They used to laugh at me as a child. I would sit alone, in my Sunday blacks, and eat oats all day long. They spat on me for eating a poorer food than wheat, rye or barley. But oh I loved them so. I loved the oats.

They used to mock me. "Oats are only fit to be fed to horses and Scotsmen," they would say. It was true, oats were used as horse feed. But oh I loved the oats. Rolled or crushed, or ground into fine oat flour. Oats as porridge, but also baked such as oatcakes, oatmeal cookies, and oat bread. I loved oats in cold cereal, in muesli and granola. I loved oats consumed raw or boiled into a warm thick gruel.

My love for oats was the foundation for my Quaker Oats company. You may have heard of it, we introduced the cereal box, making it possible to buy oats in quantities other than bulk. I purchased and merged 7 major oat millers to form the nexus of the cereal empire I sit upon today.

They mocked me they did, but I had the last laugh.