Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

THE FOOD INDUSTRY ADAPTS 145
Mills sold the business in 2008. There was thus a twin lesson:
optimistic projections can change and business considerations
matter. A market supported by a real trend is not enough, a profitable
business model must also exist.
In 2001 General Mills entered the organic food business
by acquiring Small Planet Foods, a leading producer of organic
food products based in Sedro - Woolley, Washington. Two brands
arrived. The Cascadian Farm brand held the number - one or
number - two share positions in the markets for organic frozen
fruits, vegetables, juices, and entr é es, and the company ’ s Muir
Glen line was the leading brand of organic canned tomatoes,
pasta sauces, salsas, and condiments. General Mills introduced
the brands, well known in organic and natural food channels,
into traditional grocery outlets and extended the Cascadian
Farm brand into cereals and the Muir Glen brand into organic
soups. Although both brands were relatively small, they held
the potential to ride a surge of interest in organics.
Wheaties was created in 1922, as a result of an accidental
spill of a wheat bran mixture onto a hot stove by a Minnesota
clinician working for the Washburn Crosby Company (later
General Mills). Another initiative was the revitalization of the
Wheaties brand, long the “ Breakfast of Champions ” — a brand
that enjoyed extremely high awareness and even emotional
benefi ts, a brand that everyone knows and respects but few eat.
With such high awareness and great image, the brand had a lot
of latent potential. Five top athletes, including football ’ s Payton
Manning and basketball ’ s Kevin Garnett, formed a panel to
help. As a result of their fi rst task, to specify what they wanted
in a cereal that would enhance their performance, a set of ingredient
parameters were created. The athletes also helped create
three candidate formulas to deliver these ingredients. Readers
of Men ’ s Health helped select the fi nal choice. The result was
Wheaties Fuel, delivered in a black package with Manning
on the front cover and the panel pictured on the back that
was on the shelves in January 2010. It was a rare cereal, one