Michigan's "Other" Cereal Company: Price Cereals in Yorkville

Michigan is famous for cereal, right? Kellogg’s cereals, Post cereals, and General Foods. But why doesn’t anyone ever mention the Price Cereal Food Company? There is hardly anything written about it.

The company was an off-shoot of the Price Flavoring Extract Company out of Chicago, founded by Dr. Vincent Clarence Price in 1863 (that’s right - Vincent Price, but obviously not the actor).

He created the Pan Confection Company in Chicago and helped form the National Candy Company in 1902. As a final attempt, he opened the Try-a-bita (“try a bite of”) Food Company in 1902 and renamed it the Dr. Price Cereal Food Company a year later. Price opened a cereal plant in Yorkville, Michigan on the south end of Gull Lake in Kalamazoo County. A couple of the cereals Price manufactured was Algrain (okay, not too bad) and another that doesn’t sound good at all: pepsin-celery flavored wheat flakes. Dr. Price’s cereal biz only lasted a few years, closing in 1909...but before he shut down operations, his cereal claim to fame was Dr. Price’s Corn Flakes (“a toasted staple cereal food”).

Price passed away in 1914 but his Flavoring Extract company kept going until 1938.