Tesco is a major British food and general merchandise retailer with operations also in Europe and in Asia. Tesco sells leading brands as well as a variety of its own brands.
So, who makes Tesco Cornflakes? It’s hard to be absolutely certain. The manufacture of supermarket own-label brands seems to be a retail trade secret. In this case, it could be one of the Cornflake brand leaders, or it could be a less famous manufacturer who makes supermarket-branded cereals.
In this article, I provide information on the contents of Tesco cornflake products and compare these to other leading brands. I also take a look at some comparative ‘taste tests’ and see what the tasters say.
Table of Contents
Who Makes Tesco Cornflakes?
It’s hard to be precise. as this kind of information is notoriously hard to find out. If I were to speculate, I would say that there’s a manufacturer making cornflakes for a variety of UK supermarkets.
The nutritional information provided on the packs of many supermarket own-brand cornflakes is mostly identical suggesting that a manufacturer is making a lot of cornflakes but packaging them differently for different supermarkets.
The nutritional information shown on Kellogg’s cornflakes is different from all supermarket varieties of cornflakes, so this suggests that Kellogg’s cornflakes are a different recipe and so it’s unlikely that Kellogg’s is manufacturing for supermarkets unless they use a different recipe.
However, the price differential between Kellogg’s and supermarket own-brand cornflakes, often around three times the price, makes this theory unlikely.
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Tesco Cornflakes – Reviews
This is where it gets confusing. A variety of consumer ‘taste tests’ for breakfast cereals pop up on the internet now and again.
A recent test conducted by Good Housekeeping magazine, and reported in the Daily Express newspaper, in 2021 compared a selection of leading brand and supermarket own-brand cereals.
The reports suggested that The Kellogg’s cornflakes were inferior to Asda’s own-brand cornflakes. However, the test unfairly compared Kellogg’s cornflakes with Asda’s ‘Special Flakes’, not Asda’s ‘Corn Flakes’. These are different products.
Another taste test reported on the MyLondon website in early 2022 suggested that Lidl own-brand cornflakes tasted as good as Kellogg’s cornflakes, and the low price of the Lidl cornflakes compared to Kellogg’s made them a winner.
This taste test also suggested that Tesco cornflakes did not taste as good as Waitrose cornflakes, even though they have exactly the same nutritional composition. Tesco cornflakes came last in this taste survey.
The BirmighamLive website did a similar comparison and found that Kellogg’s cornflakes were the best, but Lidl’s cornflakes were a close second. In the same test, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer’s own-brand cornflakes scored very badly compared to Waitrose despite having the same nutritional makeup.
Tesco cornflakes were not part of this taste test.
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Who Is Tesco?
Tesco plc is the third-largest retailer in the world when measured by gross revenues with outlets in various European countries, and operations via franchise arrangements in various parts of Asia.
Tesco is the UK’s leading retailer with revenues of almost £53bn in 2021/21, significantly ahead of other UK retailers such as Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Morrisons. Tesco is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is part of the FTSE 100 Index.
Tesco Cornflakes Products
The Tesco website www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB shows two own-label cornflakes products:
- Cornflakes, available in 500g and 750g boxes.
- Honey Nut Cornflakes, available in a 500g box.
When compared to the market leader Kellogg’s, Tesco’s own-label cornflakes are significantly cheaper.
Tesco’s cornflakes currently retail at only £0.60 and £0.85 for the 500g and 750g boxes respectively, compared to £2.00 and £2.85 for 500g and 720g respectively.
Cornflakes – Fun Facts
- The term ‘Corn Flakes’ was devised by John Kellogg, bother of the cornflakes inventor Will Kellogg who made cornflakes for patients at the Battle Creek Sanatorium where he worked.
- There have been many mascots for Kellogg’s Cornflakes. The most enduring mascot is the green rooster. Apparently, the idea to use a rooster originated from a suggestion by a Kellogg family friend from Wales, based on the similarity between the Welsh word for rooster ‘ceiliog’ and the Kellogg surname.
- The largest cereal box ever measured 4.52m high, 1.26m deep, and 3.22 m wide. The box contained 2.7 tons of cornflakes and was made by the Daher International Food Company/Poppins in Lebanon in 2016 for a charity event.
- Cornflakes are full of nutrients and are packed full of protein, vitamins A, B-6, C, and D, Iron, and Magnesium.
Cornflakes Compared
You might think that Tesco and other supermarket own-brand cereals might not be as tasty or high-quality as the market-leading brands.
However, it is worth investigating the details and the ingredients before you decide to spend more money on a big brand name.
I looked at the main ingredients and calorific values of Tesco’s cornflakes and compared them to a number of other brands. This is what I found:
| Cornflakes Brand | kcal/100g | Carbs/ 100g | Fat/100g | Fibre/ 100g | Protein/ 100g |
| Tesco | 387 | 85.2 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 7.7 |
| Kellogg’s | 378 | 84.0 | 0.9 | 3.0 | 7.0 |
| Sainsbury’s | 384 | 85.1 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 7.0 |
| Waitrose Essential | 387 | 85.2 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 7.7 |
| Morrisons | 387 | 85.2 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 7.7 |
| Asda | 387 | 85.0 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 7.7 |
| Aldi Harvest Morn | 387 | 85.0 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 7.7 |
| Marks & Spencer | 387 | 85.2 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 7.7 |
The contents of the different cornflakes brands are very similar and in many cases identical. It seems that all of the cornflakes available in the big UK supermarkets are more or less the same when it comes to their ingredients and composition, except for Kellogg’s and Sainsbury’s.
This probably means that these identical products in different boxes are made by a common manufacturer.
Conclusion
I was quite amazed to discover that Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons, Aldi, Asda, and Marks ; Spencer own-brand cornflakes have identical nutritional information suggesting that they have the same or very similar recipes.
The confusing thing is that a variety of taste tests tend to score these brands differently.
If I was to speculate I would say that Tesco cornflakes, and other own-brand supermarket cornflakes are made by the same manufacturer, but just packaged in different boxes.
I don’t think it’s Kellogg’s and the Kellogg’s recipe definitely stands out as quite different compared to supermarket own-brand cornflakes.
Overall, who makes Tesco cornflakes is a bit of a mystery. It’s quite common for supermarkets to keep this type of information under wraps.
If you enjoy supermarket own-brand cornflakes for breakfast, don’t worry too much about who makes them. What you do know is that they are costing you a lot less than the market brand leader!
References
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