Earlier this year, the cereal giant General Mills released a higher-protein version of one of its iconic breakfast products in Wheaties Protein, which isn’t supremely lean but it has more protein than regular Wheaties. In a 64g serving, you get a protein shake-like count of up to 22g of protein, a little bit more than that in carbohydrates at 28g, around 10g of fat, and 280 calories. The food company is back at it this month, launching another protein variant of a classic breakfast cereal in Cheerios Protein.
General Mills Cheerios Protein aims to replicate the Cheerios experience with a bit of extra protein at 8g a serving, although it is worth noting the size of that serving is not very big, especially compared to Wheaties Protein. The servings are 37g a piece, and if you scale that to the size of a Wheaties Protein’s serving at 64g, you will get 13g of protein just to provide a fair comparison. Either way, the other macros alongside the 8g of protein in Cheerios Protein are 24g of carbohydrates, half of that sugar, 2.5g of fat, and a calorie count of 150, leaving plenty of room to scale to double serving of 16g of protein and 300 calories and still be within reason.
There are two flavors of Cheerios Protein cereal, both traditional in a spicey Cinnamon and sweet Strawberry, and they offer the same nutrition profile. Interestingly, General Mills doesn’t rely on the likes of whey or dairy-based proteins to give it that muscle-building boost in either flavor; the main ingredients are whole grain oats, sugar, and then plant-based pea protein, being the provider of that 8g of protein per serving.
General Mills mentions that according to research, just over 70% of consumers are interested in finding ways to get more protein in their diets, and breakfast cereal is an easy way to do that, especially being a format the majority of people grew up with. That explains Wheaties Protein and its 20 to 22g of protein per serving, as well as further interest in the space with Cheerios Protein. There are two sizes of the newly released product rolling out to stores in an 11.2oz large box and a family sized 15oz.
