You ever hear about something and all at once think “I sure am curious how that would taste” and “I do not want that thing in the same city as my mouth”? This is one of those moments for me.
If you assumed the developers would’ve taken inspiration from fruity classics like Trix and Froot Loops, think again. Tropicana Crunch comprises honey-flavored clusters of oats and almond slices. Almond and orange aren’t incompatible flavors: They’re sometimes mixed in cakes, among other things. Nor are honey and orange, which can be found in recipes for everything from beverages to chicken to carrots.
Oats and orange juice, on the other hand, aren’t exactly the most intuitive combo—but the decision was all about durability. As a Tropicana spokesperson told Food & Wine, granola doesn’t get soggy when exposed to OJ’s acidity nearly as rapidly as something like corn flakes would. And for what it’s worth, the company itself is quick to admit that this experiment may not be a smashing success. “The first cereal made for OJ (and maybe the last),” the Tropicana Crunch website proclaims.
According to Kellogg, dumping orange juice on their cereal is something that a not insignificant minority of people were already doing. Twenty percent of respondents to a survey they conducted on the subject of cereal eating habits back in 2015 said they did it, if you can believe that. About half of the 2000 participants were college kids though, so my guess is a lot of those people were either hung over at the time and mixed up the cartons or trying to win a bet.