The cereal aisle is the easiest place in the supermarket to compare sugar, because every box prints a per-100 g figure and the products are all roughly the same food. We pulled the nutrition tables for every breakfast cereal in our database with a sugar figure, 566 boxes in all, and lined them up.
The spread is wide. The median box carries 14 g of sugar per 100 g. Plain oats and shredded wheat sit under 1 g. Frosted flakes and chocolate-filled pillows reach 35 to 37 g, which is more than a third of the box by weight.
Where the thresholds sit
The UK front-of-pack traffic light system, run by the Food Standards Agency, colours sugar red at 22.5 g or more per 100 g and green at 5 g or less. Using those cut-offs on our 566 boxes:
| Band | Sugar per 100 g | Boxes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green | 5 g or less | 121 | 21% |
| Amber | between 5 and 22.5 g | 378 | 67% |
| Red | 22.5 g or more | 67 | 12% |
Two-thirds of the aisle is amber, which is not very informative on its own. The 40 boxes below show what amber actually covers, from a plain cornflake at 8 g to a honey granola at 21 g.
40 boxes, lowest to highest
Sugar and salt are grams per 100 g as printed on the label recorded in our database. Where a brand has several entries we used one.
| # | Cereal | Sugar | Salt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rude Health Spelt Flakes | 0.5 | 0.02 |
| 2 | Nestlé Shredded Wheat | 0.7 | 0.05 |
| 3 | Kallø Organic Wholegrain Puffed Rice | 0.7 | 0.10 |
| 4 | Aldi Bite Size Wheat Shreds | 0.7 | 0.03 |
| 5 | Sainsbury's Pure Porridge Oats | 0.8 | 0.08 |
| 6 | Mornflake Creamy Superfast Oats | 1.0 | 0.03 |
| 7 | Waitrose Low Sugar Nutty Granola | 2.1 | under 0.01 |
| 8 | Lizi's Low Sugar Maple & Pecan Granola | 2.4 | 0.30 |
| 9 | Quaker Quick 1-Minute Oats | 2.5 | 0.00 |
| 10 | Weetabix Original | 4.2 | 0.28 |
| 11 | Sainsbury's Corn Flakes | 4.2 | 0.84 |
| 12 | Kellogg's Rice Krispies | 7.9 | 1.00 |
| 13 | Kellogg's Corn Flakes | 8.0 | 1.10 |
| 14 | Sainsbury's Wholegrain Bran Flakes | 8.1 | 0.54 |
| 15 | Dorset Cereals Gloriously Nutty Muesli | 8.4 | 0.03 |
| 16 | Alpen Swiss Style Muesli | 8.7 | 0.83 |
| 17 | Nestlé Shreddies | 12.5 | 0.72 |
| 18 | Dorset Cereals Honey Granola | 12.6 | 0.03 |
| 19 | Kellogg's Special K Original | 15.0 | 1.00 |
| 20 | Kellogg's All-Bran Fibre Plus | 15.0 | 0.90 |
| 21 | Nestlé Honey & Nut Shredded Wheat | 15.0 | 0.04 |
| 22 | Kellogg's Coco Pops | 17.0 | 0.53 |
| 23 | Nestlé Cheerios | 17.7 | 0.80 |
| 24 | Jordans Country Crisp Chunky Nuts | 18.0 | 0.03 |
| 25 | Kellogg's All-Bran Original | 18.0 | 0.95 |
| 26 | Kellogg's Special K Oats & Honey | 18.0 | 0.47 |
| 27 | Kellogg's Krave Choco Hazelnut | 20.0 | 0.71 |
| 28 | Alpen Original Muesli | 21.0 | 0.25 |
| 29 | Nestlé Curiously Cinnamon | 24.0 | 0.79 |
| 30 | Kellogg's Fruit 'n Fibre | 24.0 | 1.00 |
| 31 | Nestlé Lion | 24.5 | 0.47 |
| 32 | Kellogg's Krave Milk Chocolate | 25.0 | 0.28 |
| 33 | Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Clusters | 26.0 | 0.84 |
| 34 | Nestlé Frosted Shreddies | 27.0 | 0.62 |
| 35 | Tesco Honey Nut Corn Flakes | 27.8 | 0.61 |
| 36 | Kellogg's Sultana Bran | 30.0 | 0.58 |
| 37 | Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Strawberry | 32.4 | 0.53 |
| 38 | Kellogg's Crunchy Nut | 35.0 | 0.75 |
| 39 | Kellogg's Tresor Stix | 36.0 | 0.23 |
| 40 | Kellogg's Frosties | 37.0 | 0.83 |
What the table shows
Plain grains are close to zero. Shredded Wheat is wholegrain wheat and nothing else, and the label reads 0.7 g. Porridge oats such as Mornflake Creamy Superfast Oats read about 1 g, all of it naturally present in the grain. These are the only boxes where the sugar figure is not a recipe decision.
