What's up with the price of cereal? (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Alexander]

I don't shop for spice enough to notice the price, but I do eat alot of breakfast cereal (whole grain, not the sugary stuff) and the prices that are being charged by General Mills, Kelloggs, and Post seem to be at least $2.00 overpriced. My local grocery store's (Publix) regular price for a 20 oz. box of Cheerios runs in the $4.19 range. Others from Post and Kelloggs run from $3.89 and up for smaller boxes. I think there is collusion among the breafast cereal makers to keep costs high. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and the most expensive as well.

 

[Brian D H]

I either get the store brand at the grocery store or (more often) shop at COSTCO. COSTCO also gets some "Kirkland" (the COSTCO brand) cereals that are better than name brands.

For example, they had one for a while that had macadamia nuts and cranberries.

 

[ChrisMatson]

I am currently eating the Costco Cranberry Macadamia Nut cereal. That and the Costco/Newman's Own Blueberry Pecan cereal have become my favorites.

Some shop at Costco for DVDs, but I more than pay for my membership with savings in cereal.

Costco also has some decent deals on name-brand cereals in large double boxes (about $5 for at least double normal grocery store size).

 

[Ken Chui]

Thankfully, we have MEIJER in our state and cereal is always on sale just about every week. General Mills' cereals are on sale this week: buy 2 boxes, get 2 free (it's an even better deal when you use the $1 off coupon that show up every few weeks in Sunday's flyers ). KROGER is just overpriced in general, but at least one can price match at GIANT EAGLE (plus, they double coupons up to $1).

 

[MarkHastings]

I remember cereal being like $2-3 when I was a kid (late 70's), so it hasn't gotten all that more expensive than other items.

Cereal lasts so long that people don't go through it as much as (for example) soda or milk. I assume that's why they really can't lower the prices too much.

 

[Bob Graz]

Cereal lasts so long that people don't go through it as much as (for example) soda or milk. I assume that's why they really can't lower the prices too much.


Households with kids go thru tons of cereal. I think as my kids got older they ate even more. Breakfast, snack, after dinner. I've spent a fortune on cereal.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Learn to love the store brands.

Side note: The new "S'Mores" cereal tastes nothing like the old S'Mores cereal. Just had to let everyone know.

 

[Chu Gai]

Perhaps this has something to do with farm production for ethanol purposes too?

 

[MarkHastings]

Now we know why the S'Mores cereal doesn't taste like it used to. Garrett, maybe you're not supposed to eat it...put it in your gas tank.

 

[Brook K]

I eat the Kroger brand honey-nut cheerios. My son usually does too. Always less than $2.00 a box.

My wife more than makes up for it though since she's gluten-free. She either buys expensive gluten-free healthy cereal or Fruity Pebbles.

All the healthy regular cereals have gluten, most of the sugary ones don't.

 

[Ken Chui]

I bought a Kroger-branded cereal a few years back; it was my first and last time I touched a store brand cereal. With national brands always on sale (at least in central OH), going with store brands is not an option for me.

 

[Michael Warner]

I buy name brand cereal at Target for about $2.40 a box which is a good $2 cheaper than the local grocery stores. I actually make a special trip there every few weeks to stock up. I would buy it at Costco but I tend to get sick of any particular cereal pretty fast so I prefer less mammoth packages.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

I think a lot of it is the marketing, since the store or generic brands are often the same thing at a much lower price. (Is Post Raisin Bran really much different than the store brand?)

Notice the boxes (or at least the amount of cereal in the boxes) have gotten smaller over the years, masking the extent of the price increases.

 

[Bryan X]

Cereal definately doesn't last long in my household. Even though there are only 3 of us, we go through a few boxes of cereal each week-- atleast 3 boxes a week. Milk is probably worse for us though as we go through probably 6 gallons a week between the 3 of us.

We always buy brand name. For some reason I just can't go for the generic cereals. And I still almost exclusively eat 'kiddie' cereal. Right now in the cupboard there are 2 boxes of Cookie Crisp, 1 box of Count Chocula, 1 box of Fruit Loops, and 1 box of Smart Start.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I usually just get the $2/box of Kroger Cluster-wannabe cereal.

 

[Malcolm R]

Most of the time it's the identical product, just specially packaged by the regular big-name brand factories. They spend a few hours packing Cheerios, then a few hours packing Food Lion Yummy-O's. There are exceptions, of course, but I don't recall the last time I bought a major brand cereal (at their major brand prices).

I also like the Malt-O-Meal brand cereals. You might try them if you have that option. I think they're sold at most Wal-Mart Supercenters, if not your local supermarket.

Costco's "Kirkland" brand is very good. For those in the northeast US, the Hannaford store label is also very good. I'd avoid Price Chopper's store label and their "Central Market" line, however. Blech!

 

[Brook K]

Yes, Target is usually cheaper, it just isn't convenient for us to go there for regular grocery buying.

Store brands are different just like name brands. The Kroger HN Cherrios are my staple breakfast, but I've tried the Publix brand and one from a grocery store in St. Louis and didn't like them.

But personally I prefer the Kroger HN Cherrios to the real ones. If they were the same price or maybe even if they were cheaper I'd still buy the Kroger brand.

 

[Joe Szott]

The store brands are the way to go if they have your 'type' available. We've probably saved $200 since the kids were born by buyng Marshmallow Mateys instead of Lucky Charms (unless LC is on sale.) Really, it tastes exactly the same just lamer marshmellow shapes.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I can tell the difference between the Kroger brand and the Post brand of the Cluster-something cereal I like, but the price difference overrides whatever extra amount of taste/texture/crunch-ness I get from the Post brand.

 

[Kevin Alexander]

Yeah, but the box that it came in back in the 70's was the size of a briefcase, not the carefully measured 16-20 oz. boxes today.