{"id":3828,"date":"2012-08-28T06:27:38","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T12:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/royceeddington.com\/?p=3828"},"modified":"2012-08-28T06:30:47","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T12:30:47","slug":"cerealize-review-it-needs-more-than-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/?p=3828","title":{"rendered":"Cerealize review : it needs more than milk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few months ago, I heard about a project called <a href=\"http:\/\/cerealize.com\/\">Cerealize<\/a>. They were the winners of the <a href=\"http:\/\/startupbus.com\/\">StartupBus competition<\/a> at SXSW with the blisteringly brilliant idea of letting you &#8220;mix custom breakfast cereal from your favorite ingredients&#8221; online!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cerealize.com\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Cerealize Logo\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cerealize.com\/bestestlogoever.png?resize=222%2C64\" alt=\"Cerealize Logo\" width=\"222\" height=\"64\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>My first reaction? Something along the lines of &#8220;Oooooooo yeah!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One day while browsing the &#8216;net, I saw Cerealize was accepting the first 100 people that sent in a reply to try out their website and get a taste of their product before it went &#8220;live&#8221; for the rest of the world. I quickly fired off an email and found out I was lucky number 10 of 100! Booya!<\/p>\n<p>Once I got the secret credentials to login for ordering, I went to <a href=\"http:\/\/cerealize.com\">their website<\/a> and saw this exquisite menu to choose from&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>THE BASE INGREDIENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Puffed Quinoa<\/li>\n<li>Corn Flakes<\/li>\n<li>Mini Cookies<\/li>\n<li>Honey Roasted Oates<\/li>\n<li>Whole Grain Os<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>THE EXTRAS<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Almonds<\/li>\n<li>Cocoa Nibs<\/li>\n<li>Shredded Coconut<\/li>\n<li>Hazelnuts<\/li>\n<li>Cashews<\/li>\n<li>Chia Seeds<\/li>\n<li>Flax Seeds<\/li>\n<li>Hemp Seeds<\/li>\n<li>Pumpkin Seeds<\/li>\n<li>Sunflower Seeds<\/li>\n<li>Goji Berry<\/li>\n<li>Blueberry<\/li>\n<li>Mango<\/li>\n<li>Strawberry<\/li>\n<li>Bananas<\/li>\n<li>Brown Sugar<\/li>\n<li>Cayenne Pepper<\/li>\n<li>Cinnamon<\/li>\n<li>Cocoa Powder<\/li>\n<li>Honey<\/li>\n<li>Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans<\/li>\n<li>Marshmallows<\/li>\n<li>Bacon<\/li>\n<li>Yogurt-Covered Raisins<\/li>\n<li>Peeps<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mix and match? Any and all items? No limits?<\/p>\n<p>The 8 year old in me was completely freaking out.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Peeps and Marshmallows on a base of Honey Roasted Oates!<\/li>\n<li>Bacon and Brown Sugar on a base of Whole Grain Os!<\/li>\n<li>Cocoa Nibs, Cocoa Powder, Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans and Shredded Coconut on a base of Corn Flakes!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Heaven.<\/p>\n<p>I finally decided on something simple. Corn Flakes, Brown Sugar, Honey, Whole Grain O&#8217;s, Mini Cookies, Honey Roasted Oates and Bananas.<\/p>\n<p>I finalized my personal magical concoction, and went straight to the PLACE ORDER page when I saw something that stopped me cold.<\/p>\n<p>Any order and any combination would be <strong>$10.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>$10? For a box of cereal? Dude! There better be something else in that box aside from whole grain goodness!<\/p>\n<p>After my inner &#8220;Scrooge McDuck&#8221; quit WAAAAH WAAH WAH-ing and calmed down, I rationalized the cost wasn&#8217;t really that bad, and if I wanted new companies like this to succeed, I needed to invest.<\/p>\n<p>Head in the clouds, and hoping for the best, I placed the order.<\/p>\n<p>A few weeks passed, (with the occasional hard twitch when I thought about how much that ONE BOX OF CEREAL cost), but I finally received the box from Cerealize!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royceeddington\/7878006262\/in\/photostream\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Cerealize 01\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8282\/7878006262_8ca6b948dd.jpg?resize=374%2C500\" alt=\"Cerealize 01\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It was a bit smaller than I expected, but I was thrilled to see that it actually arrived and it was full of the breakfast goodness that I had created!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royceeddington\/7877995580\/in\/photostream\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Cerealize 02\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7118\/7877995580_cdafe893f4.jpg?resize=374%2C500\" alt=\"Cerealize 02\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On the outside of the box was my number, immortalized in sharpie for all of cardboard time. #10 of #100!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royceeddington\/7877992980\/in\/photostream\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Cerealize 03\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8425\/7877992980_31c8c8e39d.jpg?resize=374%2C500\" alt=\"Cerealize 03\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When I opened the box to pull the bag out, I heard a clink at the bottom.