Ready Brek
| Course | Breakfast |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | United Kingdom |
| Creator | J. Lyons and Co. |
| Main ingredients | Oats |
| 142 kcal (595 kJ) | |
 Cookbook: Ready Brek  Media: Ready Brek | |
Ready Brek (sometimes written Ready brek) is an oat-based breakfast cereal produced by Weetabix Limited. It is intended to be served hot, and comes in four varieties — 'original', 'chocolate', 'honey' and 'Seriously Oaty'. A butterscotch flavour was marketed during the 1970s. In the early 1970s Butter Flavour Ready Brek (not the later Butterscotch flavour) was also available.
History
Ready Brek was originally produced by J. Lyons and Co., created from experimentation by Walter Pitts, the Greenford factory manager from the Tea Division of Lyons.
It was launched in 1957 as an instant porridge, then in 1969 as an instant hot cereal. The product is now called a smooth porridge, as porridge is now once again popular. The brand was purchased by Weetabix in June 1990, and it is understandably more popular in autumn and winter. Ready Brek had the slogan Central heating for kids and Get up and Glow, and TV adverts during the 1970s and 1980s showed children walking to school with a dramatic radiant glow.
Flavours
In production
- Original
- Chocolate
- Honey
- Seriously Oaty
- Gingerbread
Discontinued
- Banana
- Butterscotch
- Strawberry
- Butter
- Syrup
Ready Brek Dragon
During the 80s, Ready Brek's original mascot was a stop-motion man called Ready Eddy, before being replaced in 1991 by a Dragon called RB, or the Ready Brek Dragon. A Welsh Dragon in order to symbolise for kids the warmth of Ready Brek. In the 2000s, he was then replaced with a road crossing symbol of a parent and child. In 2011 the Ready Brek dragon returned for a limited period only lasting until autumn 2012.