The Quaker Oats Company, known as Quaker, is an American food conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois. As Quaker Mill Company, the company was founded in 1877 in Ravenna, Ohio. In 1881, Henry Parsons Crowell bought the company and launched a national advertising campaign for Quaker Oats.
In 1911, the company acquired the Great Western Cereal Company. The iconic cylindrical package was introduced in 1915. The company's logo, which depicts a Quaker man, has had several iterations.
In 1983, Quaker acquired Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., the maker of Van Camp's and Gatorade. In 2001, PepsiCo bought Quaker Oats for $14 billion, primarily to acquire the Gatorade brand.[1]
History
Precursor miller companies
In the 1850s, Ferdinand Schumacher and Robert Stuart founded oat mills. Schumacher founded the German Mills American Oatmeal Company in Akron, Ohio, and Stuart founded the North Star Mills in Hearst, Ontario, then part of Rupert's Land. In 1870, Schumacher ran his first known cereal advertisement in the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper. In 1877, the Quaker Mill Company of Ravenna, Ohio, was founded.
According to some accounts, Quaker Mill partner Henry Seymour came up with the brand name after discovering an encyclopedia article about Quakers. He stated that the qualities describing Quakers, such as integrity, honesty, and purity, were traits that he wanted customers to associate with the company's product. According to the company, William Heston also said that he had selected the name.[2] Quaker Mill Company held the trademark on the Quaker name. In Ravenna, Ohio, on September 4, 1877, Henry Seymour of the Quaker Mill Company applied for the first trademark for a breakfast cereal[3] — "a figure of a man in 'Quaker garb'".[4][2]
In 1879, John Stuart and his son Robert joined with George Douglas to form Imperial Mill and set up their operation in Chicago, Illinois. In 1881, Henry Parsons Crowell bought the Quaker Mill Company;[2] the following year, he launched the first national magazine advertising campaign for breakfast cereal, introducing a cereal box that made it possible to buy in quantities other than bulk. He also bought the bankrupt Quaker Oat Mill Company in Ravenna and held the key positions of general manager, president and chairman of the company from 1888 until late 1943, becoming known as the cereal tycoon. He donated more than 70% of his wealth to the Crowell Trust.
In 1888, the American Cereal Company was formed by the merger of seven major oat millers. Ferdinand Schumacher became president, Henry Crowell the general manager, and John Stuart the secretary-treasurer. In 1889, the American Cereal Company introduced the half-ounce trial size and, as a promotion, distributed one to every home in Portland, Oregon, via boys on bicycles. Later, this promotion was extended to other cities. A second promotion involved placing dinner plates within the then-regular (not round) boxes of oats.
Quaker Oats Company
In 1901, the Quaker Oats Company was founded in New Jersey with headquarters in Chicago, by the merger of four oat mills: the Quaker Mill Company in Ravenna, Ohio, which held the trademark on the Quaker name; the cereal mill in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, owned by John Stuart, his son Robert Stuart, and their partner George Douglas; the German Mills American Oatmeal Company in Akron, Ohio, owned by Schumacher; The Rob Lewis & Co. American Oats and Barley Oatmeal Corporation. Formally known as "Good For Breakfast" instant oatmeal mix. In the same year, the whole merged company was acquired by Crowell, who also bought the bankrupt Quaker Oat Mill Company, also in Ravenna.[5]
In 1908, Quaker Oats introduced the first in a series of cookie recipes on the box. In 1911, Quaker Oats purchased the Great Western Cereal Company. The iconic cylindrical package made its first appearance in 1915. Later that year, Quaker offered the first cereal box premium to buyers. By sending in one dollar and the cutout picture of the "Quaker Man", customers received a double boiler for the cooking of oatmeal.
In the 1920s, Quaker introduced "Quaker Quick Oats", an early convenience food, and also offered a crystal radio set built in the same cylindrical canister as Quick Oats, with the same label, for US$1 plus two trademarks cut from Quaker Oats packages.[6]
Major facility
The major Canadian production facility for Quaker Oats is located in Peterborough, Ontario. The factory was first established as the American Cereal Company[20] in 1902 on the shores of the Otonabee River during that city's period of industrialization. At the time, the city was known as "The Electric City" due to its hydropower resources,[21] attracting many companies to the site to take advantage of this source. The Trent–Severn Waterway also promised to provide an alternate shipping route from inland areas around the city. On December 11, 1916, the factory all but completely burned to the ground. When the smoke had settled, 23 people had died and Quaker was left with $2,000,000 in damages. Quaker went on to rebuild the facility, incorporating the few areas of the structure that were not destroyed by fire.
