Quaker Oats was born in a turn of the century merger between three Midwest milling companies; eventually it grew to be one of the top multi-national companies in the world. By providing reassurance, quality and continuity to its first generation of consumers, Quaker Oats has been able to build upon a reputation of offering healthy, wholesome food.

After a century of starting the day with a bowl of Quaker Oats, it is probably no coincidence that the brand maintains such a tight hold on the breakfast foods industry and enjoys such a wide recognition base. But tastes change and it has been necessary over the years for Quaker Oats’ cereal division to find an enhancement to its plain old bowl of hot oatmeal to compete with more sugary, more convenient brands. Perceptions that Quaker Oatmeal wasn’t tasty enough, that it took too long to make, and that it was little more than a staple were each responded to by product revisions over the years.

In the 1950s, instant oatmeal was introduced, and in the 1980s, along came microwavable single packets in multiple varieties with added sweeteners. Along with packaging adaptability came diversification into children’s cereal with Cap’n Crunch (introduced in 1963, Cap’n Crunch is now the number one pre-sweetened children’s brand in the US), healthy snack food bars (Quaker Chewy is the top-selling granola bar brand in the US), Rice-A-Roni (Quaker purchased the Golden Grain Company from the founding DeDomenico family of San Francisco in 1986), Aunt Jemima mixes and syrups (Quaker gobbled up competitor and face-time rival Aunt Jemima in 1926), as well as rice cakes, couscous and pilafs.

Quaker Oats continues to diversify and reshape its image. For example, the Quaker pilgrim icon has been enlarged across the spectrum of oatmeal packets, while the word “instant” is reduced since most consumers who purchase the oatmeal are aware that it is now instant. To deliver the most shelf impact for its cereals and to contemporize its packaging, a strategy of consistent branding and billboarding has been implemented with caution to compromising existing qualities.

But it hasn’t always been smooth for Quaker. Lumps in the strategy include Quaker Oats' ownership of an until then successful beverage brand called Snapple. In 1994, Quaker Oats bought Snapple Beverage Co. for US$ 1.7 billion, hoping to leverage its success with Gatorade (which it acquired and 1983 and which now holds around 80 percent of the US sports drink market) and expand its beverage presence. Surprisingly, the savvy management that worked so well with Gatorade -- sales increased from US$ 100 million to 1.3 billion in a decade -- fell flat with healthy, alternative, mom-and-pop Snapple. Considering the emphasis on health and traditional wholesome goodness of the cereal and snacks divisions, it seems hard to imagine that Quaker couldn’t succeed with an equally wholesomely branded beverage.

What went wrong? Snapple was an up-and-coming brand when Quaker bought it. It had a small distribution network of delis and quick stops and was branching into supermarkets. A fiercely loyal consumer base, weaned on “Wendy” the Snapple Lady, were attracted by the scrappy small brand feel of Snapple. Under Quaker’s ownership, Wendy got sacked and the brand got a slick makeover, losing the charm it once held.

The distribution process, which was intended to improve both Gatorade and Snapple sales by getting Gatorade into the delis and Snapple into the supermarkets, backfired when Snapple distributors declined to cooperate by sharing their distribution channels. Even the resizing, offering Snapple in large bottles like Gatorade, turned off consumers who preferred the traditional single-sitting sizes to a daylong jug.

Snapple tried several campaigns to jumpstart the brand, even quitting all advertising in the summer of 1995, but in 1997, Quaker sold Snapple for a measly $300 million to Triarc (which has since turned it around).

After 100 years as a publicly traded company, Quaker Oats Co. was itself bought by PepsiCo, Inc., in August 2001. The acquisition resulted in the creation of the fourth-largest consumer-goods company in the world. Though the main prize of PepsiCo was Quaker Oats’ non-carbonated sports drink brand Gatorade, the cereal and snack food divisions of Gatorade’s parent brand serve as healthy complements to the existing PepsiCo FritoLay salty-snacks division.

Brand identity continues to be a strong focus, banking on a reputation of quality, taste and nutrition that Quaker has nurtured over the last century. New products appear to be based on refining the core product or targeting specific groups. For instance, a new Nutrition for Women oatmeal product targets female supermarket consumers, delivering key messages about “vitamins and minerals essential to a female metabolism.” With this, Quaker Oats hopes to reach not only a female audience, but also health and nutrition professionals and health-food retailers. The launch of this new product also contains a booklet on heart tips for women, written in a simple, brief, but compelling style.

As long as Quaker Oats continues to promote its brand by adapting its core product with consumer tastes and lifestyles, and leverages its reputation for quality, health and reliability, there is little reason to believe that it won’t continue to be a leader in cereals, snacks and drink products for another hundred years.

Michael Standaert currently resides in Illinois.