General Foods Corporation
General Foods' final logo, designed by Saul Bass, was used from 1985 until the merger with Kraft in 1990.
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| Industry | Food |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired by Philip Morris and later merged with Kraft, Inc. |
| Successor | Kraft General Foods (now Kraft Foods and Mondelēz International) |
| Founded | 1895 (as Postum Cereal company) 1929 (as General Foods) |
| Defunct | 1990 |
| Headquarters | Tarrytown, New York, U.S. |
| Products | Post cereals, Maxwell House, Birds Eye, etc. |
| Parent | Altria Group (1985–1990) |
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions. In November 1985, General Foods was acquired by Philip Morris Companies (now Altria Group, Inc.) for $5.6 billion, the largest non-oil acquisition to that time. In December 1988, Philip Morris acquired Kraft, Inc., and, in 1990, combined the two food companies as Kraft General Foods (KGF). "General Foods" was dropped from the corporate name in 1995 and now exists only as part of a brand name for a flavored coffee-based beverage, General Foods International.
C. W. Post established his company in Battle Creek, Michigan, having lived there since 1891, when he was a patient at a holistic sanitarium operated by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Dr. Kellogg, with his brother W.K. Kellogg, had developed a dry corn flake cereal that was part of their patients’ diet. Post's first product, introduced in 1895, was not a cereal, however, but a roasted, cereal-based beverage, Postum. Having developed an aversion to coffee during his time in the sanitarium, Post positioned Postum as a healthy alternative. Its advertising slogan, which he coined himself, was "There's a Reason". Postum's main ingredients were naturally caffeine-free wheat grain, bran, and molasses. Initially, Postum had to be brewed like coffee, but in 1911, Post introduced a powdered, instant formulation. This version of the product was manufactured in Battle Creek until it was discontinued in 2007.
In 1897, Post introduced his first dry cereal, a crunchy blend of wheat and barley, which he called Grape Nuts. His first corn-flake product was introduced as "Elijah's Manna" in 1904. Owing to consumer resistance to the biblical reference (even Great Britain flatly refused to register the name as a trademark), it was renamed Post Toasties in 1907.
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