Seriously guys, we have to talk about Peanut Butter Chip Mates.

Generic brand cereals are often seen as the crunchy butts of every breakfast table joke (I just wanted to type the phrase “crunchy butts”). Even though they are the breakfast of champions on a budget, these obvious rip-offs have goofy names like “Honey-Nut Scooters” and “Crispy Hexagons,” as well as sub-par flavors that melt away faster than a muffin in a rainstorm.

And yes, I’ve seen a muffin in a rainstorm before. It ain’t pretty.

But not Peanut Butter Chip Mates. No, Peanut Butter Chip Mates doesn’t need your pity, nor will it ask for it.

Peanut Butter Chip Mates is here to slap those preconceived notions about store brand cereals right out of you.

Peanut Butter Chip Mates is here to slap you so full of doughy peanut butter cookie flavor that you’ll be on your knees in front of a box of Marshmallow Mateys, begging for forgiveness.

So the logical first impression upon seeing this Kroger brand cereal is, “pshh, that’s just a knock-off of Peanut Butter Cookie Crisp.” But wait! Peanut Butter Cookie Crisp hasn’t existed since 2007, and even then, it never had chocolate chips—just more peanut butter.

What we’re dealing with here is a rare example of store brand cereal creativity, and from Kroger, no less. Sure, the name of Peanut Butter Chip Mates may need work (might I suggest “Peanut Butter Dough My Good Golly Gosh”?), but this cereal already earns points for originality.

Biting into a spoonful, it becomes obvious that this is a jacked-up version of Cookie Crisp in every way. Gone is Cookie Crisp’s wispy, airy, and crisp texture; instead, each cookie piece in Peanut Butter Chip Mates have a luxuriously doughy crunch, chock full of baked-in nuttiness, butteriness, and brown sugariness.

Oh, and did I mention the caked-on layer of powdered peanut butter on every piece? This additional exterior coating may not be salty or oily like genuine peanut butter, but it does taste like sweet, creamy nuts. It brings to mind the thin, slightly gritty PB layer on a Peanut Butter Snickers or a Peanut Butter Twix.

Just how good is this coating? Well let’s just say that even though winter is nearly over, I wouldn’t mind a surprise peanut butter blizzard that pelts me with this stuff until I’m buried and happily suffocate on mounds of peanutty snow.

The rare bursts of pleasant, milk chocolate chip definitely take a backseat to the cereal’s peanut butter blasts, but their presence is still welcome. Think of it as an inverted Reese’s Cup, or as Nabisco might call it, an “Uh-Oh! Reese’s Cup.”

The chips give a welcome reprieve from the tasty yet powerful PB. Without these chips, I’d probably be left dry-mouthed, smacking my lips, and whimpering, like a dog with peanut butter stuck on the roof of his mouth.

I’ve seen that too, and it’s less pretty than a sloppy, rain-soaked muffin.

Surprise, surprise: milk makes Peanut Chip Mates even better. The richness gets richer, the doughiness gets doughier, and the local Girl Scout Troop gets angrier, because this cereal is as good as a stack of Tagalongs with a glass of milk.

Look out, Kroger, you won’t like these girls when they’re angry. Don’t be surprised when you find Do-Si-Do shurikens stuck in your door.

Special shoutouts go to Peanut Butter Chip Mates’ endmilk. As the peanut butter coating and milk meet, they leave behind a gooey peanut butter concoction. It’s just like melted peanut butter fudge lava, erupted from the Nutter Butter volcano I often see in my dreams.

Sure, Peanut Butter Chip Mates aren’t perfect. They have the same Achilles heels as every generic cereal: a faint plasticky aftertaste and a tendency to go stale more quickly than other cereals. But staleness shouldn’t be a problem, because if you aren’t sucking down this cereal like Homer at Hell’s doughnut machine, you’re eating it wrong anyway.

All bag-flavored aftertastes aside, I give Kroger applause once more. Finding innovation in store brand cereals is so rare nowadays that you’re more likely to find a chupacabra struck by lightning. Here’s hoping that lighting can strike twice for Kroger, though; I want to see them add more to their Chip Mates line outside of the regular and peanut butter.

Here are a few ideas: gingerbread, snickerdoodle, s’mores, Thin Mint, and…uh oh, I think the vengeful Girl Scouts found me.

The Bowl: Kroger Peanut Butter Chip Mates

The Breakdown: Doughy texture! Peanut butter snow storms! Chipper little chips! This store brand cereal has everything a cookie-lover could want, and even a weird aftertaste can’t stop it from entering the exclusive League of Extraordinary Cereals.

The Bottom Line: 9.5 creamy nuts and crunchy butts out of 10

(Quick Nutrition Facts: 130 calories, 11 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein per 3/4 cup serving)