10 Discontinued Store-Bought Breakfast Items People Still Miss

It's fair to say that we've kinda wised up to breakfast, guys. This meal is the one that most of us eat in a hurry to get out of the door, and that need for speed led to a frankly wild explosion of store-bought breakfast foods throughout the 20th century. People began skipping oatmeal for colorful cereals, breakfast bars, and packaged waffles. While a lot of people have now turned back to whole or minimally processed foods to start their day, so many of these old-school breakfast items now live only in our memories, reminding us of our childhoods.

A trip through the history of store-bought breakfast items also reveals just how diverse they are. Virtually every kind of cereal has been created in countless different flavors, yogurts have been created which defy all logic (and, it must be said, nutritional value), and things have been stuffed into battered foods that you'd never expect. With so many options out there, it's little wonder that many favorites have been discontinued, right? Well, never fear: You may not be able to buy them anymore, but you can still remember them fondly right here.

Before granola bars became the breakfast of choice in the 1990s and beyond, there were Carnation Breakfast Bars. These handy bars were first released in 1975, and the concept was simple: Provide a full and nutritious breakfast in a portable form. Although Carnation Breakfast Bars came in various chocolate flavors, which might suggest that they were heavy on the sugar, they also included oats, peanut butter, and all of the other things you'd expect to find in a snack or breakfast bar these days. Where they stood out, though, was in their chocolate coating, which made them resemble a full-on candy bar.

Carnation Breakfast Bars were popular enough to stick around for a few decades, but in the mid-1990s, they started to lose their appeal. The brand was reinvigorated in 1994 to try and promote them, but in 1997, the breakfast bars were officially discontinued. There was a brief revamp in 2014, but it didn't last long. We don't know what they were putting in these, but to this day, people say that they were among the best snack bars they've ever eaten. "I practically lived on them through high school," said one Reddit commenter, sadly. "Have never found anything anywhere near as good. I still miss them." 

If you couldn't get enough of Pop-Tarts in the 1990s (though we're not sure how that could be the case, considering they were absolutely everywhere), then Pop-Tarts Crunch was likely the breakfast for you. The gimmick of Pop-Tarts Crunch was that it took your favorite Pop-Tarts flavors and turned them into cereal. Introduced in 1994, each bowl had dozens of mini Pop-Tarts stuffed with either a frosted brown sugar cinnamon or a frosted strawberry filling. If you opted for the strawberry version, you got the glorious sight of each piece being studded with pink frosting and sprinkles, just like regular Pop-Tarts.

Now, you don't need to be a genius to figure out that a bowl of Pop-Tarts Crunch was likely overwhelmingly sugary. That said, we're surprised that this cereal disappeared so quickly. This was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of breakfast item, but it made enough of a splash for people to remember it for decades after it was discontinued. In true 21st-century fashion, petitions have even been started to try and get Kellogg's to bring it back, and this actually seems to have worked, albeit briefly. In 2019, the company did bring back Pop-Tarts Crunch for a short spell, although for whatever reason, it was discontinued pretty quickly. We can't help but feel like Kellogg's is teasing us here.

If you've ever tried to get a kid to eat plain oatmeal, you'll know how challenging it can be. Little ones just don't gel very well with the combination of a gloopy texture and barely any flavor, and honestly, we don't blame them. So when Oatmeal Swirlers were released in the late 80s, we can imagine that parents all around the country breathed a sigh of relief. Oatmeal Swirlers were a pretty simple idea: Each box contained a packet of instant oatmeal and a pouch filled with a topping like fruit jelly or maple brown sugar syrup. You made the oatmeal, added your flavor, and went to town.

It's worth pointing out that topping oatmeal with something delicious is (and was) far from a new idea, but when General Mills debuted this breakfast item, including the two things in one box was fairly innovative. Unfortunately, the company also didn't do anything here to reinvent the wheel. As a result, Oatmeal Swirlers just didn't really stand out that much, and eventually they were discontinued for good. Nowadays, people remember this product more for its colorful advertising than its flavor, although you'll still find the odd person online reminiscing about how much they loved it.

The 90s were a time when cereal was colorful, sugary, and loud — and perhaps no item embodied that quite like Sprinkle Spangles. This cereal was first released in 1993, and it was a fairly psychedelic affair that no doubt had kids bouncing off the walls. Each piece had a sugar cookie flavor, which was then amped up even further by colorful sprinkles studding every surface. Every cereal piece was an attractive star shape, too, so your kid could feel positively cosmic while they experienced a serious burst of energy (and an inevitable crash).

It's pretty wild that so many people remember Sprinkle Spangles these days, considering that this discontinued breakfast cereal only lasted for a year. By the end of 1994, it was gone, and Sprinkle Spangles have yet to make a full-time comeback to shelves. A couple of years back, some pioneering folks online figured out that Disney's Mickey Mouse Club Confetti Cake cereal was a good dupe for Sprinkle Spangles, but as this was just a limited-quantity item, you're unlikely to find it today. Man, why do they discontinue these cereals so quickly?

We really can't believe that Smucker's Snack'n Waffles only lasted as long as they did. Released in 2011, Smucker's Snack'n Waffles asked the simple question: What if we made waffles that you could eat on the go? The answer came in its prepackaged waffles, each one housed in its own plastic wrapper, coming in a variety of flavors, including Blueberry and Cinnamon. Instead of having to sit down and eat them off a plate, you could munch on them on the bus, on the train, or on your walk to work. It's a winning concept, right?

