Channel Mike

They should have their name on their spine. Or, in the case of boxes of cereal, on the side of the box. Every pantry I've come across in my life has had the breakfast cereal lined up on a shelf like books. You can't see the front or back of the box, just the side facing out. When I'm reaching in to get a box of cereal to feed the kids, I am not interested in deciphering which Nutrition Facts belong to which cereal. I just want to see the name. However, I have learned that Fruit Loops list sugar as ingredient number one. Wow! They're like fueling up on a bag of candy. Of course, to be fair, all other sweetened cereal is probably pretty close to the same thing.

Lets take a look:

With two exceptions, each box states its name on its spine. The two exceptions are, first, the Raisin Nut Bran, and second, the Trix. Dealing with the Trix first, you can clearly see that we have a box of Trix that is labelled. Just to the right of that is a second box of Trix turned around. The packaging is identical on both boxes. This is a correct implementation of the naming scheme I suggest for all cereal makers. We only need one side with a name, the other can have whatever you like.

In regard to the Raisin Nut Bran:

You can see here the two possible spines on a box of Raisin Nut Bran. In both cases, I would have to pull the box off of the shelf just to see what it is. I can choose between reading the nutrition facts or some damn advertisement for their eat healthy website.

I really don't know what we, as consumers, can do about this minor inconvenience. It certainly isn't as important as fixing our healthcare/drug/nutrition problem in this country. It's nothing like the war in Iraq. It doesn't merit any political consideration at all, to be frank. It's just an inconvenience. Maybe you can write a letter if your cereal doesn't meet these specs or something. Good luck.