Pop-Tarts

I can remember rare occasions as a child when I would wake up for school and there would be pancakes, eggs and bacon on the table and orange juice or Sunny Delight to drink. These exciting occasions, however, were just that: rare. Most days I would bound down the stairs to the toaster loaded with Pop-Tarts. I would usually be disappointed that I couldn't devour a wholesome breakfast, but I later came to understand the convenience of the Pop-Tart. My parents could put pastries in the toaster and continue to get ready for their day without having to worry about too much clean-up. It was during these early days of my education that I really found a love for the sugary, fruit-filled pastries.

Post Cereals was the first company to come up with the idea for a pastry that would later inspire Kellogg's Pop-Tarts. In the early part of the 1960s, Post began developing a method of packaging dog food in foil in order to keep it fresh and avoid refrigeration. They began applying this method to food for human consumption and created a new breakfast pastry that could be prepared in a toaster and would complement their already popular cold cereals. The announcement of this new breakfast pastry, which Post had decided to call “Country Squares,” came in 1963. Because the product was released so hastily, however, one of Post's biggest competitors, Kellogg, was able to come up with their own version and release it six months later. Even though Post had released their Country Squares prior to Kellogg's version, their sales were lackluster. Many believed that this was due in part to their name. In a time of progressive pop culture, the name Country Squares could be seen as a backward way of thinking. The developers working on the proje...

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...ire in his kitchen. Due to this popularity, Patrick Michaud, a professor at Texas A&M University, conducted an experiment proving that Pop-Tarts could produce flames if caught in the toaster. This evidence brought about a large number of lawsuits and ever since that time, Pop-Tarts have carried the warning on their label: “Do not leave toasting appliances unattended due to possible risk of fire.”

Kellogg tried to carry over their sales of Pop-Tarts in the United States to other countries, but found a certain amount of difficulty replicating their success. In the early 1990s, Kellogg tried introducing Pop-Tarts to the United Kingdom and was met with very lackluster sales. The company that manufactured these pastries was using a lower quality of frosting that tended to melt in the toaster and this likely ended the campaign before it really gained any popularity.