William Submit, a businessman who was credited with a major function in inventing Pop-Tarts, a traditional American snack and cultural touchstone with an attractive sweetness and ease, died on Saturday in Grand Rapids, Mich. He was 96.
His son, Dan Submit, mentioned he died of coronary heart failure in a senior dwelling neighborhood.
Mr. Submit led the bakery plant that developed the primary Pop-Tarts for Kellogg’s in 1964, his son mentioned. The snack rapidly turned a well-liked deal with for many individuals in the US, together with Mr. Submit’s kids, who had been among the many first style testers.
As we speak, in accordance with Kellogg’s, billions of Pop-Tarts are offered every year. They’ve additionally been depicted on murals, showcased in museums and parodied by “Saturday Evening Reside.” Later this yr, they’ll star in “Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story,” a farcical chronicle of the race within the Sixties to win the breakfast-pastry wars, directed by and starring the comic (and Pop-Tarts fanatic) Jerry Seinfeld.
Over the previous 60 years, Pop-Tarts have expanded from 4 flavors to greater than 30. However they’ve additionally maintained the traditional kind that has made them an American establishment: two skinny layers of dry, rectangular pastry with a candy filling and frosting.
William Submit was born on June 27, 1927, in Grand Rapids. He was one in every of seven kids born to Henry Submit and Johanna Jongsta, Dutch immigrants. His father, who was self-employed, drove a truck that he used to empty the ashes that individuals would take out of their coal furnaces.
He attended Grand Rapids Christian Excessive Faculty whereas working half time washing vans on the Hekman Biscuit Firm. A yr after his commencement in 1945, he was drafted into the Military Air Corps and served in occupied Japan.
After finishing his army service, he returned to his part-time job, started finding out at Calvin Faculty and married Florence Schut, who his son mentioned died in 2020 after 72 years of marriage. Mr. Submit left faculty in 1950 and have become a full-time personnel supervisor at Hekman, which later turned a part of the Keebler Firm.
When Kellogg’s approached Mr. Submit in 1964, he was managing Hekman’s plant in Grand Rapids. On the time Kellogg’s competitor, Submit, was making a toaster pastry referred to as Nation Squares, later named Toast’em Pop Ups. Executives from Kellogg’s, which offered cereal, requested Mr. Submit if his plant would have the capabilities to create an analogous product.
“Being the completely optimistic person who he was,” his son Dan recalled, “he mentioned, ‘Completely, give me two weeks.’”
There have been “many naysayers,” and a few of his associates mentioned Pop-Tarts had been “not such a good suggestion,” Mr. Submit instructed the West Michigan tv station WWMT in 2021. He ignored them, and put collectively a group to create what Kellogg’s needed.
Throughout these two weeks, his son mentioned, he supplied prototypes to his kids at varied phases of the product’s growth.
“They went from cardboard to a pastry,” he mentioned. “He would carry samples dwelling nearly each day and say, ‘Youngsters, strive these.’” He added: “We’d say, ‘This isn’t so nice.’ After two weeks, we mentioned, ‘Hey, these are fairly good.’”
After Mr. Submit introduced the recipe to Kellogg’s, the corporate offered its first cargo in Cleveland.
Kellogg’s had initially thought-about calling Pop-Tarts “fruit scones.” However their last title, coined by one of many Kellogg’s executives, William LaMothe, was impressed by the popular culture motion of the day: Pop Artwork.
The earliest Pop-Tarts weren’t frosted. The icing was added just a few years later when Mr. Submit got here up with the concept, in accordance with his son.
“I mentioned to our superintendent, ‘Hey, why don’t you are taking some Pop Tarts and run them beneath that icer?’” Mr. Submit mentioned in a video posted this yr by Kellanova, the company title presently utilized by Kellogg’s. He confronted skeptics who believed that the icing would soften within the toaster, however it didn’t. “The choice to make all 4 flavors iced took sooner or later,” he mentioned.
As Pop-Tarts turned an more and more essential a part of his work, Mr. Submit moved to Illinois in 1967 to start working on the company workplaces of Keebler, the place he turned senior vp.
He retired at 56, however he continued working as a marketing consultant for Kellogg’s till he was 76. He was additionally concerned in his church and served as a board member for faculties, church buildings and an area Y.M.C.A.
Along with his son, Mr. Submit is survived by his daughter, Rachel DeYoung; 4 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.
Kellogg’s historical past of the Pop-Tart on its web site cites Mr. LaMothe, the chairman, for arising with the concept for a “toaster-ready rectangle” and asking Joe Thompson to create it. It doesn’t point out Mr. Submit.
However after Mr. Submit’s dying, the corporate mentioned in an announcement, “He performed an essential function in co-creating the enduring Pop-Tarts model.”
Mr. Submit instructed his Pop-Tarts story to college students into his 80s, his son mentioned. He typically talked about being the son of immigrants who might barely converse English, and he challenged college students to do their greatest and work onerous. He would additionally carry them samples from his limitless provide of Pop-Tarts.
Each time he went right into a classroom, his son recalled, he would inform the scholars, “‘If you wish to be seen, at all times do greater than is predicted.’”
Victor Mather contributed reporting.
