It was once as American as, well, blue jeans to start your day with a bowl of cereal and milk. Breakfast grains were once major sponsors behind kid-oriented television programming, or licensed beloved fictional characters to put on cereal boxes. Now sales at major cereal companies are down, and a variety of reasons are contributing to the decline. [More]
cereal
Kellogg’s Wants You To Eat Some Late-Night Cereal
By 6.10.14
Marketers don’t really need to encourage Americans to eat cereal for dinner or for a late-night snack. We’re already doing that. Well, I am. Yet Kellogg’s has come out with special limited-edition packaging for some of their sugariest cereals to encourage us to snack on them in the evening hours, and at least one of our readers finds it inappropriate. [More]
Stories You Might Have Missed Because You Were Too Busy Being Awesome
April 5, 2014
We post a lot of stories during the week, and we know that most of you have jobs, families, lives, hobbies, nagging itches and other more important things to do than read every single thing we write. So for those who might be playing catch-up on the weekend, here are some of the things you might have missed… [More]
Study: Creepy Cereal Box Characters Are Trying To Make Eye Contact With Children
By 4.2.14
It’s not just the wacky, colorful cereal commercials that are aimed at convincing children they must eat Frosted Flakes or Cocoa Puffs, a new study says the boxes themselves are designed to commune directly with kids’ souls. And what is the window to the soul? The eyes. The characters are making eye contact with kids. [More]
Certified Organic Cereal-Flavored Milk Is A Thing Now
By 9.9.13
The brand name “Cow Wow” can refer to one of two products. It could be “Cow Wow” the liquid cow manure concentrate, a nutritious but smelly garden fertilizer. Or it could be “Cow Wow” the flavored, shelf-stable organic milk, a nutritious but sugar-laden dairy product. Choose carefully. [More]
Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut Loses One Ounce, Box Gets Taller
By 8.30.13
I wish I could lose 7% of my body mass and get taller at the same time, but I’m out of luck…because I’m not a box of cereal. Reader Panda discovered that this amazing change has come to Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut cereal. It was hit by the Grocery Shrink Ray, but at the same time sustained a hit from the Box Growth Ray. Which might be a thing. [More]
Walmart & Target Store Brand Cereals Beat Out Brand Names In Consumer Reports Fiber Tests
By 8.7.13
Because chomping on twigs and rock-hard pellets is no one’s idea of a fun breakfast, healthy in fiber though it may be, Consumer Reports tested a bunch of high-fiber cereals to find out which ones actually taste good. Healthy and tasty, imagine that! The results were somewhat surprising — Walmart and Target store brands were deemed better than brand name offerings from Kellogg’s and Post. There were more than two-thirds that rated Very Good or Excellent in taste, so you’ll never need to chew on gravel again. Unless you want to, of course. [via Consumer Reports] [More]
Why Does Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s Whole Grain And Sugar Content Differ In A Smaller Box?
By 3.27.13
Reader IonicBurn noticed something kind of weird over his breakfast cereal this week. He had two different-sized boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, because it’s the best cereal in the world and that’s what his wife happened to pick up. With the boxes side by side, he noticed that the sugar and whole grain content different from one box to the other. Aside from the nutrition discrepancy, the boxes were identical. So how does being in a different box change the nutrition content? [More]
Nintendo Cereal System Is Part Of Your Super Nutritious Breakfast
By 2.26.13
Last week’s launch of the PlayStation 4 wasn’t all that exciting. It was missing something… some would say a look at the actual PS4. But Sony should consider adding what every good game console needs: a branded breakfast cereal. They should take as a model this 1989 commercial for Nintendo cereal from Ralston-Purina. [More]
Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries Recalled Because Glass Is Not Part Of A Balanced Breakfast
By 2.20.13
If you noticed a little unexpected crunch in your Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries cereal, you might have been unlucky enough to buy one of the boxes that have been recalled over the possible presence of glass fragments. [More]
Sugar Coated Rice Krinkles: Your Parents’ Favorite 1960s Racist Cereal
By 12.5.12
That handsome fellow up top is So-Hi, mascot of the now-discontinued Post breakfast cereal, Sugar Coated Rice Krinkles. The same product had another, strangely beautiful name: Sugar Sparkled Rice Krinkles. [More]
Lucky Charms Wants To Remind Adults Of Their Sugary Sweet Childhoods
By 12.3.12
In case all the recent Twinkie talk hasn’t been enough to turn your thoughts to a youth spent gorging on sugary snacks without a care, General Mills is hoping you’ll want to ride a sweet wave of nostalgia back to a past where breakfast included a rainbow of rock-hard marshmallows in your bowl of Lucky Charms. [More]
Guy Finds Mummified Bat In His Cereal, Count Chocula Reported Missing
By 11.13.12
First of all — I’m totally kidding about Count Chocula. I’m sure he’s just fine, safe in his Transylvanian marshmallow castle or wherever he keeps his coffin. But there is a man claiming he found a mummified bat in his breakfast cereal and he’s suffering from the kind of shock that experience surely brings. [More]
Want Tinted, Flavored Cereal Milk All Year? Start Stockpiling Franken Berry & Count Chocula Now
By 10.26.12
We all want what we want when we want it. But there are those among us who practice patience in their desire for a particular product due to the fact that it’s only around for a limited time. No, not the McRib — we’re talking sugary, often electric-neon colored kiddie cereals: Boo Berry, Count Chocula and Franken Berry. Says one adult fan of the stuff, when it’s on the shelves in October, “I eat as much Boo Berry as I can.” [More]
Grocery Shrink Ray Scoops Two Ounces Out Of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran
By 7.10.12
Kellogg’s may still market its Raisin Bran as having “two scoops” of raisins, but those scoops just got a little smaller. A Raisin Bran lover who uses the name Gordon Comstock here at Consumerist noticed the difference, and was lucky enough to still have the old box sitting in his recycling bin so he could prove the difference. [More]
Kashi Heart To Heart Hit By Ever-So-Tiny Shrink Ray
By 6.20.12
Scott was buying three boxes of Kashi Heart to Heart, because it was on sale and apparently time to stock up. He wouldn’t have noticed the difference if he had only one box, but he realized that the three boxes weren’t the same size. [More]
Special K Chocolatey Delight Has More Calories Than Cocoa Puffs
By 5.15.12
Eating Special K to lose weight? Splurging on the chocolate version? You might want to read the label. Our sisters at ShopSmart (also published by Consumer Reports) took a look at a variety of “junk” health foods for the June issue and discovered that “Special K Chocolatey Delight” isn’t that different from Cocoa Puffs. [More]
Wheaties Are Totally Boring, But Not Healthy Enough For Boring People
By 3.22.12
One would think, considering Americans’ sudden love of all things whole-grain, that the classic General Mills cereal Wheaties would be doing well. Instead, sales of the cereal have been falling for years, and no one seems interested in other cereals under the Wheaties brand. It’s all because the cereal is simultaneously boring and not boring enough. [More]
