A ready to eat breakfast cereal is prepared by coating dried cereal base pieces with a low sugar sweetener in powder form such as a high conversion maltodextrin or low conversion corn syrup that includes a high potency sweetener. The cereal is pre-coated with a liquid oil for better adhesion of the powdered low sugar sweetener. The low sugar coating has a sugars content of less than 10% yet provides taste, texture, appearance and bowl life that mimics presweetened RTE cereals having a sucrose based coating.
