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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Emily Elyse Miller Wants to Reinvent Breakfast Cereal. That Means Vegan Ingredients, Edgy Mascots, and (Of Course) NFTs

Emily Elyse Miller knows a thing or two about breakfast.

Not only has the one-time journalist and fashion trends forecaster written a book on the topic (complete with 380 recipes from 80 countries), but she’d also run a consulting company that helped world-renowned chefs like Enrique Olvera develop breakfast events.

But after years of writing and teaching about first-meal, Miller realized that cereal, the centerpiece of the American breakfast for generations of kids and adults, had gone stale. So she decided to start a cereal company of her own to reinvent the category.

Called OffLimits, Miller’s company created a line of irreverent brands like Dash and Zombie, each with its own ‘moody mascot’ and a clean ingredient list.

The funky mascots were important for Miller, because while she loved the rainbow-colored pop culture she grew up with in the cereal aisle, she felt it was time for something new.

“Tony the Tiger is not cool,” said Miller. “Cereal is one of the only products that carry culture in this unique way, and that culture has not been updated in decades.”

Emily Elyse Miller

Miller worked with artists to design the cereal brands’ characters and boxes. Now, she sees NFTs as a natural evolution to bring the creations to life and connect directly with the OffLimits’ community.

“The mascots have moody personalities, and there are highs and lows to those personalities too,” said Miller. “They have mental health issues as much as they have kind of successes and wins, and I think that’s what makes the brand so right for building out in the Web3 space.”

New to Web3, Miller initially started small by giving away NFTs during a pop-up at the Art Basel art fair last December in Miami Beach. Attendees of the pop-up scanned a QR code to claim an NFT for what Miller describes as the first-ever “NFT cereal toy.” The giveaway was gamified, so some who scanned got an “exploding cereal” NFT and given an OffLimits cereal variety pack.

The Art Basel NFT giveaway gave Miller confidence to go bigger. “My first NFT protect was just so I could understand who would claim it and if people would care at all,” said Miller. “People very much cared, so that helped just like solidify that I get to pay a lot more attention to this.”

That extra attention resulted in a new NFT project announced this week called “Best Cereal in the Metaverse.” The project will feature a collection of 2,500 NFTs (.111 Etherium (~$290)), each with its own unique artist-created spin on an OffLimits’ mascot. In addition to unique artwork, NFT owners gain access to the private discord and can participate in the custom cereal box design process by submitting an NFT they own to be featured on a custom-designed cereal box. Each NFT holder will also get four of the custom-designed boxes of cereal shipped to their home.

OffLimits is part of a bigger trend of upstart food brands pushing into NFTs. Startups like Bored Breakfast Club, Liquid Death, and Yerb have all launched NFT projects over the past few months as a way to directly connect with their customers and create a new commerce model. For Miller, while all of this is exciting and represents opportunity, there’s still lots of work to do.

“While people were excited to learn about an NFT (with the first project) and potentially claim it, the amount of questions that we got and education that we have to do for our community who are not crypto native is a lot,” said Miller. “So brands need to take their responsibility.”

That responsibility also means talking to other brands curious about the Web3 space and conveying what she’s learned.

“I’ve been talking to so many brands about how they can be more involved in the space,” said Miller. “For me, everything’s about functionality, which is why I wanted this project to have a lot of layers. I wanted to involve our existing community to help grow a larger community of artists and just keep a circle of engagement going. That’s why I feel like there needs to be a physical product for something digital, trying to keep a good balance.”

If you want to sign up for the OffLimits NFT, you can do so here.

Make Beats at the Breakfast Table with Reese’s Puffs AR Cereal Box Drum Machine

After seeing Mark Ronson’s “Watch the Sound” series on music, my 10-year-old son is now very into drum machines and beats. And while he would love a vintage Roland TR 808 to kick off his burgeoning music career, I think instead I’ll get him a box of Reese’s Puffs cereal.

Not that I think a bowl of Reese’s Puffs is the breakfast of champions, but a new promotional box for the cereal out now features an augmented reality drum machine on the back. I received a press release about the new cereal box beatmaker this morning. Usually when I get these types of emails, I immediately toss them. But as I looked at the information, it actually seemed like a pretty cool use of technology, so I went out and bought a box this morning (with apologies to my wife, who does not yet know there is a giant box of sugar cereal jammed into our pantry).

Here’s how it works. On the back of the box is a diagram of the RP-FX drum pad. You scan a special QR code with your mobile phone and it takes you to a special Reese’s web app that accesses your phone’s camera. Place cereal puffs wherever you like on the drum pad spaces and then hover your camera phone over the box. Using AR, the app “reads” where you placed your puffs and generates a beat accordingly. Move the puffs around and the beat changes.

