We Tried Wilco's New Cereal And Gummy Snacks. Here's How It Went
It's been 20 years since the band Wilco released its famous "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" album, and the group decided to mark the occasion by trying something new: selling snacks (via Rolling Stone). The Chicago-based band partnered with a Chicago-based convenience store and grocery delivery chain named Foxtrot (hey, that word looks familiar) to create a couple of different snacks and one beverage. The product line also includes some more traditional band merch like hats and shirts.
The Wilco X Foxtrot collaboration is being sold in a pop-up store in Chicago called the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Market, but most of the items are also available online. We got an opportunity to try Wilco's snacks to see whether rock 'n roll and food make for a harmonious match or a dissonant mess. "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" may be a musical masterpiece, but will Wilco's snacks live up to the band's high musical standards? You'll have to keep reading if you want to find out.
What's in the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Market?
This collaboration between Foxtrot and Wilco consists of three items: a beer, a bag of mixed gummy candy, and cinnamon-flavored cereal. All three products have names that reference Wilco or the "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" album in some way. The beer, which we did not get to sample, is called Jesus Don't Cry, after the "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" song "Jesus, Etc." The gummies are named after the song "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," but with "eat" subbed in for "break," naturally. Meanwhile, the cereal is dubbed Wilc-O's, even though, rather confoundingly, the pieces inside the box are spherical instead of O-shaped.
The Wilc-O's cereal is a collaboration between the band, Foxtrot, and OffLimits Cereal, a company that specializes in vegan and gluten-free cereal. All of OffLimits' cereals, including Wilc-O's, are grain puffs that look kind of like Kix, so perhaps it's the fault of similar manufacturing equipment as to why Wilc-O's aren't ring-shaped. The gummy candies have all the normal ingredients you'd expect in candy, including sugar and high fructose corn syrup, but at least the cereal is trying to be a little bit healthy. It's made with somewhat more wholesome ingredients like rice flour, oat flour, and pea fiber.
Where can you get these items?
According to a press release shared with Mashed, the Foxtrot X Wilco items are a limited-time offering. You can only buy them from Foxtrot, which has physical stores in Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. If you're not in any of those locations, you can still order the treats from Foxtrot's website, which ships nationally, at least for the snacks. Per Rolling Stone, the beer is only being sold in the physical pop-up store in Chicago. Supplies appear to be limited, too. As of April 30, 2022, the gummy candies were still available, but the cereal was sold out. The cereal had been selling for $9.95, and the gummies are going for $5.95.
We couldn't find anyone reselling the cereal, but it's possible that people will start doing that once it becomes a collector's item after the official sales period has ended. Alternatively, since it sold out so fast, perhaps OffLimits will see that there's an unexpectedly high amount of demand for cinnamon-flavored cereal with Jeff Tweedy's face on the box and make more.
How does this collaboration compare to other products from these companies?
Wilco is a band, so its main products are music, and to a lesser extent, merch like shirts and hats. We are not aware of any previous food products coming from the band, making a comparison pretty difficult.
The gummies and cereal are much more in Foxtrot's wheelhouse, however. In addition to being a chain of convenience stores that allows you to order online, Foxtrot also operates sort of like an upscale goPuff, delivering convenience store staples to your door. The brand sells a wide variety of sweet treats, including store-branded candy, snack mixes, and snack cakes. Foxtrot also sells fancy prepared foods, fresh meals, alcohol, baked goods, coffee, and groceries.
In that respect, Wilc-O's seem comparable to other cereals from OffLimits, which are all grain puffs flavored with natural ingredients like pandan, coffee, and strawberries. The company even already makes a cinnamon cereal called Flex, so it's just possible that Wilc-O's might be more of a stealth rebrand than a special new product.
What are the nutrition facts?
One ¾-cup serving of Wilc-O's contains 130 calories. A serving has a single gram of fat, .5 of which is saturated. You also get 2 grams of fiber and 9 grams of added sugar in that serving. That's only 18% of the daily recommended limit for added sugar, which isn't too bad for a sweet breakfast cereal. Of course, those numbers are just for the cereal itself with no milk. What kind of milk you choose — whole, skim, or something of the vegan variety — will of course change the cereal's nutritional profile, as will the quantity of milk you add. All in all, there's not much good or bad in this cereal from a health perspective, and it's relatively low in calories. However, we will say that it did not fill us up at all, so you might have to eat a second breakfast after finishing a bowl of Wilc-O's.
One serving of I Am Trying To Eat Your Heart gummy candy contains 15 grams of added sugar, or only 30% of the standard daily limit. There's one catch: According to the package, the serving size is a mere two tablespoons, which would amount to one or maybe two pieces of candy. We don't know about you, but we're not usually eating only a single piece of gummy candy when we open a bag.
How do Wilc-O's taste?
Wilc-O's are a little smaller than more mainstream cereals like Cap'n Crunch or Corn Pops. They look very natural, with a brown powdery coating that appears to be actual cinnamon powder. As for texture, they stay pleasantly crunchy even when submerged in milk, which is nice. Wilc-O's are incredibly light and airy on the inside, which contributes to them not feeling like a substantial breakfast. However, they're fine as a snack.
We're disappointed to report that Wilc-O's tasted like healthy cereal. To us, they seemed like they could use a little more sugar. The cinnamon flavor in them was great, however. It was strong without being too assertive and tasted genuine. Other than that, there wasn't anything going on flavor-wise to help the cereal stand out. We couldn't taste any of the grains the cereal was made with, so all we got was the taste of cinnamon. With a little more sugar, these would have been yummy, but overall, we thought they were just okay.
How do I Am Trying To Eat Your Heart gummy candies taste?
In contrast to the cereal, the Foxtrot X Wilco gummy candies prove that snack food tastes best when you aren't trying to make it healthy at all. These gummies use a hefty amount of sugar and corn syrup, and, as a result, they taste great.
Per the press release sent to Mashed, you get four different candies in the bag: nonpareil hearts, blue bottles (which looked more green to us), rainbow rolls, and raspberry hearts. A couple of the shapes were clearly copies of name-brand gummy candies. The rainbow rolls were very similar to Airheads belts, for instance, but tasted significantly better, with a nice balance of sour sugar and sweet, fruity candy flavor. The nonpareil hearts were dead ringers for red Haribo berries. The blue bottles tasted like lime Sour Patch Kids, but came in much larger portions. All the gummy candy felt fresh and soft.
Our least favorite of the mix was the raspberry heart. It tasted kind of like Swedish Fish and was so thick that it was difficult to chew through. Despite the tough texture, the flavor of the raspberry heart was still pretty good, though. Overall, we thought the candy mix was excellent. We crushed the bag quickly and missed it when it was gone.