BATTLE CREEK Bill Post knew that he had a hit on his hands when his children kept asking him to bring home some more of those fruit scones from work.
It was September 1963 when Post, then the manager of a Keebler Food Co. plant in Grand Rapids, was approached by Kellogg Co. to help the Battle Creek cereal giant develop a breakfast food for the toaster.
When Post took home some early examples of what the two companies were jointly developing, he found that his children loved fixing and eating the flat, fruit-filled pastries.
"I used to bring a lot of stuff home samples youd run and theyd turn up their noses, they didnt like this or that," Post recalls. "But they used to ask me, Bring those fruit scones home. Thats what we called them at first, internally. Fruit scones. Bring some of those home, will you, Dad?"
Pop-Tarts were born.
They were an instant hit when test-marketed in Cleveland in late 1963. Post, now 75 and a new-product consultant for Kellogg, which acquired Keebler two years ago, says Kellogg sold all 45,000 cases of each of the four original, unfrosted flavors strawberry, blueberry, apple currant and brown sugar cinnamon it had prepared for the test run.
The pioneering toaster pastry would go on to become Kelloggs strongest brand and a staple found in millions of American kitchens, office desk drawers and college dorm rooms. Pop-Tarts also are sold in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Despite an expanding selection of convenience breakfast foods such as granola bars, fruit bars and frozen sandwiches on the market, Pop-Tarts continue to grow in popularity, says Jeff Montie, president of Kelloggs morning foods division.
The company now sells about 2 billion Pop-Tarts each year in United States, which is double the sales of the early 1990s, he says.
"Today, its our number-one brand," Montie says. "It has had great growth over the last 20 to 25 years. It continues to grow and is just one of those brands that we always think, is there more upside in it?"
The original Pop-Tarts bore only a slight resemblance to todays product. Though theyve always had the small "docker" holes to allow the steam from the heated filling to escape, the pastries used to have rounded corners and a diagonal crimp running through the middle.
Frosting wasnt added until the late 1960s, says Post, who retired as a senior vice president of Keebler in 1985 and now lives next to Glen Lake in Leelanau County. Post came up with the idea after running some Pop-Tarts through a cookie-icing machine.
He took some of the frosted Pop-Tarts to show Bill Lamothe, a Kellogg executive in charge of the pastrys development at the company. Lamothe would go on to become chairman and chief executive officer of Kellogg.
"So I came to Battle Creek with toaster in hand, with icing on Pop-Tarts," Post says. "We put em in the toaster, showed him it didnt melt. And he said, Wow, thats really something."
Within an hour, Lamothe instructed Post to frost all varieties of Pop-Tarts a quick decision that exemplified Kelloggs entrepreneurial spirit at the time, Post says.
"We just doubled the market with that one decision made in one day," he says. "Thats how astute Kellogg is at detecting trends."
Today, Kellogg offers 28 varieties of Pop-Tarts. The most popular are frosted strawberry, frosted brown sugar cinnamon and Smores, the company says.
The newest, Pop-Tarts Yogurt Blasts, started appearing on store shelves in March in two flavors, strawberry and blueberry. Each contains a mix of fruit and yogurt filling.
"With a brand that has been around for nearly 40 years, its incredibly important that we understand the changes in consumer tastes and trends … to ensure that it is still popular throughout the years," says Jenny Enochson, a Kellogg spokeswoman.
Children and teenagers remain the biggest consumers of Pop-Tarts. Kellogg expanded the line with Snack Stix, an afternoon-snack version, and Pastry Swirls, which are targeted for adults.
Montie says he believes there are two primary reasons for Pop-Tarts continued growth: Adults who ate them as children continue to eat them as well as feed them to their own children, and Kelloggs aggressive advertising and promotion of the brand.
Over the years, competitors such as Pillsbury, Nabisco and Post have introduced toaster pastries of their own, with varying degrees of success.
At Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Shaun Zmuda, a 20-year-old junior from Detroit, says he has eaten Pop-Tarts since childhood and "at least three or four times a week" grabs one before heading to class in the morning. His favorites are frosted cherry and frosted brown sugar cinnamon.
"Theyre good-tasting and you can eat them cold or warm," says Zmuda.
His friend, Lindsay Ruby, 19, a sophomore at the school from Rochester Hills, says she rarely used to eat Pop-Tarts until she entered college. Now she eats them about twice a week, and not always in the morning.
"If I didnt get to get to eat lunch or something, I like a Pop-Tart as long as I didnt eat them in the morning," says Ruby, whose favorite flavor is frosted strawberry.
Bob Keith, a professor of nutrition and food science at Auburn University, says theres nothing wrong with occasionally having a Pop-Tart for breakfast.
"They are fortified with certain vitamins. They have some sugar in them but theyre not really high in fat," Keith says. "So, if you ate that Pop-Tart with a glass of milk, for example, in the mornings, that would be an acceptable breakfast for some breakfasts out of that week."
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