Having scored a big hit with its Nature Valley Protein Bars last year, General Mills has gone searching for bigger shares of the better-for-you snack business. And it's enlisting some of its best-known brands, from Fiber One to Green Giant, in the hunt.

The Minneapolis-based CPG giant has done about all it can to overhaul its mainstay ready-to-eat cereal business in a more nutritious manner, including shifting nearly the entire portfolio to whole grains. But that category remains sluggish. Meanwhile, the company's Yoplait brand was caught flat-footed by the Greek-style yogurt craze and is still trying to catch up.

Focusing on its snack brands and on extending other brands into the snacking arena has become crucial for growth for General Mills. Snacks have been its strongest business for the last five years, with average annual sales growth topping 8 percent a year during that time.Continue reading...

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One of Kellogg's oldest brands, Special K, is also turning out to be one of its "newest" brands. That's because the cereal maker has continued to expand and actually reinvent the brand for a decade now—including some major just-announced wrinkles.

For one thing, Kellogg will use the Special K sub-brand to go more aggressively after foodies who are fans of "ancient grains" with a new product called Special K Nourish hot cereal. It will be made with quinoa and other grains that are unfamiliar to most Americans who've grown up on cold cereals made out of staples like corn, rice and wheat. Nourish will promote a satiety benefit, filling up consumers with 8g of protein and 5g of fiber per serving but yielding only fewer than 200 calories.

What's more, when it hits US stores in July, Special K Nourish will come in individual serving cups; consumers add water and toppings that arrive in separate compartments on the lids, according to CBSNews.com. Toppings flavors will include Mable Brown Sugar, Cranberry Almond and Cinnamon Raisin Pecan. Kellogg also will be marketing a separate line of Nourish bars in Dark Chocolate Nut, Cranberry Bliss and Lemon Twist flavors.Continue reading...

Bowl by bowl, traditional ready-to-eat cereal is getting more nutritious and edging its way back into the healthful perimeter that more Americans are putting around their diets. Kellogg and General Mills, the industry giants, are making that a priority for their brands.

Kellogg, for example, plans to introduce new products infused with more nutrients to help bring back better-educated, higher-income adults to the traditional breakfast that so many of them enjoyed as kids. The new offerings include Raisin Bran with omega-3s and a multigrain version of Special K that will debut later this month in North America. Lately, Kellogg also has been promoting the simple goodness of some of its classic cereals because of their grain content.

CEO John Bryant told analysts that kids and lower-income adults are still spooning up plenty of cereal, according to the Associated Press, but higher-income adults have been cutting back. "I don't think they're really that price-sensitive," he said. "The real issue there is innovation."Continue reading...

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Food giants General Mills, Kellogg and PepsiCo aren't the only companies competing to get Americans to drink their breakfasts these days. A startup called Oatworks also is tapping into the trend, and starting in New York City of all places.

Each 10.8-ounce bottle of Oatworks has the fiber equivalent to two bowls of oatmeal. Fruit purees and juices join the water-soluble fiber from oat components in the Oatworks formula, available at Duane Reade stores and independent natural-foods outlets, in pomegranate-blueberry, mango-peach and strawberry-banana flavors, at suggested prices ranging up to $3 a bottle.

The key to acceptance of Oatworks by Gothamites and beyond as the brand expands, is for consumers to taste the beverage and realize that it has a "good finish"—not a lumpy or even particulate mouthfeel as they might expect from a beverage chock full of oats.

"You wouldn't notice [the oats] at all," David Peters, CEO of the New York-based startup, told brandchannel. "A lot of consumers are pleasantly surprised at that."Continue reading...

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