The Cereal Influencers of SoHo
A morning at Magic Spoon, the millennial-branded direct-to-consumer breakfast cereal company.
Pop Up Grocer looks like it was created as much for social media as for real-life shopping. Walking around the bright, checkerboard-floored West Village market one day last month, I felt like I was stepping inside an Instagram post. On an eye-level shelf in the center of the store (prime real estate, as every packaged food distributor knows) was a pair of pastel Magic Spoon cereal boxes filled with gluten-free, low-sugar breakfast grains in birthday cake and peanut butter flavors. And next to the boxes were the company’s founders, dressed to match their cereal.
Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz, two New York–based entrepreneurs in their 30s, founded Magic Spoon in 2019, hoping to create a healthier cereal that still evoked the sugar-loaded Fruit Loops and Honey Nut Cheerios of their youth—albeit priced at $39 for four boxes. Launched in the zero-interest days when every new business had to be a direct-to-consumer company, it grew a loyal fan base of cereal munchers through a blitzkrieg of advertisements on social media and podcasts. The pricey cereal gained traction with enough customers to woo capital—celebrities including Nick Jonas, Shakira and Amy Schumer were early Magic Spoon investors, and last year the company raised an $85 million Series B round, led by HighPost Capital.