How to stop the ‘cereal’ offenders.

There are few things more personal than breakfast. Everyone likes their eggs cooked a particular way, their bread toasted to a specific shade of done. That's one reason why we don't usually see a lot of brand movement in the cereal market. People can be rushed in the morning and don't want to make decisions - they have their favorites, often driven by what they liked in childhood, and may not consider changing routines or switching brands very often.

However recent trends show that people are beginning to see cereal in a new way, so this may be a good time to examine the typical choices consumers have on the cereal aisle. There are brands like Alara Fair Trade Muesli, which gets a rank of 15 out of 20 from the Ethical Consumer for health and sustainability. But their market share is small compared with the big cereal manufacturers. While scrolling or strolling through the cereal choices, it may seem like there is an endless variety, but actually there are only four companies who make and profit from most of the cereal sold in North America - Pepsico, General Mills, Kellogg's and Post. How does your breakfast favorite fare?

Quaker Oats is a familiar and trusted brand. Their products range from sugary Captain Crunch varieties, aimed at children, to more adult and healthful-seeming choices like Harvest Crunch Apple Crumble Granola. While the familiar Quaker pictured on these boxes may inspire trust, it is less well known that Quaker was acquired by Pepsico in 2001. Of the four major cereal manufacturers, only Pepsico gets a Zero from Ethical Consumer, for specific issues related to palm oil and rain forest destruction. But, Pepsico just recently announced a "Strategic End-to-End Transformation" initiative, with a focus on sustainability, so we may expect to see their ethical score beginning to rise.

Another familiar brand is the popular Kellogg's line, with breakfast mascots most would recognize like Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam. Kellogg's scores a little better with a 3 out of 20. Some of this derives from their rating of Worst Ethical Consumer for Animal Rights and Factory farming, stemming from concerns about their sourcing of pork for a line of breakfast sandwiches. This company also has plans to address these concerns.

General Mills is the manufacturer of Cheerios, the single best-selling brand in the cereal market, and also Cinnamon Toast Crunch. They are scored a bit higher by Ethical Consumer with a 4.5. And among the Big Four, Post, the makers of Honeycomb and Canadian favorite Shreddies, scores the highest with a 6.5. This may be partly due to their recent initiatives to reduce post-consumer waste. Post announced in April 2021 that they would be reducing cereal packaging by over 2 million pounds per year.

While none of these big companies is known for outstanding sustainability like Alara Fair Trade, there are reasons to choose one over another beyond what we ate as kids. Breakfast cereal is a modern miracle of food manufacturing with no equal in convenience and taste. We should pressure manufacturers to step up the pace in meeting the ethical concerns of consumers, so we can snack out on these great foods with a clear conscience.