A cereal that talks back in the bowl.

Rice Krispies is a cereal of crisped rice released by the Kellogg Company of Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1928. English Wikipedia dates the launch to that year by citing grocery advertisements printed in March and April 1928, including in the Dowagiac Daily News in Michigan and the Daily Ardmoreite in Oklahoma. The rice grains, Wikipedia says, were made by a patented process that Kellogg called “oven-popping”, rather than being flaked or shredded, and when milk is added the puffed grains collapse with the sounds that gave the cereal its pitch.

That sound became the advertising almost at once. Wikipedia cites a Kellogg advertisement in the Los Angeles Evening Express of 28 February 1929 using “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” with the line “a cereal so crisp it actually crackles in cream,” and a 1939 advertisement in Life describing the cereal as staying “crackly crisp in milk or cream.” The noise was later translated rather than kept: Wikipedia lists “Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!” in German, “Cric! Crac! Croc!” in French and “Pim! Pam! Pum!” in Spanish.

The name changes with the country as well. In Australia and New Zealand the cereal is sold as Rice Bubbles, and its chocolate sibling, sold as Cocoa Krispies in the United States, is called Coco Pops in the UK, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere. According to Kellogg’s, as cited by Wikipedia, the rice in the US version is grown in Louisiana and Arkansas. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported on 4 June, the Federal Trade Commission objected to a health claim printed on Rice Krispies boxes.

A recipe also grew around the cereal. Wikipedia says that in 1939 Kellogg employee Mildred Day worked out and published a recipe of Rice Krispies, melted marshmallows and margarine for a Camp Fire Girls bake sale, the dish now called Rice Krispies Treats; Kellogg later sold ready-made versions, under that name in the United States and as Rice Krispies Squares in Canada and the UK.

WK Kellogg Co, Kellanova, Ferrero, Mars.

Until 2023 Rice Krispies had one owner. Wikipedia’s infobox lists the Kellogg Company as owner until 2023, when the company split in two. Wikipedia says Kellogg announced the separation on 21 June 2022 and named the new companies on 15 March 2023, as CNN reported that day: WK Kellogg Co, named after Will Keith Kellogg and based in Battle Creek, took the North American cereal business, and Kellanova, the renamed Kellogg Company based in Chicago, kept snacks and cereal elsewhere. The split was completed on 2 October 2023, the date of Reuters’ report on the two companies’ debut on the stock market.

Rice Krispies was divided along that line. Wikipedia says the cereal is made by WK Kellogg Co for the United States, Canada and the Caribbean and by Kellanova for the rest of the world, and that both companies continue to use the Kellogg’s name. Kellanova also lists Rice Krispies Treats among its own brands.

Both companies have since changed hands. On 10 July 2025, Reuters, the BBC and The New York Times reported that WK Kellogg Co had agreed to be bought by the Italian group Ferrero, the maker of Nutella. Wikipedia, citing The Globe and Mail and CSP Daily News, says shareholders approved the deal on 19 September 2025 and that it closed on 26 September 2025. Ferrero has owned WK Kellogg Co, and with it Rice Krispies in North America and the Caribbean, since September 2025; in March 2026, FoodBev Media reported, Ferrero named Lapo Civiletti as WK Kellogg Co’s incoming president from 1 September.

Kellanova was bought by Mars. Wikipedia says Mars agreed the purchase on 14 August 2024; Bloomberg reported European Commission clearance on 8 December 2025, and the deal was completed on 11 December 2025, when Kellanova left the New York Stock Exchange. Mars has owned Kellanova, and with it Rice Krispies, Rice Bubbles and Rice Krispies Treats outside North America and the Caribbean, since December 2025. Wikipedia gives Kellanova’s UK headquarters and a factory as Trafford Park, Greater Manchester, and its European headquarters as Dublin. Markets have occasionally been supplied from abroad: Wikipedia says that after Kellogg’s South African branch replaced the original cereal with a vanilla version in 2018, the original returned in 2020, imported from the UK.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group are all breakfast cereals that sit inside much larger food companies. A cereal of this kind usually carries two names at once: the master brand of the company that makes it, and the name of the cereal itself, often with a character, a slogan or a box colour of its own. On a single shelf, the two can work together or pull in different directions.

Ownership adds another layer. A food group can split, sell or merge, and the same cereal name can end up with different owners in different parts of the world, so the company behind a box in one country is not always the company behind it in another. A cereal can also outlast several parents while keeping its name, its pieces and its advertising lines.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — when the cereal appeared, who has owned it and where, how its advertising and characters developed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Three elves drawn from a radio line.

The cereal’s sound became characters. Wikipedia’s article on the mascots says illustrator Vernon Grant designed them in the early 1930s, taking their names from a Rice Krispies radio advertisement that invited listeners to hear the cereal “snap, crackle and pop in a bowl of milk.” A single character appeared on the package in 1933; Grant then added two more and named the trio Snap, Crackle and Pop, and the three appear in Kellogg’s national advertising that year. In 1938 and 1939, Wikipedia says, Grant also drew six Mother Goose scenes, including Humpty Dumpty and Jack and Jill, offered as premiums for two box tops and a stamp.

Each elf has a costume. Wikipedia says Snap usually wears a chef’s toque, Crackle a red or striped sleeping cap, and Pop a drum major’s shako, and that Kellogg’s promotional material presents them as brothers. A fourth elf, Pow, appeared briefly in the 1950s. Their look kept changing: Wikipedia says the trio, originally drawn as elderly gnomes with large noses and ears, were redrawn with younger, more proportional features in 1949, used in conservation messages during the Second World War, and briefly recast as superheroes in the early 1990s before returning to their elf form.

Several hands shaped them. Wikipedia says illustrator Pete Eaton, of Eaton and Iwen Art for Advertising, drew the characters from the 1950s to the 1970s, and that Leo Burnett assigned Chicago cartoonist Don Margolis to draw them for Rice Krispies boxes until the end of 1998. The mascots article dates their move into animation to 1955, and since 2009 they have been voiced by Andy Hirsch (Snap), Danny Cooksey (Crackle) and Mark Ballou (Pop).

For a design guide, Rice Krispies shows how a product sound can become a slogan, then three named characters with their own hats, and survive a split between two owners on two continents. Compare it with Kellogg’s, the name both successor companies still use, and Special K, a Kellogg’s rice cereal divided along the same line. For this guide we use Krispie blue and deep navy with grain yellow and a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Rice Krispies’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.