Milling & Baking News - December 31, 2019 - 14

Business

Cereals, bars, refrigerated dough
gaining traction at General Mills

14 / December 31, 2019

Milling & Baking News

pieces with a chocolate flavor, recently debuted at Walmart. The cereal is
expected to roll out to more retailers
in January.
Over the past year Mr. Harmening
and other General Mills' executives
have consistently maintained that General Mills needs to do better within the
bars portion of its U.S. snacks business.
After a disappointing fiscal 2019 the

'In total, we're off to a good start, and we feel
good about our plans for the key soup and
baking season, and we believe we are set up
to have a successful year on U.S. meals and
baking.'
- Jeffrey L. Harmening, General Mills, Inc.

company vowed to improve its performance through innovation, renovation,
brand-building support and in-store
execution. Fiscal 2020 appears to be off
to a good start, Mr. Harmening said.
"We're pleased by our U.S. snacks
improvement in the first half," he
said. "Retail sales for Nature Valley
improved behind a stronger backto-school merchandising season and

GENERAL MILLS, INC.

MINNEAPOLIS - After several challenging quarters General Mills, Inc. is
back on track in some of its key grainbased foods categories, said Jeffrey L.
Harmening, chief executive officer.
In a Dec. 18 update accompanying
the release of second-quarter financial
results, Mr. Harmening sounded an
upbeat tone about the prospects of the
Minneapolis-based company's readyto-eat cereal, bars and refrigerated
dough businesses.
Strong execution against fundamentals was a key driver in the performance of U.S. cereals during the
second quarter, Mr. Harmening said.
"We grew our U.S. cereal retail sales
modestly in fiscal '18 and in fiscal
'19, and our results accelerated to 2%
growth in the first half of fiscal '20,"
he said. "We've expanded our share
leadership position through investment behind compelling consumer
ideas such as Cheerios heart health
campaign, which drove 4% retail sales
growth on the Cheerios franchise in
the first half of the year. We benefited
from consumer support behind Cinnamon Toast Crunch and our partnership with Travis Scott on Reese's
Peanut Butter Puffs, and innovation
continues to add to our growth with
strong first-half performance on Blueberry Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast
Crunch Churros.
"I'm also excited about the plans we
have for the rest of the year to build
on our leadership position in cereal.
We'll continue to invest in our brands,
including strong support behind the
Cheerios heart health news. With more
than 100 million Americans having
some form of heart disease, Cheerios is
on a mission to inspire happy hearts."
Earlier this month General Mills
said it would roll out limited-edition
boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and
original yellow-box Cheerios featuring heart shapes along with the iconic "o." The decision to add the heart
shapes reflects General Mills' interest
in drawing attention to the importance
of heart health, the company said.
In addition to increased brand investment, Mr. Harmening said General Mills is set to launch a strong
lineup of innovation in the second
half of fiscal 2020, including an oats
and honey variety of Cheerios Oat
Crunch, Hershey's Kisses Cereal and
Trix Trolls. Hershey's Kisses cereal,
which features Kiss-shaped cereal

General Mills turned in what Mr. Harmening called a "great year" on Pillsbury refrigerated dough in fiscal 2019,
driving more than one point of share
growth. That momentum has continued through the first half of fiscal 2020,
driven by distribution gains, contributions from new products such as Sweet
Biscuits and solid results on cookies.
"Retail sales in the first half declined 3% due to the later Thanksgiving holiday," Mr. Harmening said.
"However, fiscal year-to-date retail
sales for Pillsbury through the first

Pillsbury ready-to-bake Lucky Charms
cookie dough are pre-sliced in 12 big
cookies and feature marshmallow bits in
the shapes and colors of hearts, horseshoes, clovers, blue moons and rainbows.

a successful launch of Nature Valley
Crispy Creamy Wafer Bar. Retail sales
for Fiber One have also improved
since we reformulated the product
line to be more relevant for modern
weight managers. While we're still
lapping distribution losses from earlier this calendar year, our turns per
point of distribution, an important
leading indicator of growth, have
stepped up meaningfully across both
of these important brands."

week of December, (when adjusted)
for the holiday timing, were actually
up low-single digits. In total, we're off
to a good start, and we feel good about
our plans for the key soup and baking
season, and we believe we are set up
to have a successful year on U.S. meals
and baking."
General Mills in mid-December
introduced Pillsbury ready-to-bake
Lucky Charms cookie dough. The
cookie dough comes pre-sliced in 12
big cookies that feature marshmallow bits in the shapes and colors of
the hearts, horseshoes, clovers, blue
moons and rainbows included in the
brand's ready-to-eat cereal.
The 14-oz packages are available
at select retailers at a suggested retail
price of $2.50 and will roll out nationally in January.
Net income at General Mills in
the second quarter ended Nov. 24
was $580.8 million, equal to 96c per
share on the common stock, up 69%
from $343.4 million, or 57c per share,
in the same period a year ago. Sales
for the quarter ticked up slightly to
$4,420.8 million from $4,411.2 million the year prior.
Cost savings, lower consumer promotion expense and higher inventory
balances at the end of the quarter all
contributed to the improved quarterly
performance, according to the company.
In the six months ended Nov. 24 net
income was $1,101.4 million, or $1.82
per share, up 50% from $735.7 million,
or $1.23 per share, in the same period
a year ago. Net sales totaled $8,423.3
million, down narrowly from $8,505.2
million. MBN
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

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Milling & Baking News - December 31, 2019

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