It’s definitely not high fidelity or Pro Tools quality production, but it actually works surprisingly well. Once you have your beat just as you like, you can use the app to record it, so you can share it with friends or use it as the basis of your next club banger.

You can hear the one I whipped up this morning here (or, you know, wait a few months and it’ll be all over the radio).

As noted earlier, I typically shy away from covering promotional stunts like this. But as a parent and a fan of both music and technology, this promotion is actually worth, well, promoting. Besides, using a cereal box to build your own beat sure beats digging for a cheap plastic toy at the bottom of one.

Kellogg’s Bowl Bot Cereal Robot, Based on Chowbotics Tech, Debuts at Two Universities

Kellogg’s Away From Home, a division of the CPG giant that works with foodservice operators, announced a joint pilot program with Chowbotics (now a division of DoorDash) that just debuted cereal dispensing robots at two universities. The aptly named Kellogg’s Bowl Bot will dispense a variety of Kellogg’s brand cereals as well as different milks, fruits, yogurts and more.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the Kellogg’s Bowl Bots are now available at Florida State University and the Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison (which also uses Starship delivery robots!). The Kellogg’s Bowl Bot is basically a re-purposed and re-branded Chowbotics Sally robotic vending machine, which started out as a salad-making robot but has since expanded its capabilities to include other types of parfaits and bowl foods.

We’ve known about Chowbotics’ CPG ambitions since last year, when the company told us it wanted to partner with cereal companies specifically. At the time, the cereal bot use case was more about offering free samples at a grocery store, but branding and placing these machines at colleges makes a lot of sense. For one, colleges have long been a target location for Chowbotics. Prior to the pandemic, it had rolled out Sallys to a number of colleges and universities across the country. Second, the Kellogg’s Bowl Bot is perfect for our pandemic times since it doesn’t require human-to-human interaction and all of the ingredients are store inside closed containers that are themselves stored within the machine.

On top of all that, while my college days are long behind me, I assume cereal remains popular with this younger generation (when they aren’t eating avocado toast).

The Kellogg’s Bowl Bot has a special menu programmed for students that includes:

  • About Last Night with Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Kellogg’s Froot Loops, Kellogg’s KraveTM Chocolate, chocolate drops, banana chips, and espresso syrup
  • Hawaii 5-0 with Frosted Mini-Wheats, Bear Naked Fit Triple Berry Granola, pineapple, coconut, and mango
  • Valentine’s Day Vibes with Special K Red Berries Cereal, cocoa nibs, blueberries, strawberries, and whole milk

Or students can create their own custom bowl mixing and matching cereals, milks, nuts, seeds, fruits and more. Prices start at $2.99 and go up to $6.50, depending on selection. Students can even use their campus meal plans to purchase their bowl.

For those interested in checking out the new Kellogg’s Bowl Bots, the one at FSU is located in 1851, an on-campus dining facility and convenience store, and the robot at UW-Madison is situated on Dejope Residence Hall’s main floor, outside The Bean & Creamery.

Magic Spoon, the Low-Carb, Gluten-Free Keto-Friendly Cereal, Now Available in Mini Boxes

When I was growing up in the ’70s, there were fewer victories greater than my mom agreeing to buy the variety pack of mini cereal boxes. Apple Jacks, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, some healthy option I ignored, all shrink wrapped together for glorious consumption while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Being a modern, health-conscious parent, those sugar-packed treats of yesteryear are verboten in the Albrecht household. Which is why I’m excited that Magic Spoon announced today that it is now offering its low-carb, protein-packed kids-cereal-for-adults in mini-boxes.

Spoon devotees might remember that we went a little ga ga over Magic Spoon cereal last year. (We even did a whole podcast about it.) Instead of sugar, the company uses Allulose, a sweetener found in sources like figs and raisins, and as I wrote at the time:

I dug into a bowl of the Fruity cereal this morning and it tastes just like the sugary cereal of my youth, but has only 8g of carbohydrates 0g of sugar and 3 net carbs for keto counters (Froot Loops has 26g of carbs, 12 grams of sugar and 23 net carbs). It doesn’t really taste like any actual fruit, it tastes “pink” to my tastebuds (which is probably influenced by its shocking pink color), but Spoon Founder, Mike Wolf thinks it tastes exactly like Froot Loops. Regardless of any synesthesia, I ate a whole bowl and was ready to eat more.

The only catch to this enchanted cereal was the fact that it cost $40 for a four pack of 7 oz. boxes. And up until today, you had to buy it in a four pack.

Magic Spoon’s new mini boxes aren’t exactly cheap. A twelve-pack including a variety of fruity, frosted, cocoa and blueberry flavors will set you back $29. Each 1 oz. mini box of Magic Spoon contains 12g of protein, 3g of net carbs and 110 calories.

