Battle Creek Sanitarium. In a time when Americans were obsessed with digestion and healthy bowel movements, Dr. John Kellogg had become a nationally known health guru through his extensive writing of articles and books on diets and healthy eating habits. The doctor’s prominence attracted patients and guests from abroad as well as numerous American celebrities. Visitors to the San included President William Howard Taft, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, playwright George Bernard Shaw, Amelia Earhart, Johnny Weissmuller, the Tarzan movie star, Black activist Sojourner Truth, and others. Although Will was hired with the title of bookkeeper, his brother treated him as his flunky. He insisted Will always address him as Dr. Kellogg, andWill was required to follow John around with a notebook, writing down his brother’s thoughts, even during trips to the bathroom. Visitors to the San would gape at the sight of John riding his bicycle across the campus with his brother running alongside, trying to keep pace while taking notes. With his interest in creating digestible food and meat substitutes, John spent hours in the sanitarium’s test kitchen concocting grain-based mixtures. He was assisted by his wife, Ella Eaton Kellogg, herself the author of cookbooks devoted to vegetarian diets. Among the 30 patents John was awarded are a peanut butter paste, soy milk, and Protose, a meat substitute he created from grain and nut cereals. Other patents were for his design of medical devices. The brothers’ discovery of baked wheat flakes served with milk was an instant hit with patients and clients staying at the San. It also created a revenue stream, as John instructed Will to institute a mail-order service to enable former patients to buy and continue enjoying the new breakfast food at home. One of those patients who took notice was C.W. Post, who went on to produce his own line of toasted cereals. He introduced Grape Nuts cereal based on John Kellogg’s granola biscuits, and created a cereal-based drink he named Postum, copied from Kellogg’s imitation coffee drink. Post’s Postum Cereal Co. reportedly earned $3 million in 1900. His immediate success wasn’t lost on Will Kellogg. Despite serving in a subordinate position to his brother, Will’s strong work ethic enabled him to become the leading manager of the sanitarium. He acted as the institution’s administrator, oversaw the publishing house responsible for distributing John’s books, and managed the new mail-order food service. Will noted, albeit discreetly, that he was working up to 120 hours per week while receiving only a modest salary from John. At his brother’s bidding, Will developed a small factory in the San where he sold 10-ounce packs of wheat flakes for 15 cents. In the first year of production, they sold 113,000 pounds of flakes. Unlike his brother, whose interest in the venture was promoting good digestion, Will saw the commercial value of convenient, tasty breakfast food. He began devoting considerable time to experimenting with various grains, adding ingredients like
sugar and salt to improve the taste. Eventually he focused on corn, which was sweeter. In 1897, John agreed to partner with Will in forming Sanitas Food Co. to meet the growing demand for the cereal they named Granose. The following year they introduced Sanitas Toasted Corn Flakes, followed by Granose Biscuits. In the early 1900s, Will was pushing his brother to add sugar to their corn flakes, but John balked at the idea. That disagreement prompted Will to buy John’s rights to the manufacture of corn flakes. In 1906, Will founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Co. and hired his first 44 employees. Will’s flair for advertising drove his new company to ship out 175,000 cases of corn flakes that first year. Sales grew fifteen-fold during a newspaper and magazine advertising campaign he created that instructed women to “wink at your grocer and see what you get.” What you got was a free sample of Kellogg’s corn flakes. Will Kellogg’s breakfast-served-out-of-a box cereal gained traction across the country, showing up in nearly every pantry in America. Soon, Battle Creek was nicknamed Cereal City as more than 30 cereal manufacturers, including C.W. Post, set up shop there. In 1908, John created his own cereal company and began marketing his version of corn flakes with the name Kellogg, touching off a decade-long legal battle between the brothers. Will was afraid consumers would confuse his brother’s corn flakes with his sweeter version. He went to court and obtained a court injunction to stop John from using the family name on his cereal boxes. Will introduced Kellogg’s Bran Flakes in 1915 and Kellogg’s Rice Krispies a year later, even as the legal battle played out. In 1920, the Kellogg fight reached the Michigan Supreme Court. The justices ruled in Will’s favor, upholding a lower court ruling preventing John from RISE AND SHINE An early advertisement from Will K. Kellogg distinguishing his “sweeter” flakes.
using the Kellogg name on his cereal products. Adding more fuel to their sibling fire, the court ordered John to pay Will’s legal fees, and to pay him the profits John’s cereal business had earned in the preceding 10 years. After that decision, the brothers rarely spoke to each other. If they had to meet, Will insisted a third person be in the room. In 1922, Will changed the company name to the WK Kellogg Co and expanded the business to Canada, Britain, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The private lives of both men remained chaotic. John was never able to shake off his jealousy and anger over Will’s success, while Will, despite emerging from his brother’s shadow and earning immense business success, alienated those around him as he turned bitter, paranoid, and hostile. He married twice and had five children with his first wife before she died; two of those children also died young. His two surviving sons eventually severed their relationships with him. Because of his celibate views, John and Ella Kellogg never consummated their marriage and maintained separate bedrooms throughout their 40-year union. And despite John’s avowed views as a segregationist, he and Ella legally adopted eight children and were foster parents to 34 others. Will, who once complained that as a child he never learned to play, gave away much of his wealth to charities that supported youth activity. In 1934, during the Great Depression, he donated $66 million to establish the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, to help families pay for care for their sick or injured children. The foundation remains one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations, and has spawned other institutions such as the Kellogg Eye Institute at the University of Michigan. According to Grand Rapids-based author Erica Emelander, the battling Kellogg brothers experienced one last tragic twist in their relationship just before each man died. In 1943, at age 91, when John was on his deathbed, he dictated a letter to Will apologizing for his lifelong bad treatment of his brother, and asked to make amends for his mistakes. His secretary decided, however, that the letter made John, the boss she admired, sound weak and she never delivered it until eight years later, when Will — by then also 91 years old — was near death. Ironically, the letter had to be read to him because glaucoma had robbed him of his sight over the last 10 years of his life. In 2023, the WK Kellogg Co was split into two independent businesses. Kellanova became a global snacking operation, based in Chicago, while the North American cereal business WK Kellogg Co. remained in Battle Creek. Earlier this year, the Italian chocolatier Ferrero Group, which produces Nutella, Kinder, and Ferrero Roche, agreed to buy the cereal company for $3.1 billion in cash. When the deal closes at the end of the year, Battle Creek will continue as the Kellogg brand’s North American headquarters under Ferrero.
November - December 2025 || DBUSINESS.COM 94
COURTESY W.K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION
Exec Life