Battle Creek: The First Breakfast Cereal to Have Freeze-Dried Fruit
The first breakfast cereal to have freeze-dried fruit was by Post: Corn Flakes & Strawberries, debuting in 1963.
Did it taste okay? Well, yeah. The pieces of dried strawberries felt like bits of cork, but once you sloshed milk all over ’em, they were fine.
According to MrBreakfast.com, the blurb on the back of the box featured the description, "Now! Because of a Wonderful New Discovery... Freeze-dried Strawberries come inside this Box with Crisp Corn Flakes... Just Add Milk... Refold Special Inner Foil Bag... No Special Storage."
Sure...but customers began complaining the strawberries got too mushy and you had to use your tongue to peel them off the roof of your mouth. Two years later, after complaints and poor sales, Post’s Corn Flakes and Strawberries cereal was discontinued.
Post also gave corn flakes the freeze-dried fruit treatment with peaches and blueberries. The peaches debuted in 1963 and the blueberries in 1965. By 1967, Post lost approximately $12 million trying to make cereal with freeze-dried fruit work. All three don’t exist anymore.
After the strawberry version took a nose-dive, Kellogg’s thought they’d give freeze-dried fruit & cereal a try with Corn Flakes With Instant Bananas. The ads boasted "Just add milk... presto! Real tasty banana slices."
Real banana slices, yes.
Tasty, no.
Like real bananas, the slices tuned brown once saturated in milk. Corn Flakes With Instant Bananas went belly-up in 1966, just one year after it was introduced.