The company raised $5.5 million in September last year and said at the time it planned to use its new funds to expand its business. These mini-boxes actually seem like a pretty smart way to do that.

With its low-carb, high-protein formulation, the mini boxes could open up Magic Spoon into the snack category. Additionally, in the time of coronavirus and social distancing, having individual, single-serve boxes could make it easier for Magic Spoon to get into offices or cafeterias. Though, single-serving boxes also creates more packaging waste.

Magic Spoon’s mini-move also steps on rival The Cereal School, which offers its healthier cereal in single serve bags.

Regardless of the reasons, the arrival of Magic Spoon minis may just mean that have to clear my Saturday morning, fire up some classic cartoons and enjoy a few bowls of cereal.

Magic Spoon Raises $5.5M Seed Round for Its Healthy Take on Sweet Cereal

Magic Spoon, a company that makes a healthy sugary-tasting cereal, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding, according to an article on Food Dive. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with additional participation from Joseph Zwillinger (Allbirds), Jeff Raider (Harry’s), and David Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal (Warby Parker).

The company plans to use the new funds to expand its business, make new hires, increase marketing efforts, and create new cereal flavors.

Magic Spoon is a non-GMO, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, and wheat-free cereal that’s keto-friendly and still tastes like a sweet cereal you’d find in a grocery store aisle. It also contains more protein and fewer calories than your typical box of Froot Loops. The company uses a natural substance called Allulose, which is found in some fruits, to get its sweetness. My colleague Chris Albrecht got his hands on some not long ago and gave all the cereals a rave review. The cereal also has to be ordered online and isn’t available in grocery stores yet, though Magic Spoon keeps selling out of inventory so clearly it doesn’t need to be widely available at big-box stores just yet.

Company founders Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz are no strangers to alternative ingredients. Prior to the Magic Spoon, the duo made cricket-based protein bars under company Exo, which they sold to Aspire Food Group in 2018.

Magic Spoon’s one catch is its price: it costs about $40 for four seven-ounce boxes. Lewis told Food Dive he “hasn’t heard much pushback on the price” as of yet. Part of that’s likely due to who Magic Spoon is currently targeting: health-conscious millennials who are used to buying groceries online and paying higher prices for trendy foods.

The company’s main competition comes from The Cereal School, who makes another version of “healthy” sweet cereal and sells it online. Unlike Magic Spoon, however, The Cereal School has made a conscious decision to remain bootstrapped as long as possible, a decision that’s led to some manufacturing issues in the past. The Cereal School’s product isn’t cheap either, at $50 for 24 single-serving bags.

Those price points may work now while the concept of cereal innovation is hot and early adopters are willing to pay. However, either company wants to expand and cater to the everyman at some point, they’ll need to find a way to bring that price point down without sacrificing the quality of the ingredients.

Launched on Instagram, The Cereal School Creates Low-Carb, Keto-Friendly “Sugar” Cereal

Buying breakfast cereal used to be pretty simple. Walk down the supermarket aisle and, if you’re a kid, grab the brightest colored box of the sweetest cereal you can find. If you’re an adult, well, you settle for the one with the most fiber.

But the cereal aisle is, pardon the cliché, in the midst of a disruption. Startups like The Cereal School are delivering sweet cereals for adults, without all the sugar, and, for now, without competing for your eyeballs in the cereal aisle.

The Cereal School makes low-carb, keto-friendly breakfast cereal. It comes in Cinnamon Bun or Fruity flavor, and has zero sugar, 1g total carbs, and 16g of protein per serving. By comparison, a serving of Froot Loops has 7g of sugar, 18g total carbs and 1g of protein. But you can’t find The Cereal School at the grocery store and it doesn’t come in a box; it’s only sold online through the company’s site in individual, single-serving bags.

The Cereal School was founded by Dylan Kaplan and Helen Guo, two Georgetown grads who decided the sugary cereal didn’t have to be so sugary and could be made in a way that even health-conscious adults could enjoy. The two turned their 450 sq. ft New York apartment into a lab, experimenting with different flavor profiles. They wound up settling on monkfruit as the sweetener in the cereal.

Kaplan and Guo launched The Cereal School on Instagram in August of 2018 with no marketing budget and promptly sold out of all their inventory in 72 hours. Right now the company is bootstrapped and Kaplan and Guo are its only employees, but during an interview with Kaplan last week, he told me he prefers this smaller approach. “We made a conscious decision to bootstrap as long as we can,” Kaplan said. “It’s forced us to be very scrappy and think about ways we could grow the business without some huge treasure chest.”

That scrappiness, however, can come with some bumps in the road. Kaplan said that the company’s smaller size forced them to go through some manufacturing growing pains at the beginning as they tried to keep up with demand. While Kaplan wouldn’t reveal specific sales numbers, he said those issues are now worked out and the product is no longer on backorder.

