Shreddies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shreddies is a breakfast cereal sold in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand, produced by Post Cereals and General Mills, consisting of malted squares of inter-woven whole grain wheat.
Shreddies has been made in the UK since 1955. It was produced under the Nabisco name until the brand in Canada was purchased in 1993 by Post Cereals and then later in 1995 by Kraft General Foods.
Although not marketed in the United States, Kraft Foods has the trademark rights in the U.S.
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[edit] Manufacture
In the United Kingdom, the cereal was first produced by Nabisco's former UK division but is now made by Cereal Partners under the Nestlé brand at Welwyn Garden City. The factory opened in 1926. It began making Shreddies in 1955. The site was briefly owned by Rank Hovis McDougall in 1988, who sold it to Cereal Partners in 1990. Nestle's site at Staverton started making Shreddies in 1998, and is where all production was moved to in 2007.
The wheat for the cereal comes from over 500 different farms in four counties in the UK.[1]
The cereal is one of a number of whole-grain cereals marketed with the whole grain symbol, as part of a marketing campaign emphasising the healthiness of the cereal. It began manufacture in Canada in 1939 at Lewis Avenue, Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Sugared and chocolate-flavoured versions of the cereal are available in the UK as Frosted Shreddies and Coco Shreddies (chocolate), and a honey-flavoured version has also become available recently. The former advertising slogan in the UK was: Keeps hunger locked up until lunch. The advertising slogan for the Frosted and Coco Shreddies was: Too tasty for geeks. Cereal milk bars are now available.
[edit] Advertising
[edit] Canada
- In Canada the cereal has been known for many years by its musical jingle, "Good Good Whole-Wheat Shreddies". The mascots of the cereal in Canada were Freddie and Eddie, two anthropomorphic (yet legless) pieces of the cereal. Around 1993, their appearance changed to that of a younger youthful age complete with baseball caps and they also grew hair and legs. By the late 1990s, the characters were discontinued in all advertising and packaging. The cereal is now marketed as an "adult" cereal.
- In January 2008, the company started a new ad campaign for "Diamond Shreddies" which is just a square Shreddie turned 45 degrees. Since the cereal hasn't changed in any way, the campaign could be described as a meta-joke playing off the frequent improvements and brand extensions of other cereals and similar foods. Regardless of the intentions, consumer reaction to the campaign has translated into a statistically significant sales increase, according to at least one media report on the campaign's success.[2] The campaign won the 2008 Grand Clio Award for Integrated (i.e. multiple media) Campaign, one of the highest awards in the advertising world.[3]
[edit] United Kingdom
- For many years in the UK the Shreddies boxes featured Tom and Jerry (from the MGM cartoons). They regularly featured gifts in the boxes featuring Tom and Jerry, such as glow in the dark stickers sets, and puzzle books.
- It recently had a TV advert removed by the ASA as it provided an unfair comparison between school children eating Shreddies or eating nothing, rather than a similar cereal.[4]
- Shreddies' most recent campaign is a claim that they are "knitted by nanas" with shots of a factory full of grandmothers knitting Shreddies.[5] The boxes have also been changed to include a photo on the inner flaps of the nana who apparently knitted the specific box.
