Wheat Honeys and Rice Honeys Ad – March 1956

Do you know the name of the very first pre-sweetened breakfast cereal?

Surprisingly, it wasn’t created by Kellogg’s, General Mills or Post. And you won’t find it on the cereal shelves at your local grocery store any more either. It’s long gone.

It’s generally accepted by cereal historians that the first one that was ‘pre-sugared’ was a regional product called Ranger Joe Wheat Honnies. It was a puffed wheat cereal, lacquered with honey and corn syrup. It was a big hit with kids and sales really took off in the 1940s.

You can read about its history here.

Post Cereals must have been paying attention, because it introduced its own sugar-coated puffed wheat cereal, Sugar Crisp, in 1949. (Click here to visit my posts on Sugar Crisp and all the Post Cereals.)

Meanwhile, Ranger Joe Wheat Honnies was sold to Nabisco, who renamed it slightly to Wheat Honeys and rolled it out nationally along with a sister product, Rice Honeys. 

Below is the introductory ad for both products that appeared in the Lorain Journal on March 1, 1956.

With both cereal variations being honey-flavored, naturally the cereal mascot was a bee. In this case, Buffalo Bee – since TV westerns were very popular at the time. For a while he even appeared in his own comic book.

Wheat Honeys eventually went through a few name and mascot changes before disappearing entirely, getting smacked down by Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks and Post Sugar Crisp. Today Nabisco is completely out of the breakfast cereal business.

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It’s funny, but one of my early 1960s memories was seeing Wheat Honeys on the pantry shelf at our house on W. 30th Street. I remember being intrigued by the pistol-packing bee dressed like a cowboy on the box.