Young people don't eat cereal anymore and the reason is pretty depressing

They’rrrrrre (not so) great.

According to a study for The New York Times, millennials are skipping cereal at breakfast.

Too much fructose syrup? Can’t download the flavours onto their young hip tongue apps? No, it’s the simple reason that it’s far too much effort for them.

Of those in the millennial age group surveyed by Mintel, nearly 40 per cent of people claimed cereal was an "inconvenient breakfast choice because they had to clean up after eating it", preferring instead to buy locally made granola, protein bars and hot cereals like congee and oatmeal on the go.

While we’re in no doubt over the hardship of attempting to prize day-old bran flakes from a used bowl with a spoon-cum-crowbar, could disposing of a cereal and bowl in the very same morning really be enough hindrance for avoiding these sugary snacks entirely?

Whatever the answer, cereal’s current unpopularity with millennials has already had a negative impact on the market of these sugary snacks, with the New York Times also reporting cereal sales have fallen from $13.9bn in 2000 to about $10bn last year, with industry analysts only expecting the slump to get worse.

In response to this predicament, the makers are already attempting to drastically alter packet designs - which have become known as comfort brands for the baby boomers who grew up on them – in order to promote itself as an all-day snack, as opposed to just breakfast.

Not that it’ll be easy winning over this decidedly picky bunch. “Millennials”, the report adds, “are snackers, and not easily fooled by packaging or advertising, but they are as nostalgia-driven as any group of cereal eaters.”

Failing that they could just promote the joys of drinking the milk straight from the bowl.