Cereal

Today while grocery shopping, I noticed a guy in the cereal isle. He was writing things in a fairly thick notebook. I peered over his shoulder and asked "So, what are you writing in there?"

He was an agent for General Mills and was checking to make sure this supermarket was displaying the agreed upon GM market share. His job was to count cereal box faces and write down the percentage of the market share they represent. He also checks out the frontage of other brands owned by the company, such as Betty Crocker, Yoplait and Pop Secret.

He wouldn't confess to how much GM marks up their cereals, but did let me in on other interesting information. Did you know that plain Cheerios are the best selling cereal out there? Honey nut Cheerios come in a close second.

I felt guilty picking out the Safeway brand of generic grape-nuts. When I went to get a box of Kix, his face brightened and he rummaged in his cart. He pulled out a long strip of 1$ off General Mills cereal coupons and handed them to me.

He's currently on a low carb diet and doesn't eat too much in the way of cereal. GM has come out with a low carb variety, but he says it tastes like cardboard. I looked at the ingredients - first on the list was wheat gluten. Mmmmmm, tasty.