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Snack Girl and the President of Cereal

May 26, 2015   20 Comments

Here I am with General Mills President of Cereal, Jim Murphy, and his sidekick a honey bee.

General Mills Visit

Isn’t his green hat super cute? I hear he wears it every day. Wait a minute! That isn’t the right photo from my trip. Here is the real one:

My smile is a wee bit tense.

General Mills cereal is in 90% of households in the USA. Isn’t that mind blowing?

I haven’t met many top executives at 33 billion dollar companies. My set usually hangs out at the local park in their sneakers versus inside of a glassed-in corporate headquarters. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go and I felt like a complete dork asking for a photo BUT I needed proof for all of you.

Michelle Obama also met with General Mills when she started her Let’s Move initiative. I mention her meeting because everything you asked for in the comments section of this post What Would You Advise the President of Cereal? has been requested by public health advocates for years.

I decided to choose my battle and talk about added sugar. General Mills is proud of Cheerios – a whole grain, no added sugar option – and they should be. It is one of the best choices in the cereal aisle but it isn’t nearly as attractive to children as Lucky Charms (also General Mills).

I asked Mr. Murphy for a low sugar, whole grain option that was appealing to kids. He pointed at Kix and said, “We already have one.”

I reached for the box and countered, “This isn’t appealing to kids. This cereal looks like dog kibble.”

Way to go, Snack Girl! Insult a cereal that brings in millions of dollars of revenue every year! You can see why I don’t get to talk to executives very often. No, I couldn’t say, “These aren’t visually appealing.” I had to say, “DOG KIBBLE”.

Ahhh well.

The good news is that General Mills has been quietly bringing down the added sugar in the sugary cereals. Lucky Charms has gone from 14 grams of sugar per serving 6 years ago to 10 grams of sugar per serving today.

The bad news is that they still market sugar filled cereals to kids and haven’t created a product that has a low amount of added sugar with the appeal of a Cocoa Puffs.

I think they haven’t tried hard enough. They have a 90% penetration (yes, that is the word they use) of American households. Can’t they create something that will fly off the shelves? I mean the LEADERS in cereal are sitting there in Minneapolis. I believe they should lead and the market will follow.

On a lighter note, I did get to eat a lot of cereal (perhaps a little too much). Here is a photo of a fraction of the containers of cereal that were in every room I spent time in:

I tried a bunch of them and I was almost out the door to the airport when I spotted Cheerios + Ancient Grains (it came out in January 2015). This version of Cheerios contains small amounts of quinoa, Kamut wheat and spelt along with the traditional oats. Get this – only 5 grams of sugar per serving (3/4 cup).

When I got home, I bought a box and I like it. Is it appealing to kids? The box isn’t – but my kids like the cereal and it isn’t too sweet and is whole grain. For me, it is a much better choice than Honey Nut Cheerios at 9 grams of sugar per serving.

General Mills paid my travel expenses to visit their corporate headquarters. The opinions and text above are all mine (and were not sponsored by General Mills).

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20 Comments:

Bravo, Lisa!

Now gluten free sweetened with honey or maple syrup!! Thanks for your work!!

Not only is Jim Murphy handsome but he looks lean and healthy, like someone who exercises regularly and perhaps is vegetarian! :)

Did you learn about any plans for organic offerings? I read that GM removed GMOs from original cheerios and that's good but what other changes can consumers look forward to? Last week's Fortune talked about 'Big Food' "scrambling to change their business".

http://fortune.com/2015/05/21/the-war-on-big-food/

"An analysis by (Robert Moskow Credit Suisse Analyst) Moskow found that the top 25 U.S. food and beverage companies have lost an equivalent of $18 billion in market share since 2009. “I would think of them like melting icebergs,” he says. “Every year they become a little less relevant.”

Did Jim touch upon any of this?

At $3-$4 per pound, and 200-300 calories per cup (w/milk), cereal is usually a poor choice. A small family could easily go through a box of cereal per day. One cup rarely satiates, after 12 hours without food. That is $100 per month for empty calories.

I counsel/coach clients at TherapyOnLocation.com. A very successful suggestion has been to eat breakfast for dinner and dinner for breakfast.

Soup for breakfast is a great choice. Sunday's roast makes for a quick, yummy to-go breakfast sandwich for the family. Fruit and vegetables round it out.

Children love 'upside-down' experiences.

The whole family could benefit from a heavier breakfast and a lighter dinner. Crockpot oatmeal or scrambled eggs gives lots of free time in the evening to do things more fun than cooking/eating/cleaning up.

Ask the family if they would like to spend $100 a month: on cold cereal or entertainment. Fun on a school night? Yup...lots of extra time at night to play and use that extra $100.

Play Up-side Down: it's fun and healthy.

@Barb L - He didn't talk much about organic - but General Mills makes Cascadian Farms organic cereal. That is their organic offering.

Thanks Snackgirl! I forget sometimes who's who with all the merging and buying up of organic success businesses by "big food".

