Will Keith Kellogg Biography

Will Keith Kellogg (W.K. Kellogg) was an American industrialist best known as the founder of the Kellogg Company which produces a wide variety of popular breakfast cereals. The company which originally made only toasted cornflakes enjoyed great success which motivated Kellogg to expand the range of breakfast products the company manufactured and sold. He was an astute businessman blessed with great entrepreneurial and marketing skills. Through his hard work and unrelenting determination he made his company the market leader in the packaged breakfast food market in America for most of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a large family in Michigan, Kellogg dropped out of school as a teenager and helped his father in his business. He realized that he was naturally gifted with a keen business sense that would greatly aid him in his future endeavors. He later joined his brother John Harvey Kellogg in running the Battle Creek Sanitarium where the brothers pioneered the process of making flaked cereal. Following a dispute with his brother, Will went his separate way and formed the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company which later became the Kellogg Company. Along with being a highly successful businessman Kellogg was also known to be a large-hearted philanthropist who played an instrumental role in the founding of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.