Shredded wheat is a
breakfast cerealA breakfast cereal is a packaged breakfast food. It is eaten cold, usually mixed with milk or water, but sometimes eaten dry. Some cereals, such as oatmeal, may be served hot as porridge. Some companies promote their products for the health benefits from eating oat-based and high-fiber cereals....
made from
wholeWholegrains are cereal grains that contain bran and germ as well as the endosperm, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm. Wholegrains can generally be sprouted while processed grains generally will not sprout...
wheatWheat is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
. It comes in two sizes, bite sized ( × 1 in), and full size, which may be broken into small pieces before milk is added.
Both sizes are available in a
frosted variety, which has one side coated with
sugarSugar is a class of edible crystalline substances, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose. Human taste buds interpret its flavor as sweet. Sugar as a basic food carbohydrate primarily comes from sugar cane and from sugar beet, but also appears in fruit, honey, sorghum, sugar maple , and in many...
and usually
gelatinGelatin is a translucent, colorless, odorless, brittle, nearly tasteless solid substance, derived from the collagen inside animals' skin and bones. It is commonly used as a gelling agent in food, pharmaceuticals, photography, and cosmetic manufacturing. Substances containing gelatin or functioning...
. Some manufacturers have produced "filled" versions of the bite-size cereal containing a raisin at the center, or apricot or cranberry filling.
In the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, shredded wheat is most heavily advertised and marketed by
Post CerealsPost Foods, LLC, also known as Post Cereals was founded by C.W. Post. It began in 1895 with the first Postum, a "cereal beverage", developed by Post in Battle Creek, Michigan...
, which acquired the product in 1993 through its parent company,
Kraft FoodsKraft Foods, Inc. is the largest food and beverage company headquartered in the United States and the second largest in the world ....
, buying it from its long-time producer
NabiscoNabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks, including brands such as Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons, Mallomars, Oreos, Premium Crackers, Ritz Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Social Tea, Nutter Butter, Peek Freans, Lorna Doone, Famous Chocolate Wafers and Chicken in a Biskit,...
. Kellogg's sells eight varieties of miniature, or bite-sized, shredded wheat cereal. Natural and organic manufacturer Barbara's Bakery makes an all-natural version of shredded wheat. In the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, the Shredded Wheat brand is owned by
Cereal PartnersCereal Partners Worldwide S.A. is a joint venture between General Mills and Nestlé, established in 1991 to produce breakfast cereals. The company is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, and markets cereals in more than 130 countries Cereal Partners Worldwide S.A. is a joint venture between...
, a
NestleNestlé S.A. is a multinational packaged food company founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, and listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange with a turnover of over 87 billion Swiss francs...
/
General MillsGeneral Mills is an American Fortune 500 corporation, mainly concerned with food products, which is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The company markets several well-known brands, such as Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jeno's, Pillsbury, Green Giant,...
company, although there are many generic versions and variants by different names. It was first made in the US in 1893, while UK production began in 1926.
"Never Eat Shredded Wheat" is a common childhood
mnemonicA mnemonic device is a mind memory and/or learning aid. Commonly, mnemonics are verbal—such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something—but may be visual, kinesthetic or auditory. Mnemonics rely on associations between easy-to-remember constructs which can be...
for remembering the
Cardinal Points on a compassThe four cardinal directions or cardinal points are north, south, east, and west, commonly denoted by their initials - N, S, E, W. They are mostly used for geographic orientation on Earth but may be calculated anywhere on a rotating astronomical body...
.
US
Henry PerkyHenry Drushel Perky was a lawyer, businessman, promoter and inventor. Perky is the inventor of shredded wheat.- Early life :...
invented shredded wheat cereal in 1893. The wheat is first cooked in water until its moisture content reaches about 50%. It is then
tempered, allowing moisture to diffuse evenly into the grain. The grain then passes through a set of rollers with grooves in one side, yielding a web of shredded wheat strands. Many webs are stacked together, and this moist stack of strands is crimped at regular intervals to produce individual pieces of cereal with the strands attached at each end. These then go into an oven, where they are baked until their moisture content is reduced to 5%. The Natural Food Company was based at Niagara Falls, NY in 1901. It became the Shredded Wheat Company in 1904. It was bought by
NabiscoNabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks, including brands such as Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons, Mallomars, Oreos, Premium Crackers, Ritz Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Social Tea, Nutter Butter, Peek Freans, Lorna Doone, Famous Chocolate Wafers and Chicken in a Biskit,...
(National Biscuit Company) in December 1928. US production moved to
NapervilleNaperville is a city in DuPage and Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois, within the Chicago metropolitan area. In 2006, Money magazine listed Naperville as #2 on its annual list of America's best small cities to live in...
in
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
in 1954, where it is still made. In 1993, Nabisco sold the brand to
Kraft General FoodsKraft Foods, Inc. is the largest food and beverage company headquartered in the United States and the second largest in the world ....
