• Our Company
  • Vision and Mission
  • Our History
  • Our Values
  • Leadership Team
  • Our Diversity
    • Office of Diversity and Inclusion
    • Diversity Strategy
    • Diversity and Delivering Sustainable Growth
    • Employee Resource Groups
    • Partnerships and Recognition
    • Careers
  • Kellogg Around the World
  • Quality Assurance
  • Supplier Relations
  • Supplier Diversity
  • Contact Us/FAQs
  • Supplier Great Ideas

Our History

Consumers around the world are enjoying Kellogg products, one of which –Kellogg’s Corn Flakes^®– has been part of a healthy, delicious morning for over a century. The company that makes breakfast and snacks for millions began with only 44 employees in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1906. Today Kellogg Company manufactures in 18 countries and sells its products in more than 180 countries.

For more than 100 years, innovation and our commitment to being the best in the categories in which we compete have guided our Company. From being the first company to offer premiums in its cereal boxes to being the first to fortify its cereals, Kellogg has historically been a leader in industry, innovation and marketing.

Our founder, W.K. Kellogg, had a strong commitment to nutrition, health and quality. His vision continues to drive improvement in our products and processes, with the goal of providing great-tasting, nutritious products that meet the most rigorous quality standards.

Kellogg Company was founded with an entrepreneurial spirit, and W.K. Kellogg’s legacy of innovation continues to be an instrumental part of the Company today. 

We began as a small manufacturer and marketer of better-for-you breakfast food, and while we have grown, we have never really lost that initial focus. In fact, throughout our history, the Company has retained many of the values instilled by Mr. Kellogg in those early years.

We celebrated our Company’s 100th Anniversary in 2006. It was gratifying to reflect on our successes, but we also recognize our opportunities for the future. We know our businesses well and are committed to them. We believe that it is this focus and commitment that will drive sustainable, consistent and dependable rates of growth in the years to come.

With the discovery of toasted wheat flakes, the process for developing what would become Kellogg’s Corn Flakes^® was put into place. In the late 1800s at the Battle Creek Sanatorium, a combination hospital and health spa for the elite and famous, W.K. Kellogg, business manager, and his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, chief physician, were in the process of cooking some wheat for a type of granola when they were called away. When they returned, the wheat had become stale. They decided to force the tempered grain through the rollers anyway, and, surprisingly, the grain did not come out in long sheets of dough. Instead each wheat berry was flattened and came out as a thin flake. W.K. Kellogg continued with his own experiments, developing the process for flaking corn in 1898. This led to the formation of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906, which eventually became Kellogg Company – changing the form of breakfast forever and setting into motion a century of innovation for Kellogg.

People make all the difference, and Kellogg employees around the world really are our single most important competitive advantage. Our goal is to provide an environment in which each of our employees can succeed. This requires constant diligence and the evolution of our developmental process. As Mr. Kellogg recognized a century ago, the success of our company is dependent on the success of our employees. 

 “We look forward to carrying forward the legacy our founder began by continuing to provide consumers with the great-tasting, high-quality foods and programs that help promote health and well-being,” said David Mackay, Kellogg Company President and CEO. “Importantly, we are on track to sustain this vision for many years to come.”