Australian breakfast cereals: how scores compare across major brands

Breakfast cereal occupies a weird space in Australian food culture. Parents think of it as a wholesome morning staple. Dietitians have been side-eyeing it for years. Marketing teams spend millions convincing everyone it's healthy. We decided to just score them all and see what the data said.

We've rated over 200 breakfast cereals currently sold in Australian supermarkets. The average score across all of them was 52. That's middling — and it disguises an enormous range.

At the top, scoring in the 80s and 90s, you find products that are barely cereals at all in the modern sense. Rolled oats. Puffed rice with nothing added. Single-ingredient whole grain products. Short ingredient lists, minimal processing, zero added sugar. These scored as high as 91.

At the bottom, scoring in the teens and 20s, sit the cereals most kids in Australia grow up eating. We won't name names, but you know the ones — bright boxes, cartoon characters, toys inside. These products averaged a score of 31. The main problems: sugar content above 30% by weight, artificial colours that some countries have banned or restricted, and ingredient lists that read like a chemistry syllabus.

The middle ground was more nuanced. Granolas scored all over the map. Some were genuinely good — nuts, seeds, oats, minimal sweetener. Others looked healthy but were held together with three types of sugar syrup and coated in flavoured oil. A 'natural' label didn't predict the score at all.

One thing we found encouraging: for every low-scoring cereal, there's a higher-scoring option at the same price point or cheaper. A $5 box of sugary flakes scored 24. A $4 bag of rolled oats scored 89. The healthier choice was also the cheaper one.

This pattern held across the board. You don't need to spend more to eat better cereal. You just need to know which box to grab.