Corn flakes

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Cornflakes in a bowl

Corn flakes are a food made by combining cooked corn along with sugar and vitamins. The dough is rolled and toasted to make the well-known flakes, which feature as a breakfast cereal, usually but not always served with milk.

The history of corn flakes goes back to the late 19th century, when a group of Seventh-day Adventists began to develop new food to meet the standards of their strict vegetarian diet. Members of the group experimented with a number of different grains, including wheat, oats, rice, and of course, corn. In 1894, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the superintendent of The Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan and an Adventist, used these recipes as part of a strict vegetarian regimen for his patients, which also included no alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine. The diet he imposed consisted entirely of bland foods, since he believed in sexual abstinence and following the precepts of Sylvester Graham, the inventor of graham crackers and graham bread and felt that spicy or sweet foods would increase passions, while cornflakes would have an anaphrodisiac property.

This idea for corn flakes began by accident when Dr. Kellogg and his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, left some cooked wheat to sit, while they attended to some pressing matters at the sanitarium. When they returned, they found that the wheat had gone stale, but being on a strict budget, they decided to continue to process it by forcing it through rollers, hoping to obtain long sheets of the dough. To their surprise, what they got instead was flakes, which they toasted and served to their patients. This event occurred on approximately April 14, 1894, and a patent for the product was registered on May 31 under the name Granose.

The flakes of grain, served with milk, were a very popular food among the patients. The brothers then experimented with other flakes from other grains. In 1906, Will Keith Kellogg, who served as the business manager of the sanitarium, decided to try to mass-market the new food and set up his own company, Kellogg's, to do so, breaking with his brother over the addition of sugar to the flakes to make their taste more acceptable to a mass audience. Corn flakes were his first marketed product. To increase sales, in 1909 he added a special offer, the Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Booklet, which was made available to anyone who bought two boxes of the cereal. This same premium was offered for 23 years. At the same time, Kellogg also began experimenting with new grain cereals to expand his product line. Rice Krispies, his next great hit, first went on sale in 1929.

As part of an ambitious marketing campaign, various celebrities and cartoon characters have promoted the virtues of Corn Flakes since 1906. However, 1957 was the year that the ubiquitous green rooster "Cornelius Rooster" was created by the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency and has been pictured on the front of Kellogg's Corn Flakes boxes ever since. Though originally trademarked to Kellogg, the term corn flakes eventually entered the vernacular as a generic term for any cereal of this type.

A former employee of the Kelloggs, C. W. Post, started a rival company and the major other brand of corn flakes in the United States, Post Toasties. In the UK, the main brand rival is Sunblest Cornflakes.

In the 2000's some variations on "plain" Corn flakes were introduced, such as Corn Flakes with berries, and Honey Oat Corn Flakes. Frosted Flakes, which are cornflakes with a sugar coating, have been around since the 1950's.