William ‘Bill’ Post, inventor of Pop Tarts, dies aged 96

William Post, the creator of Pop Tarts. Photograph: Matthysse-Kuiper-DeGraaf Funerla Home

William “Bill” Post, a key figure in the creation of Pop Tarts, the pre-cooked, frosted Kellogg toaster pastries, has died at 96.

Post is credited as part of the Kellogg team, responding to a process competitor Post had developed for dehydrating dog food to keep it fresh, to develop a pastry for the breakfast market and enclosing it in foil to keep it fresh.

Pop Tarts – a name later adopted by an all-girl Berlin garage band – were launched on the US market in 1964 after Post, a truck washer-turned-plant manager at Hekman Biscuit Company welcomed an idea from Kellogg’s executives for a new product to make.

Together with William LaMothe, Post assembled what he called, according to Legacy.com, “an amazing team that developed Kellogg’s concept of a shelf-stable toaster pastry into a fine product that we could bring to market in the span of just four months”.

Pop-Tarts made their market debut with the four original flavors of strawberry, blueberry, brown sugar cinnamon and apple-currant. There are currently between 20 and 30 flavors on the market at any given time.

Post was raised on the south side of Grand Rapids, as one of seven children of Dutch immigrants, according to the outlet, and served in the US army air corps. After he retired he became a brand ambassador for Kelloggs.

“He was asked to tell the Pop Tart story to young people in countless classrooms and always enjoyed accommodating those requests, giving his testimony of God’s goodness to ‘the son of an immigrant’, and bringing some of his unending supply of Pop Tarts with him,” Legacy.com wrote.