Type Breakfast cereal Variations Multiple | Place of origin United States | |
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Main ingredients Whole grain corn, sugar, corn syrup, cornmeal, canola and or rice bran oil, cocoa solids processed with alkali Other information Trix, Kix, Count Chocula | ||
Cocoa Puffs is a brand of chocolate-flavored puffed grain breakfast cereal, manufactured by General Mills. Introduced in 1958, the cereal consists of small orbs of corn, oats, and rice flavored with cocoa. Essentially, Cocoa Puffs are Kix cereal with chocolate flavoring; similarly, Trix has been, for most of its existence, fruit-flavored Kix.
Contents
Cocoa Puffs are sold in Canada, Latin America, Mexico, and Europe under the Nesquik brand, via a partnership between Nestlé and General Mills.
Ingredients
On several occasions, Cocoa Puffs boxes stated that they are made with real Hershey's chocolate.
In December 2009, General Mills announced that it would cut the sugar in 10 cereals including Cocoa Puffs to less than 10 grams of sugar per serving. This could represent a 25% decline in the sugar content from the original level and 18% from the 2009 level of 11 grams per serving.
Flavors and variants
A cereal bar of Cocoa Puffs has been made. A layer of dried, sweetened condensed milk is added to the bottom, and marketed as a substitute for a bowl of milk and cereal.
The newest addition was introduced in the summer of 2008, Cocoa Puffs Combos, which consists of the recognizable chocolate puffs with vanilla puffs. Unlike original Cocoa Puffs, the Combos cereal does not contain cocoa; instead, it contains artificial, imitation cocoa.
Advertising
The mascot of Cocoa Puffs is Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, introduced in 1962. In television commercials, Sonny attempts to concentrate on a normal task but ends up coming across some reference to Cocoa Puffs themselves (usually described by the adjectives "munchy, crunchy, chocolatey") and bursts with enthusiasm, exclaiming his catchphrase "I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" Sonny was voiced by Chuck McCann from 1962 to 1978, and has been voiced by Larry Kenney since 1978.
Sonny's name comes from the original format of the commercials, in which he was paired with his grandfather (also voiced by McCann). Rather than proper names, they always referred to each other as "Gramps" and "Sonny." When the grandfather was dropped from the ads, "Sonny" remained as the character's name. In 2010, Gramps returned to the Cocoa Puffs ads, with McCann reprising his role as Gramps and Kenney continuing to voice Sonny.
Sonny was designed by Gene Cleaves; animation pioneer "Grim" Natwick, of Fleischers' Betty Boop history, also contributed to the early images of Sonny and Gramps, according to then-contemporaries who collaborated with Natwick during his 100-year career. Sonny was originally depicted as wearing a pink-and-white striped shirt, then in 1995 was redesigned, this time wearing 1990s "extreme" clothes and being given a more Disney-esque appearance. In 2004, he was redesigned in a more simplistic fashion, this time without clothing.