Malt-O-Meal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Malt-O-Meal is the name of a brand of breakfast cereals manufactured by The Malt-O-Meal Company.

Malt-O-Meal is a private label cereal producer. John Campbell, inventor of Malt-O-Meal, founded the Campbell Cereal Company and began producing the unique tasting hot wheat cereal in 1919 in Owatonna, Minnesota. The company moved to the Ames Mill in Northfield, Minnesota in 1927 and in 1936, while production remained in Northfield, the company moved its corporate headquarters to Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1953, the company changed its name to Malt-O-Meal.

During the 1960s and '70s, Malt-O-Meal also started making cold cereals by mimicking other companies' products as seen below. All Malt-O-Meal cold cereal came in bags until 2004, when $1.00 and $1.99 trial boxes were introduced in an effort to reach new customers - the idea being that new customers trying the boxes would then begin buying similar bagged products. Malt-O-Meal also produces boxed generic cereals under contract labeled as supermarket brands.

The bagged cereals often have named cartoon characters on them, but these characters do not have personalities like other cereal mascots. The individual characters for each flavor were discontinued in 1998, and replaced with Cool Blue (kangaroo) and Li'l Oaty (wallaby), who both appear on the packaging and marketing. Malt-O-Meal is typically much cheaper than their competition, and often without much of a taste difference.

In 2003, Malt-O-Meal began producing their own original cold cereal recipes. The first product was Balance with Berries, a bran cereal with strawberries. 2004 saw the introduction of Blueberry Muffin Tops, a product similar to Cinnamon Toasters but with a distinct blueberry muffin flavor. Their newest products are Honey & Oat Blenders, very similar to Post's Honey Bunches of Oats, and Balance, similar to General Mills' Wheaties.