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Healthier Eating Trends Forcing Companies to Re-Brand and Re-Formulate

Limited Edition Mini Trix Cereal Closeup. Photo by
theimpulsivebuy.

As consumers begin to move away from prepared and processed foods and towards fresher, more wholesome ingredients, giant companies like General Mills and ConArgra Brands have had to make changes to keep market share.

General Mills has been steadily removing synthetic dyes from their breakfast cereals such as Trix for years, and are finally seeing a turnaround in sales. Sales of their reformulated cereals are up by 3 percent in the US in the last reported quarter. However, the good news comes with bad as sales of yogurt is in decline.

The company is adding products perceived as healthier, such as organic yogurt and completely new products such as yogurt snacks and drinks which are not packaged in traditional yogurt cup packaging.

This week General Mills will be presenting their successes and failures to their investors. They are expected to report underwhelming earnings of 87 cents per share on $4.23 billion in revenue, down from $4.42 billion one year ago.

ConArgra has been down-sizing, spinning-off its commercial foods operation and selling its private label business. Chief Executive Sean Connolly, who joined ConAgra less than two years ago, explained that off-loading divisions will allow the company to concentrate on building up their older brands which had lost their appeal.

Reddi-wip is now advertising that it is made with “real-cream” in place of hydrogenated oils, and that there is no artificial growth hormone is found in the ingredients. Hunt’s has been bragging that it steams off the tomato skins rather using a chemical process. ConAgra state’s on the Hebrew National Website that there are no artificial flavors, filler or byproducts, because “The shorter the ingredients list, the better.”

Later this week ConAgra is expected to report flat earnings of 45 cents per share on $2.11 billion in revenue for the last quarter reported.

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