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royceeddington\/7877989742\/in\/photostream\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Cerealize 04\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8290\/7877989742_be18d53a97.jpg?resize=374%2C500\" alt=\"Cerealize 04\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A plastic spoon? That&#8217;s kind of charming, I thought. But then I looked at the bag of happy bliss I had summoned from the vapors of the internet itself, and I immediately noticed&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royceeddington\/7877985606\/in\/photostream\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Cerealize 06\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8423\/7877985606_dd7b2beecd.jpg?resize=374%2C500\" alt=\"Cerealize 06\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;no bananas.<\/p>\n<p>No bananas. None. Not a single Bah. Not a single Nana.<\/p>\n<p>You would think one of the very top things of the to-do list when letting customers make their own <strong>$10 cereal<\/strong> is to get the ingredients right on their order. Forget about putting a half cent plastic spoon in the box! The customers are ordering custom-made cereal! Online! They probably <em>already<\/em> own a spoon-like food delivery tool of their very own! Job number one should have been &#8220;Did the contents of the bag match the order?&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Inside the box was also a congratulatory letter addressed to me, saying how wonderful Cerealize is, yadda yadda yadda, and by the way, here&#8217;s a copy of the list of the ingredients you ordered. Ingredients that, you know, <em>should<\/em> have been in the cereal.<\/p>\n<p>Aaand it gets worse.<\/p>\n<p>I opened the bag and poured the cereal into a bowl. The contents didn&#8217;t look bad, but it didn&#8217;t look great either. Let me rephrase that&#8230; they didn&#8217;t look $10 kind of great.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royceeddington\/7877980180\/in\/photostream\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Cerealize 07\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8297\/7877980180_f435db0fce.jpg?resize=374%2C500\" alt=\"Cerealize 07\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You know those cereals that come in a big giant plastic bag at the supermarket? The ones waaaay at the end of the cereal isle with names like FROSTED FLAYKES and CHEERY-OHS? Those $1 cereals looked way better than what I saw in the bowl.<\/p>\n<p>So the big question&#8230; the question that could make a bronze contender into a gold medal top-shelf grand poo-bah winner in the last few seconds of the home stretch&#8230; What did the cereal taste like?!<\/p>\n<p>Nothing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royceeddington\/7877975732\/in\/photostream\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Cerealize 08\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7275\/7877975732_9e81055811.jpg?resize=374%2C500\" alt=\"Cerealize 08\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I poured in the milk and took a giant spoonful. It all tasted the same. Like nothing. The cookies didn&#8217;t say COOOOKIE. The Corn Flakes didn&#8217;t CRUNCH and say HEY THERE, MAC, HOWS YOUR MORNING? The bowl was uninspired. Everything blurred together. The cereal was, for lack of a better word, bland.<\/p>\n<p>Not flat. Not tasty. Not terrible. Not stale. Just terribly bland.<\/p>\n<p>The closest thing I can come up with to describe this cereal is if someone went back in time to a whole foods store from the early 80&#8217;s. Back when they didn&#8217;t know healthy food could have a taste, or that healthy food could taste like <em>anything<\/em> for that matter! It&#8217;s almost as if they put a baggie under every one of those old-fashioned floor-to-ceiling tubes of 80&#8217;s health-food cereals and went POOT POOT POOT down the line to fill a bag. Sure, everything looks different, but it all tastes the same.<\/p>\n<p>When you mention &#8220;whole grain Os&#8221; to a cereal junkie, they&#8217;re going to expect Cheerios. When you mention &#8220;Mini Cookies&#8221;, to a cereal junkie they&#8217;re going to expect Cookie Crisp. When you mention &#8220;Corn Flakes &#8221; to a cereal junkie, they&#8217;re going to expect Frosted Flakes. When you charge $10 to a cereal junkie, they&#8217;re going to expect something better than if they went out and bought three boxes of cereal at $3 each and poured them all together into a bowl themselves!<\/p>\n<p>Right now <a href=\"http:\/\/cerealize.com\/about\">on their ABOUT page, Cerealize says<\/a> it &#8220;was born as a side project and we haven&#8217;t yet built cereal-production capabilities. We&#8217;re flattered by all the interest we&#8217;ve been getting, though. If there is enough market demand we might turn this into a business.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cerealize, if you&#8217;re reading, I wanted to believe. Really. This was a brilliant idea, guys. Brilliant! I can totally see Jerry Seinfeld being your spokesperson and the concept of Cerealize making the existing cereal juggernauts of the world have a righteous freak out. But man, this thing fell out of the sky and hit every branch of the ugly tree on the way down!<\/p>\n<p>Make the ingredients tastier!<\/p>\n<p>Make the boxes cheaper!<\/p>\n<p>And don&#8217;t screw up the customer&#8217;s order!<\/p>\n<p>Get those things right, Cerealize, and come again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few months ago, I heard about a project called Cerealize. They were the winners of the StartupBus competition at SXSW with the blisteringly brilliant idea of letting you &#8220;mix custom breakfast cereal from your favorite ingredients&#8221; online! &nbsp; &nbsp; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/?p=3828\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pfyw-ZK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3828"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3838,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions\/3838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royceeddington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}