Cereal brand to reimburse consumers who paid inflated prices during COVID shortage

For those with pandemic pangs for the sweet crunch of Grape Nuts, take heart. The Great Grape-Nuts Shortage of 2021 is officially over.

After months of being out of stock, the cereal is shipping at full capacity to stores nationwide, parent company Post Consumer Brands told USA TODAY exclusively.

And if you paid wildly inflated prices on the black market to get your hands on a box, you may be eligible for reimbursement.

“It became abundantly clear during the shortage that Grape-Nuts fans are ‘Nuts for Grape-Nuts,’” Kristin DeRock, Grape-Nuts brand manager at Post Consumer Brands, said in a statement. “So much so that some of our loyal super fans were willing to pay extreme prices just to ensure they wouldn’t be without their favorite crunchy cereal.”

Here is the full story, via John B. Chilton.  One way to read this is Grape Nuts subsidizing habit formation.  Alternatively, you might read it as Grape Nuts subsidizing very loyal customers, and hoping to get publicity in the process.  Or is Grape Nuts subsidizing future middlemen in any future black market transactions by assuring them of ongoing demand?  How are you supposed to prove you bought a black market box?  And was it illegal to resell and buy Grape Nuts in the first place?  I don’t entirely understand all of the microeconomic mechanisms at work here.

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