Grape-Nuts disappeared due to the irregular demand spikes now associated with the economy under the pandemic. At first, as CBS reported in January, fans of the brand feared its discontinuance. “Grape-Nuts is made using a proprietary technology and a production process that isn’t easily replicated, which has made it more difficult to shift production to meet demand during this time,” Kristin DeRock explained.
When Vice asked the brand to elaborate on these production difficulties and name which cereals were prioritized over Grape-Nuts, Post declined to comment. That said, Vice does refer to a Wall Street Journal account of how the cereal is made by baking a barley dough into 10-pound loaves, cutting the dough into pieces, leaving the pieces to dry for three hours, and bashing the dried pieces into bits. Presumably, scaling proved a massive hurdle.
So, between the increase of breakfasts consumed at home due to Americans living in lockdown and the difficulty in producing the cereal, Post Consumer Brands struggled to keep up with the voracious demand. However, as stated, that shortage should come to an end soon. In the meantime, Grape-Nuts promises to spread love to its fans on Valentine’s Day through its various social media accounts (via Twitter).
