General Mills Grows C-Store Product Portfolio
While General Mills (www.generalmills.com) is well-known around the world for its familiar products available on grocery store shelves, it’s a lesser known fact that one of its key businesses is the Convenience & Foodservice division (www.generalmillsconvenience.com), which delivers the company’s famous brands to on-the-go consumers in the United States.Today, the division is focusing on bringing innovative new products to key growth channels, such as convenience stores.
David Wilson, marketing manager for General Mills Convenience, says, “Food products, and snack foods in particular, are becoming an increasingly important contributor to channel sales and profit, and we want to grow and innovate quickly to deliver remarkable products to the increasing number of consumers who purchase snacks at a convenience store.”
A key strategy for bringing innovation to the convenience-store channel is leveraging external partnerships through open innovation, also known as General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network (G-WIN) (www.generalmills.com/win).
“Due to the unique business model and product distribution for the c-store channel, new product launches start relatively small in comparison to a traditional U.S. retail launch, and then grow year over year,” explains Lynn Choi Perrin, a senior scientist for General Mills. “This exponential approach to new product launches is why our division relies heavily on our external partners who are willing to scale with us over time.”
In fact, nearly 100 percent of all General Mills’ new product innovations specific for the convenience-store channel is facilitated with the help of outside partners. For example, two brand new products, Chex Chips and Nature Valley Nut Clusters — both launched in January 2014 — were fueled by open innovation. The General Mills Convenience team tapped the expertise of an outside partner company to help source the ingredients for Chex Chips, and the product is produced by a co-manufacturer who has more flexibility of scale than General Mills’ own production facilities.
Similarly, the format and recipe for Nature Valley Nut Clusters were developed in partnership with a co-manufacturer that possessed the specific expertise to bring the product more quickly to market.
“It’s critically important that we form win-win, creative partnerships to help us grow in this channel, and allow our partner companies to grow, too,” closes Perrin.
FAST FACTS
New Additions
The two latest additions to General Mills’ track record of new products fueled by open innovation: Chex Chips and Nature Valley Nut Clusters.
On the Go
Over the past five years, General Mills has transformed its $2 billion Convenience & Foodservice business to significantly improve its profitability and grow market share.