As breakfast cereal sales have fallen, food manufacturers have turned to an old trick to try and attract consumers back: the cereal box prize.
Breakfast cereal sales have fallen more than 13% in five years, from 2.47 billion units sold in 2021 to 2.14 billion units in 2025, according to NielsenIQ data, and some of the most colorful, eye-catching brands are on the verge of losing their bright visual appeal. As consumer trends move away from artificial colors and toward natural food dyes, the biggest cereal makers are voluntarily replacing artificial dyes with natural colors that are more muted.
For beleaguered brands looking to get your attention in grocery store aisles, the humble cereal box toy is one throwback strategy that some cereal makers are trying again.
Toys and other prizes were once commonly found in cereal boxes marketed to kids. These cheap, mass-produced plastic items were often released as tie-ins for cartoons and movies. They eventually fell out of favor due to safety concerns and rising criticism of marketing sugary foods to children. In some cases, cereal makers replaced prizes by adding QR codes to their boxes for digital games or virtual experiences, like a Lucky Charms Journey to the Magic Gems mobile AR game released in 2022.
The biggest U.S. cereal brands, however, have recently brought physical prizes back on a limited basis.
WK Kellogg Co. revived the cereal box toy this summer for the first time in over a decade with collectible spoon figurines of Toy Story 5 characters. General Mills released multiple themed-edition toys based on its cereal brand characters like the Honey Nut Cheerios honeybee Buzz and the Trix Rabbit in the early 2020s, and it’s partnering with the Jim Henson Co. for textured boxes of puppet versions of its Monster Cereal mascots (Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry) in October.
For Kellogg, which was purchased by the Italian company Ferrero last year for $3.1 billion, bringing prizes back was due to consumer demand.
“Parents remember finding toys in Kellogg’s cereal boxes, and they want to share that experience with their kids,” WK Kellogg Co. vice president of brand marketing Laura Newman tells Fast Company. “Today’s parents are also increasingly looking for simple, screen-free moments of play, making this feel like the right time to bring that experience back for a new generation.”
Newman says the company wanted to relaunch the prizes at the right moment in a way that felt authentic, and Toy Story 5 provided that opportunity with its storyline about physical toys in a tech-driven world.
The spoon figurines appeared in Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, and Pops, with availability varying by retailer. “We chose fan-favorite brands known for fun, joyful breakfast moments, making them a natural fit for bringing playable toys back inside cereal boxes,” Newman says.
In the fast-food industry—another sector that uses toys and prizes to win over children—some chains are moving in the opposite direction and integrating play directly into their packaging instead of packing in a plastic toy. Whataburger relaunched its kids’ meals in May with a sticker pack prize and a maze on the side of the box after its consumer research found sensory toys or activities outperformed plastic toys. That same month, Burger King partnered with Crayola for a kids’ meal that came with crayons and a colorable bag and crown.
Though they’re taking different approaches, cereal brands that add a toy to the box and fast-food kids’ meals that are designing play into their packaging are aiming for the same goal. The era of QR code games for food marketed to children never really took off, and with parents looking for screen-free activities more than ever today, it likely never will. Toys and other prizes, though, could make a comeback.