Ferdinand Schumacher

Ferdinand Schumacher (1822–1908), also known as The Oatmeal King, was an American entrepreneur and one of the founders of companies which merged to become the Quaker Oats Company.

Biography Ferdinand Schumacher was born in Celle, Kingdom of Hanover on March 30, 1822, the son of a merchant. He completed high school locally. He then apprenticed in the grocery business and learned how to make oatmeal using medieval technology. He pursued this, and clerked in a manufacturing business until age 28, when he and his brother Otto emigrated to the United States.

Schumacher farmed for two years and established a grocery trade in Akron, Ohio in 1852. Remembering that back in Germany, he used to grind oats and sell them as breakfast food, he decided to do the same in Akron, Ohio, in 1854. In the beginning, he encountered difficulty selling oatmeal because locals were used to oats as feed for livestock. He then found a new way of processing whole oats that involved an easy way to prepare and use oats as a table food. Schumacher supported the erection of many churches.