The news on Tuesday that Kellogg has an agreement to sell several brands to confection maker Ferrero, came as no surprise to many in the food industry. The iconic cereal maker had been working for months to sell the cookie brands of their business to a willing buyer. The total amount of the transaction is reported in several sources as $1.3 billion.
Ferrero will obtain Keebler, Famous Amos, Murray’s, and some other smaller brands from Kellogg. This will allow Kellogg to focus more specifically on their core business focus of breakfast cereal and snacks. They want to create a niche in both of those industry segments, that quite frankly, they could not achieve in the cookie segment of the business.
The cookie business is very competitive with Nabisco leading the pack with some top selling brands. Kellogg executives determined that the cookie brands were not a good fit for their overall business model. I have food industry background, and personally I did not understand why Kellogg purchased Keebler, Famous Amos, Murray’s, and other brands to get into that business. In my view, it never made sense that they would enter such a competitive landscape and it seemed to distract their marketing focus away from cereals and salty snacks. Those two areas have been segments of the business where the company has done very well.
Kellogg, according to a report by CNN, reportedly had $900 million in sales from their cookie brands in 2018 but that yielded just $75 million in operating profit. That demonstrates the challenges of being in that industry segment and the overhead costs involved from packaging, production, and marketing costs.
Conversely, Kellogg has had success since it acquired the Pringles snack brand from P&G. The iconic potato chip brand was a lower-performing brand that was a bit of an afterthought at P&G. The attention that Kellogg provided has turned into a powerhouse brand that has helped drive profits.
The Pringles brand along with Cheez-It, Pop Tarts, and Rice Krispie Treats are called the “power brands” by the CEO of Kellogg. This is where they will bring some very specific marketing and advertising techniques into greater intensity now that the cookie business is not siphoning off dollars.
Ferrero completed this deal so that they can gain a better foothold into the North American market. The foreign confectioner specializes in Tic Tac, Nutella, and Ferrero Rocher among other smaller brands. They took an opportunity to obtain some nostalgic brands that truly represent a slice of Americana with Keebler and the Keebler elves baking up “magic” in the oven in the iconic tree.
Famous Amos has been highly visible in parts of America for decades for their signature chocolate chip cookies. The move to Ferrero could potentially increase their entry into the convenience store chains along with Tic Tac and some other confectionary products. Ferrero most certainly has some strategic plans for the brand to make it more visible in different channels.
Ferrero will also gain the agreement to manufacture the ubiquitous Girl Scout Cookies, which are currently made by a subsidiary bakery within the Keebler business structure. That piece of business could be significant for Ferrero in an increasingly competitive cookie market.
Kellogg will shift their focus back to another core business area: breakfast cereal. The sales of cereal have been sluggish overall, but the company maintains that by exiting the cookie business they can bring some new emphasis and innovations to the cereal aisle.
Some people might have a problem with a foreign based company holding the rights to some quintessentially American brands such as Keebler, Famous Amos, and the Girl Scout Cookie that we all love to partake in. However, times are changing, and Kellogg is trying to distinguish itself within a highly competitive industry.
In fairness, Ferrero is attempting to do the same thing, they need to grow and diversify their brand holdings at the risk of being consolidated by a larger fish in the food industry pond. This transaction will help Ferrero increase their visibility and their sales volume in North America, where the cookie business is projected to grow after some years of flat results.
The consumer wins in this deal because Kellogg is going to focus on even further improving their core businesses of snacks and breakfast cereal brands. Ferrero will have a fresh perspective and will bring some new innovations and energy to the Keebler and other cookie brands that Americans have grown up with over decades. It is certainly one of the larger deals in the food industry in 2019 and could shape the directions of both companies for years into the future.
(some background info and stats courtesy of CNN and PR Newswire)