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The Quaker Oats Company is an American food conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois founded in 1901 by the merger of three separate companies, all of whom sold products made of oats, such as oatmeal. The company expanded into numerous areas, including other breakfast cereals and other food and drink products, and even into non-related fields such as toys.

Relation to Quakers

Quaker Oats has no connection to the Religious Society of Friends also known as the Quakers. The company chose this name as Quakers have a reputation of honesty in their dealings. The antiquated image used by Quaker Oats looks nothing like a modern Quaker as that form of dress has been abandoned by the religious movement for quite some time.

Many members of the Religious Society of Friends do not approve of the name usage by the company, and, at best, causes public confusion, even to the point that that many people assume they are similar to the Amish in their customs and beliefs.

Controversy

In the 1950s, researchers from Quaker Oats Company, MIT and Harvard University carried out experiments to determine how the nutrients from cereals travelled through the body. Parents of mentally retarded children were asked for permission to let their children be members of a Science Club at their school. Being a member of the Science Club gave the children special privileges. The parents were told that the children would be fed with a diet high in nutrients. They were not, however, told (and the consent form contained no information indicating) that the food their children were fed was laced with radioactive calcium and iron. The information obtained from the experiments was to be used as part of an advertising campaign. The company was later sued because of the experiments. The lawsuit was settled on December 31, 1997.

Modern history

In 1969, Quaker acquired Fisher-Price, a toy company.

In the 1970s, the company financed the making of the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and allowed the company to use a number of the product names mentioned in the movie for candy bars.

In 1991, Quaker Oats spun off its Fisher-Price division.

In August 2001, Quaker merged with PepsiCo, who primarily wanted the company for its Gatorade brand of soft drink. The merger created the fourth-largest consumer goods company in the world. Though the main prize of PepsiCo was Gatorade noncarbonated sports drink, Quaker's cereal and snack food division serves as healthy complements to the existing Frito-Lay salty-snacks division.

There is a common misconception that the smiling Quaker found on boxes of Quaker Oats is William Penn. The Quaker Oats Company has stated that this is not true. The iconic image of the smiling Quaker was painted by Haddon Sundblom in 1957.

Brands

As of 2005, these are the product brands marketed under the Quaker Oats name:

Breakfast cereals

• Cap'n Crunch
• Life cereal
• Quisp
• Mother's Natural Foods
• Quaker 100% Natural Granola
• Quaker Oatmeal Squares
• Kretschmer Wheat Germ
• Quaker Toasted Oatmeal

Other breakfast foods

• Quaker Oatmeal
• Quaker Oatmeal Breakfast Squares
• Quaker Grits
• Aunt Jemima

Snacks

• Quaker Rice Cakes
• Quakes Rice Snacks
• Quaker Soy Crisps
• Quaker Snack Bars

Mixes

• Quaker Tortilla Mix
• Rice-A-Roni
• Pasta Roni
• Near East

External links

• Quaker Oats
• Story about the radioactivity experiments
• William Penn denial

• Quaker Oats brands
• PepsiCo subsidiaries