The ready-to-eat breakfast cereal category’s hopes of innovating a way out of its sales slump largely were dashed in 2017. New product launches were plentiful, but none are likely to register as blockbusters.
For the record, GlobalData projects breakfast cereal dollar sales growing at a 0.7% compound annual growth rate during the five years from 2016 to 2021. Interestingly, the pre-sweetened cereal category currently enjoys popularity as a snack. In fact, General Mills has shared data that an estimated 30% of all US cereal consumption (sugar concerns aside) now comes in the form of snacking—triple the level of a decade ago.