Method for making vitamin enriched cereal

A method for providing a multivitamin enriching an ready-to-eat (R-T-E) cereal product with beta carotene that exhibits vitamin efficacy stability and improved visual appearance, comprising:

• A. providing a cooled cooked cereal mass having a moisture content of about 15% to 45% and having a temperature of about 90.degree. to 110.degree. F., wherein said cereal grain mass has a moisture content of between about 25% and about 55% by weight;
• B. thereafter uniformly dispersing beta carotene into said cooked cereal mass with sufficient simultaneous mixing to form an homogeneous beta carotene fortified cooked cereal mass composition, wherein step B further includes dispersing a first multivitamin premix comprising heat tolerant vitamin types and wherein said cereal grain is a member selected from the group consisting of wheat, oats, rice, corn, barley, rye, sorghum, and mixture of these;
• C. forming the beta carotene fortified cooked cereal mass into discrete pieces;
• D. finished drying the discrete pieces for dried R-T-E cereal pieces having a moisture content of less than 5%, including the substeps of
• 1) forming the cooked cereal mass into cereal pellets,
• 2) drying the cereal pellets to a moisture content of about 15% to 22%,
• 3) flaking the cereal pellets to form wet flakes, and
• 4) toasting the wet flakes to form toasted dried flaked R-T-E cereal pieces having a moisture content of about 1% to 3.5%:
• and,
• E. topically applying additional heat sensitive vitamin types to the R-T-E cereal pieces to form a multivitamin enriched, beta carotene containing R-T-E cereal.