Honey Nut Cheerios
General Mills Honey Nut Cheerios, with milk
Product typeBreakfast cereal
OwnerGeneral Mills
CountryUnited States
Introduced1979 (1979)
MarketsWorldwide

Honey Nut Cheerios is a variation of Cheerios breakfast cereal, introduced in 1979.[1]

Honey Nut Cheerios is sweeter than the original, with a honey and almond flavor. While Honey Nut Cheerios used to be made with actual nuts, as of 2006, the nuts were discontinued, and natural flavor, from peach and apricot pit is used instead . In 2011, Honey Nut Cheerios was the best-selling cereal in the United States.[2]

Honey Nut Cheerios was the third variation of Cheerios introduced; Cinnamon Nut Cheerios was test marketed in 1976. There have been many other Cheerios variations, including Maple Cheerios, Chocolate Cheerios, and Blueberry Cheerios.[3]

History

Historically, Honey Nut Cheerios has participated in much the same promotional advertising as the original brand, while collaborating with the field of NASCAR and especially driver Bill Lester, in promoting healthy diets. In 1985, Baskin-Robbins introduced an ice cream flavor based on the cereal called Honey Nut Crunch. Promotional tie-ins included gift certificates in cereal boxes and special Honey Nut Crunch sundaes in stores. The first 7 series of Honey Nut Cheerios did not have the bee mascot on the box, It was not until series 8 that the bee appeared on the box. Cereal boxes from 1979 without the bee are called 'pre-bee' and are very rare.

General Mills has been active in the conservation of bees since 2011; in 2011, the company began investing in the Xerces Society to help promote biodiversity and pollinator conservation.[4] In March 2017, General Mills announced the Buzz Bee image had been removed from boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios. Images of the new box showed a white empty space where Buzz Bee used to be. Below the image of the bowl of cereal, a plea to "Help Bring Back The Bees" was added. This was to raise awareness of pollinator decline. In the announcement, General Mills made note that 30% of ingredients they use depend on pollinators,[5] and that the company plans to expand their pollinator habitat to 3,300 acres.[4] As part of the campaign, 1.5 billion packets of wildflower seeds were included in boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios.[6][7]

This campaign has struck controversy in some environmental communities. Kathryn Turner, an ecologist, commented that the packages of seeds contain species that are invasive to some geographic locations, and urged individuals to become more educated before planting the seeds.[8][7]

Mascot and promotions

Buzz Bee
First appearance1979
Voiced byArnold Stang (1979–1992)
Hadley Kay (briefly)
Billy West (1992–2004)
Charlie Schlatter (2004–2015)
Jason Marsden (2015–2016)
Oliver Wyman (2016)
Sam Heyn (2021–present)
In-universe information
SpeciesBee
GenderMale
OccupationMascot of Honey Nut Cheerios, Honey Enthusiast

Honey Nut Cheerios' mascot is an anthropomorphic bee, designed for the first commercials by Dean Yeagle at Zander's Animation Parlour in New York City. The bee did not have a name until 2000, when Kristine Tong, a fifth grade student from Coolidge, Texas, won a national contest to name him, dubbing him "BuzzBee".[1] Several different voice actors have provided the voice of Buzz: originally voiced by Arnold Stang until 1992, he was then voiced by Hadley Kay, Billy West, Charlie Schlatter, Jason Marsden, Oliver Wyman and Sam Heyn. Buzz appeared as the host in the Honey Nut Cheerios Spelling Bee board game.

Taglines

Many of this cereal's taglines overlapped with each other. They were used on different advertisements.

  • It's a honey of an O. (1979–2004)[9]
  • It's Honey Nut Cheerios! (1979–1992; 2000–2004; 2014–Present)[9]
  • It's Irrezzzzistable! (1992–1993)[9]
  • Race for the taste! (1993–1995)[9]
  • Little O, Big Taste! (1995–1999)[9]
  • Nobody can say "No" to Honey Nut Cheerios. (1995–2004)[9]
  • From the hive that's nuts about honey! (2004–2008)[9]
  • Bee happy, Bee healthy! (2004–2013)[9]
  • Must Be the Honey. (2013–Present, based on Nelly's "Ride wit Me")[9]
  • Good Goes Round. (2016–Present)
  • Have a Change of Heart. (2022–Present)

Nutrition

Honey Nut Cheerios maintains most of the same health claims as the original Cheerios, due to its soluble fiber. Package nutritional information asserts that "three grams of soluble fiber daily from whole grain oat foods, like Honey Nut Cheerios, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease . Honey Nut Cheerios has 0.75g per serving."[10] As with Cheerios, the American Heart Association certified the cereal as "heart-healthy" for meeting the food criteria for saturated fat and cholesterol content.

Honey Nut Cheerios also contains more sugar (9.6 Grams/serving) than original Cheerios, which contain 1.2 Grams/serving. This sugar comes from brown sugar, molasses, and honey.[11]

References

  1. 1 2 "All in the family" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 15, 2006. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  2. ↑ Elliott, Stuart (June 27, 2011). "7 Agencies Will Tell You This Cereal Is No. 1". The New York Times. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Whole Grain Oat Cereal | Our Products". Cheerios. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  4. 1 2 "General Mills: One of the World's largest food Companies". Retrieved March 29, 2017.
  5. ↑ Kristen Painter. "Bee missing from Honey Nut Cheerios box to raise pollinator awareness". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on March 11, 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  6. ↑ Fears, Darryl (March 30, 2017). "The great bee bumble: Cheerios wanted to help. Its plan went terribly wrong". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 30, 2017.
  7. 1 2 Hafner, Josh (March 20, 2017). "Cheerios gave away flower seeds to save the bees, but they could do harm". USA Today. Archived from the original on March 20, 2017.
  8. ↑ "General Mills' bee blunder: Environmentalists call foul on company's seed campaign". Fox News. March 21, 2017. Retrieved March 29, 2017.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Klee, Miles (September 3, 2013). "Must Be the Honey' is the most embarrassing rebrand ever". The Daily Dot. Billboard Music. Retrieved July 4, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Honey Nut Cheerios and cholesterol". Archived from the original on February 13, 2011.
  11. ↑ Are Honey Nut Cheerios Healthy? We Look Inside the Box

Further reading

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