Alpha-Bits, Created by Post Cereals in Battle Creek, Michigan. Why Was It Discontinued?

Alpha-Bits cereal was created by a guy who worked for Battle Creek's Post Cereals, Thomas M. Quigley. Post dug the idea and in 1957, boxes of the alphabet cereal bits were in grocery stores.

Made with oats and corn, kids literally ate these up. One big selling point was for parents to help their kids learn to spell with it. Okay, fine...but as the kids got older and they learned new words on the street, they would spell them out, show their friends, and giggle. 'Snicker, snicker...lookit what I spelt'.

Adults got in on it too: “Hey, honey, I got a message for ya! Har, har.” These were usually spelled out by guys who didn't use the dry bits from out of the box...they picked 'em out of the milk, and spelled their four-letter-words out on the table, sloppin' milk on the tablecloth in the process. (“Great, honey...but you spelled it wrong.”)

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Okay, to be fair, that's all just fun speculation - but you know darn well those incidents occurred...those of us who ate Alpha-Bits couldn't resist spelling out certain words.

So again, why were Alpha-Bits discontinued? People who went down the grocery aisle looking for 'em wondered why they hadn't seen them in a while. Then it was made public that they had been briefly taken off the market in 2006. Two years later, Alpha-Bits re-appeared in a “new, improved, zero sugar, limited edition” version. Oh, yeah...that sounds appetizing. Later that year, the original recipe was put back on the shelves.

In 2017, another version was released, this time the bits were larger...more like bites instead of bits (and yes, it was touted as “new and improved”). Shocker. After using a few different names like 'Frosted Alpha-Bits', 'Sugar-Free', and 'Marshmallow Alpha-Bits'.....that was it. In May 2021 the cereal was discontinued.

But fans of the bits still wanted to know why? WHY was one of their favorite cereals taken away from them? According to a tweet from Post Cereals on Aug 30, 2021: “Hi! We are sorry to share that AlphaBits has been discontinued. Generally our products are discontinued due to lack of demand or to make room for the introduction of new products. We hope you find a new Post product your son will love.”

Great, Post. But which explanation are you going with?

So if you ever heard an urban legend about Alpha-Bits being canceled due to kids spelling out dirty words, no.....It ain't true.

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