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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.