We certainly thought so, and so did the thousands of Snack'n Waffles fans out there. However, in 2012, Smuckers discontinued this product from its line. It dropped the bomb in a 2019 post on X that it had done so "due to low support," a comment that prompted a flood of messages from fans who missed the easy munchability. Thankfully, real fans out there know that they can try Arlington Valley Farms' version of Snack'n Waffles, a product dupe that seamlessly imitates the concept and the flavors of the Smucker's product.

A lot of the time, we look at discontinued food items and understand exactly why they didn't last forever. With Cinnamon Mini Buns, however, all we feel is sadness that we didn't get to try a spoonful of them. Cinnamon Mini Buns were introduced by Kellogg's in 1991, and they can somewhat be considered an ancestor of today's Cinnabon cereal. As you might expect, they promised kids exactly what they said they would: Each spoonful was a collection of little cinnamon buns, formed out of corn and whole grains, with the latter used and promoted as a way to give your breakfast a nutritional boost.

For such an innovative product, though, Cinnamon Mini Buns didn't last too long. However, rather than being discontinued entirely, they were morphed into a new cereal. Cinnamon Mini Buns were replaced by Mini Swirlz Cinnamon Bun cereal, another Kellogg's creation that basically promised exactly the same thing under a different name. Then, Cinnabon took over and has remained Kellogg's' flagship cinnamon bun cereal ever since. While we're sure Cinnamon Mini Buns probably had a near-identical flavor to Cinnabon, we're still curious about what the earliest version tasted like.

We'll always hold a serious soft spot for Eggo Waf-Fulls. These waffles took the hassle out of stuffing them yourself (anyone who's made stuffed waffles from scratch will know how fiddly and time-consuming it can be), and injected the filling right in for you. In each Eggo Waf-Full, you'd find either strawberry, blueberry, or apple cinnamon filling, and preparing one was as simple as toasting it for a few minutes. Kellogg's also promised that each waffle, or Waf-Full, came with nine different vitamins and minerals. We'd question exactly how nutritious this breakfast dish was, given that it was essentially fruit jelly inside a waffle, but that's just by the by.

Sadly, Eggo Waf-Full's days were numbered from the start. This breakfast item was first released in 2000, but it seems to have been discontinued in 2008. This was done quietly, but fifteen whole years later, Kellogg's finally revealed why it had discontinued its Eggo Waf-Fulls. Reportedly, the company's official statement was that the breakfast item just wasn't popular enough to justify its existence. Look, we get it: Not everyone loves a stuffed waffle. We can't say that we're not sad about these not being around anymore, though.

You've gotta love the 90s, folks. This was the decade where virtually anything was on the table, food-wise. Companies were trying to outdo each other with more and more outlandish creations, arguably at the expense of trying to keep their food healthy and wholesome, and a good example of this impulse was Dannon Sprinkl'ins. First released in 1992, this product took pots of flavored yogurt and accompanied them with packs of rainbow sprinkles. Every morning, kids could pour these crunchy pieces into their yogurts, stir, eat, and then endure an almighty sugar crash about an hour later.

What was somewhat incredible was the fact that Dannon tried to promote Sprinkl'ins as a healthy breakfast, claiming in its advertising copy that each pot was low in fat, cholesterol, and contained various nutrients. Well, that might be true, but we're really not convinced that this rainbow-colored concoction was the best thing you could be eating at the start of your day. Regardless, Dannon Sprinkl'ins stuck around until 2010 before the product was discontinued. A lot of people still miss these yogurts to this day, but we'd be surprised if they make a comeback anytime soon.

Depending where you stand on banana-flavored store-bought foods, you may love or hate this next one — but if you hate it, you might be in the minority. Banana Frosted Flakes were a breakfast item that a huge amount of people still miss to this very day. This breakfast cereal took the classic frosted flake concept, made famous by Kellogg's, and studded each piece with tiny bits of banana. Released in 1981, the earliest boxes featured Tony the Tiger taking on an appropriately tropical appearance, with a bunch of bananas slung over his shoulder and sun hat to protect him from those glaring rays.

People who tried these frosted flakes report that Kellogg's really nailed the banana flavor here. Instead of shying away into the background, it was punchy, fruity, and rich. Given that bananas themselves are a classic breakfast food, it's slightly surprising that Banana Frosted Flakes didn't last too long. However, in 1984, they were ultimately discontinued, leaving a host of unhappy folks pining for one more taste. In 2019, these people's prayers were momentarily answered when Kellogg's released a limited-edition Banana Creme flavor for its Frosted Flakes, but sadly, it didn't stick around for long.

Not all the discontinued breakfast items that people miss are sugary, extravagant concoctions. If you need any proof of this, check out Buc Wheats. This cereal was made by General Mills, consisting of pieces of breakfast flakes, stone-ground buckwheat, and an infusion of maple flavor. Sounds pretty healthy, right? It seems like customers thought so too, and chimed with its combination of nutrition and a warm, sweet flavor. Buc Wheats first appeared around 1971, and it was a feature in the breakfast cereal market for over a decade. However, everything changed when the manufacturer tried to mix things up. 

General Mills apparently thought that replacing the maple flavor with a honey one would give Buc Wheats a new lease of life, but it had the opposite effect. Customers began turning away from the breakfast cereal, feeling that General Mills had ruined it for good. Buc Wheats was never able to recover, and by 1983, the cereal had disappeared forever. Even though it's been out of production for over 40 years now, people still remember this breakfast item with real fondness. "One of the good ones that Mom approved," said one nostalgic Reddit commenter.