It’s August, and we all know what that means: it’s time for the hot new pumpkin spice products for this fall to hit the aisles and confuse everyone. This year’s hot newcomers are pumpkin spice offerings from cereal companies, with the apparent goal of pumpkin spicing up America’s breakfast tables. [More]
cheerios
Cereal Sales Are Still Gradually Falling
By 8.4.16
Sure, there are a few high-end cereal cafés out there, but overall the trend in this country is that Americans are eating less of the stuff. Why? Experts blame more hectic schedules, our aspiration to at least try to eat more protein and less sugar and other carbohydrates, and our just preferring to eat other stuff. [More]
General Mills Brands Tweet About Death Of Music Legend Prince, Reconsider, Delete
By 4.21.16
When you’re running a corporate social media account, it’s very difficult to balance posts that will get people talking about your brand, and posts that will get people complaining about your brand. Brands found themselves with this dilemma when the unexpected news came that musician Prince died today. Should they acknowledge the news? Ignore it? Make themselves part of the conversation? Two brands that are part of Minneapolis-based General Mills posted tributes, then thought better of it and took them down. [More]
Maybe Americans Are Eating Cereal Again After All
By 12.17.15
Earlier this year, we reported that the cereal business in the United States is hurting, possibly because of protein-mania and Americans switching to other breakfast foods. One company that began to see signs of trouble was Cheerios-maker General Mills, which managed to cut costs and follow current food trends, boosting its profits. [More]
Cheerios Protein Has Slightly More Protein, More Sugar Than Regular Cheerios
By 11.10.15
If you follow current food trends, you know that Americans are losing interest in breakfast cereal, but can’t get enough protein. Cereal companies see those trends, and are ready to respond with new products to entice customers back to their aisle. For example, General Mills started a line called Cheerios Protein to supplement their classic Cheerios. The problem: while Cheerios Protein has more protein per serving, it also has a lot more sugar. [More]
Customers Suing General Mills Over Recalled “Gluten-Free” Cheerios That Contained Wheat
By 11.4.15
Whenever a company recalls a product on a large scale, lawsuits are sure to follow. General Mills’ recall of 1.8 million boxes of supposedly gluten-free Cheerios that could have possibly contained wheat is no different: two shoppers have filed a lawsuit against the food giant, claiming the company sold a misbranded product. [More]
General Mills Recalls 1.8M Boxes Of Cheerios, Because Gluten-Free Cereal Shouldn’t Include Wheat
By 10.6.15
Just months after General Mills revamped its Cheerios brand, introducing several gluten-free varieties, the company has recalled 1.8 million boxes of supposedly gluten-free Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios because the breakfast food might contain wheat — an ingredient that is decidedly not free of gluten. [More]
General Mills Coming Out With “Ancient Grains” Cheerios Featuring Stuff Like Quinoa
By 12.10.14
It’s not just for health nuts anymore — grains like quinoa and spelt are now the norm, and General Mills wants to take advantage of that shift in consumers’ tastes with a new “Ancient Grains” Cheerios cereal that includes those ingredients, as well as other ingredients with funny names you used to never know. [More]
Different Brands Of O-Shaped, Oat-Based Cereals Don’t Taste Alike
By 9.22.14
Are all oat-based, O-shaped cereals basically the same? Sure, they look pretty interchangeable, and their nutritional profiles are all basically the same. That doesn’t mean that they taste exactly alike, though, and our colleagues on Consumer Reports’ sensory panel recently turned their taste buds to Cheerios and its imitators. [More]
Here’s Why Honey Nut Cheerios Don’t Contain Nuts
By 6.9.14 — Updated: 11.14.16
The incoming Web queries for a website are like an oracle: sometimes we can see trends or growing problems by reading them, like when people had trouble with the Gree dehumidifier recall. Sometimes searchers find us when they search for the answers to questions that we had never thought to ask. Last week, someone asked Google whether Honey Nut Cheerios contain any nuts. The short answer: No. [More]
General Mills Thinks You’re Stupid, But Decides To Not Take Customers’ Legal Rights Away After All
By 4.20.14
While all sorts of big-name financial, tech, e-commerce, and telecom companies have been trying to take away consumers’ right to sue by inserting forced-arbitration clauses in their contracts and terms of service, it seemed ridiculous to think that the makers of cereal would resort to such deviousness, or how they would even be able to do it. But last week, General Mills tried, adding language to its website that stripped certain customers of their access to legal redress against the company. Realizing that maybe this might tick off an awful lot of people, the company has backed off this policy change. [More]
Original Cheerios Will Soon Be GMO-Free (There Aren’t Any Genetically Modified Oats Anyway)
By 1.3.14
General Mills says it’s been making original-flavor Cheerios without genetically modified organisms and that they’ll be on store shelves soon after consumers piped up to ask for GMO-free products. It’s only doing so for the original flavor because that one is mostly oats and conveniently enough, there aren’t any genetically modified oats anyway. [More]
Survey: Top Brands For Buzz In 2012 Were Subway, Amazon And… Cheerios?
By 1.24.13
When you think about popular fast food chains, Subway is certainly among them. And Amazon.com is without a doubt the leader in online retail. But apparently the U.S. brand with the third-best “buzz” from consumers in 2012 was a cereal we’ve all been eating since the dawn of time. [More]
General Mills Resurrects Jolly Green Giant; What Other Characters Deserve A Second Coming?
By 9.17.12
Like a lot of older actors who just assumed had died years ago, we didn’t realize until recently that the frozen veggie-shilling Jolly Green Giant had gone missing for most of the last decade. But after eight years of lying dormant in the back of the freezer with that block of peas you don’t remember buying and never quite feel like eating, General Mills has decided to bring back the 84-year-old character in a move to get kids eating vegetables. [More]
FDA to General Mills: Your Marketing Has Made Cheerios Into A Drug
By 5.12.09
Do you want to know something about Cheerios that, until recently, General Mills didn’t know? Of course you do. Cheerios is a drug. No, really. The WSJ Health Blog says that General Mills made a slight, um, let’s call it a “miscalculation” when they were drafting their marketing speech and by claiming that Cheerios is “clinically proven to lower cholesterol,” they inadvertently “cause[d] it to be a drug.” Whoopsies!
General Mills Will Decrease The Size Of Cereal Boxes, Raise Prices
By 6.7.07
Get ready to pay the more money for fewer Cheerios, starting June 25. General Mills has announced that they will be decreasing the size of their popular cereal boxes as a cost cutting measure, as well as raising the prices. From the Wall Street Journal:
The company also hopes its “Right Size, Right Price” initiative will boost margins — something all food companies are trying to do as they get squeezed by lower-cost, private-label goods and more-expensive fresh and organic food.
Less Cheerios for more money! Yay! Wait. —MEGHANN MARCO
Fruity Cheerios, Sugar Sellout
By 9.28.06
General Mills venerable bee evidently hasn’t been busy enough, forcing the cereal making whore itself in back alleys and dimly lit parks, in the form of new FRUITY CHEERIOS.While consumers report it “tastes just like Fruit Loops,” the box boasts it contains 25% less sugars than the leading fruity cereals (10g vs 14g of sugar). In fact, roughly 1/7 of the box space seems devoted to extolling the product’s health benefits. Wethinks the cereal doth protest too much.
