Millville Fruit Rounds

Aldi is always up to the challenge when it comes to offering imitations of name-brand products. This is especially the case in the discount grocer’s cereal aisle, where you’ll find knockoff versions of everything from Life cereal to Cinnamon Toast Crunch to Lucky Charms to Cheerios.

Aldi also offers its own take on Kellogg’s Froot Loops, a cereal that’s popular both as a breakfast food and as a component of kids’ craft projects everywhere. (Anyone else remember stringing Froot Loops on a length of yarn to make a necklace?)

Millville Fruit Rounds cost $1.29 for a 12.2-oz. box at the time of publication.

These are a Regular Buy, which means Aldi sells them all year.

This cereal is sweetened without high fructose corn syrup, and in keeping with Aldi’s pledge a few years ago to avoid artificial colors this cereal is free of synthetic colors.

Millville Fruit Rounds ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)

Ingredients are: a corn flour blend (whole grain corn flour, corn flour), sugar, wheat flour, whole grain oat flour, high oleic canola oil, salt, vegetable and fruit juice concentrate (for color), dicalcium phosphate, natural flavors, paprika oleoresin (for color), mixed tocopherols (to preserve freshness), turmeric extract (for color), and beta carotene (for color).

If you’re watching out for allergens, this cereal contains wheat.

Millville Fruit Rounds nutrition information. (Click to enlarge.)

There are about nine servings per package, and one 1 and 1/3 cup serving with no milk has 150 calories, 1.5 grams of total fat (2% DV), 180 mg of sodium (8% DV), 32 grams of total carbohydrates (12% DV), 1 gram of dietary fiber (4% DV), 13 grams of added sugars (26% DV), and 2 grams of protein.

Millville Fruit Rounds.

So, how does the Aldi version compare to the Kellogg’s brand? We poured the two into bowls side by side to find out. At first glance, we noticed the name-brand Froot Loops have a much brighter color. That’s probably because Froot Loops use dyes such as red 40, yellow 5, blue 1, and yellow 6. The rest of the ingredients and the nutrition information are fairly similar between the two cereals.

In terms of taste, the Aldi cereal is fine on its own merits and tastes pretty close to name-brand Froot Loops. Kellogg’s Froot Loops have a more airy texture than the Aldi Fruit Rounds, which tend to have more of a melty texture after you bite into them. Having grown up occasionally indulging in Froot Loops (it has never been a cereal I’ve eaten often because it’s so sugary), I have a slight preference for the taste and texture of the name brand. However, my kids all prefer the Aldi cereal.

Kellogg’s Froot Loops on the left, Millville Fruit Rounds on the right.

This is not a cereal I buy regularly, but when we’re in the mood for fruity cereal rounds, this isn’t a bad option.

The Verdict:

Millville Fruit Rounds are the Aldi version of Kellogg’s Froot Loops. The Millville cereal’s colors are not as bright as Froot Loops because the Aldi cereal does not use dyes such as red 40, yellow 5, etc. The Aldi cereal has a slightly different, less airy texture compared to Froot Loops, but the kids in our house all preferred the Aldi cereal over the name brand. If you have Froot Loops fans in your house, this might be worth a look.