Cross-border Corn Pops.

Kiddo loves Corn Pops. This morning, when she asked for Corn Pops, I checked the cupboard but no luck. No Pops. Looking deeper though, I remembered we had one mini-box from one of the variety packs we bought in Bellingham last month. Only problem is that even though the box looks the same, the cereal inside is different.

Canadian Corn Pops are perfect round styrofoam-like little balls. They have a vaguely corn-like taste, but it is as far removed from corn as Rice crispies are from rice.

American Corn Pops are lumpen and glossy. They taste more like corn, but there's something else... and I couldn't put my finger on it until I looked at the ingredients. American Corn Pops include oil ("one or more of: coconut, cottonseed, and soybean").

Full Canadian Corn Pops ingredients:

Corn meal, sugar/glucose-fructose, fancy molasses, salt, oat flour, baking soda, colour, vitamins (thiamin hydrochloride, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, d-calcium pantothenate), minerals (iron, zinc oxide), BHT added to package material to maintain product freshness. Contains traces of soybeans.

Full American Corn Pops ingredients:

Milled corn, sugar, corn syrup, molasses, salt, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (one or more of: coconut, cottonseed, and soybean)***+, sodium ascorbate and ascorbic acid (vitamin C), niacinamide, reduced iron, zinc oxide, wheat starch, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B1), annatto color, vitamin A palmitate, BHT (preservative), folic acid, vitamin B12 and vitamin D.

You'll notice the other big difference right at the first ingredient: corn meal versus milled corn (guess that's why the American Corn Pops tasted more like corn); coincidentally, I also noticed that the American box had a little tiny union logo in the corner from the "American Federation of Grain Millers."

Of course this isn't the first time we've noticed that American and Canadian products differ (or Canadian and British products -- Smarties being the one that leaps to mind; the British Smarties have a flavoured coating whereas the Canadian ones just taste waxy on the outside). What I wonder though, is why they differ from country to country?


*Corn Pops is a registered trademark of the Kellogs company.

tags: food, global vs. local, Kellogs