Review: General Mills' Wicked Cereals Don't Taste As Good As They Look

A brightly-colored cereal box bearing the words and images associated with popular pop culture figures takes us back to the 1980s and '90s and all those discontinued cereals we'll probably never get to eat again. Like the many simple cereals of the past meant to help promote or amplify some TV show or movie, stores in 2025 will be magically graced with two new products that tie-in to the release of a film. In this case, it's "Wicked: For Good," the second half of 2024's blockbuster fantasy "Wizard of Oz" adjacent musical "Wicked." General Mills' two concoctions, Elphaba Caramel Apple and Glinda Good Berry, are certainly the first ever cereals based on a sequel to a movie that's based on a Broadway musical that's an adaptation of a novel which is a prequel to a classic movie based on a children's book.

Each of the cereals corresponds to one of the two main characters in "Wicked: For Good" — green-skinned future bad witch Elphaba and the pink-favoring good witch Glinda. The cereals are proof of fandom for "Wicked" super-fans, a way to enjoy the cultural phenomenon during the most important meal of the day. But how are the cereals, really? Are they any good? The Takeout investigated, and here's everything you need to know about the "Wicked: For Good" cereals.

Like so many cereals with limited availability because they're made to help market a fleeting and timely cultural object, the two "Wicked: For Good" cereals are meant to appeal to fans of the phenomenon. Packaged in elaborately designed boxes with designs on both sides, the "Wicked" cereals use imagery, colors, and characters associated with the films that inspired them. That through-line continues to the product itself, dyed green or pink to match the color palette of the character. The Elphaba cereal is green, and meant to taste like a caramel apple blend, while the Glinda Good Berry is berry flavored and summarily a shocking pink.

Apart from the taste and color, the two cereals are very similar. The "Wicked" cereals are made up of crispy corn balls that retain their structure in the customary cold milk bath and simultaneously crunch and dissolve upon eating.

We can't let cereal die, and new ones appear all the time, such as these two new fruity flavors by packaged food and cereal giant General Mills. The two varieties of breakfast treats related to the film "Wicked: For Good," hit stores in late July 2025, many months in advance of the movie itself. After a period of exclusivity at Walmart stores, and at a discounted price of two for $5 in a medium size and two for $7 in the larger, family size edition, the "Wicked" cereals were offered to the general market and are available at grocery, variety, and big box stores throughout the United States.

Closely related, interested customers are likely to find the two "Wicked" cereals side by side on store shelves. The kinds that went on sale in the summer of 2025, and which will be sold at least up to the November 2025 theatrical debut of "Wicked: For Good" include Elphaba Caramel Apple cereal and Glinda Good Berry cereal. The exterior of the former is covered in flourishes of green that match the food inside, as does the latter, which is very pink through and through.

General Mills' 2025 "Wicked" inspired cereals boast virtually the same recipe, and thus identical nutrition facts. Commensurate with other mass-produced cereals widely available in American supermarkets, both Elphaba Caramel Apple cereal and Glinda Good Berry cereal are made from whole grain corn, sugar, corn meal, corn syrup, canola and sunflower oils, salt, baking soda, and both natural and artificial flavoring agents. The only significant difference between the two "Wicked" cereals are the ingredients that provide their respective green color and caramel-apple taste and pink color and berry layer. The sources of the tastes are unlisted, while Elphaba Caramel Apple gets its color from turmeric, and Glinda Good Berry derives its unique shade from Red 40 food dye.

According to the sides of the boxes of the "Wicked" cereals, the caramel-apple and berry varieties have the exact same nutritional profile. The recommended serving size of a cup of either cereal contains 140 calories, 1 ½ grams of fat (none of which is trans or saturated fat), 0 milligrams of cholesterol, and 170 milligrams of sodium. One bowl adds 2 grams of protein and 31 grams of carbohydrate to one's daily intake, of which 2 grams is fiber and 11 grams is added sugar.

Elphaba Caramel Apple, one of two kinds of "Wicked" themed cereals produced and distributed to stores by General Mills in the latter half of 2025, arrives in a sickly green color, one not usually associated with food. In the food world, green means apple, not necessarily green apple, and that flavor really comes across in the Elphaba Caramel Apple cereal. It's not quite a natural apple taste, more like a concentrated and artificial version, candy-like. Oddly, the actually candy-influenced flavor, the caramel, isn't much noticeable. This is one of the few cereals with a significant amount of added sugar that could actually use some more sweetener, if only to help the flavors sing a little more.

After those pleasant high notes of apple hit, the musical-adjacent cereal goes sour and atonal. Elphaba Caramel Apple finishes with an overwhelming and deeply unpleasant aftertaste. It reminds the eater of a series of chemicals, which also put off a disagreeable odor. Apart from the good taste moving into the very bad, Elphaba Caramel Apple cereal boasts a very familiar texture. It's made with a corn-heavy recipe similar to the one used to make Cap'n Crunch, so this one tastes like that old favorite, but with something extra.

A big bowl of bright pink balls of sweetened corn meal doused in milk can really evoke some feelings of nostalgia for the 1980s and '90s. Glinda Good Berry cereal, the General Mills product representing one of the two witches from "Wicked: For Good," is ostensibly generically berry flavored. The taste is unmistakably that of artificial strawberry, but it might as well be General Mills' Strawberry Shortcake cereal from 1982, which it also physically resembles.

Crunchy, thick, and softened with milk, Glinda Good Berry Cereal even smells like strawberry candy. It doesn't, however, taste a lot like strawberry candy, nor its Strawberry Shortcake promoting predecessor. The berry taste is so slight and retreating as to be barely there at all. There's just not a lot of sugar present in what might have once been called a sugar cereal, and they need a lot of sweetener to make those strong, fake, and fruity flavors blast out of the bowl. Glinda Good Berry is understated, which generally isn't a word used when discussing novelty cereals.