Bill Post, Father of the Pop-Tart, Dies at 96
William “Bill” Post, the Michigan man widely credited with inventing Pop-Tarts for the Kellogg’s breakfast food company, died on Saturday, according to an online obituary. He was 96.
Post lived a life of “legendary accomplishments,” though the man himself would likely have downplayed the one for which he was best known, according to the obituary. He enjoyed retelling the story of how the Pop-Tart came to be, however, and would always bring “some of his unending supply” to share with the students whose classrooms he was invited to visit.
Born in 1927, Post was raised on the south side of Grand Rapids, served in the Army Air Corps in occupied Japan, married his high school sweetheart, and worked his way up to become a plant manager at the Keebler Company, then known as Hekman. His place in snack food history, however, would not be cemented until the early 1960s.
One fateful day, as Post later told it, he picked up the phone to find a Kellogg’s official on the other end of the line, asking if they could come tour his factory.
“They said they wanted something for the toaster but they didn’t know how to do it,” he told WWMT in 2021.
Kellogg’s tasked Keebler with inventing this toastable something, an unusual collaborative agreement even at the time, where the former company would market what the latter produced. Post put a crack team together and got to work. Figuring out how to put the filling between two layers of dough was a tricky process that took several months to perfect.
“There were so many naysayers,” Post recalled. “Some of my good friends would say, ‘I don’t know, Bill.’ They would tell us it’s not such a good idea.”
Post ignored the cynics and eventually came up with a workable prototype that Kellogg’s could inject into the perfect test market—Cleveland, Ohio, as it turned out. “We didn’t realize that this thing was going to go as well as it did,” Post said to CNBC last year. “It went beyond any expectations we had.”
Pop-Tarts were a runaway hit, with an initial run of 10,000 of each of the four original flavors (Strawberry, Blueberry, Brown Cinnamon Sugar, and Apple-Currant) quickly selling out. “Those just blew off the shelves,” Post told WXMI. “Kellogg’s ran a big page ad that said, ‘Oops! Sorry! We ran [out of] Pop-Tarts.’”
In 2022, more than three billion were consumed, netting Kellogg’s snacking division Kellanova $978 million in U.S. sales. By last October, sales for 2023 were even higher, with Oli Morton, the general manager of the portable wholesome snacks division at Kellanova, telling CNBC that the company was excited for the next chapter of Pop-Tarts.
There have been dozens of Pop-Tart flavors invented since the ‘60s, but Post insisted that his favorite remained the humble Strawberry. He always kept a few boxes in his car, which sported the license plate “POPTART,” according to WXMI. “I just like to have them as a snack,” he explained.
Post continued to work for Keebler until his retirement in the 1980s. He later accepted a position as a consultant to Kellogg’s, a role in which he would serve for the next two decades, according to his obituary.
A history of the snack on the official Pop-Tarts website does not mention Post, and instead credits “‘Doc’ Joe Thompson and his kitchen crew” with its invention. A Kellanova spokesperson did not directly respond to a request for clarification, instead saying in a statement that the company was “deeply saddened” by his death. “He played an important role in co-creating the iconic Pop-Tarts brand and we are grateful to Bill for his legacy and lasting contributions to our company,” the spokesperson said.
The Pop-Tart also has the dubious distinction of having ascended to meme status, with Strawberry, the edible live mascot of Orlando’s Pop-Tarts Bowl, winning over the adulation of the internet in January.
“Dreams really do come true,” read a sign waved by Strawberry right before he was eaten by the winning team.
Though Post may have lived to see his creation devoured by a horde of hungry college football players, he died three months before the expected release of Netflix’s Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story. Jerry Seinfeld’s directorial debut, little is known about the project except that it is set in Michigan in 1963 and concerns “a tale of ambition, betrayal, sugar and menacing milkmen.”
“He knew about [the movie], people told him about it, and he said to me, ‘Have you heard that? Is that for real?’” Dan Post, his son, told WOOD-TV, the Grand Rapids station that first reported Post’s death on Tuesday. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I think it is and we’re going to have to watch that.’ He just stands amazed at what has happened over the 60 years.”
Dan explained that his father was “so much more” than just the creator of the Pop-Tart. “To his friends and family, he was just sweet old Bill,” Dan said.
Post’s wife of 72 years, Florence, died in 2020. They are survived by two children, four grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren.
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