August 28, 2012

• Washburn’s Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes?

  The birth of the Breakfast of Champions was actually an accident? Well many great products started in the lab as failed experiments…Post it Notes, the legendary Slinky and yes, even Wheaties.
  
  The legend behind this famous cereal’s creation actually begin with bran gruel, which was what a clumsy dietician at the Washburn Crosby Company was preparing in 1922 when he spilled some on a hot stove top.

  The gruel drops sizzled and crackled into flakes. Once he gave a flake a taste, the cook realized his accident had created something that tasted way better than the gruel. He got the head honchos at Washburn on board, and they tried 36 different varieties of the creation before developing the perfect flake that wouldn’t crumble in the box.

  Even the name could have gone another way. The cereal was released as Washburn’s Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes; soon after, an employee contest resulted in the name being changed to Wheaties, allegedly beating out Nukeys and Gold Medal Wheat Flakes, though who would have known 90 years ago that so many gold-medal winners would eventually don the box of that glorified gruel?

  • 5:49 pm
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