Force (cereal) Force (cereal) Force, first produced in 1901 by Force Food Company, one of three American companies owned by Edward Ellsworth and advertised using a popular cartoon figure called Sunny Jim, was the first commercially successful wheat flake breakfast cereal. Prior to this, the only successful wheat-based cereal products had been Shredded Wheat and the hot semolina cereal, Cream of Wheat. The product was cheap to produce and kept well on store shelves. The first advertising copy for the new product described the cereal as "The Food That is all Food", the advertising images showed rosy-cheeked children, and it was sold
Breakfast cereal Cereal Company (Quaker Oats, but see below) created a cereal made from oats in 1877, manufacturing the product in Akron, Ohio. Separately, in 1888, a trust or holding company combined the nation's seven largest mills into the American Cereal Company using the Quaker Oats brand name. By 1900 technology, entrepreneurship, and the "Man in Quaker Garb"—a symbol of plain honesty and reliability—gave Quaker Oats a national market and annual sales of $10 million. Early in the 20th century, the Quaker Oats Company (formed in 1901 to replace the American Cereal Company) jumped into the world market. Schumacher, the innovator; Stuart,