Review: General Mills' Kelce Mix Cereal Scores A Touchdown At The Breakfast Table

When it comes to cereals, two things are certainly true. First, athletes love them and have gladly lent their names and likenesses to grace their boxes. Secondly, kids and kids at heart alike usually love more than one cereal, and have been known to make their own mixture of multiple ones in a single bowl. Kellogg's recently recognized this, and released a series of Mash-Ups, where Frosted Flakes shared bagged space alongside Fruit Loops, and later Apple Jacks.

Not to be outdone, rival General Mills is tapping into the hearty cereal appetites of famous footballers, podcasters, and media darlings — the Kelce brothers, Travis and Jason — to release its very first mash-up of cereals called Kelce Mix. This isn't even the first cereal to feature the Kelce name. In 2022, Travis partnered with Hy-Vee to release Kelce's Crunch, a sugar-frosted flakes cereal for charity in the Kansas City area. Alas, those flakes aren't included in the line-up of the new Kelce Mix, which unifies the brothers' top three General Mills cereals under one box: Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, and Reese's Puffs.

So, is Kelce Mix the perfect way to kickoff football on Sunday mornings, or should it be flagged for unnecessary grossness? Daily Meal happily grabbed many a spoonful to see if peanut butter, cinnamon, and marshmallow could co-exist in one bite. This chew and review is based on taste, cohesion, uniqueness, and overall lovability.

Some recommendations are based on first-hand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

Plenty of unique General Mills breakfast cereals have come and gone over the years, and this latest offering, Kelce Mix, will be available at nationwide retailers starting in September. This General Mills mix will remain on shelves for a limited time only, and while supplies last. It will be available for sale in grocery and convenience stores, as well as for purchase online.

The cereal comes in one, standard regular-sized box — 11.5 ounces (326 grams). The price may vary by retailer, but the suggested retail price per box is $5.96. Expiration dates on boxes may one day become a thing of the past, but for now, these cereal boxes say they'll remain good for up to 11 months, unopened.

The basic elements in the Kelce Mix Cereal are whole grain corn-based Reese's Puffs and Lucky Charms cereals, and whole grain wheat Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. The ingredients worth highlighting are Reese's peanut butter, Hershey's cocoa, molasses, cinnamon, marshmallows, corn meal, corn syrup, canola and/or sunflower oil, salt, rosemary extract, and natural and artificial flavors. The cereal is also enriched with vitamins — vitamin D, calcium, iron, vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, vitamin B13, and zinc. It also contains the common allergens peanut, wheat, and soy.

A single serving size is 1 cup (or 40 grams). There are 8 servings per box. A single serving, not including milk, nets 150 calories, 3 grams of fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 32 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 11 grams of sugars, and 3 grams of protein. According to Nutritionix, it would take 14 minutes running (with a football in hand perhaps), at 6 miles per hour to burn off that 150 calories.

Before I delved into how the cereals play together, I first examined and tasted them on their own merits. The Reese's Puffs were light and airy, reminiscent of Coco Puffs with a nice mellow tinge of peanut butter flavoring. Cinnamon Toast Crunch was an excellent crunchy little flake doused in the promised cinnamon. Lucky Charms included the colorful, saccharine marshmallow bits with the also sugary oat cereal pieces.

I opened the bag and took a whiff of the Kelce Mix, and it smelled like toasted peanuts. I poured the contents into a bowl, and the canvas before me became a sea of various shades of browned cereal pieces. It was punctured by the lone bright spots of the blessed symbols that make Lucky Charms Lucky Charms — dotting the bowl with vibrant pastel blues, pinks, and greens.

I grabbed a dry fistful to munch on, and not one of the cereals' distinct tastes stood above the other. There were certainly flavor notes of each, as the cinnamon couldn't be masked. The rest, combined, came together and tasted like a wonderful mélange of sugar-coated cereal. The texture was also pretty consistent in each bite, with only the occasional marshmallow popping out to change things up. With milk added to the Mix, not much changed in the flavor profile of the cereal pieces, but the creaminess only made it even easier to enjoy this fun jumble.

As a game plan, Kelce Mix, where peanut butter, cinnamon, and marshmallow unite, didn't exactly sound like an all-pro team in the making. So I was beyond pleasantly surprised that Kelce Mix ended up working so well as a harmonious new cereal. To borrow a phrase from cereal mascot Lucky The Leprechaun, this Kelce Mix is magically delicious! Think of this marriage of General Mills products as a snack mix, like a sugary take on Chex Mix, and less of a gimmick. It can be enjoyed morning, noon, or even for those seeking munchies at night. It also avoids getting soggy in milk, and the leftover cereal milk at the end here is a welcome added bonus.

One of the true beauties of Kelce Mix is that you get three cereals for the price of one. Instead of individual boxes of Reese's Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Lucky Charms hogging space in your pantry, a single box of Kelce Mix does just the trick. Now that the Rubicon has been crossed for a box to contain multiple General Mills cereals in one place, I'm ready for more. How about a Marx Bros Mix where Cocoa Puffs, Kix, and Cookie Crisp get nutty? Or perhaps it can honor the Wright Bros, with a mash-up where Franken Berry, Trix, and Bugles take flight.