It’s not surprising that sales of breakfast cereal are falling: Americans, as a whole, are starting to eat breakfast on the move, cut carbs, and many people are fearful of genetically modified corn and wheat. If we do sit down and eat breakfast, we’ll scramble some eggs or microwave some oatmeal.
Sure, there’s one cereal cafe in the world, but overall the trends are going against cereal. Kellogg’s was one of the companies that pioneered the food, making corn into flakes so they could serve a light breakfast at the Kellogg family’s health resort in Battle Creek, Michigan.
This week, Bloomberg Businessweek asks: why is Kellogg all soggy now, performing worse than its competitors in the cereal business? Companies like General Mills are hurting, but doing better overall. Some experts blame this on miscalculations, like alienating core customers of its organic brand, Kashi. While sales of frozen waffles and pancakes are doing well overall, Kellogg’s Eggo brand is not.
You may remember back in 2009, when Consumerist accidentally created a national media frenzy by pointing out that Eggo waffles were in short supply. While the official company line is that rounds of cost-cutting around that time had nothing to do with a Listeria-related recall and flooding at the plant that cut back on the company’s waffle-producing capacity, insiders pointed out to Businessweek that a lot of institutional knowledge about how to run facilities walked out the door when the company cut back on staff.
What’s the way forward for Kellogg? They’re trying to turn Special K into a health brand rather than a brand for ladies on diets, and try to get Kashi’s healthy cred back.
Who Killed Tony the Tiger? [Bloomberg Businessweek]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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