Will Keith Kellogg

  b. 1860; d. 1951 | American entrepreneur

At The Bottom

— 1895

Will Kellogg continued to work for a brother who'd thwarted his ambition.

Will Kellogg was angry with his older brother.  For years, Kellogg had worked at the hospital and health spa run by John Harvey Kellogg in Michigan.  At the Battle Creek Sanitarium, John Kellogg emphasized the role of nutrition and diet in restoring and preserving good health.  He also treated his brother like a servant, expecting him to shine his shoes and shave his whiskers while being stingy with his wealth.  (Though John’s estate was worth more than $4 million — roughly $100 million in contemporary terms — he only paid Will a salary of $87 a month.)  While experimenting with whole grains, the brothers developed a wheat flake that patients enjoyed so much that many asked for boxes of it when they left the sanitarium.  Will Kellogg hoped that his brother would agree to produce and market the product on a wider basis, but John insisted that the product only be used for their patients.  When C. W. Post — an inventor and farm equipment manufacturer from Texas — came to Battle Creek in the early 1890s after a nervous breakdown, he fell in love with the cereal and became convinced he could duplicate the product.   He did, opening his own cereal company almost literally down the street from the Battle Creek Sanitarium.  By the end of the century, C.W. Post had turned Will Kellogg’s great idea into a business that sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cereal each year.  Even worse, Post’s advertisements could be seen in newspapers and magazines everywhere.  Post’s company, which would eventually be known as General Foods, soon became one of the most recognizable brands of food in the United States.  Meanwhile, Will Kellogg continued to work for a brother who’d thwarted his ambition.