Tag Archives: international

News: Kellogg’s India Launches Culturally Inspired Corn Flakes Flavors

Kellogg's Indian Corn Flakes

While American cereal news grinds to a temporary halt before the barnyard bonanza that will be National Cereal Day (March 7th), the bird-minded brains behind Froot Loops and Corn Flakes are evolving that latter rooster-fronted classic for an international audience.

Announced as a collaboration with celebrity chef Ranveer Brar, Kellogg’s three new India-exclusive Corn Flakes varieties will be Thandai Badam, Kesar Pista Badam and Rose Badam. While this may not mean much to my fellow stateside cereal lovers, understanding these unique flavors can go a long way toward informing cereal makers all over the world.

While I was familiar with none of the above taste profiles, they are apparently “enriched with the goodness of real almonds, Kesar, rose, saffron and pistachio.” According to Chef Brar, “This new range of cornflakes is attributed to the local flavours of India in particular that create a sense of nostalgia every time we come across them. It could be the mom who added Roohafza to your milk or the local halwai you went with your grandparents to enjoy a glass of warm kesar badam milk.”

The point here is not (just) that America needs a good pistachio cereal with freeze-dried ice cream bits, but that perhaps American cereal aisles need to rethink their seemingly binary approach to either extremely safe flavors or extremely wacky flavors. Because while chicken & waffles may be nostalgic for some, personally I’d rather see ideas that merely gaze into an uncanny savory–sweet valley instead of diving in snout-first.

What might that look like? They could adopt the Oreo school of thought and try Mississippi Mud Pie Cereal, plumb my Midwest heritage with Superman Ice Cream Cereal, or [Hi, big cereal company! Hire me as your dedicated flavorologist to unlock the full list!].

I’m sure that kind of gated content won’t win me any auspicious emails, but if you do have the means to try any of these cereals, feel free to let me know how they are on our Submissions page! Thanks to reader Nik for the tip on these rose-gold maize shards.

Review: 5 Otees Cereal Flavors (from South Africa!)

Otees Cereal Review - Boxes

Box photos courtesy of Gabe Fonseca

Like it or not, sometimes American breakfast aisles can be an echo chamber of crunches. For every truly novel new cereal flavor we get, there are probably half a dozen or more slight refractions of tried and true favorite flavors: chocolate, peanut butter, strawberry, a perennial genealogy of seasonal variants, and so forth. I get it, it’s low risk, reliable reward business, but sometimes I just want to meet the type of fascinating cereal that will blow my mind and taste buds right out of my head, before picking up my essential organs from the floor, returning them, and politely apologizing like a true cereal gentleman.

And often to do this, we have to look beyond our typical pantry borders.

I was first tipped off about Otees by some cereal fan FB group chatter, and two of the South African cereal brand’s flavors stuck out to me: Bubblegum and Creme Soda. I’d never think to see those flavors on U.S. shelves for like 10 years, given the creeping rate of current innovation, yet Bokomo, a company neither Cereal Time‘s Gabe Fonseca nor I could find much about outside of an old commercial, despite it being South Africa’s biggest cereal producer, has released both. I’m glad Gabe is as interested in these unique flavors as I, because after being sent all 5 Otees boxes for his collection by a kind cereal fan, Gabe generously donated some surplus cereal so we could both give our thoughts on the taste.

So without further exposé or delay, let’s get to chewing for an indefinite length of time (I’m looking at you, Bubblegum).

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