At this point, Americans were buying cereal because they were intrigued by notorious figures like Kellogg—it was, first and foremost, a popular curiosity. To achieve real legitimacy, the industry still had to wage a war on two fronts. The first, against competitors; the second against the deeply entrenched idea of what really constituted a hearty American breakfast. It was one thing to have a product on the shelves, but another entirely to make consumers see it as a daily necessity. Many package designs, then, focused on the completeness of a bowl of cereal; how, Fannie Farmer be damned, this one box contained everything you needed. To be fair, there had been earlier innovations in porridge, such as Granula, “The Cereal You Have To Soak Overnight,” but that catchy tagline didn’t exactly communicate convenience. Then, in 1895, C.W. Post, a former patient at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, became so impressed with Kellogg’s grain experimentation that he founded his very own cereal company. His creation was Postum, a “cereal beverage intended to replace coffee in the morning,” explains Tony Shurman, General Manager of Post Foods. Early ads warned consumers of the “evils of caffeine,” assuring them that their children would benefit from a steady diet of Postum in its place.
