Category Captain: Canned and Packaged Foods—Dry Packaged Dinners: General Mills

Over the past year, General Mills has collaborated with retailers to deliver category best practice shelf recommendations, prescriptive assortment guidance and differentiated consumer support. In partnership with Nielsen, nearly 3,000 stores were audited to assist the company in the development of a gold-standard planogram, which provides guidance to maximize sales for the category and across each segment for share of space, share of facings and an optimal number of SKUs. By implementing General Mills’ recommendations, one of its retailer partners grew its dry packaged dinner category by 16 percent, outpacing total U.S. growth by 14 points.

General Mills sought out to improve the main meal segment’s productivity by developing customized distribution recommendations and estimated dollar growth opportunities. By replacing slower-turning SKUs with more productive items, one national retailer has realized category growth of 5.6 percent. Meanwhile, another regional retailer is driving Hamburger Helper dollar growth 19 percent, main meal segment growth 8 percent and total DPD growth 13 percent.

To further enable consumers to stretch their family meal dollars, General Mills has developed a Hamburger Helper twin-pack to deliver greater value: 72 cents per serving. One regional retailer’s “value event” resulted in category volume growth of 1 percent and Hamburger Helper growth of 25.5 percent.

To help retailers deliver on the need for convenience, General Mills has joined forces with retailers to create a rotational meal solution platform, incorporating a main dish, side dish and dessert. The results: 5.6 percent growth of featured items, and remaining store sales up 7.8 percent.

Further, General Mills has launched two brands within the main meal segment, Macaroni Grill and Good Earth. The introduction of Macaroni Grill drove 2.2 million new consumers to the DPD category within its initial year. Additionally, Hamburger Helper has expanded its portfolio with two additional varieties that build upon the success of its top-turning segment SKUs.