Tag Archives: international

18

Jun. ’20

News: Wait…Why is Kellogg’s Releasing a Green Onion Cereal in South Korea?

South Korean Kellogg's Green Onion Cereal Chex

The answer is way more interesting than you might think. More than just an unhinged marketing gimmick, the story of South Korean Green Onion Chex is really about a fight for breakfast democracy, 16 years in the making.

In 2004, Kellogg’s of South Korea made one very short-sighted assumption. They wanted to debut a new version of their Chocolate Chex cereal—yes, it must be noted that, for some reason, Kellogg’s SK has the rights to use Chex (a General Mills cereal almost everywhere else) in branding—so Kellogg’s marketers launched an event for kids: an election between two candidates in the running to be “the president of Kellogg–Chex world.”

Kids could vote for either Cheky, a hip young square who promised to double the chocolate flavor in Kellogg’s Chex cereal, or Chaka, a rude and ugly Chex piece who promised to put green onions in Kellogg’s Chex instead. Again, foolishly assuming that kids would naturally choose super-chocolatey Cheky over his hybrid Shrek/Mucinex Mascot opponent, Kellogg’s SK let kids vote through a public online poll. Continue reading →

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01

Aug. ’19

Review: Mermaid Cereals (General Mills and Kellogg’s Froot Loops!)

Two Mermaid Cereal Boxes

Finally, after decades of alpha-male tigers, geriatric cinnamon-toast bakers and the fiery testosterone of the sky’s giant Raisin Bran-loving plasma ball, we’re getting a cereal mascot who’s a strong female role mod—aw wait…she’s only half human, isn’t she? Do we really want the world’s daughters looking up to someone who craps in the ocean?

Sorry fishladies, didn’t mean to slander you. I’m sure there are plenty of sophisticated mermaidens out there who use seafoam bidets, and you’re all way classier than those treacherous sirens. All I wanted to do was hear them cover Chocolate Rain, but I did not stay dry and I certainly felt the pain.

Oceanic etiquette aside, I find the food world’s mermaid trend intriguing. It seems these Ms. Thological creatures have eclipsed unicorns as young kids’ cryptids of fixation, as mermaids are apparently popular enough to warrant two cereals, from two different companies, released at roughly the same time in two different hemispheres. While General Mills was kind enough to hook me up with several (several) boxes worth of their new Mermaid Cereal, the Aussies of the Yeah, G’Day! podcast were kind enough to send me Kellogg’s Mermaid Froot Loops from the land down-underwater.

So which continent will emerge as king queen of breakfast’s aquamarina? Let’s dive in. Continue reading →

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05

Jul. ’19

Review: South Korean Oreo O’s RED & Peanut Butter O’s!

South Korean Oreo O's RED Cereal Review Peanut Butter Os Cereal Boxes

What better way to celebrate a special day than with two special cereals?

Or to be more sentimentally apt, what better way to celebrate the fourth anniversary of Cerealously.net than with a new variant of this blogger’s all-time favorite cereal?

Yes, it feels like I’ve preached the virtues of South Korean Oreo O’s so many times in the past four years that it borders on trite fanboyism at this point. But guess what? It’s my party, and I can gush about longitudinal variances in cocoa and marbit potency if I want to.

Especially since this occasion’s significance surpasses any individual’s milky milestone. Despite being voted the best Oreo O’s in their class by D.G. Power & Associates for the past half decade, South Korean Oreo O’s have never gotten a new flavor variant—a tragedy when we see just how lame America’s rebooted OO’s cinematic universe turned out.

Technically, there were Honey O’s bearing the aqueous mascot of Oreo O’s—a crossover we’ll see again later in the this article—but now the Oreo name and implied legacy officially endorse Oreo O’s RED, which is a Chocolate–Strawberry combo far more interesting than Golden or Mega Marbit Stuf’d.

In honor of Cerealously 4th birthday, I will humbly endure the jolly good burden of eating four bowls.

