Corn Flakes
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Corn Flakes
© Denzil Green
Corn Flakes is a flaked breakfast cereal based on corn, flavoured with sugar, malt, salt, etc, and usually fortified with vitamins. You serve it in a bowl, with cold milk on it.
Corn Flakes is a generic name. Various companies brand theirs by adding their company name, such as "Kellogg's Corn Flakes" or "Skippy Corn Flakes." Post Cereals calls theirs "Post Toasties."
The cereal was first made by the Kellogg's company
Kellogg's does not make corn flakes for other companies to sell under other brand names.
In the UK, Kellogg's Corn Flakes are made in Manchester. It is the largest production plant of Corn Flakes in the world, and operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 3 cups Corn Flakes equals 1 cup crushed
History Notes for Corn Flakes
He hired his younger brother, William Keith, to work for him. William had been born in 1860, the same year as the headquarters were established. He came to work for his brother in 1880 at the age of 20, and he was 34 when the great discovery was made in 1894. Will often helped his brother in experimenting with new ways of preparing nutritious food. The two brothers that year were experimenting with masses of boiled wheat dough, put through rollers to make it into sheets. One night, Will left the dough out overnight before rolling it. The next morning, instead of a flat sheet coming out through the rollers, the dough broke up into flakes. Nothing daunted, he put it on the menu for breakfast for patients at the Sanitarium, and it was a hit -- the patients asked for more. In fact, patients wanted the flakes even after they had left the Sanitarium and returned home, so a mail-order business was set up, 15 cents for a 10 ounce (280 g) package. In 1896, Will sold 113,400 pounds (51,450 kg) of the Corn Flakes this way -- without any advertising.
John Harvey didn't want to expand the Corn Flake business: he was afraid that the commercialism would affect his reputation as a doctor. By 1906, however, Will (at the age of 46) decided to go for it. He bought out the commercial rights from his brother, sweetened the flakes with malt (which patients loved but his brother hated on health grounds) and started the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company.
On Wednesday, 7 June 1907 his first truly major advertising campaign began in New York City. Housewives were told to go wink at their grocer on Wednesday and they would get a free box of Corn Flakes. The city loved the campaign and sales increased 15 times because of it.
He then went on to promote other products such as Rice Krispies and All Bran. He became a multi-millionaire, and during the Great Depression, in 1934, he put most of his fortune, about $66 million US, into a foundation he created, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He died in 1951 at the age of 91.
Sale of Corn Flakes began in Australia in 1924; in Germany, in 1929.
In 2009, Kellogg's came up with a way to laser-brand individual corn flakes with their logo. They then considered whether to introduce some of the branded flakes into each box to ensure its authenticity to consumers. As of 2011, the company did not appear to have decided to proceed yet.
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