What is Jolly Rancher Cereal?
Regular readers of The Impulsive Buy will have noticed in recent years the bounty of breakfast cereals based on other sweet confections. Whether it be Twinkies, Pop-Tarts, or Dippin’ Dots, there seems to be no limit to manufactures’ desire to rebrand known properties into something that will fit in a bowl.
The latest is General Mills’ Jolly Rancher Cereal. A hard candy doesn’t seem like a natural candidate to convert to breakfast time (we get these before Ding Dong or Ho Hos cereal?), but let’s see if The Big G can move these from the office candy bowl to the kitchen cereal bowl.
How is it?
Upon opening, I can tell these are going to be more than a rebranded Trix. There’s a tangy scent that I’ve never encountered in a cereal before. I pour a measured 36 gram portion into my bowl and am once again disappointed at how small a suggested serving of cereal is.
As I pour in the milk, I notice that the cereal pieces are more pillow-shaped than the spherical pieces on the front of the box. The flavor has some of the tang I detected, and that really works to remind me of the cereal’s candy namesake. Each different fruit piece has a distinct flavor, though you can’t really tell in a mixed spoon. The green apple has an especially nice green apple flavor.
Is there anything else you need to know?
I have to admit I’ve never really cared for the original Jolly Rancher candy. It’s amazing how they manage to take an ordinary flavory like “cherry” and make it taste just a little bit weird, like the manufacture gave free rein to the guy who designed the artificial watermelon flavor.
Still, I have to admit this cereal somewhat won me over. Most fruit cereals only manage to be overly sweet and generically “fruity.” These manage to offer a more distinct fruit flavor, at least if you manage to get a spoonful of a single flavor. Which I did. Multiple times. Because I live a full and interesting life.
Conclusion:
I’m not going to wake up excited to have my bowl of Jolly Ranchers, but it’s a good option if you’re looking to change things up. I have a feeling that we’re at peak novelty cereal, so I don’t know how long these will last on store shelves. Give them a try.
Purchased Price: $3.64
Size: 18.7 oz. box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (36 grams) 140 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.
I would give this cereal a try, but I am worries how bad I would feel afterwards. That cereal looks anything, but natural.
Serving size doesn’t mean “a whole meal”. I have to explain this to my mom at least once per year these days. Stuff comes in different sizes, and whatever the smallest packaging that’s marked for individual sale is, that’s usually what they pick for the serving size for that and any similar products. So, since you can buy those tiny cereal boxes at some restaurants, that’s what they probably used to establish the “serving size” of all cereal. That way, regardless of how small or big the cereal box is, the serving sizes are all about the same size, giving you a better idea of which cereal is healthier for you, and which one you’re more likely to eat instead.
Now, sometimes this results in some odd nutrition panels, like a candy bar that I are once that was either 2.5 or 3.5 servings just because they sold a regular size version and I had something like a King-Size version that wasn’t neatly divisible by the size of the regular version.