Breakfast cereal in some markets, and steady and continued growth throughout its history. The number of different types of breakfast cereals in the U.S. has grown from 160 (1970) to 340 (1998) to 4,945 (2012). In this highly competitive market, breakfast cereal companies have developed cereals in an ever-increasing number of flavors. Although many plain wheat and oat based cereals exist, other flavors are sweet. Some of the most popular brands include freeze-dried fruit and others are flavored like dessert or candy. Cereal, oatmeal and porridge quickly became an important breakfast component in North America. Barley was a common grain used, though
Breakfast cereal had to be cooked and as a result of this convenience (and clever marketing), they became popular. Battle Creek, Michigan was a center both of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and of innovation in the ready-to-eat cereal industry. And indeed, the church had a substantial impact on the development of cereal goods through the person of John Harvey Kellogg (1851–1943). Son of an Adventist factory owner in Battle Creek, Kellogg was encouraged by his church to train in medicine at Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City in 1875. After graduating, he became medical superintendent at the Western Health Reform