Iowa is Now Home to the World’s Largest Cereal Plant

One Iowa city is now officially home to the largest cereal plant not just in the United States, but the entire world!

The Quaker Oats Plant in Cedar Rapids, IA is officially the largest cereal plant in the world, per the World Record Academy. The towering structure is the 4th-tallest building in Cedar Rapids, and is located on the north end of town, separated from the downtown area by I-380 with the building's west side sitting along the gorgeous Cedar River.

The high-rise is 13 floors and 190 feet in height, and employs a whopping 740 people, as of 2022. The Cedar Rapids' Quaker Oats plant produces a lot of recognizable products that have been household staples for decades, including: Cap'n Crunch and Life Cereal, Quaker Oats Squares, and Pearl Milling Company (formerly Aunt Jemima) pancake mix and syrup.

Anyone even tangentially familiar with Iowa knows about the state's agricultural dominance, particularly in the corn industry, and the Quaker Oats Plant is emblematic of such market dominance:

Iowa has led the nation in corn production for 23 straight years, and about 80 percent of the state's 30 million crop acres are covered with either corn or soybeans. per The Des Moines Register.

The Quaker Oats Company started all the way back in 1877, its birthplace being Chicago, IL. The company was acquired by industry giant PepsiCo in 2001, and the Cedar Rapids building in particular has weathered many a storm, figuratively and literally.

Erected in 1873 under the name "The North Star Mill," the building was nearly destroyed beyond repair in 1905. Thankfully, the plant was repaired, and in 1947, the company installed a neon sign that sat atop the building until the famous August 2020 derecho caused major damage to it. Thankfully, the sign was replaced in 2021 using nearly identical framework, only this time, opting for LEDs. The sign can be seen for miles in the Cedar Rapids area.

Read more about the towering, and now world record-holding, Quaker Oats Plant in Cedar Rapids, IA on the World Record Academy's website.