Chapter 1: What are the origins of Pop-Tarts?
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Chapter 2: How did convenience food influence the rise of Pop-Tarts?
I doubt it, but you never know. Okay. They call them country squares. Let's just leave it at that. Okay, Josh? Fine. But this was Post. This wasn't Kellogg's who ended up making the Pop-Tart. This was Post who was breaking new ground with these little handheld toaster heated pastries, right? That's right.
Problem was, I don't know if the Battle Creek Enquirer got in there and had a spy or else if there was a really dumb vice president that was getting exposure in the Battle Creek Enquirer. But Post was not ready to go to market with these things. They had a recipe, but they didn't know how they were going to package it, market it, get it out to stores.
So they had many months of development left ahead of them when news broke. Well, it just so happens that the higher ups at companies like Kellogg read the Battle Creek Inquirer because they're in the same town. And this gave them the ability to catch up because they were caught totally off guard by this. But it gave them the ability to catch up, scramble, and create their own versions.
And I believe Pop-Tarts ended up beating Country Squares to market. Yeah. I think the vice president of Kellogg's says, what is this Country Squares? And someone said, it's a rural landowner in England. No, there was a vice president, though, named William Lamothe. And he had a guy working there in the kitchen named Doc Joe Thompson. And he said, get to work. We need our own pastry.
And it would be their first foray into any kind of little bakery product like that. And they wanted a partner because they, you know, again, they were just cereal people. Well, plus everybody likes to have a partner. Yeah, exactly. So they went to the Heckman Biscuit Company, which was conveniently also in Michigan.
They had been around selling Dutch cookies since the beginning of the late 19th century, door to door. And by the 1960s, when this is happening, their division of the United Biscuit Company of America, which would eventually become Keebler in 66, right there in Grand Rapids, they had a great modern industrial bakery. And it was a really sort of a great partnership out of the gate.
Grand Rapids, by the way, just a little personal aside, is where I learned that I actually love frog legs. Oh, really? Yeah. There was this dinner theater in Grand Rapids that my family used to go to when I was growing up in Toledo. The frog leg theater? On their buffet, they had frog legs. And I tried them once, and I was like, oh, my God, these are amazing.
I don't think I would eat one now, but when I was like 8, 9, 10, I would eat some frog legs. I don't know where it was, buddy, but I tried frog legs on a buffet in the 1970s or early 80s. Yeah, and I thought, hey, this tastes like chicken. Kind of. It's the weird skin that really throws it off, though. These were fried, so I don't remember the skin. And this is a very distant memory.
But I'm with you. I couldn't eat a frog now. These were not fried. These were like braised. No, mine were fried. So back to, thanks for indulging me. So back to the Heckman Biscuit Company. At the time they were making stuff like macaroons, butter cookies, vanilla wafers, windmills, ginger snaps, all your favorite like old timey cookies this company was making. And to make all this stuff,
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Chapter 3: What were the first flavors of Pop-Tarts introduced?
And everyone was like, we just want to hear you podcast. That's essentially what Pop-Tarts did. They finally just put it all in to mostly just making Pop-Tarts and new interesting flavors. Yeah, well, it helped that no one called us after a while. Right. When the opportunities dried up, you know. I took it as, you know, we just want to hear you podcast. No, I'm with you.
Marketing-wise, you know, we did an episode recently on Saturday Morning Cartoons, and a lot of it, to some listeners' disappointment, as it turns out, was about marketing to children like sugar cereals and things like that during Saturday Morning Cartoons, and Pop-Tarts was... I mean, definitely one of the, I was about to say worst offenders, but maybe I should just say one of the best at it.
Because they ran tons and tons of commercials saying like, put them in the lunchbox, eat them for breakfast, have them as a snack. Like really, you can serve them warm. You can have them in between meals. You can eat them right out of the foil. Yeah, we'll get to that in a second. What, right out of the foil? Yeah. Do you do that? Yeah. I have only done that in a pinch.
I used to throw these in the backpack for camping trips when I was young before they had a ton of like granola bars and stuff. Sure. Like now there's so much of that. But back then I would just do some Pop-Tarts in the backpack and I would eat them out of the package. But it's not great. It can be done, but no, it's not great.
Which what I do then is I tear off the edges so I just have the frosted center. Oh, yeah. And you leave the edges to nature. That's right. To the wolves tracking you. Exactly. They did come up with a mascot for a very short time, which is weird because this is exactly the kind of brand that would have a mascot, right? Yeah.
But they ditched Milton the Toaster pretty quickly when they debuted him in 1971. But they continued on, like you said, advertising. Like, any time you watch Saturday morning cartoons, they were on. After school cartoons, they were on. Like, if you were a kid watching TV, you probably saw a Pop-Tart commercial. Yeah, I looked up Milton the Toaster and I remember Milton the Toaster.
So I don't know if it was reruns or what, but I remember seeing Milton firmly in my brain. I think these days they adopted a slogan called Crazy Good. Yeah. And they've been running since sort of like 2004, all kinds of ads under the Crazy Good banner. And I think they ran one from 2004 to 2008. Yeah.
that supposedly increased Pop-Tart eating in 10- to 12-year-olds by 28% in 2005, which is a pretty big uptick for kids in Pop-Tarts. For sure. Speaking of their ads, though, I don't remember Milton at all, but I do remember this one that I cannot find on the Internet, but it goes, Pop, pop, pop, pop, my feet can't stop. Pop, pop, pop, pop, Kellogg's Pop-Tarts. I don't remember that one.
There was also, well, I made that up too when I was eating Pop-Tart cereal in 2018. There was also a campaign called So Hot They're Cool and another one called Snacula. So if you're a millennial or Gen Xer, like that pretty much covers you. And then it seems like Gen Z was getting the Crazy Good campaign, which is still around.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Pop-Tarts face during their development?
And I think it'll be in its third year on the next one. And they have, you know, these interesting tie-ins where they have three different mascots and the MVP of the game picks the mascot. So, you know, they're tying in stuff like that. They say it's kind of fun. I think they like to tout their... just sort of out-of-the-box thinking as far as marketing goes.
And we should also say they spun that Pop-Tarts off from Kellogg into its own company. A lot of times food brands will do that. So Pop-Tarts, along with a few other things, was spun out into a company that sounds straight out of the movie Gattaca. It's called Kellanova. It is kind of unsettling for some reason. But that Pop-Tarts bowl, the MVP doesn't just pick the mascot.
He picks the mascot to kill and eat. And they have like a giant Pop-Tart that's, I think, 73 times the size of a regular Pop-Tart. And for a little while, they sold it for $60. They called it the Party Pastry. I feel like that's a really good price. I thought so, too. It seems like a real value.
I mean, I saw a picture of this thing on a kitchen table, and that's cheaper than a decent birthday cake. Yeah. I mean, let's say you have eight pack of Pop-Tarts. Well, they're sold in sixes though, right? I think they're sold six, eight, 14, a million. There's like a bunch of different ones. 24, I'm pretty sure.
But I can tell you 73 times the size of a regular Pop-Tart does not translate to $60 more. So it is a really great value. You can't find it anymore though, unfortunately. Sorry. If you're a thrifty type and you buy one big party pastry and cut them into individual Pop-Tart size shapes and then pack them away in the freezer, you can't do that anymore. Ooh, I bet that centerpiece is so good.
Yeah, I'll bet it is too. Have we taken a second break? I don't think so, man. I think we should now. All right, we'll take a second break and talk about everybody's favorite topic, health and safety, right after this.
We'll be right back.
I'm Stephen Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.
Visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com for your nearest Total Wines or BevMo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky.
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