Why is breakfast cereal so expensive?

I mean really. 4.50 for a box of grain flakes! Why is it so expensive? They can sell it for 2.00 - $ 2.50 on sale. Is this one big scam or is there some practical market rationale for this pricing.

Well, if it’s one of the big-name brands, you’re also paying for a huge advertising budget. I always buy the generic cereals for half price.

…which, Sublight, is STILL ridiculously expensive over here, don’t you think?

>> Why is breakfast cereal so expensive?

It’s called the free market. Obviously in your area people will pay that much for cereal. I routinely but bulk cereal of several kinds for 35 - 45 cents a pound and make my own mix with raisins etc. If I am buying boxed cereal $1.60/lb is about what I pay. When you pay much more than that you are paying for marketing, advertising and a lot of other stuff.

Then I see the same or similar stuff across town for twice or more.

Yeah, it is, at least in the regular stores. I’ve found kilo bags of Meusli for about 800 yen, which isn’t so bad, plus the Foreign Buyers’ Club[sup]*[/sup] has 12-box cases of generic raisin bran for 5575 yen. Still about $4 per 20-ounce box.

[sup]*[/sup] http://www.fbcusa.com/public2/

Why is breakfast cereal so expensive?

Call me crazy but I do not consider cereal expensive. I divide the number of meals I get out of one box by the price per box and it seems reasonable to me. If I thought it was to expensive I would not buy it. Instead I would stop at a fast food place in the morning and spend $2.00 on a fatty, sodium enriched greasy piece of over cooked flesh surrounded by two pieces of non-nutritious bread. Or I would plow my yard, plant some grains, fertilize, water, harvest, process, mix with fruit and/or nuts and make my own cereal.

General Mills if you need a spokesman I am available although I have to tell you my favorite breakfast is toasted banana nut bread, made myself, a few dates and a banana.

When I was in college my roommates and I got into an argument over who spent the most on food. One group argued that two eggs at about 15 cents was an economical breakfast. The cereal eaters countered that a bowl of cereal cost a lot less than that.

Now it’s 30 years later. As of this weekend, two eggs would have cost me about 18 cents, and a bowl of the same cereal I ate in college now costs about 80 cents.

Well, my Oat meal costs about $2.80 for a 2lb 10 oz container. I eat 1 cup a day, with a serving being 1/2 a cup, and having 30 servings, my container lasts 15 days. That comes out to about 19 cents a meal.
That is 300 calories. Which is about 4 Large eggs. A dozen eggs costs me about 80 cents, which is 20 cents. Factor in the Splenda I spend on putting in my oatmeal, it raises it a bit, but they seem the same to me. But you are probably talking about nearly pure sugar, no nutritional value cereals. (which I don’t eat)

Ugh, The eggs run about 27 cents for 4 of them, I did my math wrong. How embarassing.

Why is breakfast cereal so expensive?

It’s because $4.50 is what the market will bear.

We (as in Americans) are foolish enough to continue to buy boxes of no-nutrional-value-whatsoever-puffs, General Mills et al will continue to charge that much.

Cereal is one of my favorite food groups. A box of Raisin Bran, for example, is about 5-6 servings (the box says 10). Even at 4.50 a box, that makes it about .90 a meal. Who could ask for anything better!

Well, you could buy the “cereal in a bag,” which tends to be a lot cheaper. They have knock-off’s of the more famous varieties, and they taste pretty good.

But yeah, advertising is mostly what you’re paying for.

Cereal is over-priced, let’s face it. At least, non-sugar cereals approach some realm of reality pricing. (And, please don’t give me that supply-and-demand rhetoric!) It’s called price gouging, and we have to play their games with coupons, etc. - instead of direct, fair pricing.

Ya know, do we really need their advertising? Ok, like I’d forget to buy Coke, Kellogg’s, Ford etc? Like, I’d forget they exist? Does their advertising do anything except, perhaps pitch to kids? I mean, like average America cannot have enough of a brain to walk down a cereal aisle and pick out something want to buy? Or, do we really buy because the TV told me to?

Kellogg’s and Post…your marketing people are clowns. Lower your pricing to be more in-tune with the consumers’ needs.
Ok, I’m a little preachy…

  • Jinx

Jinx, no offense but you act like it’s your right or something to have cheap or at-cost name-brand products. I think America would be more inclined to support a free economy rather than pricing at what you can afford…

Why eat cereal at all? Ramen noodles go for 9-13 cents a package :wink:

I was attending a childrens show at a church a couple months ago and the priest/minister/acolyte/rabbi/Dalai Lama (I get mixed up with all the different kinds) was soliciting donations for starving countries. He stated that for $3 US we could feed someone, somewhere, 1 meal a day for a month because of the scale economics of their respective countries. I, of course, had to point out to him that we could easily beat that price by giving them all God’s great gift of Ramen noodles at 9 cents a package and probably less if bought in bulk.

Anyway…he wasn’t thrilled with my response and wanted me to contribute anyway so I gave him a dollar. Damn close minded money grubbing clergy…

They wouldn’t be a name brand without advertising. Without advertising, their name wouldn’t even have popped into your head when you were creating that list of brands. That’s all there is to it.

>> And, please don’t give me that supply-and-demand rhetoric!) It’s called price gouging, and we have to play their games with coupons, etc. - instead of direct, fair pricing.

What’s “direct, fair pricing”? Where the customer decides how much he wants to pay? With that system the economy or the country would not last a week. Supply and demand at least works.

My favorite box cereal (if I recall correctly, dantheman loves it, too :D) is $1.99 a box. The cereal, if you’re interested, is Kashi Good Friends (with twigs!). The Cinna-Raisin Crunch Kashi Good Friends (also with twigs!) is, I think, $2.49 a box.

My fave bulk cereal, pumpkin spice granola at Whole Foods, is $2.49/lb.

That being said, I too, find cereal in ‘regular’ markets (i.e. Giant, Safeway, etc.) to be a bit steep.

Back in the mid-90s one of the cereal companies (I think it was Post) decided to “value price” their cereals and cut out the coupons, the 2-for-1s, etc. The other cereal manufacturers also quickly lowered their prices and quit couponing. It didn’t work. (By “not working” I mean no cereal brand increased sales or market share – they all just cost less.) Within six months the manufacturers had all raised their prices and gone back to promotions.

The lesson I drew from the experience is that Joe Consumer doesn’t really have an idea of what a “fair price” is. We think $2 for a box of cereal is as overpriced as $4. The only way Joe Consumer thinks he’s getting a bargain is to be handed a bunch of coupons.

Why do they have so much salt in them? That’s what annoys me the most.