Continue reading →

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24

Jun. ’19

Spooned & Spotted: South Korean RED Oreo O’s!

South Korean RED Chocolate Strawberry Oreo O's Cereal Box

If you read yesterday’s review of Mega Stuf Oreo O’s and were equally miffed by its tepid take on the Oreo cookie’s fantastically vast sea of cereal possibilities, then I’ve got some good news for you—from across the widest ocean.

Perhaps sensing a disturbance in the cosmic balance of Oreo O goodness, the South Korean makers of the world’s finest sandwich cookie cereal have emerged from their hermetic caves of creativity with a new flavor worthy of the Seal of Oreo Imagination.

Channeling Taylor Swift, these new Oreo O’s dub themselves only as RED, leaving the breakfaster to interpret whether they are flavored with strawberries or the ichor of the Oreo O’s mascot’s vanquished enemies—whom he has presumably leveled with a milk tidal wave caused by a seismic body slam.

Not only are the omnipresent marshmallows tinted a charming rose-quartz, but the thick Oreo O rings—which you’ll notice are far different than America’s Oreo O’s—also bear clusters of red blood cells instead of white.

But wait, that’s not all! Continue reading →

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17

Jun. ’19

News: Kellogg’s UK Launches White Choc Coco Pops

White Chocolate Coco Pops Cereal Box

As one legend falls, another shall rise.

Just as Kellogg’s U.S. has made the borderline despicable choice to make Rice Krispies Treats Cereal a crudely deconstructed caricature of its former, cult-favorite self, Kellogg’s U.K. is bringing its version of Cocoa Krispies to a bold new frontier of flavor.

Fronted by Coco the monkey, a mascot that once blessed boxes of U.S. of Cocoa Krispies from 1991-2001, White Choc(olate) Coco Pops are the first introduction of white chocolate into a cereal brand that I can think of, outside of Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme cereal (which is still appropriately and anachronistically present on Kmart’s website). That cereal was a bit of a flop, which puts the onus of white chocolate revelry squarely on Coco’s shoulders.

But hey, at least he hasn’t been uncannily CGI’d yet, unlike a certain trio of elves who now appear to be haunted wax sculptures.

While I’m unsure whether I’ll ever get the chance to taste White Choc Coco Pops, it’s no doubt been a good month for Kellogg’s U.K., who also stirred up a lot of buzz by making three different beers from the production waste of Corn Flakes, Coco Pops, and Rice Krispies—meaning that if I can’t get my hands on White Chocolate Pops, I might be able to sooth my sorrows soon with a tallboy of White Chocolate Poppin’ Porter.

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02

Apr. ’19

Review: Tropical Froot Loops from Mexico!

Kellogg's Mexico Tropical Froot Loops Review Box

(Note: the box got a just a little dinged during its journey North. Must’ve been hungry carrier pigeons.)

Look, are we all just going to ignore the fact that, before Tropical Froot Loops, Toucan Sam clearly had no idea what fruit is?

And I’m not talking the layperson’s misclassification of pumpkins and tomatoes as vegetables—follow your nose deep into your noggin and try to remember the last time you heard Froot Loops’ lifelong spokesbird actually reference a real fruit by name. Lemonberries, starberries, wildberries: all ambiguous amalgamations of nature’s genuine bounty invented to hide the fact that “Froot” is much less of a natural flavor than it is a state of mind kids can tastefully chase outside the bounds of reality and into whichever adjacent universe where the grass is limeberry green and the fruit salads are crunchy.

[Though to Sam’s credit, his original iteration did wear a fruit-flocked Carmen Miranda hat. My two-pronged rebuttal to this is a) toucans can’t pass the mirror test, so he’s likely never recognized his own headgear, and b) the first Toucan Sam was undoubtedly throttled by the current Toucan Sam’s slenderly feathered man fingers.]

