Will Keith Kellogg

As a young businessman, Kellogg started out selling brooms in his hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan. In December 1878, W.K. Kellogg was hired by George H. King at the urging of James Springer White, also known as Elder White, to help run his new broom factory in Dallas, Texas. W.K. returned home in November 1879 to help his brother John Harvey Kellogg manage the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The sanitarium, originally the Western Health Reform Institute, was part of a pioneering effort based on the health principles advocated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The Kellogg family are of paternal English descent which can be traced to three brothers Daniel, Joseph and Samuel, of Braintree, Essex, England, who emigrated to the Connecticut Colony in the 17th century.

John Kellogg described the Sanitarium system as "a composite physiologic method comprising hydrotherapy, phototherapy, thermotherapy, electrotherapy, mechanotherapy, dietetics, physical culture, cold-air cure, and health training".

The Kelloggs pioneered the process of making flaked cereal. Because of the commercial potential of the discovery, W.K. wanted it kept a secret. However, John allowed anyone in the sanitarium to observe the flaking process and one sanitarium guest, C. W. Post, copied the process to start his own company. That company became Post Cereals and, later, General Foods, the source of Post's first million dollars. That upset W.K. to the extent that he left the sanitarium to create his own company.

The Kellogg Foundation quotes W.K. as follows:

It is my hope that the property that kind Providence has brought me may be helpful to many others, and that I may be found a faithful steward.

The philanthropy of W. K. Kellogg is recognized as instrumental to the founding of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) and Kellogg College, Oxford.