Hispanic Consumers Driving Breakfast Cereal Comeback

Hispanic consumers are likely to support the renewed popularity of hot and cold cereals, following a steady drop-off among households between 2004 and 2013, according to new research from Packaged Facts.

While consumers still believe breakfast to be the “most important meal of the day,” recent trends have skewed in favor of cereal bars and chewy granola bars, which together increased more than 35 percent in the nine-year period.

Yet a return to strength is anticipated for the $12 billion breakfast cereal market, and Latino consumers are expected to play an important role in the turnaround, finds Packaged Facts’ “Cold and Hot Breakfast Cereals in the U.S.”

Cereal marketers will benefit from the increasing demographic clout of Latino consumers, notes Packaged Facts Research Director David Sprinkle.  While the kids population as a whole will decline in the coming years, there will be substantial growth in the population of Latinos under 14. 

According to the report, roughly 39 percent of Hispanic households with children consumed 21 or more servings of cold breakfast cereal in the last 30 days, compared to only 33 percent of non-Hispanic households with children. And Hispanic households without children are nearly twice as likely as their non-Hispanic counterparts to have consumed this volume of cold cereal in the past 30 days (23 percent vs. 12 percent). 

Other trends encouraging growth in the hot and cold cereal category include increasing investment by major marketers in innovative products; more effective merchandising and marketing campaigns; and increasing cereal consumption among aging Boomers coupled with a relatively stable kids population. Packaged Facts anticipates that these factors will support a 10 percent increase in growth during the 2014-2018 forecast period to reach $13 billion.