Fortune Magazine did an inside look into how General Mills company runs and cuts costs in hard times like these. The article Cereal Cost Cutters was published in October of 2008.
This article describes how General Mills kept costs down not by cutting the quality of their products, but instead by taking out unnecessary things such as 13 different kinds of pretzels. By limiting the number of pretzel shapes made they were able to save over $1million. That is a large amount of money that was saved and in return General Mills was able to cut the price on several of their products.
“Now General Mills is going beyond the low-hanging fruit snacks. One group recently looked at the oils, flour, and sugar that its baking division uses. The team found a way to consolidate purchases of such items, giving General Mills more buying power. The changes resulted in $12 million in annual savings.”
That is a huge amount of savings, especially in 2008 with the horrible economy. This article again keeps proving my point that General Mills is always working towards the best products that are still competitive with the bargain brands. They do not want their customers to have to compromise on quality for price. Bargain brands may taste the same and be around 20 cents cheaper, but the nutrition and quality of the product is jeopardized.
This article will again help in proving how ethical General Mills is, not just by keeping products healthy but also keeping peoples pocket books and worries in mind. They don’t want the cost of their products to go up with the economy so instead they cut unnecessary costs to keep their prices competitive. They genuinely care about their consumers and it makes it so easy to write about them with all of these great things they do.
This is so smart of General Mills. If every other company did this, so much money would be saved!! It is something so simple like making only one pretzel style for each product that helps in the biggest way. It sounds like General Mills knows their business well and will endure through this hard time and come out on top.
ReplyDeleteI agree, even though there are other bargain products that are so similar to general mills products and a couple cents less, in the long run, the nutritional value is what really matters. At least to me and hopefully other people as well.
This article will definitely help you with your argument on whether General Mills is ethical or not. They really do care about their consumers and they wills save the extra pennies so they arn't spending as much. All in all, General Mills is a great company and I don't know who could say something bad about them.