Cereal box prize facts for kids

A cereal box prize is a small toy or item you find inside a box of breakfast cereal. It's a fun way companies use advertising to get you excited about buying their cereal!

Sometimes the prize is right inside the box. Other times, you might find a special offer on the box to mail away for a bigger prize, which is called a "premium."

How Cereal Prizes Are Given Out

Cereal box prizes and premiums have been given out in a few different ways:

• At the Store: Long ago, sometimes a prize was given to you by the store clerk when you bought certain boxes of cereal. This isn't very common anymore.
• Inside the Box: This is the most common way! The prize is usually placed inside the cereal box, but outside the bag that holds the cereal.
• On the Box: Some prizes are attached to the outside of the box, like plastic records that could be played. Other times, the prize is printed right on the box itself, like games or trading cards. Sometimes, a game board is printed on the box, and the prize inside is a game piece to play with it.
• By Mail: For bigger prizes, you might have to mail in proof-of-purchase labels (like the UPC barcode) cut from a few boxes. Sometimes, you'd also send a small payment for shipping. Then, the prize would be sent to you in the mail.

The Exciting History of Cereal Prizes

Did you know that W.K. Kellogg, who started Kellogg's, was the first to put prizes in cereal boxes? His idea led to billions of different prizes being given away over the years!

The Very First Cereal Prize

The first ever breakfast cereal prize came from Kellogg's Corn Flakes. It was a book called The Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Book. At first, stores gave this book to customers when they bought two boxes of Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Later, in 1909, Kellogg's changed it to a mail-in offer. You could send in a dime (a 10-cent coin) to get the book. By 1912, Kellogg's had given away 2.5 million of these books! The book was offered until 1937.

Popular Prizes in the U.S.

Soon, other big cereal companies like General Mills, Malt-O-Meal, Nabisco, Nestlé, Post Foods, and Quaker Oats started putting prizes in their cereal boxes too. This helped them sell more cereal and keep customers loyal.

Kellogg's Company's Cool Prizes

In 1945, Kellogg's put pin-back buttons in every box of their Pep cereal. These "Pep pins" featured things like U.S. Army squadrons and characters from newspaper comics. There were many different sets of these buttons, making them fun to collect!

From 1970 to 1983, Kellogg's also had popular 3D Baseball and Football Cards in their cereals, especially Corn Flakes. Another well-loved series was called Crater Critters.

Fun British Cereal Prizes

In Britain, cereal boxes offered all sorts of cool gifts. Some examples include tiny submarines that worked with baking powder, miniature sharks with tails that spun using rubber bands, and small boats called catamarans powered by balloons. Collecting cards were also very popular.

How Technology Changed Cereal Prizes

A big change for cereal box prizes happened in 1946. An inventor named James Watson Hendry created a new machine called a screw injection molding machine. This machine made it much faster and cheaper to produce plastic toys.

It meant that plastic could be melted and shaped into toys very quickly. Also, recycled plastic could be used, which was great! Later, Hendry also developed a way to make hollow plastic prizes that cooled even faster. This allowed for more detailed and stronger toys, while also reducing waste.

Cereal Prizes in Memories and Media

Cereal prizes are often remembered fondly by adults. People often talk about the "secret-decoder rings" and "baking soda-powered frogmen" from the 1950s. Waiting for these prizes to arrive in the mail was a big deal for kids!

In 1996, General Mills put a full PC video game called Chex Quest on a CD inside boxes of Chex cereal. It was a special version of the popular game Doom and became a big hit!