The Cheerios Story

A Gold Medal Grain

Oats are a champion among grains. They’re high in beta-glucan, a soluble fiber proven to help lower cholesterol – what a winner! But that’s not all oats have to offer. They’re also a highly sustainable crop. They require no irrigation, and we use the leftover hulls from harvested oats to provide non-fossil fuel energy at one of our mills.

Oat-Kay Cupid

We prefer to wait for the right oat to come along – and we only use oats that are healthy, hearty, and nutrient-rich. That’s why the oats that go into Cheerios are put through a careful screening process. We select only oats that are high in soluble fiber. Being picky about our oats and how they’re raised ensures we deliver only top quality Cheerios.

Keeping Our Cool

It warms our hearts to see an oat in the cold. That's because cool climates yield plumper, hearties oats. To keep our oats chilled out we source so many of them from Canada. This region is known to grow oats that are packed with nutrients.

Gluten-free Zone

Get ‘em outta here! Oats are naturally gluten-free, but stray grains of wheat, barley and rye can get mixed in during harvesting. These gatecrashers have to be ejected so that we can mill gluten-free oat flour. We created a sorting system that can identify the V.I.O.’s (Very Important Oats) from the imposters. Our bouncer is the best in the world: it sifts through over 3.5 million pounds of oats every day.

Learn more about our unique process here

Can’t Beat the Heat

What makes that classic Cheerios flavor so distinctive? We toast our O’s twice! After they’ve been harvested and sifted, we toast the oat grains, which makes for rich, aromatic oat flour. After the oat flour is made into dough and shaped into O’s, we toast the O’s again to get that perfectly crunchy Cheerio texture. Our double toasting allows us to bring out the full flavor of each and every oat.

Flour Power

Making oats into Cheerios sounds complicated, but we promise it’s not. First, we take the toasted oats and grind them up. This results in what we call pure oat flour, AKA “the good stuff.” Then we make oat dough and cut and shape it into itty bitty Cheerios. Then, the tiny Cheerios head off to the puffing stage.

Humble Beginnings

Cheerios start off small, but they sure don’t end up that way. Think of the itty-bitty dough O’s like popcorn. We heat them up and PUFF! – they become the full-grown, full-flavored Cheerios that we love.

Bee kissed

Life is sweeter with a kiss of real honey from Honey Nut Cheerios. For the perfect mouthful, we add a taste of honey, a touch of almond flavor, and a hint of simple syrup to a plain Cheerio. So simple and so sweet – just the way we like them.

How do you like
them apples?

A burst of apple and a pinch of cinnamon create the perfect flavor combination for Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. We combine our Washington State apple puree with a blend of simple syrup and cinnamon, and then add it to a plain Cheerio. Behold, the Apple Cinnamon Cheerio!