One day, Will cooked some wheat, as usual, and then had to leave. When he returned, the wheat had become stale. He decided to put this wheat through rollers anyway. To his surprise, each grain of wheat came out as a flake. When he baked the flakes in the oven to get them dry, they became light brown in color. After he tried this a few time, he produced wheat flakes without the stale wheat. He asked his brother john to serve the new breakfast food in the dining room of the health center. The patients ate the new breakfast food and loved it. It was 1894, and a new cereal was born
Even after they left the health center, patients ordered bags of the cereal. By 1895, John and Will were producing 100,000 pounds off flakes every year and selling each ten-ounce box for fifteen cents. John was not interested in taking care of this new food business and left all the work to his brother, as usual. Will continued to experiment with new foods for the next few years and came out with a new cereal made from corn-he called it corn flakes!