I eat cold cereal several times a week and my favorite brand for the last year or so has been Mom’s Best Naturals, available at Just Food Co-op. I thought it was a bit strange, though, that a competitor to Malt-O-Meal would use the word ‘Mom’ in its name since we Northfielders use the acronym ‘MOM’ for Malt-O-Meal.
Yesterday, at Just Food’s Harvest Festival, I saw that Mom’s Best Naturals had a table in the parking lot so I stopped by to ask if they knew the significance of the word ‘mom.’ MOM representative Monica Kennon gently clued me in. It’s Malt-O-Meal‘s organic natural brand, with "no artificial ingredients, no artificial colors or flavors, no hydrogenated oil, and no high fructose corn syrup."
The colors of the Mom’s Best logo and the packaging should have clued me in but they’re obviously trying to keep it a little bit of a secret since a search of the MOM website for the product line comes up empty and there’s no mention of Malt-O-Meal on the box.
In addition to Just Food Co-op, the line of Mom’s Best Naturals cereals can also be found at the Northfield Econofoods.
The Sustainable Business Design blog has more to say about the MOM factory in a March 2008 blog post titled Sustainable & Responsible Business of the Week:
In addition to their healthy line of cereals, Mom’s Best Naturals’ factory in Northfield, Minnesota recycles over 99% of its waste, has reduced water usage in the manufacturing process by 41%, has reduced energy usage by 10%, their cartons are made from recycled paperboard, and they purchase 100% of their energy through windpower. Each year, they also host an Energy Fair to educate and inform employees and the public on energy efficiency and renewable energy.
I like the Raisin Bran myself. didn’t you read the box and see distributed in Northfield? I don’t think it’s organic though.
I’m too old to read the fine print, Jerry. 😉
As for ‘organic’ vs ‘natural,’ you’re probably right. I’ll fix that. This Chicago Tribune article is helpful in distinguishing between the two.
It would be nice if Carleton students who write for the Carletonian would do a little online research and then create links in their stories. Recent example:
Winter 2010 Carletonian: Northfield’s very own cereal company?
I’ve complained about this re: Pressville and it helped so maybe…
I know this is an old entry but I thought I’d add a little something I found interesting.
Albertson’s recently sent out a coupon book to some customers with a whole bunch of coupons to get stuff completely free. So off I went to go pick up and try what was being given away. Some were for Malt-O-Meal and a couple of other’s were from Mom’s Best (among other coupons).
I’ve never seen Mom’s Best where I live and I was little curious about the cereal’s name “Blue Pom Wheat-fuls’. Kind of a weird name for a cereal but I thought I’d give it a go. Upon getting home I read the box about it being all natural and the like.
I compared my Malt-O-Meal Frosted Mini Spooners to Mom’s Best. Both have the same amount of Fat, Cholesterol (none), Sodium, Potassium, Protein, and the same distribution of Carbs. But the Mini-Spooners are fortified so the vitamins/minerals are much much higher in most of them compared to Mom’s Best (i.e. 90% Iron to 10%, 100% Folate to 4%)Both have 44 grams of Whole Grains per serving.
The real kicker of the whole thing is that the Mini Spooners have no coloring or flavoring outside their normal ingredients compared to Mom’s Best using things like purple carrot extract for coloring. And to top it all off the Mini Spooners have way less packaging compared to the other, which is more helpful in the long run for waste regardless of what you make your packaging from.
Almost all cereal’s are fortified to help both kids and adults get what they need. Seriously you can almost completely live off the stuff. So if Mom’s Best wants to be healthy, compete with other brands that parents look at and are made by a brand that always fortifies their cereal’s why not fortify this one? Especially if they want to be competitive with other name brands out there. Have to justify all that sugar somehow…
Just found out Mom’s Best Cereals contain GMOs. Big discussion about it on the Mom’s Best Cereal Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/MomsBestFanPage?ref=ts&fref=ts