Festival marks city’s cereal heritage

Festival marks city’s cereal heritage

Courtesy National Cereal Festival

Battle Creek is hosting breakfast for 10,000 people.

The city’s National Cereal Festival is scheduled for June 9 in and around downtown’s Festival Market Square, McCamly Street and Jackson Street. The festival celebrates Battle Creek’s heritage as the birthplace of the cereal industry.

Visitors are invited to sit at the “world’s largest breakfast table” along McCamly Street and choose from a variety of cereals and breakfast treats provided by Kellogg, Post and Conagra Foods. Prairie Farms will provide the milk.

The breakfast table will be open from 8-11 a.m., and a Grand Cereal Parade, featuring floats, costumed characters and music, will follow at noon on a route beginning at United Way Drive and heading east along Michigan Avenue before ending at Commerce Pointe.

The family friendly event also features musical performances by Feeding Grizzlies, 8 a.m.; Martila Sanders & Gee-Q, 9 a.m.; and Beer for Breakfast, 10:30 a.m. Activities for children include inflatables, jugglers, stilt walkers, water fountains and street performers. The Battle Creek History Museum is offering train rides and various cereal characters will be on hand for photos.

More than 50 vendors are expected to attend.

Cereal City Development Corp. is the producer and the event, which is sponsored by the Calhoun County Visitors Bureau.