Category Archives: News

News: Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Lucky Charms MIX

Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Lucky Charms Mix

Ah, looks like General Mills and I both have the same mindset for 2022: “just f*** it, who cares.” I mean, why ideate a new cereal when you can just reroute the pipes in the cereal factory and call it a day?

Sorry if I sound bitter, but as a sprightly and imaginative hobby cereal mixologist, it irks me a bit when cereal companies take the brainstorming fun out of dreaming up your own cereal combos—though they’ll have to pry the “Honey Nut Bunches of Cheeri-Oats” out of my cold, spoon-gripping hands.

This trend started with the Frosted Failure of Kellogg’s Mashups, and now GM clearly just wants their own cut of the low-hanging fruit harvest. It’s no surprise that they’re starting with Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms, since these are two of their most iconic brands, plus they get paired up time and time again when it comes to cross-branded cereal infusions. However, I have to imagine this won’t be a particularly satisfying MIX! (their excited emphasis, not mine; I’d’ve used a glum ellipsis…), as combining these two cereals doesn’t really evoke any common flavor pairings (would it’ve been so hard to just give us like, PB&J Reese’s/Trix Puffs or something?). Plus at this point, why not just bring back Cinnamon Lucky Charms?

Sorry if this blog post comes across as aimless and disordered—I wanted it to be lazy as the subject matter. But whatever: Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Lucky Charms MIX! is hitting stores now.

News: 2022 Froot Loops

New Froot Loops Sweethearts

You’re on thin ice, Toucan Sam: thin ice!

Like I mentioned in yesterday’s 2021 “Best Of” countdown, the Kellogg’s Strike may be over, but I’m still hesitant to support and outright endorse new Kellogg’s releases. While we wait to see how Kellogg’s corporate rhetoric and worker treatment evolves over the coming months, I’ll still share news of upcoming Kellogg’s releases on this site—but I’ll be including caveat reminders that a) it took Kellogg’s three whole months and endless bad PR just to make small concessions to the people who make their cereal, b) there are always satisfying alternatives and taste-alikes for these new Kellogg’s releases for those who would rather spend their money elsewhere, and c) a number of people noted dangerous finds in their Kellogg’s purchases while the company was using less-experienced scab labor to replace striking workers, and given lengthy production timelines, it’s unclear when cereal made by the reinstated striking workers will reach shelves.

That said, two new Froot Loops varieties are coming soon from the Battle Creek cereal behemoth. The first is the above Froot Loops Sweethearts, which is basically the exact same Froot Loops you already know, just resculpted into heart shapes and with a laughably ironic “Spread Love Edition” label. This is also the first new limited edition Froot Loops variety to feature the recently redesigned Toucan Sam—who looks….okay, I guess? Personally, I wish they would’ve stuck with the bolder, Adventure Time style Sam who was scrapped after a poor public response.

Froot Loops Color Mix Ups

The other new Froot Loops variety is still a bit more esoteric at this time. It’s called Froot Loops Color Mix-Ups, and reader Laura sent me this pixelated evidence of it from an Acme grocery digital coupon. It’s unclear whether these Mix-Ups will taste any different from normal Froot Loops, but they appear to feature kaleidoscopically multicored Loops instead of the single-hued classic Loops.

Also worth noting is that, as the digital coupon applies to a number of other new Kellogg’s products, there’s a “Mixx Jumbo Snax” listed as well, albeit without any image. Could this be a jumbo-sized remake of 1990’s cryptozoological classic Big Mixx? Probably not, but a Loch Ness-loving boy can dream, can’t he?

Anyway, if you find a better image of Froot Loops Color Mix-Ups, please let me know!

News: Betty Crocker Cinnadust Desserts

Betty Crocker Cinnadust Frosting

Why use one word when four gets the idea across more laboriously? Like, why call it “water” when “cold distilled cloud sauce” sounds so charmingly clunky? Why settle for “walking” when “dual-legged ambulatory self-propelled motion” is right there? And why simply call your dessert “cinnamon” flavored when “Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnadust” offers so much candy-colored cross-branded opportunity?

Just kidding: how could I be upset that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is creeping its cinnamon sugar-swirled tendrils all across the Baking Needs aisle?

Cinnadust Crunch Cake Mix Cinnadust Coffee Cake Mix Cinnadust Cookie Mix Cinnadust Pancake Mix

And boy howdy is Betty Crocker going all out with the Toast Crunch touch. We’ve got Cinnadust Frosting of course, ideal for all-purpose icing and all-setting spooning directly into your Cinnamon Toast Maw. Then there are two cake mixes: Coffee Cake and Crunch Cake, so you can have a slice of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the morning and after dinner. There’s Cinnadust Cookie Mix, when dunking cereal in milk just isn’t enough. Then there’s a Cinnamon Toast Crunch Complete Pancake Kit, which sounds like the ultimate mouthfeel gauntlet of crunchiness, stickiness, and fluffiness.

Lucky Charms Marshmallow Pancake Kit

And if that wasn’t enough mouthwatering, molar-tingling sweetness for your day, Lucky Charms is joining the pancake mix too—this one, I believe, would pair beautifully with Mrs. Butterworth’s Fruity Pebbles Syrup (and by “beautifully” I mean “an abstract tie-dyed performance-art abomination”).

News: Post Pebbles Shake Ups!

New Fruity Pebbles Shake Ups!

Ugh, typical: another job lost to automation.