If the idea of a kids’ cereal for adults sounds familiar, then you’ve probably heard of Magic Spoon. Much like The Cereal School, Magic Spoon makes sweet cereal that is high in protein, keto-friendly, non-GMO, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, wheat-free and has nothing artificial.

During our call, I asked Kaplan about Magic Spoon and what it’s like being part of this new wave of healthy sugary cereals. “They are what I’d call a knock-off brand,” Kaplan said of Magic Spoon, though he thinks that after decades of having to choose between sugary and healthy, consumers will shift towards his company’s new kind of cereal and that there will be more than just The Cereal School and Magic Spoon offering it.

For what it’s worth, I’ve tried both and prefer Magic Spoon to The Cereal School. Magic Spoon uses Allulose for its sweetener and I found the taste and texture to be superior. What I do like about The Cereal School is the packaging. Since it comes in individual bags, there’s built-in portion control, and you could take it with you for some cereal on-the-go.

Neither option is cheap however. The Cereal School is $50 for 24 bags (528 grams total), and Magic Spoon is $40 for four boxes (792 grams total) .

Price doesn’t appear to be too much of a hindrance this early on, with both The Cereal School and Magic Spoon experiencing backorder issues. It looks like there’s a healthy market for healthier kids cereal for adults. Disruption never tasted so sweet.

Podcast: The Sometimes You Just Want to Talk About Breakfast Cereal Episode

I love a good conversation about changing the world as much as the next person, but not every podcast has to be a TED talk, ok?

In fact, sometimes you just want to talk about cereal, and that’s what Chris Albrecht and I did in this episode as we break down the taste, ingredients and business model of Magic Spoon, a new “kid’s cereal for adults” we (mainly me) have been raving about the around the Spoon’s virtual (read Slack) water cooler.

So grab a bowl, a big spoon, and some milk and hit play below, on Spotify or download directly to your device.

Review: Magic Spoon is the (Expensive) Kids’ Cereal for Adults, and is Magically Delicious

I have an 8 year old, but we don’t ever buy him sugar cereals, in part because I know I would gobble up most of the box. At my age/metabolic rate, the effects of Lucky Charms tends to linger a lot longer than I’d like them to.

Which is why I was excited to learn about Magic Spoon, which brands itself as “Childlike Cereal for Grown-Ups.” The cereal comes in four varieties: Fruity, Chocolate, Cinnamon, and Frosted, and boasts that it is high in protein, keto-friendly, non-GMO, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, wheat-free and has nothing artificial.

Magic Spoon is able to get all the sweetness without all the junk through Allulose, which can be found in certain fruits like figs and raisins.

It all sounds too good to be true and there must be some catch. There is, and it’s the price. You can only buy Magic Spoon in four-packs for a whopping $40. That’s ten bucks for a 7 oz. box of cereal. You can pick up two, 40 oz. boxes of Cheerios for less than $8 on Amazon.

OK, so it’s expensive, and you have to order it online, and thus wait for your breakfast. I actually bought mine about a month ago and had to wait for delivery because the backorder wait time was so long.

So, how does it taste?

Awesome. Magic Spoon tastes awesome.

I dug into a bowl of the Fruity cereal this morning and it tastes just like the sugary cereal of my youth, but has only 8g of carbohydrates 0g of sugar and 3 net carbs for keto counters (Froot Loops has 26g of carbs, 12 grams of sugar and 23 net carbs). It doesn’t really taste like any actual fruit, it tastes “pink” to my tastebuds (which is probably influenced by its shocking pink color), but Spoon Founder, Mike Wolf thinks it tastes exactly like Froot Loops. Regardless of any synesthesia, I ate a whole bowl and was ready to eat more.

If I’m honest, I preferred the Cocoa flavor, which was more in-line with what was advertised on the box and had a mellow chocolate flavor. I’ll update this post when I try the Cinnamon and Frosted (there’s only so much cereal I can eat in one sitting).

My one complaint is that there is a slight aftertaste, it’s not bad, it’s just more like a slightly metallic and, ironically, artificial feeling reminiscent of pre-packaged protein shakes (which is probably because of the whey protein isolate in the cereal). But that’s a minor quibble.

If Magic Spoon catches on, I suspect bigger CPG companies will have to look at jumping in with similar cereals, though they will have to figure out how to appeal to nutrition-conscious customers without cannibalizing their existing sales.

Will I plunk down another $40 for more? I’m not sure yet. That probably depends on how long these 28 oz. of Magic Spoon in my pantry lasts.

The bigger point is, I went from zero boxes of cereal in my house to four, which I will happily eat and share with my 8 year old.

Maybe.