"Keep hunger locked up till lunch!"
A breakfast cereal manufactured by Cereal Partners UK and distributed by Nestlé. According to the British American dictionary, they are "similar to Chex® and Kellogs Crispix®."1
Shreddies are approximately one square inch in size, consisting of layered lattices of whole wheat creating a kind of grid. The name comes from the fact the wheat is shredded, a feature they have in common with their sister cereal, Shredded Wheat. Along with the main line, Cereal Partners also offer the hugely successful Frosted Shreddies and the less popular Coco Shreddies.
Although Cereal Partners states on their website (with questionable grammar) "Shreddies offers something for all the family."2, advertising for the cereal family has always been aimed at children, featuring a cartoony anthropomorphic personification of hunger, and generally concluding with him being locked up in a Shreddies prison.
Like most self-respecting cereals, Shreddies constantly offer useless pieces of plastic as free gifts with the cereal to lure in the lucrative pre-teen market. These have recently included promotions related to films such as Toy Story 2, Dinosaur and Stuart Little.
Of course, children's cereals also need to appeal to parents. Shreddies' tactic for this is showing more milk on the packaging than cereal, and including the prominent reassurance that they are fortified with 8 vitamins and iron.
As proof of that claim, here are the ingredients and nutrition information for standard Shreddies.
Typical values
Per 100g of Shreddies Serving of 45g with 125ml semi-skimmed milk
Energy 1485 kJ 922 kJ
350 kcal 218 kcal
Protein 9.9 g 8.8 g
Carbohydrate 73.4 g 39.2 g
of which: sugars
15.5 g 12.8 g
Fat 1.9 g 2.9 g
of which: saturates
0.4 g 1.3 g
Fibre 9.8 g 4.4 g
Sodium 0.5 g 0.3 g
Vitamins and minerals
% RDA* % RDA*
Vitamin D 2.8 μg 55% 1.3 μg 25%
Thiamin (B1) 0.8 mg 55% 0.4 mg 25%
Riboflavin (B2) 0.9 mg 55% 0.6 mg 35%
Niacin 10.0 mg 55% 4.6 mg 25%
Vitamin B6 1.1 mg 55% 0.5 mg 25%
Folic acid (folacin) 111 μg 55% 50.0 μg 25%
Vitamin B12 0.6 μg 55% 0.8 μg 80%
Pantothenic acid 3.3 mg 55% 1.9 mg 30%
Iron 7.8 mg 55% 3.6 mg 25%
*Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) according to the EC Nutrition Labelling Directive 90/496/EEC.
Ingredients: Whole Grain Wheat, Sugar, Malt Extract, Salt, Antioxidant: Tocopherols
Vitamins and Minerals: Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Vitamin B6, Thiamin (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Vitamin D, Folic Acid (Folacin), Vitamin B12 and Iron.
1 Jeremy?. "British=Shreddies". No apparent name for site. <http://cgi.peak.org/~jeremy/retort.cgi?British=Shreddies> (4 February 2003)
2 Cereal Partners UK. "Shreddies - Cereal Partners UK". Cereal Partners UK. 2001. <http://www.cerealpartners.co.uk/p_shreddies.shtml> (4 February, 2003)