"Low sugar" granola means it. The Waitrose Low Sugar Nutty Granola at 2.1 g is lower than Weetabix. Granola without the "low sugar" tag runs from 12 to 22 g, because the clusters are held together with honey or syrup.
Cornflakes are a sugar and salt trade. Kellogg's Corn Flakes has a modest 8 g of sugar and 1.1 g of salt, the highest salt figure in the table. Rice Krispies and Special K sit at 1.0 g of salt. By comparison the Dorset Cereals and Jordans granolas and mueslis in the table print 0.03 g. If you are watching salt rather than sugar, the "healthy" end of the cereal aisle flips.
Fruit and bran do not mean low sugar. Kellogg's Fruit 'n Fibre reads 24 g and Sultana Bran 30 g. Dried fruit is sugar by weight, and a sultana-heavy recipe lands in the red band regardless of the bran.
Children's cereals cluster at the top. Coco Pops at 17 g is the restrained one. Frosties is 37 g: maize, then sugar, then malt extract, in that order on the ingredient list. Tresor Stix at 36 g is close behind.
Per bowl, not per 100 g
A serving of flakes is usually printed as 30 g; oats and muesli as 40 to 45 g. On those portions a 37 g cereal delivers about 11 g of sugar per bowl before milk, and an 8 g cereal about 2.4 g. Per-100 g figures are the right way to compare boxes, but the portion is what ends up in the bowl, and denser cereals like muesli are eaten in larger portions than flakes.
How to read a cereal box in the shop
- Find "of which sugars" in the per-100 g column. Ignore the per-portion column, which is easy to shrink by printing a smaller portion.
- Check salt on the same line. Flakes are where salt hides.
- Look at the first three ingredients. If sugar, glucose syrup, honey or a fruit concentrate is second, the box will be near the top of this table.
- Treat "wholegrain", "source of fibre" and "with vitamins" as separate claims. They are usually true and they say nothing about sugar.
Every cereal in our database has its nutrition table on its product page, alongside the ingredient list and the diet checks. The vegan check, for example, gives Weetabix a clear yes, while Kellogg's Corn Flakes comes back "not sure" because of the added vitamin D, which can be made from lanolin; the vegan hub explains that one.
FAQ
Which breakfast cereal has the least sugar?
Plain porridge oats and shredded wheat, at under 1 g per 100 g in our data. Among flakes, Weetabix Original at 4.2 g and Sainsbury's Corn Flakes at 4.2 g are the lowest mainstream boxes.
Which has the most?
Kellogg's Frosties at 37 g per 100 g, followed by Tresor Stix at 36 g and Crunchy Nut at 35 g. Nutri-Grain Strawberry and Sultana Bran round out the top five.
Is granola high in sugar?
Standard granola runs 12 to 22 g per 100 g in our data, so amber on the UK traffic light. Products labelled "low sugar" or "no added sugar" run 2 to 10 g. The word "granola" on its own tells you nothing; the per-100 g figure does.
Where do the numbers come from?
From the nutrition tables on the packs, as recorded in Open Food Facts and stored on each product page. Manufacturers reformulate, so a box on the shelf today may differ from the label we hold. The product page shows the label we used.