The $1.25 Breakfast Snack At Dollar Tree That's A Dupe Of This Popular Brand

It's worth carving out time for breakfast every morning — it can improve your heart health and reduce brain fog, among other reasons. Breakfast is one more meal to fit into your grocery budget, but if you shop at Dollar Tree, you can grab a box of Sunbest Mixed Berry Pastry Crisps for only $1.25, and they taste just like the Special K version.

Dollar Tree offers inexpensive, off-brand products that are often dupes of other popular, pricier brands, whether it's a Cheddar Bay Biscuit dupe or a frozen meal that's better than takeout. Dollar Tree's Mixed Berry Pastry Crisps look almost visually identical to the Special K Bar Strawberry Chewy Pastry Crisps and have a similar flavor and texture. Both brands are packaged with two per foil wrap. One box of the Dollar Tree Sunbest crisps offers four packages, or eight total crisps, for $1.25, while one standard box of Special K's version offers six packages, or 12 total crisps, for $3.69 (though prices may vary slightly depending on where you purchase them). The Dollar Tree version is cheaper, coming out to just under $0.16 per individual crisp, while Special K's cost nearly double at right around $0.31 per crisp.

The crisps' texture and substance — a slightly crunchy pastry exterior with a thin layer of soft jam in the center — is almost identical between the two brands. The pastry and jam layers are equal thickness in both brands, and each has a squeeze of dried frosting on top. The Dollar Tree version has cleaner edges and a cleaner frosting spread, actually making it the more visually appealing of the two straight out of the box.

Flavor-wise, the Special K crisps are slightly sweeter, likely because they're strawberry flavored while the Dollar Tree dupe is a mixed berry flavor. For this reason, the Dollar Tree version tastes a little more balanced. The Special K's sweetness could be a turnoff that early in the morning, but if you're looking for something more exciting than a non-sugary breakfast cereal, these are a good choice. Ultimately, the only recognizable differences between the two are slight sweetness and the price, making the Dollar Tree version definitely worth the purchase.