The Food That Built America Recap for Cereal Sensations

 

This week’s episode of The Food That Built America on The History Channel is titled Cereal Sensations and dives into the history of one of the most famous breakfast staples.

 

John Harvey Kellogg began working on making a healthy food for his patients, initially serving them granola, later on with his brother William.

 

A happy accident of leaving dough, rolled out and baked led to what we now know as Corn Flakes.  A fun, flirty campaign also helped it become a huge it, especially with housewives.

 

Not to be outdone, James Ford Bell, whose company is behind Gold Medal Flour, heard about a sanitarium serving patients flaked wheat cereal. He decides he wants in on the action and comes up with Wheat Flakes and would go on to become part of a billion-dollar company.

 

However, it takes 36 different recipes before they come up with a winner.

 

The Kellogg brothers, for their part, are still trying to stay on top of the cereal business. They come up with Pep Flakes, which are a wheat version of Corn Flakes, becoming a direct competitor for Wheat Flakes.

 

James is upset and decides to rebrand and remarket his cereal…renaming it Wheaties and with a collaboration with General Mills, it becomes a hit in its own right.

 

The Kelloggs decide to make a rice-based cereal….snap, crackle, POP! Rice Krispies! The sound was another happy accident and became known as the cereal that talks.

 

The Singing Lady on the radio would lead to the famous characters being the iconic mascots for the cereal.

 

General Mills decides to use real life athletes to make Wheaties more appealing, calling it the breakfast of champions.

 

During the Great Depression, healthy food was hard to come by, as were vitamins. This led to patents being obtained to add vitamin D to milk, which would lead to finding a way to combine milk and cereal without the latter getting soggy.

 

This leads to the invention a new cereal….Kix! The corn mix was shot out of a canon (potentially dangerous!) and covered with a spray of fortified vitamins. This leads to James becoming a promotion and working with Donald Davis, the latter of whom wants to create his own cereal and legacy.

This leads to the invention of Cheerios, but also a lawsuit by Quaker Oats, who think their idea of having an oat cereal is being stolen. They drop the oat from the name, which is how the name Cheerios comes to be.

 

Thanks to the Baby Boom, sugar is king….so Kelloggs decides this is a new way to appeal to the masses, namely kids. They start by adding sugar coating to Corn Flakes, inventing the GREEEAAATTTT Frosted Flakes. Tony the Tiger would become the mascot and a favorite character for the kids.

 

Not to be outdone, James and Donald decide to bring out the big guns and invent Trix, with their own mascot, the Trix Rabbit.

 

Cue the rival cereal, Froot Loops being invented to get a leg up in the competition.

 

Stan Reesman, who works for Post, wants to make his own mark on the cereal business. This would lead to him looking at boxes of cereal from his competition and deciding to combine them all…..coming up with Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles. They would soon get Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble as the mascots.

 

Cereal is still a huge hit across the nation!