Well at least, “AI-generated cereal mixology” is the only rational explanation I can think of for Post’s new Pebbles Shake Ups! cereal pouches and the nonsensical menagerie of cereal pieces contained therein. First off, you’ve got Birthday Cake Pebbles Boulders, which is an edible enigma in its own right. Not only did I never expect Pebbles to dust off the spherical, ten-year-old Pebbles Boulders sub-brand, but they decided to create a new Boulders flavor just to use in these Shake Ups! Pebbles Boulders proper were only ever released in Caramel Apple and Chocolate Peanut Butter varieties, so Birthday Cake Pebbles Boulders are a new cereal released within a new cereal mix—that is, unless you assume these Boulders are just rebranded Birthday Cake Timbits Cereal pieces (which they totally are).

Rounding out this odd ensemble are Waffle Crisp squares and “Salted Pretzel Bits.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Waffle Crisp, and actual salty pretzel sound interesting, but a taste trilogy of birthday cake, maple, and salted pretzel seems just a little too random to rev my engine. Continue reading

News: Marshmallow Cocoa Pebbles

New Marshmallow Cocoa Pebbles Cereal

*Throws hands up in the air with enough gusto to alter the flight patterns of passing geese*

Fine, I guess.

Innovation in the cereal sphere is often a weirdly all-or-nothing affair. Sure, we get intelligent strokes of sweet strategic genius like Apple Pie Toast Crunch, but a lot of the time it seems like if we’re not getting bludgeoned over the buzz-fed head with wacky headline-grabbers like Green Onion Chex or…meaty cereals, big cereal companies will instead play it super safe by simply making a sugary cereal more sugary—whether that means frosting an already frosted cereal or just chucking in a mittful of marbits and calling it a day.

Case in point: new Marshmallow Cocoa Pebbles. Pebbles are no stranger to marbits: from Dino Pebbles to Marshmallow Mania Pebbles, it’s well-trodden territory for the shaved rice crisps brand. Which is why I can’t find myself getting too excited about another (admittedly kinda lazy) marshmallow addition—even if they are using cocoa-infused marbits this time. If nothing else, as a purple-loving people cereal eater, I adore this vibrant box, but, uh, I’m drawing a big, white and fluffy blank when it comes to saying anything else interesting about Marshmallow Cocoa Pebbles.

The cereal has already been spotted out in the wild, so if Marshmallow Cocoa Pebbles sounds like your bag, run—do not walk—your stone-age car to the store ASAP.

News: A Pantry’s Worth of New General Mills Cereals

New CinnaGraham Toast Crunch Cereal

Y’know, they say imitation is the sublimest form of flattery.

Yes, General Mills unleashed a mouthwatering downpour of new cereal news this week, and the twinkling, golden, Luciferianly tempting lightbringer leading the firestorm is CinnaGraham Toast Crunch: a game-changing union of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Golden Grahams that pairs the former’s sweet cinnamon sugar swirls with the latter’s hearty honey base grain.

To be honest, I’d’ve preferred if GM made this a variant of Golden Grahams instead of a Toast Crunch. I totally understand how CTC has more cult appeal, but poor Golden Grahams never gets limited edition variants, whereas there are enough members of the Toast Crunch family to start a mafia, inspire an Ancestry.com commercial, and clean out an Olive Garden. Continue reading

News (UK): Cereal Killer Treat Cereals

Killer Cereal Collection

Oh boy am I glad this is just a blog, and I don’t have to say the names of any of these cereals out loud.

Wait a minute, I have a podcast. A family friendly podcast.

Aw, [dolphin noises].


Anyway, it seems like I’ve been sleeping on the Cereal Killer Cafe for a long time—not surprising, considering how they’re like, 5 timezones ahead of me. But I also knew them as the Brits with the most famous cereal cafe of all time. Cereal cafes aren’t all that rare in America, but since you can just buy all the same cereals at your local grocery store, the concept is much more of a novelty overseas, where American cereals are comparatively exotic and exuberantly sweet. Add in Cereal Killer Cafe’s immersive branding, and you had a hit on your spoon-gripping hands. Continue reading

The Empty Bowl Episode Sixty + Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Mini Treats

Happy Ho-Ho-Hovember! Not to be confused with Yo-Ho-Hovember (only celebrated in international waters), H-H-H-vember is my go-to name for the late-autumn parts of November that are cannibalized by the coming Christmas season (i.e., every day in November except for like, three).

I highly recommend you celebrate with either a) strict defiance and rigid adherence to Thanksgiving tradition with a “come and take ’em” on your mashed potatoes, b) the kind of dastardly combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities that results in cranberry sauce leaking out of a stocking, or c) a new episode of The Empty Bowl, a meditative cereal podcast from myself and Justin McElroy.

I won’t lie: I do a very bad job about remembering to tell y’all when we have a new episode. In fact, it’s been an embarrassing 5 months since I’ve done so. But nevertheless, Episode Sixty is a darn good one, even if it gets a bit off topic into the rich realms of s’mores and doughnuts…and shoddy Halloween costumes.

New Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Mini Treats Box

We also discuss these new Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Mini Treats, which thankfully aren’t exclusive to the Sam’s Club 53-count box after all—and instead can also be found in this 35-pack at Walmart stores, even though that’s still enough sweet little rectangular prisms to leave Santa too stuffed to slide out of your house the way he came in. Forgive him for tucking and rolling out the living room window…and taking the head clean off your front yard reindeer sculpture.

Anyway, if you want to hear all the Empty Bowl episodes I forgot to tell you about, you can find them at our Anchor hub. You can also follow along on Twitter, or send in a listener question. We can’t discuss or respond to every email, but each one is like a Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Mini Treat injected directly into our veins.