How Quaker Oats grabbed customers’ attention

Quaker Oats, the American food products giant that was created in 1901 through the merger of many older oat millers, and was acquired by a bigger foods giant, Pepsi, in 2001, has been an innovative company. One example of its innovativeness shows in its packaging – the cereal box it launched in 1915.

The company introduced a cylindrical cereal box that made the brand famous due to its high visibility on shop shelves. And it introduced various sales schemes, including somewhat questionable promises of one square foot of land against coupons that were inserted in some of the oats boxes. 

Hardly anyone used the coupons, as the company may have well expected. I mean, what can anyone do with one square foot of land, and that too in a distant, sparsely populated region?

But Quaker Oats’ marketing was more than just gimmicks. The company has gone out of its way to inform its customers about the many ways they can use its products.

So, if you thought the only way to consume oats was to pour some milk on a bowlful of either raw or boiled Quaker oats, and begin eating them after adding as much sugar or honey you prefer to the mix – then think again. Go check out the Quaker Oats website, and you will find dozens of other ways in which you can eat your oats. 

That’s’ not surprising, is it? After all, we are not horses, which don’t mind the oats plain without any flavor or garnish. Remember, before Americans began eating oats, they used to keep this grain for their horses (unlike Europeans, who thought oats were good for humans).

The Quaker Oats website lists 535 recipes by meal type, 512 by ingredient, 463 by dietary preferences, 411 by dish type, and 186 by occasion. I must explain – all these are not oats recipes; they also include Quaker’s rice cake and grits. 

That’s something, isn’t it? If all companies that made foods and ingredients were to publish recipes on their websites, people wouldn’t need to buy recipe books! Of course, that won’t happen, and people will continue to buy recipe books or check websites that publish recipes. 

Quaker Oats is not the only company to offer recipes. Campbell Soups and Pillsbury are two other companies that have published several books of recipes. Indian sellers such as Hawkins and Wonderchef Home Appliances also show you recipes on their websites. But Quaker Oats was the first to come suggest recipes for its products. 

This is what its website says about it: ‘…the first ever recipe on a food package actually appeared in 1886, on a Quaker oats package. The recipe was for oatmeal bread, something they have continued to reimagine and update over years.’

Needless to say, those recipes make sense to people who intend to cook dishes made from oats, rice cake and grits. But this marketing tactic has worked for Quaker Oats so well, others have followed its example.