Aldi's Best Cereal Is A Classic Name Brand Copycat

There are so many cereals available that it might be hard to choose a favorite, but when it comes to cereal knockoffs, there's a clear winner. Daily Meal tried a whopping 25 of Aldi's Millville brand cereals, ranking them according to taste and texture — with multiple textures earning some cereals extra brownie points. Find out why the Honey Crunch 'n Oats with Almonds was at the top of our list and one of the many Aldi copycat products that taste like the real thing.

In our opinion, nothing beats the crunchy clusters of oat granola mixed with crispy flakes that don't get soggy too fast. The Millville Honey Crunch 'n Oats with Almonds has a balance of sweetness, too, and the almond slices are just the icing on top because they add to the texture and overall flavor while putting some extra protein in your bowl. Plus, they taste comparable to, if not better, than Post's Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds.

But you don't have to take our word for it. The Millville Honey Crunch 'n Oats with Almonds is one generic Aldi cereal that customers prefer as well. In discussions on social media, you can read people talking about their favorites. One Facebook post received several responses that Aldi's Honey Crunch 'n Oats cereals are either their favorite or one of their favorites, and at least one person felt like they are better than the name brand. In a different post on Reddit, the users echoed the sentiment, with one saying that the Aldi version tastes better than Post and another noting that it's "Way, way cheaper, too."

There's a reason why Aldi gets away with making copycat products: The ingredients are similar but have different ratios. For instance, both the Millville Honey Crunch 'n Oats with Almonds and the Post Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds list corn, whole grain wheat, sugar, whole grain rolled oats, almonds, rice, and oil (canola in Millville's and canola and/or soybean in Post's) as their first few ingredients, which are ordered according to higher amounts first. This is where the formulas start to vary.

The next ingredient in the Millville cereal is corn syrup, whereas the next two ingredients before corn syrup in the Post version are wheat flour and malted barley flour. This difference likely gives the Honey Crunch 'n Oats with Almonds a more balanced sweetness by comparison. Based on the ingredients, the Aldi brand has more barley malt extract and cinnamon, while the Post brand has more molasses, honey, and caramel color. Although both have natural flavors added, only the brand name uses artificial flavors.

The most interesting thing about these differences, though, is that Post is speculated to be the brand behind Aldi's Millville cereals. It owns the Malt-O-Meal brand, and a 1998 Millville Toasted Oats recall for salmonella states, "It is also possible they may have been exposed by another plain toasted oat cereal product produced by the same plant (Malt-o-Meal) which makes Millville brand products."