Thankfully, Froot Loops in Mexico largely preserve the two-dimensional Toucan Sam design of yore, though the worryingly articulate prehensility with which he’s gripping the Tropical Froot Loop on this box still leaves me concerned he’ll snap—or at least snap half the universe away. Continue reading →

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20

Mar. ’19

Spooned & Spotted (Mexico): Tropical Froot Loops

https://www.instagram.com/p/BvM_eyEFMEf/

For a guy who’s spent his entire 56-year career preaching the Gospel of Froot, Toucan Sam has rarely explored the complex taste spectrum the broad pantheon of seed-dispersal vessels (aka fruit) has to offer.

And he still hasn’t canonized the late Carmen Miranda yet either, so I refuse to acknowledge his scripture’s legitimacy over the Dead Trix Scrolls.

Sure, we’ve gotten smoothie-fied Froot Loops, Wild Berry Froot Loops, and my favorite fruit, Birthday Cake, but the Froot Loops family of flavors still largely sticks to a single, extremely ambiguous and in no way authentic fake fruit cocktail instead of charting new latitudes of crunchy cartography—the closest thing we’ve gotten is vacation-shaped marshmallows.

That is, until now: according to Mexican Candy Lady and renowned cereal documentarian Gabe Fonseca, Mexico now has exclusive Tropical Froot Loops. This variety sees the Loops dressed in the more modest hues of a Jamba Juice sampler, with promises of banana and pineapple flavoring.

Ha, what do you know: they turned my favorite fruit, pineapple upside-down cake, into a weird spiky thing!

Unfortunately, the Mexican Candy Lady’s shop still lists Tropical Froot Loops as out of stock, so I won’t be able to review them—at least until I dream about a Cancún getaway tonight…though you’ll have to meet me at the cerebral bungalow if you want to hear about it.

Froot Loops Pops Cereal

Luckily she does still have new Froot Loops Pops in stock, which appear to be another name (that references Canada’s spherical Corn Pops, perhaps) for the joyous Froot Loops Bloopers that have been out intermittently here in the states.

If you’ve tried Tropical Froot Loops (or want to launch me a box via intercontinental trebuchet), let me know what you think below. And if you have a hemisphere-spanning cereal spotting of your own, you can follow your nose to our Submissions page.

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18

Mar. ’19

News: Kellogg’s Australia Debuts Mermaid Froot Loops

Kellogg's Mermaid Froot Loops Cereal

Is Toucan Sam starting a breakfast bestiary? And if so, why?

Of all the cereal brands out there, I wouldn’t have expected Froot Loops to start a weird off-shoot series of pseudo-spiritual successors that draw from the world of myths and mutants. Despite its history with otherworldly creatures, Froot Loops seems a little too innocently avian to flirt with Unicorns and now Mermaids—that’s the kind of crunchy cryptozoology I’d expect from the likes of Kellogg’s own grinning Ra who represents their -isin Bran.

Exclusive to Costco, these Australia-exclusive Mermaid Froot Loops seems like a parallel universe version of Caticorn Cereal, a quasi-Froot Loops pet project that has a temporary Sam’s Club exclusivity here in the states. But while Caticorn Cereal was littered with ghosts of faint fruitiness, Mermaid Froot Loops appear to just be Mardi Grad-colored Loops—though their lack of artificial colors and flavors raise the question of just how genuine the expected Froot Loops fakeness will taste.

Regardless, Australian Froot Loops deserve my respect, not just for putting a female mascot on a cereal box—an apparently unheard of phenomenon in the U.S. outside of, uh, Dora the Explorer Cereal?—but also for preserving the two-dimensional purity of Toucan Sam, whose American counterpart has become an anthropomorphized terror who would just love to show you how double-jointed his slender, feathered fingers are.

If you’ve tried Mermaid Froot Loops, let me know how they are in the comments. And if you’ve managed to catch another new cereal cryptid on camera, you can share them on our Submissions page—our thanks to Hedvig for the Mermaidian tip.

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