a $2.7 billion cash deal for the potato crisps brand Pringles, bought from Procter & Gamble, made it the world's second-largest snack food company after PepsiCo. In 2017, it paid $654 million for the Chicago-based food company Rxbar. That year it also opened new offices in Chicago's Merchandise Mart for its global growth and IT departments.

  In 2018, the economic crisis in Venezuela led Kellogg's to cease operations there, and the Venezuelan state under Nicolas Maduro took over its factories. By mid-2019, Venezuelan cereal boxes carried the national flag and a Maduro motto, "Together, everything is possible," beside Kellogg's logo and mascots. The company called this an illicit use and said it would take legal action.

  On the 1st of April 2019, Kellogg's announced a $1.4 billion sale to Ferrero SpA. The package covered Famous Amos, Murray's, Keebler, Mother's and Little Brownie Bakers, one of the producers of Girl Scouts cookies. The sale closed on the 29th of July 2019. Kellogg's kept the Keebler cracker line and gave it the Kellogg's name.

  Then, on the 21st of June 2022, the company announced it would split into separate businesses. A snacks and international cereal company, temporarily called Global Snacking Co., would be based in Chicago and would represent 80 percent, or $11.4 billion, of sales. A North American cereal company would stay in Battle Creek. With five of the top eleven brands and $2.4 billion in annual sales, it would be the second-largest American cereal company and the largest in Canada and the Caribbean.

  A plant-based business, with $340 million in annual sales, was to become a third company called Plant Co. In January 2023, Kellogg's shelved that plan and kept the business inside Global Snacking Co. On the 15th of March 2023, the cereal company was named WK Kellogg Co and the snacks company Kellanova. Kellanova took the ticker symbol K on the New York Stock Exchange.

  The split was completed on the 2nd of October 2023. In 2025, Mars acquired Kellanova, while Ferrero acquired WK Kellogg Co.

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• 7. Claims and Complaints

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  On the 3rd of June 2010, the Federal Trade Commission found that Kellogg's had made unsubstantiated and misleading claims in advertising its cereals. The regulator had earlier faulted the claim that Frosted Mini-Wheats improved children's attentiveness by nearly 20%. The company answered: "We stand behind the validity of our product claims and research, so we agreed to an order that covers those claims."

  A Better Business Bureaus review unit suggested that Pop-Tarts packages drop the words "Made with Real Fruit." In July 2012, the UK banned a Special K advertisement because its calorie figures left out the milk people pour on the cereal. In 2016, a UK advertisement calling Special K "full of goodness" and "nutritious" was banned too.

  In October 2021, a class-action lawsuit sought $5 million over the amount of strawberries in strawberry Pop-Tarts. A federal judge dismissed it in April 2022. A second 2021 suit claimed that Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts lacked milk, milkfat or butter. In June 2022, a district judge dismissed it, reasoning that a reasonable consumer would not expect those ingredients.

  Recalls brought sharper scrutiny. On the 25th of June 2010, the company began recalling about 28 million boxes of Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and Honey Smacks. Roughly 20 people had complained of an odd smell and taste, and five reported nausea and vomiting. The suspected cause was a chemical called 2-methylnaphthalene, used in the packaging liners. Only boxes with the letters KN after the use-by date were included.

  In 2012, a second voluntary recall covered certain Mini-Wheats products over possible fragments of flexible metal mesh. The affected sizes ranged from single-serving bowls to 70-ounce cartons.

  In 2016, Amnesty International reported that Wilmar International, Kellogg's palm oil supplier, profited from child labor by 8 to 14-year-olds and from forced labor. Kellogg's said it was unaware of the abuses because of traceability problems. Amnesty's human rights director replied that "Using mealy-mouthed excuses about 'traceability' is a total cop-out."

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• 8. Boxes Full of Characters

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  W. K. Kellogg was the first to put prizes in cereal boxes, a strategy that eventually produced thousands of different prizes distributed by the tens of billions. The first cereal premium arrived in 1909: The Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Book. At first, shoppers received it free in the store with the purchase of two packages of Corn Flakes. In 1909, it became a mail-in offer for a dime, and over 2.5 million copies went out in different editions over 23 years.

  In 1945, each box of Pep cereal held a pin-back button. Five series of comic characters, with 18 buttons in each set, made a collection of 90, and the pins ran through 1947. Rival makers including General Mills, Malt-O-Meal, Nestle, Post Foods and Quaker Oats soon followed with prizes of their own.

  The mascots became household names. Tony the Tiger fronted Frosted Flakes, Toucan Sam led Froot Loops, and Cornelius the rooster pitched Corn Flakes. Dig 'Em Frog sold Honey Smacks, and Snap, Crackle and Pop represented Rice Krispies. A jingle also stuck in memory: "K E double-L, O double-good, Kellogg's best to you!"

  Some ideas did not last. A 1984 cereal inspired by the droid C-3PO from Star Wars was shaped like the number eight, "twin rings phased together." After the company ended the Star Wars tie, it renamed the cereal Pro Grain. Cocoa Hoots, made briefly in the early 1970s, starred Newton the Owl, and one commercial featured a young Jodie Foster. The early 1960s cereal OKs was half O shapes and half K shapes. Big Otis, a burly Scotsman, was replaced on the box by Yogi Bear. Mr. T's Muscle Crunch ran from 1983 to 1985.

  The company also took its faces to the racetrack. Between 1991 and 1992, it sponsored the #41 Chevrolets of Larry Hedrick Motorsports in NASCAR. From 1993 to 2006 it backed two-time Winston Cup champion Terry Labonte. In 1996, it released a special three-pack racing box set featuring Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte and Dale Jarrett.

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