Will Keith Kellogg
American entrepreneur (1860 - 1951)
- || At The Bottom
1895 -- 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.
- || At The Top
1946 -- After building his company into an internationally known producer of grain cereals, Will Kellogg retired as chairman of the board of the W. K. Kellogg Company. Products like Bran Flakes (introduced in 1914), and Rice Krispies (1928) had competed successfully with General Foods products and helped transform the way that Americans ate breakfast. Kellogg was most known, however, for his world famous Corn Flakes, a cereal that was imitated by companies all over the world -- none of whom could match the Kellogg product. In addition to being a hugely successful businessman, Kellogg was a renowned philanthropist as well, using his foundation to fund projects for children, including hospitals, schools, social services and recreational opportunities. His philanthropic record was successful enough that the US State Department asked him to develop similar programs for Latin America during World War II.
- || The Comeback
Although Will Kellogg was disappointed that his discovery had made another man rich and successful, he continued to tinker with the process of making flaked cereals. In 1903, he perfected the recipe for "Toasted Corn Flakes," and in 1906 he finally left his brother behind and founded his own company. At last Kellogg was free to conduct his business on his own terms. He advertised more aggressively than any of his competitors -- including Post -- and within a few years had made his flakes the leading cereal on the market. He gave away free samples and utilized inventive marketing techniques to sell his flakes. (One campaign offered housewives a free box of Corn Flakes if they winked at their grocers. Another pleaded with customers not to buy Corn Flakes because the demand was so great that the company couldn't keep up with the orders.) By the early 1920s, Will Kellogg was one of the richest men in the United States, and he'd managed to change the eating habits of hundreds of millions of people.
