MINNEAPOLIS — Like many food trends these days, the genesis was TikTok.
“I was looking at homemade hacks people were doing to amplify their bacon, and I came across a few people frying it up with Cinnamon Toast Crunch ‘Cinnadust,’” said Aly Sill, senior brand manager for Hormel’s Black Label bacon. “And I thought, ‘That would actually be delicious.’”
Nearly a year later, the breakfast table mashup is hitting shelves nationwide and already resonating with consumers hungry for sweet-and-savory indulgences. It also marks a rare team-up between two iconic Minnesota companies — Golden Valley-based General Mills and Austin-based Hormel — that checks a lot of boxes for both brands.
Sill knew “flavor infusions” have been popular in grocery stores for a while, but even she was surprised at “the level of consumer excitement” for the collab. Melissa Wildermuth, director of creative brand partnerships at General Mills, said even as she talks about the sweetly spiced pork, “my mouth is watering.”
Wildermuth added that Cinnamon Toast Crunch as a brand leans into “absurd and playful things that taste really good.” The company also generally aims the cereal at a younger audience, something Sill said Hormel was interested in doing for one of its signature brands to “boldly push the boundaries of bacon.”
“We want to establish Black Label as the innovator in the category,” Sill said.
After agreeing on a partnership late last year, research and development teams at both companies worked on figuring out how to take the home-kitchen hack to scale. It’s a little more complicated than simply sprinkling cinnamon sugar on bacon and sealing it in a package.
“Both companies said, ‘We’re not going to do this until we really get it right,’” Wildermuth said. “Getting it right means it being so craveable: tasting it and just wanting more.”
That meant taste-testing a lot of delicious failures. Food scientists would hand-rub strips of bacon with Cinnadust, the special formula General Mills uses for the nation’s second-bestselling cereal.
“The key was to make sure it wasn’t too smoky like traditional bacon or too sweet,” Sill said. “Balanced.”
Wildermuth said the idea of Cinnamon Toast Crunch bacon “reminds me of when you’re eating pancakes and some of the syrup gets on the bacon.”
No soggy syrup here, though; Wildermuth said there’s a satisfying crunch that makes it stand out from other sweet bacon offerings.
“It’s something you feel like you can only get at a state fair or a restaurant,” she said.
Since Hormel and General Mills products don’t overlap much, partnerships between the food giants haven’t always seemed obvious. But for this project, both sides saw “an upfront alignment,” Sill said.
“We have a pretty strict rubric of things we look for in a partner,” including a passionate fanbase, a flavor match and a clear audience, she said. “Cinnamon Toast Crunch is really trending well with millennials, and it’s a nostalgic brand.”
For General Mills, the company focuses on the purpose behind a partnership.
“What do you do best, what do we do best, and how do we bring that together?” Wildermuth said. “If you have purpose-driven partnerships sharing the same values, you’ll over-deliver every time.”
While there’s nothing in the works for another General Mills/Hormel collaboration, the experience was a positive one.
“Now the door is open,” Wildermuth said. “There could be more to come.”
Honey Nut Cheerios Spam, anyone?
