The Kellogg Company revealed in mid-February that it plans to shift its breakfast cereals to meet consumer demand for foods with healthier and simpler ingredients and launch a new healthy cereal, muesli and granola line called Origins in mid-2015, following its launch of a new gluten-free Special K in the U.S.
The move came after Kellogg Company reported continued, declining US cereal sales in 2014 and a full-year 2014 net sales decrease of 1.4% to $14.6 billion.
At a consumer analyst presentation held in New York, Kellogg Company president and CEO John Bryant said: “We’re executing Project K, the largest restructuring in the company’s history, which will generate $425 million to $475 million annually in savings by the end of the program. And we’re investing that money back in the business to get back to top line growth on a sustainable consistent basis.”
Kellogg’s chief growth officer Paul Norman spoke about the company’s cereal business, which represents about 25% of Kellogg’s total sales.
“We are on the journey from diet to wellness, from an absence of negatives, less calories, to more bang for the calories I consume,” Mr Norman said.
He said that most brand spending for Special K will be reoriented away from selling diet plans to selling the food, “selling the taste of our food, selling what is in our food and selling why our food is good”.
“Special K Nourish, which is another variant and more complex food in Australia, with nuts, seeds and more complex grains, is leaning into where our consumer would like us to take the foods and the brands,” Mr Norman added.
“A new idea coming under the Kellogg brand leans into what consumers are more and more expecting from a food point of view and a food culture point of view is Kellogg’s Origins, a range of cereals, mueslis, granolas – real food prepared simply, no preservatives, no artificial colours, no artificial flavours, whole grains and fibre,” he said.