When PepsiCo purchased Quaker Oats in 2001, many brands were consolidated from facilities around Canada to the Peterborough location, which assumed the new QTG (Quaker Tropicana Gatorade) moniker. Local production includes Quaker Oatmeal, Quaker Chewy bars, Cap'n Crunch cereal, Pearl Milling Company instant pancake mixes and pancake syrups, Quaker Oat Bran and Corn Bran cereals, Gatorade
Land giveaways in cereal boxes
Starting in 1902, the company's oatmeal boxes came with a coupon redeemable for the legal deed to a tiny lot in Milford, Connecticut. The lots, sometimes as small as 10 feet by 10 feet, were carved out of a 15-acre, never-built subdivision called Liberty Park. A small number of children (or their parents), often residents living near Milford, redeemed their coupons for the free deeds and started paying the extremely small property taxes on the "oatmeal lots". The developer of the prospective subdivision hoped the landowners would hire him to build homes on the lots, although several tracts would need to be combined before building could start. The legal deeds created a large amount of paperwork for town tax collectors, who frequently could not find the property owners and received almost no tax revenue from them. In the mid-1970s, the town put an end to the oatmeal lots with a "general foreclosure" condemning nearly all of the property, which is now part of a BiC Corporation plant.[23]
In 1955, Quaker Oats again gave away land as part of a promotion, this one tied to the Sergeant Preston of the Yukon television show in the United States. The company offered in its Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice cereal boxes genuine deeds to land in the Klondike.[23]
2023–2024 product recalls
In 2023, concentrations of chlormequat, a pesticide known to cause reproductive and developmental issues in animals, in oat-based foods, including popular brands like Cheerios and Quaker Oats, were notably higher in 2023 compared to previous years. Quaker Oats Company issued numerous recalls of over 60 products starting from December 15 due to potential contamination with salmonella bacteria, affecting various cereals such as Cap'n Crunch and Oatmeal Squares, as well as Gatorade protein bars and batches of Quaker Chewy granola bars and Quaker granola cereals. The latest recall, involving the Quaker Chewy Dipps Llama Rama bars, was announced on January 31, 2024.[24][25]
Logo
Starting in 1877, the Quaker Oats logo had a figure of a Quaker man depicted full-length, sometimes holding a scroll with the word "Pure" written across it, resembling the classic woodcuts of William Penn (founder of the Province of Pennsylvania), the 17th-century philosopher and early Quaker.[26]
In 1946, graphic designer Jim Nash created a black-and-white head-and-shoulders portrait of the smiling Quaker Man, and Haddon Sundblom's now-familiar color head-and-shoulders portrait (using fellow Coca-Cola artist Harold W. McCauley as the model) debuted in 1957. In 1965, a new advertising slogan was introduced: "Nothing is better for thee, than me".[27]
The monochromatic 1970 Quaker Oats Company logo, modeled after the Sundblom illustration, was created by Saul Bass, a graphic designer known for his motion picture title sequences and corporate logos. In 2012, the company enlisted the firm of Hornall Anderson to give the "Quaker man" a slimmer, somewhat younger look.[28][29]
Controversy
Research on children
From 1946 to 1953, researchers from Quaker Oats Company, MIT and Harvard University carried out experiments at the Walter E. Fernald State School to determine how the minerals from cereals were metabolized. Fernald was a residential institution housing mostly boys with disabilities. The school asked parents of its students for permission to let their children be members of a Science Club. Members of the Science Club would participate in research and get special privileges, including trips to baseball games. The school informed parents that the children would be fed with a diet high in nutrients. They were not told that the food their children were fed contained radioactive calcium and iron, and the consent form contained no information indicating this.[37][38] The information obtained from the experiments was to be used as part of an advertising campaign.[39] The company was later sued because of the experiments. The lawsuit was settled on 31 December 1997 when MIT and Quaker Oats Company agreed to pay $1.85 million to the children who had been subjected to the experiments.
US brands
As of 2005, these are the product brands marketed under the Quaker Oats name in the US:
Breakfast cereals
- Cap'n Crunch
- Life cereal
- Quisp
- Mother's Natural Foods
- Quaker 100% Natural Granola
- Kretschmer Wheat Germ
- Mr. T Cereal
- Muffets ("The round shredded wheat")
- Quaker Oatmeal Squares
- Quaker Toasted Oatmeal
UK brands
As of 2008, these are the product brands marketed under the Quaker Oats name in the UK:[46]
Breakfast cereals
- Sugar Puffs (sold in 2006 to Big Bear t/a Honey Monster Foods)[47]
Hot cereals
- Quaker Oats
- Oatso Simple (various flavours)
The Netherlands brands
These are the product brands marketed under the Quaker Oats name in the Netherlands:[48]
Hot cereals
- Quaker Oats
- Quaker Oats Express
Ready to eat cereal
- Quaker Cruesli
- Quaker Cruesli Zero Sugar
- Quaker Cruesli Colours
- Quaker Granola & Muesli
Cereal bars
The Philippines brands
- Quaker Instant Oatmeal
- Quaker Oatmeal Cookies
- Quaker Instant Oats Caldo
General references
- D'Antonio, Michael. The State Boys Rebellion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.
External links
- Quaker Oats Company from the Summit Memory Project
- Story about the radioactivity experiments
References
- Matthew Herper and Betsy Schiffman. Pepsi Bought Quaker. Now What? Forbes, 2 August 2001, retrieved 21 January 2011^
- Our Oat Origins quakeroats.com, retrieved June 29, 2023^
- Adams, Cecil. Is the guy on the Quaker Oats box John Penn? The Straight Dope