The Unusual Way Kellogg's First Sold Cereal Before Hitting Up Stores

Kellogg's Corn Flakes have been around for a long time, and in those 100+ years of history, there are some unusual quirks. For a company that essentially invented cereal advertising, it may seem unusual that Kellogg's Corn Flakes were first advertised and sold primarily by mail. Even more unexpected, the cereal's first customers were sanitarium patients.

As a young man, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was the famous administrator of a well-known Seventh-day Adventist sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. The bizarre origin story of Kellogg's Corn Flakes is that Kellogg believed flavorful foods were a font of sin and sexual corruption, and sought to make healthy but plain meals for his patients with the help of his wife, Ella, and his brother, William. One of their focal points was promoting good digestion.

While experimenting with new recipes in 1894, they discovered a process to make crispy wheat flakes they called Granose, the world's first flaked cereal. Four years later, a refined version of the process was applied to maize, and Kellogg's Corn Flakes were born. The Kelloggs soon began mailing advertisements for Corn Flakes to John's former patients, and fulfilling mail orders for the cereal.

Mail order cereal may seem strange now, but in the early 20th century, many things could be bought by mail, including single-family homes. In that regard, Dr. Kellogg's strategy was not particularly innovative. But the rapid success of Corn Flakes led to intense competition in a new market. One of the hottest rivals even came from a former patient of Dr. Kellogg's sanitarium — C.W. Post, the inventor of Grape-Nuts and namesake of Post Consumer Brands.

As business heated up, Dr. Kellogg found that he did not want to be a cutthroat businessman, unlike his brother William, to whom he sold the rights for Kellogg's Corn Flakes in the early 1900s. Although Dr. Kellogg continued making the plain cereal for his patients, William turned Kellogg's Corn Flakes into a major business and pioneered modern breakfast cereals.

The significant difference between the two types of corn flakes was that William's mass-market cereal contained added sugars, a trend now widely embraced by the cereal industry. Soon after, Kellogg's effectively invented cereal box prizes as well, with an offer for a free picture book for a mailed-in proof of purchase. Corn flakes may be relatively unassuming compared to modern cereal, but it paved the way for the competition.