Breakfast cereals under the microscope: striking differences between claims and consumer perception

Fewer nuts than promised

For all four products, the communicated nut percentage was higher than the proportion of visible nuts we measured in the final product. It is possible that there were additional nuts processed in the muesli, but these were not included in this count. For private brand 1, this deviation was very small (8.6% claimed versus 8.4% measured) and for private brand 2 the difference was also small (10.0% versus 9.1%). With A-brands, on the other hand, the deviation was considerably larger (A-brand 1: 11.0% claimed versus 5.9% measured; A-brand 2: 10.7% versus 4.7%). We saw that for all products, consumers indicated that there was proportionally too much granola and too few nuts. Only with the A-brands did this also emerge as a factor affecting the overall product rating. In general, panelists found the nut taste of all muesli variants to be on the weak side.

In terms of texture, we saw clear differences. House brands contained more coarse chunks (above 25 mm), while A-brands had a finer granola on average. On average, more respondents indicated that the private brands were too hard (private brand 1: 22%, private brand 2: 22%) compared to the A brands (A brand 1: 8%, A brand 2: 14%). We cannot draw firm conclusions from this measurement, but possibly this judgment is related to the higher proportion of coarse chunks in the private brands.