, but it was still under the Nabisco name until 1999, whereupon it was given by the phrase "Nabisco brought to you by Post". Canadian production has been at Niagara Falls,
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
, since 1904 due to nearby hydro-electric power. US production is also at
JonesboroJonesboro is a city in and one of the two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, United States. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city was 59,358. A college town, Jonesboro is the largest city in northeastern Arkansas and the fifth most populous city in the state...
,
ArkansasArkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquin name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares a border with six states, with its eastern border largely defined by the Mississippi River. Its diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the...
.
History
The original company opened a factory in
Welwyn Garden CityWelwyn Garden City is a town in Hertfordshire, England, the second garden city in England and one of the first new towns ....
(UK) in 1926, which became part of
NabiscoNabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks, including brands such as Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons, Mallomars, Oreos, Premium Crackers, Ritz Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Social Tea, Nutter Butter, Peek Freans, Lorna Doone, Famous Chocolate Wafers and Chicken in a Biskit,...
in 1928.The tall concrete cereal silos that form part of the factory are a local landmark and are listed structures, built by
Peter Lind & CompanyPeter Lind & Company is a private building contractor of Danish origin based in Spalding in Lincolnshire.-History:The Company was founded by Peter Lind, a Danish engineer, in 1915....
of London. In 1988 Nabisco sold the UK site to Rank Hovis McDougall (who made own-label cereals for supermarkets), whose breakfast cereals division briefly became
The Shredded Wheat Company. In 1990 RHM sold the site to
Cereal PartnersCereal Partners Worldwide S.A. is a joint venture between General Mills and Nestlé, established in 1991 to produce breakfast cereals. The company is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, and markets cereals in more than 130 countries Cereal Partners Worldwide S.A. is a joint venture between...
. Now, all Shredded Wheat is made at
StavertonStaverton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire.Staverton is near the confluence of the River Avon and the River Biss and is on the south bank of the former; to the south of the village is the Kennet and Avon Canal and a marina serves the canal communities. Staverton is...
near Bath, as the Welwyn Garden City site was shut down in 2008. Also, "Bitesize", "Fruitful" and "Honey Nut" Shredded Wheat are made in the UK.
Advertising
Shredded Wheat has a particular place in UK popular culture due to a long-running TV advertising campaign. The
Three Shredded Wheat advert suggested that the cereal was so nourishing that it was impossible to eat three. Even a
black holeIn general relativity, a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape. The black hole has a one-way surface, called an event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing can come...
was shown as exploding when the third biscuit was sucked into it. Phrases such as
I bet you can't eat three and
He must have eaten three were in common use as humorous remarks in the 1970s. A later UK poster advert for Carling Black Label showed a bowl with four Shredded Wheat and the caption "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label".
Bernard ManningBernard John Manning was an English stand-up comedian and nightclub owner. He was born and raised in Manchester in North West England....
, the UK comedian, made this into a joke: Why does
Arthur ScargillArthur Scargill is a former British trade union and political party leader. He was the President of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1981 to 2000 and before that leader of the Yorkshire Area. He led the union through the 1984-85 miners' strike, a key event in British trade union and...
eat three Shredded Wheat? Answer:
He eats two, the other one he puts on his head; (Scargill was known for having a particularly bad toupee).
Trademark of the term "shredded wheat"
In the United States Supreme Court case
Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co.Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., 305 U.S. 111 , was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the Kellogg Company was not violating any trademark or unfair competition laws when it manufactured its own Shredded Wheat breakfast cereal, which had originally been invented by...
(1938), National Biscuit Co. sued Kellogg, attempting to enjoin Kellogg from using
shredded wheat as a trade name and from manufacturing the cereal in its pillow-shaped form. The Supreme Court ruled that
shredded wheat was generic and not trademarkable; and that in any case, when the first
patentA patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention....
for shredded wheat machinery expired in 1912, the right to apply the name "shredded wheat" to the product passed into the public domain along with that patent.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=305&invol=111
Serving
The shape and inherent dryness of the standard, large version of the cereal pieces, led to the satirical nickname "Baled Hay". Sugar and milk are typically added to the standard cereal to enhance its taste and texture.
See also
- Frosted Mini-Wheats
Frosted Mini-Wheats is a breakfast cereal manufactured by Kellogg's consisting of shredded wheat cereal pieces and frosting.-History:...
, a brand of frosted shredded wheat
- Raisin Wheats
Raisin Wheats are a Kellogg's breakfast cereal, made from shredded wholegrain wheat filled with raisin. It is in bite-sized chunks of 3/4in x 1in, and are served in boxes weighing 0.5kg....
, a brand of filled shredded wheat
- Weetabix
Weetabix is a whole grain wheat breakfast cereal produced by Weetabix Limited of the United Kingdom. It comes in the form of palm-sized biscuits. Variants include organic and Weetabix Minis versions. The UK cereal is manufactured in Burton Latimer, Kettering, United Kingdom and in Canada and...
– another wheat-based biscuit cereal.
External links