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General Mills Looking to Improve Yogurt Products in 2017

General Mills has created a giant with its yogurt business by generating $2.8 billion in annual sales. But the company has seen a significant drop off across brands in the past two years, and they believe it’s time to innovate their portfolio to become more competitive in the evolving category.

Yogurt is an Essential Food for Most

Yogurt and other yogurt-based products have experienced steady growth in sales for the past two decades.  NDP Group Inc. analyst, Darren Seifer, noted that yogurt experienced a steady increase over the years because it is considered by many consumers as a healthy and convenient food. Innovation in flavoring has caught the attention of many consumers. Today, yogurt companies are designing their products to have less sugar and more protein since so many people are dropping sugar and other artificial ingredients.

However, there are many challenges involved in the yogurt industry. General Mills will probably experience challenges with creating yogurt-type products for the emerging vegan markets.Moreover, there is also an increasing demand for non-GMO yogurt.

What’s surprising about yogurt is the lack of nutrients. Many people eat yogurt as their primary source of calories for breakfast, yet they are getting no vitamins unless they eat fruit. General Mills and other yogurt brands have any opportunity to add natural vitamins from fruit and/or vegetables to supply essential nutrition to consumers’ favorite breakfast option.

General Mills Makes Bold Move

In its investor presentation, General Mills, President, and COO, Jeff Harmening mentioned that the yogurt portfolio of the company is not aligned with the latest trends. Currently, the company has too many light and regular yogurts. More competitors are offering a wider product range which includes Greek yogurt, organic yogurt, and yogurt drinks. The yogurt industry is worth $84 billion globally, and the company is only capturing less than 1% of the global market share.

Yogurt products are paramount to General Mills as it makes up 16% of the total business.  The company is planning to renovate 60% of its yogurt business in the following year. This means that the corporation will be able to offer new yogurt products as well as flavors. They will also be carrying organic brands such as Annie’s due to the increasing demand for organic yogurt all over the world. This dynamic change is supposed to catch up with the change in the behavior of yogurt consumers.  General Mills expects that they will be able to increase their revenues in 2017.

But aside from reinventing its yogurt portfolio, the company is also venturing to other business strategies which include buying well-known yogurt manufacturer Yoplait SAS and Carolina. The company is experiencing stiff competition with other yogurt manufacturers that have already caught up with consumer trends.  While this bold move is very promising for General Mills, the challenge here is how the company will the company restructure its yogurt business to deal with the change in consumer behavior five years from now.

Inspired by fooddive.com

Hershey Invests in Healthy, Nutritious Snacks in 2016

Just the name Hershey may make you think about something really sweet. Right now you may be thinking of peanut butter cups, chocolate bars, and small kisses candies. But did you know the company is launching their new, healthy and nutritious product line this year?

Hershey is now expanding with healthy products that target nutrition savvy customers. Their newest SoFit brand is all about fruit and protein squeezes, nuts and seeds packets, and snack squares which are now available at Amazon.com. The nutritious snacks are a part of Hershey’s newly launched Brookside fruit and nut bar line and Krave, a jerky company which Hershey acquired in 2015. Marcel Nahm, vice president of Hershey’s snack division, revealed to Business Insider, “We understand that consumers’ relationship with food is changing.” He said, “Consumers are more than ever interested in knowing what they put into their body, where does it come from, how does it get there… Consumers want more and more choices.”

Nutritious Snacks Trending Amongst Competition

But Hershey is not the only company that’s turning to the healthy snack division. CVS has recently launched a protein smoothie and chia seeds line. It has also placed its Golden Emblem Abound “better for you” brand. Oreo and Cadbury’s Mondelez announced last year that it is developing a new healthy food line over the next five years. Hershey is not fazed at all. It believes that its long history in the confectionary industry has made it a strong contender than any other brand in the market. Nahm also mentioned that consumers also feel frustrated that they only have snack bars that have amazing nutrition profile but taste like cardboard.

 

Nahm believes that Hershey understands the value of flavor more than anyone else. The company has strong experience as well as resources for marketing new products making them more able to strike deals with retailers. Hershey’s VP is also confident that SoFit and Brookside’s snack approach to health will attract more customers as compared to addressing the needs of health-obsessed consumers. He says that Hershey’s will be between “health master” and “family pleaser.” Family-pleasing, less-healthy snack options from Hershey include Snack Mix and Reese’s Spreads Snacksters. Finally, Nahm said that consumers may see themselves as a short series of pluses or minuses when it comes to nutrition. They would identify foods such as pumpkin seeds and fruits as pluses while a donut or a chocolate bar would be minuses. As Hershey may have fallen into the minuses category over the years, it is now planning to promote pluses through their healthy snack line.

Inspired by businessinsider.com

Create More Nutritious Snacks With NutriFusion®

So many health aficionados will argue that we need to drop processed and packaged foods all together, but that’s really impossible at this point in our food system. Rather than eliminating these foods, we need to focus on improving their ingredients and making them “better for you”. That’s why we developed NutriFusion. We agree that the food system is broken and we need to start eating fresh foods like fruits and vegetables. But that’s not going to happen overnight and we need a solution now. With our ingredients, snack companies are able to all natural nutrients and vitamins from fruits and vegetables. Our products are completely processing stable meaning our nutrients can withstand the high heating and cooling of modern day processing. If you ar interested in learning more, please visit the consumer packaged food page to learn more.