General Mills, formed years ago by the merger of several Specific Mills, has announced a new cereal: Tiny Toast. It's small toast-like objects with Real Fruit flavors, and the first new cereal since the last one. Analysts say the cereal market is shrinking, because younger people find cereal too much work. Some assembly is required; things must be taken out and put away; you have to sit in one place while you eat it. Man, it's like Thanksgiving.
Still, let's give credit to our own historic cereal provider for trying again. Some of us will always be breakfast cereal consumers. If you grew up with Cap'n Crunch, you have a soft spot for the stuff — specifically, the roof of your mouth, which got scraped raw if you ate it wrong. It was like eating a bag of glass. But delicious, fortified glass! Part of a nutritious breakfast.
Someday we'll read a full account of the secret development of Tiny Toast. How Medium Toast tested poorly. How everyone hated Microscopic Toast. ("It's like straining a mouthful of plankton," one tester said.) How other companies never suspected GM was working on a Toast project because double agents leaked plans of Bitty Bagels. The failed attempts to bake very small loaves of bread, and how it was solved when they hired the company that makes baby carrots. ("OK, what you're going to want to do is buy a lot of croutons, and then carve them up with lasers.")
If you're a cereal enthusiast, you know they come in three varieties:
1. Industrially compressed oat wads interspersed with multicolored, sweetened Styrofoam nodules, shipped in a box that features a wide-eyed cartoon character screaming with happiness like he's being electrocuted on Christmas morning.
2. Grain flakes interrupted by nut clusters held together by some sort of glue. On the back, the box has a picture of a smiling woman with her hair in a ponytail, and she's in control of her life now because the cereal contains folic acid.
3. Old People Bowel Encouragers. The box says it's "A good source of fiber!" but you could say that about sheets of plywood, too.
Tiny Toast doesn't seem to be any of these. It's just small toast. It does not offer to be a part of your active lifestyle; I can't imagine any commercials that show someone jogging around the lakes, turning heads as everyone says, "What's her secret?" and she smiles to herself because she had her Tiny Toast today.
There's no cartoon mascot who will show up on kids' cable channels, screaming, "I am small toast and I am alive for some reason! Eat these things that look like me but float lifeless in a pond of milk."
You won't see some actor who was on TV a lot in the 1970s but now appears on ads for gold coins and motorized chairs saying, "When nature don't budge, trust the Toast to give 'er a nudge."
It's just Toast. Tiny Toast.
Will it help the flagging cereal sector? Who knows. It's new, that's what matters. Something fresh on the groaning shelves of astonishing bounty to catch your eye. Next: Quarks! Nothing but the most delicious, organic subatomic particles. Bonus: Glutino-Free!
james.lileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 • Twitter: @Lileks • facebook.com/james.lileks