@SueClark: I love dinner food for breakfast and vice versa. Just yesterday I was hashing over my best time to eat hearty meals, with my daughter. Since retiring I love my main meal at 1pm, more time to prepare, relax & enjoy, then light fare for supper, usually salad, an egg or just fruit. Switching dinner with breakfast is a perfect idea for busy families as you suggest. Fun!

Lisa, you DID choose the correct words. I'm sure he has a chance of actually remembering your "dog kibble" comment versus the more common term you didn't use. Also, if they were trying to reach out to a "normal" person, it proved they hit the nail on the head! Great job.

An earlier poster suggested cereal for dinner. I have always taught my children and the students I taught (in band and orchestra!) that you should eat breakfast like a King/Queen, lunch like a Princess/Prince, and dinner like a pauper. Looks like that description works great with cereal.

Although I usually buy store brand cereal with no sugar(Wegman's/Price Chopper) like shredded wheat, I'm sure many people buy General Mills produces. Thank you Lisa! I like Sue Clark's idea of switching to heavier meals in the first part of the day and lighter fare in the evening, now if my husband will cooperate we can try this!

Hi Lisa. What a great trip and I'm so glad you are fighting to get healthier foods for our kids and grandkids. I plan on approaching the cereal companies with an alternative to added sugar just as soon as my patent goes through for Java Raiz. With the alternative of infusing any fruit or foodstuff with spices and nutrition supplements, these companies could make their cereal MUCH healthier for everyone!!!

It really bothers me when people promote their own website and services they're selling when commenting on snack girl. I think Sue's points and ideas are good but why not just post them? Why a link to your website and mention of your services? Does snack girl do this on your website? Just my two cents

Lisa, thanks for taking the opportunity to take on this giant. Go you for being genuine with him. "Dog Kibble", love it! Put Kix next to Lucky Charms or Fruit Loops. Seriously, which would the average child choose to eat? You know that he is not a stupid man to be in that position and is fully aware of that fact. So glad you called him out.

There was a book written about a year ago where they interviewed the CEOs like this one where they admitted they don't eat their own food because they know just how much sugar and fat they put into their own food. Does anyone remember what that book was? It was a very scary finding about how much they know we are addicted to their products. The science is very exact. So I don't necessarily trust that they think it's in their best interest to change their lower end products when they know we are addicted and will keep buying it. They spend a lot of money on researching exactly what ratios of sugar and fat are needed to keep the brain dependent. They buy up organic food companies for those families who have broken their addiction or who just don't partake in buying the unhealthy stuff to begin with. Basis covered.

The book is "Salt Sugar Fat" by Michael Moss. I'm listening to it now and just heard that part.

5 gram of sugar is still over 1 tsp of sugar per serving. And who can eat just ONE serving of cereal??? I bet most of their customers just pour out what they *think* is a serving into a bowl, and it's probably going to be at least two - three servings.

I'd be interested in seeing their nutritional labels over the years and wonder if their serving size has gone down along with the sugar grams. Hmm, something I'll have to google later.

And by the way, there *is* added sugar in Cheerios - it states so on the pkg ingredients list. Granted, it nets only 1 gram of sugar on the label, but it's still sugar. Why add it at all if they are promoting it as insignificant???

@debbie - the 1 gram of sugar in Cheerios is due to natural sugar found in oats - it isn't added. We discussed this at the meeting. I am also concerned about the portion size being wrong for adults. Thanks for your comment!!

I recently measured out the 1 cup measurement for some cereal that was 1 portion. (Special K Red Berries). It looked ridiculously small in my admittedly large soup bowls. So I decided to use the smaller "fruit bowls" in my dishes and it filled the bowl to almost the top. Now if I do eat cereal I eat it in that smaller bowl and I don't feel deprived. It's not just that the portion sizes are small...it's also that our bowls are too large so our perception is that we are being deprived.

I checked the ingredients list online, and it states "sugar" - now I didn't go to the grocery store and check but online images of the ingredients show it.

I love Cheerios with ancient grains! I agree- out with the sugar!

I haven't had a bowl of cereal in over a year because I am on a low carb, low sugar diet. I did grow up on cherrios, kix and wheaties. Mom did allow us to put 1 tsp of sugar on the wheaties...not on the others and it was not needed. I'm not much of a sweet eater because mom was smart and didn't feed us sugary stuff and pop was a treat, not an every day thing. And, I have her old bowls and they are a lot smaller than we were using. I use hers now. All the added sugar and HFCS and bigger portions had made us all bigger. Not a good thing. Smaller portions and out with the sugar!

For those interested in the continuing story of cereal upgrades, I just read this this morning. I know Foodbabe is not credible with all you scientists, but this data is quite telling as to food manufacturers' compliance with customer's demands for higher standards

.

"General Mills has just announced they will be removing artificial colors and flavors from the cereals by 2016. Millions of children who eat these cereals not knowing the effects of artificial ingredients will benefit. Artificial food dyes are linked to hyperactivity in children, allergies and asthma. They require a warning label in Europe. Does this mean General Mills will finally be dumping the endocrine disrupting ingredient "BHT" from their cereals too? They already don't use that ingredient in Europe - what's taking them so long to "reformulate" something they already know how to do?" http://foodbabe.com/cereal/

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