Cereal Killer Magic Spoon Disrupts the Breakfast Food Market
Who doesn’t have a soft spot for their favorite childhood cereal? A simple box of Froot Loops can be enough to send you back to Saturday mornings, eating breakfast while watching cartoons. Cereal has also gained additional cachet among adults since Jerry Seinfeld first revealed himself to be an enormous fan decades ago, and cereal bars keep popping up around cities. There’s only one problem: Most cereals aren’t very good for you. Magic Spoon aims to change all of that. Until recently, consumers were forced to choose between healthy but bland grown-up cereals and the tasty bowls full of sugar we enjoyed as kids. But Magic Spoon offers high protein, low carb, and grain-free cereal while tasting much like your childhood favorites. Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz started Magic Spoon in 2019, but it wasn’t their first entrepreneurial venture. After graduating from Brown University in 2013, they launched Exo Protein, a company that creates protein bars using insects. While it sounds less palatable than their current offering, the two entrepreneurs sold Exo Protein in 2018, and the brand lives on today. Lewis, now CEO of Magic Spoon, told “Inc.” that the two learned important lessons through their time at Exo Protein, most notably the impact that direct-to- consumer marketing can have. While stores were unlikely to carry snacks made of crickets on their shelves, the company found its client base online. Magic Spoon has also flourished with online and social media marketing, helping the business find like-minded consumers. Magic Spoon’s marketing has relied on nostalgia to convince consumers to give their cereal a chance. With at least 13 grams of protein in every bowl and no sugar added, Magic Spoon comes
in brightly colored boxes with playful designs to evoke the same feelings traditional cereal inspires. The company also found success by reaching younger consumers through podcasts. The most crucial ingredient was finding hosts who actually liked the product — not those who were simply being paid to promote it. Rave reviews have run in “The New York Times,” “Forbes,” and “Insider,” and in 2022, the company got a big boost. Magic Spoon received $85 million in Series B fundraising from private investment firms and celebrity investors. With names like Shakira, Halsey, Nas, and Amy Schumer attached, the cereal has become more popular than ever. Crucially, the brand also found a home on the shelves at Target, the first time it has been available in-store. Though the company has stepped away from its roots as a direct-to-consumer product, it still has a lively online presence and offers eight varieties through its website, compared to three in stores. It also continues to branch out into new products. Magic Spoon is working on developing even more flavors, and a limited-run cereal bar was so popular that it became a permanent product line.
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