If when you are abroad you always peek at the supermarket shelves in search of new snacks banned from Italy, or if more simply you have seen the Jerry Seinfeld film distributed by Netflix with the title “Unfrosted: the story of an American snack”, probably know i Pop Tartthe famous snack of Kellogg’s on the market since 1964.
It’s about biscuits filled with jam – available in a thousand different flavors, from strawberry, to chocolate, to cinnamon roll, with sugared almonds or even cookie flavor – designed to be heated in the toaster and eaten for breakfast or as a snack. But why are we talking about Pop Tart? Because precisely the turbulent history of his creation is at the center of the Seinfeld film, with Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Melissa McCarthy and Jim Gaffigan. A story that is brought to exasperation here, but which is still based on elements of reality.
First of all the rivalry between Kellogg’s and the other protagonist of the film, Post Cereals (or Post Consumer Brands), a cereal company founded in 1895 and today owner of various brands including Oreo O’s cereals, without which, perhaps, Pop-Tarts would never have been born. Despite the two companies were not positioned opposite each other as seen in the film (Kellogg’s is in Battle Creek, Michigan, while Post is in Tarrytown, New York), the distance did not dissuade them from copying each other’s ideas.
The idea is simple, but innovative for the time: shortcrust pastry filled with jam, to which is added the possibility of heating it in the microwave, therefore without using the oven. The inventor is Stan Reesman, who is in charge of product development at Post and created the Country Squares. Charles CW Cooke, CEO of Post, is so enthusiastic about his new snack that he made the announcement with a press release months before their arrival on the market. However, he does not consider the advantage that news of that kind can give to Kellogg’s, which at that point has six months to create a similar invention and compete on the market.
While Reesman was still trying to figure out the logistics of mass producing Country Squares, Kellogg’s is already on the shelves of American supermarkets. There is only one difference between the two snacks: the shape. While Country Squares, as the name suggests, are square in shape, Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts are rectangular, «because no child wants to be square» explains Seinfeld in his film.
Whether for the name, the size or the fame of the brand, the Pop-Tarts immediately conquered the public, beating the Country Squares on the market in 1964 and quickly selling out. In addition, the new snack teaches its consumers a new way to use the toaster. If, in fact, it was previously used only for toasting bread, thanks to Pop-Tarts Americans are finding a new use: reheat pre-cooked snacks.
Officially the inventor of Pop-Tarts is Bill Post (no relation to the company), hired with the sole aim of copying Reesman’s idea. According to some accounts, during experiments for reproduction, one of the earlier versions it risked exploding inside the toaster due to the expansion of the water inside the filling. A detail that in the film is taken to the extreme, even causing a victim. To stem the problem, they came create small holes which released steam during cooking. Bill Post was also the inventor of Rice Krispies Treats, i.e puffed rice and marshmallow bars, commonly made at home but which Kellogg’s began marketing in 1995.
But the story does not end here. According to what is told in the film, where the villain is played by Post (despite the fact that they were the real inventors) the name Pop-Tart was born by mistake. On the news the name is read backwards, thus forcing the company to endorse that version, given the amount of viewers who had already heard the announcement. In reality, in real life, Kellogg’s consciously decided to give this snack this name, taking inspiration from the pop art movement made famous by Andy Warhol.
Other curiosities from the film. During the numerous brain storming sessions to create the Pop-Tarts, he was called Harold von Braunhut, inventor of the “sea monkeys”, tiny brine shrimp eggs that “came to life” when water was added. His fame, however, goes beyond his inventions. Although he was Jewish, von Braunhut had close ties to white supremacist groups, he bought weapons for a faction of the Ku Klux Klan and participated in the annual conference of the Aryan Nations, a North American anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi group. The reference to Nazi Germany associated with her name in the film is therefore true, as is the fact that she was Marjorie Post, daughter of the owner of Post Cereals. build the Mar-a-Lago villa in Palm Beach in 1980in Florida, purchased five years later by Donald Trump.
