Milling & Baking News - September 16, 2014 - 16

Business 

Special K and Kashi look to get
back on their game
BOSTON - Special K and Kashi -
two brands that have been growth engines for The Kellogg Co. for the past
15 years - will be vital to the Battle
Creek, Mich.-based company's efforts
to bring consumers back to ready-toeat cereal, said Paul Norman, chief
growth officer and interim head of
Kellogg's Morning Foods business in
the United States. Recently, the brands
have not lived up to their lofty standards.
"In the last 52 weeks, the pair of them
(Special K and Kashi) are responsible
for more than 50% of our consumption
declines as a company in the (cereal) category," Mr. Norman said during a Sept.
4 presentation at the Barclays Back-ToSchool Consumer Conference in Boston. "It
goes to point out that
when you come off
a trend of health and
wellness, you slip to the
side, it can be quite painful. There's nothing
to
say here that I don't believe we can't get these
brands back on trend
fairly quickly."
Mr. Norman offered
several examples of
how he expects Kellogg to get the brands
back on track.

ingredients
custom blends
innovation
national distribution

B.C. Williams Bakery Service
BCW Food Products
1-800-527-4104

bcwilliams.com

16 / September 16, 2014 Milling & Baking News

Freshening an 'old brand'
On Special K, which Mr. Norman
described as "an old brand," Kellogg
plans to move and adapt, a strategy
that has served the brand well in the
past. In 2015, Kellogg plans to reinvent
just about every aspect of Special K's
proposition to the consumer, starting
with positioning.
"The positioning that's recently been
more around losing weight, and based
around programs and challenges, will
move to a focus on nutrient density,
and the food," he said. "That will obviously come through communication. It will touch on renovation and
innovation, and also come through in
our packaging as we move the brand
to more of a positioning around, as I
said, nutrient density and a focus on
our food, and less on a focus on challenges and ways to lose weight."
Mr. Norman said Kellogg plans
to bring more protein to Special K in
the first quarter of 2015 and intends
to launch the first ever gluten-free

Special K food. The company also
plans to participate in the "hot" segments, including hot granola.
Special K also will receive a complete refresh of its packaging with better differentiation between varieties,
he said.
Kashi back to progressive nutrition
Last month, Kellogg announced
that David Denholm, who ran Kashi
in the 2000s, would return to become
chief executive officer of the business. Kellogg also announced that
the Kashi business will move back to
La Jolla, Calif. In March 2013 Kellogg
announced it was moving the Kashi
business to Battle Creek and that the
move would best position the business unit
for growth.
During the Barclays
Back-To-School
Consumer Conference call,
Mr. Norman said the
whole point of refocusing Kashi is to "get on
the front foot and get
forward back into progressive nutrition."
To that end, Kellogg
is working to make the
entire Go Lean cereal
franchise non-G.M.O.
certified by the first
quarter of next year.
With that initiative in place, Mr.
Norman said the company will be
able to lean more forward into driving after the core consumers, the
core customer and their needs, and
the advocates in pioneering and
progressive nutrition.
"We have two variants rolling out
under the Kashi cereal range at the
end of this year and the beginning of
next year," Mr. Norman said. "One is
the Raisin and Chia Granola, and the
second is a brand new feature under
Organic Promise with sprouted grains
coming to certain markets at the beginning of the year. So we get the
house in order, and we lean into progressive nutrition under an operating
model that is far more autonomous,
with more speed, more nimbleness,
and focus more on those advocate consumers and customers, which is really
where the brand came from, but we
believe this operating model will get
us back onto growth in the not-toodistant future." MBN
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

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Milling & Baking News - September 16, 2014

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