Spooned & Spotted (Germany): Cars 3 Cereal

Cars 3 Cereal

How ironic: a cereal about anthropomorphized, rapidly accelerating automobiles hits breakfast aisles overseas, just as the American cereal biz is slowing to a snail’s pace. And I don’t mean Turbo the snail, either. We all agreed to never talk about that movie again.

Sorry if I sound a little sour—the dog days of summer are just never the best for new cereals. Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry are just on the cusp of hitting major stores, and those dough-forsaken Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites are still eluding me, but other than that, I have to resort to posting pictures of licensed movie cereals that I can’t even buy.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Oh well, at least this one is interesting.

Why is that? Because Cars 3 Cereal is a mini case study on how transcending borders can totally change a cereal, as well as how time and dollar signs can give a movie license different parent companies. We saw it with the devolution of Korean Oreo O’s when they returned stateside, and we saw it with the flavor flip-flop of Minions Cereal from banana berry bliss to brown-sugared oats that I wouldn’t write my houseplants about, let alone home.

See, the German version of Cars 3 cereal has crunchy, honey-coated celtic knots, and it’s made by Kellogg’s.

(Image via General Mills and Walmart Canada)

(Image via General Mills and Walmart Canada)

But when we look just north of the U.S., our Canadian friends have a Cars 3 Cereal, too—but it’s made by General Mills and full of miniature, cinnamon-sugared stars—the exact same ones, I’d wager, that General Mills recently released stateside, not once, but twice, as Dora the Explorer Cereal and Cinnamon Star Crunch.

I never once thought that a talking vehicle, a bilingual child adventurer, and a tribe of cannibalistic geometric shapes would ever have anything in common, but here we are.

So while this geographic disparity may not be as interesting as monster cereals or fried ‘n’ frozen cinnamon doughnut holes, I still find it fascinating how this tasty little thing we call cereal has such global flexibility. Now the only question is which one tastes better. There’s no way both can taste good. Want to know how I know?

Because Lightning McQueen never strikes twice.

Big thanks to Jordan S. from Instagram for sharing this photo. If you have something cool to share, in America or anywhere else, please don’t hesitate to sling it on over to our Submissions page. It could appear here! (Well, not right here. But somewhere on the World Wide Web.)

One response »

  1. OMG! You beat me here! I’m embarrassed, but glad about the news (thanks!)… or not…

    Why not? We actually have three “limited editions” here in Germany (Alright… point taken… 4 with Unicorn Froot Loops, but tose don’t have a special flavor or shape): 1. Frozen Cereal (Rice base with Vanilla Flavor: “snowball” and “snowflake” shaped), 2. Star Wars Cereal (Wheat base with Chocolate and a little hint of cinammon; star and moon shaped) and 3. Finding Dory (Actually just Multi Grain Rice Krispies with sea shaped pieces)
    You see it’s not really exciting and no really much, but though the finding dory cereal is just a rebranded Multigrain rice kirspie cereal it’s soooooo gooooood and i love it. Now i’m afraid they discontinue those… (star wars and frozen are way too popular here to think otherwise).
    BUT! I already saw, that Kellogg’s UK is already promoting the Cars 3 Cereal on their site and they also promote Disney Princess Cereal wich is actual Multi Grain Rice Krispie Cereal… so i still hope they just change the design of the box (though buying princess cereal is like buying this box with a sparkling unicorn on it… embarrassing ;))

    For the cereal: i will buy it and try it, but it’s again just honey flavored and i’m afraid it’s just Honey Bee Loops in different shapes. Or a Knock off of Multigrain Cheerios, though we have them here in Germany. We’ll see. (Would rather have the canadian cinnamon version… 😉 Would be something different ^^)

    Thanks for the News @ Dan and Jordan!

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