General Foods

The General Foods Company can date its beginning to 1895 when C. W. Post created the Postum Cereal Company to market Postum, a coffee substitute made out of wheat bran and molasses. He got the idea for the substitute while a patient at the Battle Creek Sanitarium operated by the Kellogg brothers.

In 1897 Post introduced a cereal that he called Grape-Nuts. This was followed in 1904 by Elijah’s Manna, a corn flake cereal that would not be a hit with consumers until it was renamed Post Toasties. Upon Post’s death in 1914 Marjorie Merriwether Post, his daughter, took over the company and began to create what would be General Foods. Post married Edward F. Hutton, an investment broker, in 1920. By 1923 he was chairman of the Postum Cereal Company.