Cinnamojis

Cinnamojis wants to visit any place that has cinnamony good treats!

How Did Cinnamon Toast Crunch Get its Name? 

Each little square in this cereal almost resembles a miniature piece of toast. Each square is puffed so it has the perfect amount of crackle and crunch. Of course, each piece also has cinnamon swirls on it. 

When you put those three elements together, you get Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Makes perfect sense to us! The name has always remained the same.

This cereal is also sold in countries outside of the US. It has different names in some locations. For example, in the UK it’s called “Curiously Cinnamon”. In the French Canada region, it’s called “Croque-Cannelle”. And throughout Europe and Latin America, it is known as Cini Minis. 

Cinnamon Toast Crunch History

The cereal was first produced in 1984. It is owned and sold by General Mills and has been for close to 40 years now. One interesting thing about the history is the fact that the original cereal actually had plain squares. It was just the wheat and rice. The cinnamon and sugar were added later to make it more appealling.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch was created by a scientist named John Mendesh. He worked closely with Elisabeth Trach, who was the assistant product manager at General Mills at the time. The idea was taken from a contest that the company had run. Kids could submit their favorite idea for cereal and be entered to win a prize. This was one idea submitted and they put it to use. 

The early advertising that began used bakers named Wendell, Bob, and Quello for marketing. They were animated and they acted as the mascots for many years. At some point, they narrowed it to just one baker, keeping only Wendell for marketing purposes. 

The early slogans for the company came were much later than the three bakers but all three bakers were still present. It was about 1995 when they created their first tagline “the taste you can see”. 

They had some other lines through the years as well. “It’s that intense” was the next one but it was a flop in comparison. They also tried phrases like “crave those crazy squares”, “breakfast on a whole other level”, and more. Their current catch line is “unlock the cinnaverse”. 

Cinnamon Toast Crunch has had several mascots through the years. Chef Wendell was the mascot for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. He used to make the cereal with two other chefs, Quello and Bob. Chef Wendell was eventually replaced by the Crazy Squares, now named the Cinnamojis.