Post Heritage North America

Shredded Wheat Story

In 1892 the cereal revolution begins: Denver lawyer and inventor Henry Drushel Perky discovers the health benefits of whole wheat and together with William Harry Ford develops a machine that will press it into tiny shred-like strips.

Perky and his brother, John, create The Cereal Machine Company to manufacture small hand machines which people can use to make the wheat biscuits at home. Perky soon realizes that the real opportunity lies not in the manufacturing of machines for domestic use, but in making the shredded wheat biscuit itself. The Cereal Machine Company changes its name to the Natural Food Company in 1894 and opens another plant with 11 shredding machines in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

In 1901, Perky builds a showcase two million dollar factory named "World's Finest Food Factory" and "The Palace of Light" and invites the public to tour his 10 acre site on Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls, NY, overlooking the falls.

Perky's Natural Food Company is renamed in 1904 to the Shredded Wheat Company and this is the year Shredded Wheat comes to Canada. Perky opens a plant in Niagara Falls, Ontario which he calls the Canadian Shredded Wheat Company.

The C.W. Post Story

In 1895 the Post Cereals tradition begins when C.W. Post makes his first batch of "Postum," a cereal beverage, in a little white barn in Battle Creek, Michigan. With that step he enters the brand new retail cereal industry. In 1897 C.W. Post introduces Grape-Nuts cereal, one of the first ready-to-eat cold cereals—believed to be named after the "grape sugar" that formed during the baking process, and "nuts" for its nutty flavour.

Post follows the Grape-Nuts success with a corn flakes product in 1904 which he called Elijah's Manna, later renamed Post Toasties, in 1908.

1912 Post introduces a refinement of his original product, Instant Postum cereal beverage. C.W. Post uses marketing techniques that are now considered industry standard, but which were innovative for their time. These include extensive advertising, coupons, free samples, product demonstrations, plant tours and recipe booklets.

C.W. Post dies in 1914, but the Postum Cereal Company follows the formula for success which he had established: selling high-quality, nutritious cereal products through marketing and advertising techniques that appealed to the common man and woman.