Cocoa Puffs Popcorn vs. Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn Review
General Mills, the company known for making many of your favorite cereals, has been extremely busy moving their cereals into other products lately. If you don’t know what we mean, you should check out our General Mills cereal scented candles review.
Obviously, the most logical jump from cereal is to candles - our senses of taste and smell are closely related! After that, we’re not 100% sure why they went from candles to popcorn, but we did illustrate our best guess below:
Even if we’re wrong, and they aren’t making cereal flavored popcorn with cereal scented candles, we’re definitely glad they chose to make Cocoa Puffs Popcorn and Cinnamon Toast Popcorn.
Let’s get this out of the way first: Just like in our General Mills cereal scented candles review, we’re judging these based on a combination of excellence and accuracy. Like, we’re not looking for great chocolate popcorn - we’re looking for great Cocoa Puffs popcorn.
We are huge popcorn lovers around here, so we're taking this review seriously. We spent quite a few extremely enjoyable nights testing which microwave popcorn was the most buttery. We also frequent a local market around here that makes their own flavored popcorn, and we always spend way too much money there. That's why we truly care about which of these General Mills popcorn flavors are superior.
It would probably be fair to divide popcorn into two categories: Dessert and Snack.
Dessert Popcorn Examples:
- Boom Chicka Pop Sweet & Salty Kettle Corn
- G.H. Cretors Cheese & Caramel Mix
- The Safe and Fair Food Birthday Cake Drizzled Popcorn
Snack Popcorn Examples:
- Orville Redenbacher's Simply Salted Popcorn
- Pop Secret Movie Theater Butter Popcorn
- Skinny Pop Popcorn
- Smartfood White Cheddar Popcorn
Cocoa Puffs Popcorn Review:
Allow us to open this review with the official description from General Mills. They said, “SWEET CHOCOLATE FLAVOR: Amp up your sweet and salty popcorn with Cocoa Puffs Popcorn; Not your typical kettle or caramel corn flavor and a perfect combination of smooth chocolatey flavor and crunch in every bit.”
They’re not wrong, but they’re not exactly telling the whole story. The Cocoa Puffs popcorn does have a chocolate flavor, and we do agree that it isn't quite kettle or caramel corn. Instead, it's more of a dry Cocoa puffs flavor. Like, literally - that’s it. If you tend to grab Cocoa Puffs and just eat them directly from the box, or maybe you’re just a milk hater, these are for you. They’re lower calorie, lower carb, and more socially-acceptable to eat in public.
It can feel a little strange to feel like you are eating dry cereal when you are expecting popcorn, but this isn't a complaint. We could see this snack being especially convenient for parents packing lunch boxes. We wouldn't be surprised to see it show up in a smaller, individual-sized bag one day.
The Cocoa Puffs Popcorn is fantastic, and we would love to see how its chocolate flavor stacks up against options from the Candy POP line, including Snickers Popcorn and M&M Minis. Pretty much any popcorn from the Candy POP line never disappoints, and it feels clear that General Mills was attempting to compete with this growing product.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn Review:
The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn is better. It just is. The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn is more unique and more accurate to the true flavor of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. We’re big popcorn fans in this house. We almost always have a bag of Popcorn Indiana Black & White Fudge Drizzle ready for snacking, and there’s a chance the Cinnamon Toast Crunch popcorn will take that place.
The makers of this delicious snack claim that they use the same “Cinnadust” – “(an) epic cinnamon and sugar combination” - that is present on Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal, and we fully believe them. Where they take it one step further is that they nail the taste that most people experience when they eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Somehow, they have avoided the dry cereal flavor that plagued the Cocoa Puffs Popcorn.
If you are a huge fan of the Cinnadust, you should know they probably sell it in the baking area of your favorite store. We cannot wait to see some of the creations that people come up with now that they are making the classic Cinnamon Toast Crunch flavor available to all. The obvious thing to do would be to make your favorite snickerdoodle cookies with Cinnadust. We're personally thinking it could be added to this Crumbl No-Bake Marshmallow Peanut Butter Cornflake Cookies recipe from Lifestyle of a Foodie.
Remember our notes about dessert vs. snack popcorn earlier? That is the real reason why Cinnamon Toast Crunch popcorn was our winner. If you are looking for a snack, perhaps the Cocoa Puffs Popcorn is better. However, at their core, both of these foods are a dessert.
Is Cocoa Puffs Popcorn or Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn Better?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn is the superior flavor experience. If you’re feeling like you have to try it (you do), you can order it online from Amazon or pick it up at Publix and Walmart. It seems like this product may be a newer rollout, and we wouldn't be surprised to see it available in even more stores before long.
P.S. - It honestly feels like General Mills themselves agree with us. We found a beautiful page on their website detailing the Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn, but nothing equivalent for the Cocoa Puffs Popcorn. We see you, marketing guy. Take a stand for the superior cereal-based popcorn.
Lastly, if you want to try Cinnadust Seasoning, you can buy it online from Amazon.
If you enjoyed this somewhat niche food review, you may also enjoy our review of another somewhat niche food: Aldi vs. Trader Joe's: Toasted Ravioli Comparison.