Name: General Mills CEOs says 'consumers are feeling the pinch'
Uploaded: 2022-11-21
Duration: 7 min 38 s
Description: Jeff Harmening says General Mills had to raise prices for popular brands like Cheerios, but consumers are still buying because 'food at home is a really good value'.

Jeff Harmening says General Mills had to raise prices for popular brands like Cheerios, but consumers are still buying because "food at home is a really good value".

General Mills CEOs says "consumers are feeling the pinch"

Leadership

Jeff Harmening says General Mills had to raise prices, but consumers are still buying because "food at home is a really good value".

Jeff. So good to see you again to talk about general mills and let's begin by talking about food prices, everybody is complaining about their grocery bills and the latest reports do confirm that prices are high up 13% over the past 12 months. So far, people are still buying your cheerios and Pillsbury baking goods, snacks and a lot more from General Mills. Tell us why consumers are still buying General Mills products and food products at home because they represent a great value. And even though the costs have gone up because inflation has gone up about 14 to 15% for us. Um This year consumers are shifting their habits two at home eating from away from home eating and the reason they're making that shift of food at home is that it really costs a lot less than eating out. And so when economic times get difficult as consumers are feeling the pinch right now and they really are feeling the pinch. What we saw during the great recession about a decade ago was that the same habit Of consumers shifting their spending from away from home and eating at home eating. It took place in the Great Recession as well, because food at home is a really good value, but you have raised prices right? We have increased prices because our costs have gone up by 14-15%. And so we've raised prices, we've raised prices less than our costs have gone up because we've had productivity gains and and we know that consumers are feeling pinched right now. And so the first thing we always try to do is become more efficient ourselves, but when we see record inflation, which we are right now in our cost, um the prices, the prices do go up, but it's still, even then it's still a great value for consumers to eat food at home and specifically general mills brands than it is eating out well as you're looking for value, you know, a lot of people are talking about this so called shrink inflation where the package is smaller of, let's say cheerios, but the price is the same. What do you say to that? You know, shrink inflation gets a lot of media headlines, but it's not something we spend a tremendous amount of time with for us, the you know, when people talk about string inflation at the end of the context, we're trying to trick consumers somehow and that's absolutely not the case, consumers are very smart and so when, when we want to make sure that we offer them real value. So for example, um you know when people are living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes they want a smaller box of cereal, if if they can only afford that. Other times they may have three teenagers at home, they need a big box for the price per hour. They may shop at different locations, they may shop with coupons. And so it's really incumbent upon us to add to add value in the best way we can and consumers define for themselves what makes value for their family and that's different from household to household. You recently told investors that you expect strong revenues and earnings going into 2023 and the chances are that inflation will contain to rise. So I'm guessing that you are going to continue raising crisis by, how much can you quantify? We did say that we're going to see inflation throughout this throughout our fiscal year was started in May, but we also told investors that most of the pricing that we would need to accomplish what we needed to this year was already in the marketplace or announced retailers. And so it's not necessarily true that prices will keep going up from here. It really depends on the landscape itself. But you know, as I mentioned, we've seen 14 to 15% in inflation and our prices have gone up, but even then, not as much as inflation has gone up well, you know, as you know, there are many forecasts that were either in a recession in the US or there's a risk of a recession over the next 12 months, you've been through many of the These down cycles in your, in your career. How do you see this one playing out right. I've been, I've been in the food business for more than 28 years now and you know, a couple of things I will tell you first is that whether we're in a technical recession or not. You know, consumers are feeling stretched and I think that's going to continue. One of the things I can also tell you is that no matter what one of the lessons of the last few years, if you don't know exactly what's around the corner. But for general mills we've been able to pivot quickly, whether it's a pandemic or George Floyd's murder or whether it's war in Ukraine, we've been able to pivot quickly and I'm confident as a company will continue to do that no matter what the economic cycle ahead of us, can you still grow general Mills even in a slowing economy? You know, we we can and we were we were even growing general mills before the pandemic yet. But one of the things I'm most proud of is over the last few years we've become a better company and none of it had to do with the pandemic or inflation or or covid what, what it really had to do with is we've we've made significant changes over the course of the last few years we've changed our portfolio, We've had a blue buffalo pet food. We we have divested things like you play in europe and dough in europe and hamburger helper here in the U. S. We have changed our organizational structure to become a lot more lean and we've invested in data and technology and and investments in consumer marketing, they're going to help us go forward. So we're we're highly confident that an environment, post covid post war, post recession General Mills will be a stronger company that was coming in is because we've made a lot of significant changes along the way. Well, Jeff you've come up with some very innovative and successful strategies in dealing with these things that you're talking about, soaring prices for ingredients. The scarcity of ingredients tell our view how you reformulated the recipes of one of your very popular snacks to Tina's Pizza Roll. It was a very successful change that you made. It has been successful and Latinos, Pizza Rolls, one of General Mills, $9 billion brands. And and we've kept it on store shelves because we feel like we owe that to consumers. But it hasn't been easy. In fact, there are a couple of ingredients we haven't been able to get for Latinos and as a result we reformulated pizza rolls and pizza about 25 times over the last year. Just in an effort to keep it on shelf. But also make sure we maintain the quality of those products that consumers are expecting. And I'm happy to say that even given all those changes, the business continues to grow. In fact, we're going to invest about $100 million in our manufacturing facility in Ohio to to expand the capacity of that business. But it's a great testimony to the, to the engagement and working skills people of general Mills and our consumers have benefited as a result. What are some of the lessons that you learned from that whole experience and all of the reinvention. One of the things we we've really learned is that the engagement of our employees is key because it takes a team of people coming together to make things like that happen, diversifying our supply change is becoming increasingly important and just the ability and willingness to pivot. We've been a great company for 100 and 55 years, but before the pandemic, probably no one considered us to be very fast. Now. We're both fast and I still think we're pretty good company after 100 and 55 years and we've learned the value have been able to change quickly. So what do you think has been behind the success of General Mills over all of these years? I think we've been successful because we've been willing to change, Not because we've resisted it and that's important for a company that has been around since 1866. We've changed our portfolio, added brands like blue buffalo and divested businesses like you play. We've changed our organizational structure become faster. We have invested in data and technology, but also consumer marketing to make our brands more and more relevant. And those things are important because we talked about all the changes that have happened pandemics and wars and social unrest and now, you know inflation, we've been successful through all that and we think we'll be successful after that, not because we resisted change, but on the opposite, we've actually leaned into change. And those are the kind of things that kind of spanned the arc of time and make a company successful no matter what the current situation they find themselves in.