5. General Mills Inc.

General Mills Inc.

Headquarters: Golden Valley, MN
2016 Sales: $16.6 billion
2015 Sales: $17.6 billion

Across its snack and bakery brands, General Mills has maintained a key focus on the bar category—but with mixed results of late. In the category-leading nutritional/intrinsic health value bar segment, for the 52 weeks ending April 16, 2017, General Mills dropped 15.78 percent in dollar sales to $374.5 million, per IRI, Chicago. While its Fiber One brand lost 22.17 percent to $216.2 million, the Nature Valley Protein line grew 3.38 percent to $143.1 million. General Mills leads the granola bars segment, and saw growth of 2.79 percent to $700.4 million, with segment-leading Nature Valley growing by 4.77 percent in dollar sales to $415.0 million, and the Nature Valley Sweet & Salty line up 1.15 percent to $275.8 million. In breakfast/cereal/snack bars, LÄRABAR saw very healthy growth of 50.59 percent to $131.5 million. And in the “all other” snack/granola bars segment, Nature Valley grew by a promising 142.67 percent to $8.7 million, and the new Nature Valley Backpacker line—soft-baked, chewy bar bites—made a strong debut with $8.2 million in dollar sales.

In its salty snacks business, General Mills saw Chex Mix take a hit, down 9.73 percent to $280.5 million, while its Gardetto’s brand grew 5.05 percent to $109.9 million. In the corn snacks segment, the Bugles brand grew by 6.60 percent to $143.3 million.

General Mills has a strong lead in the frozen appetizers and snack rolls segment thanks to its iconic Totino’s Pizza Rolls brand, which grew by 0.86 percent to $537.3 million for the 52 weeks ending November 5, 2017, per IRI, Chicago.

The frozen pizza charge at General Mills is likewise led by the Totino’s brand, which dropped 2.15 percent to $358.7 million for the period.

General Mills acquired the organic brand Annie’s Homegrown in 2014 for $820 million. Since then, General Mills has invested strongly in the brand, launching over 30 new products under the brand. Jeff Harmening—newly elected as the president and CEO of General Mills in June 2017, and now also chairman of the board—has noted strong sales for the Annie’s brand of late, potentially becoming a $1 billion brand before the end of the year.