Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

June 14, 2012

Small cereal-maker feeling its oats

MOM Brands gets more market share by imitating the products of rivals and keeping prices low.

Star Tribune

If Toucan Sam heard what Malt-O-Meal is up to, it would throw him for a loop. It would make the Honey Nut Cheerios bee buzzing mad.

The Minneapolis-based company has quietly notched impressive gains in the otherwise lumbering cold cereal market by mastering the knockoff. Its Tootie Fruities bear a striking resemblance to Froot Loops. As for its Honey Nut Scooters -- where have we seen that classic oat ring before?

Malt-O-Meal, recently rechristened MOM Brands, has built a lucrative cold cereal niche by delivering more product for the money than similar cereals made by industry titans General Mills and Kellogg.

"Once people try us, we have a very loyal group of consumers," said Chris Neugent, MOM Brands' chief executive.

It's a growing group. From 2001 to 2011, Malt-O-Meal's annual sales climbed from $300 million to about $750 million. In 2009, it opened a cereal factory in North Carolina, a $275 million project. And in the past decade, it has spent $100 million boosting production capacity and efficiency at a big cereal plant in Northfield, Minn.

Not bad for a firm associated for decades with just one product, the hot wheat concoction known as Malt-O-Meal.

The 93-year-old company, owned by descendants of its founder, still makes its namesake product. But hot cereal comprises only about 10 percent of total sales, and most of that comes from Better Oats, a fast-growing instant oatmeal line.

Several newer brands like Better Oats and Mom's Best Naturals -- cold cereals made with natural ingredients -- led the company in February to change its corporate name from Malt-O-Meal to MOM Brands.

The rebranding also reflects a change in the company's strategy. A decade ago, half of its sales came from private-label cereal -- products carrying the brands of supermarket chains. Today, that's down to 20 percent.

The core business is Malt-O-Meal-branded cold cereal -- Tootie Fruities, Marshmallow Mateys and the like -- that took off in the 1980s.

Cold cereal is a huge business, generating about $9 billion in U.S. sales in 2011, according to Mintel International. But it's a mature, slow-growing business. And Minnesota-based General Mills and Michigan-based Kellogg together capture more than 60 percent of the market.

Malt-O-Meal has been gaining ground, though, particularly on the No. 3 and 4 players, Post and PepsiCo's Quaker division.

Its share of the U.S. cold cereal business as measured in pounds jumped from 3.1 percent in 2011 to 9.6 percent last year, fourth among major cereal makers and just a bit behind Post, according to Nielsen Co. data provided by MOM Brands.

Consumers usually pay about 20 percent to 25 percent less for a pound of Malt-O-Meal-branded cereal than they do for a pound of its rivals' products, Neugent said.

Neugent, Malt-O-Meal's CEO since 2008, makes no excuses for the knockoff approach. "We're not the first ones to come in and have similar products," he said.

The strategy doesn't always sit well with its competitors, though. "We're not on their Christmas card list, I will say that," Neugent said.

It's not surprising the cereal colossi get irked. "You can make the argument that Malt-O-Meal is free-riding off the advertising" of General Mills and Kellogg, said Akshay Rao, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

While heavy advertising greases cereal sales for the heavyweights -- Toucan Sam has been an animated celebrity since the 1960s -- Malt-O-Meal's ad budget can be measured in spoonfuls, not bowls. Minimal marketing expenses are critical to maintaining its lower prices.

Kellogg's and General Mills spend up to 8 percent of their total cereal sales on advertising, said Rick Shea, owner of Shea Marketing, a Chanhassen-based consultancy.

(Continued on page 2)

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