Dive Brief:
- Post Holdings is creating Honey Maid S’mores Cereal with Nabisco, which will compete with Kellogg's Smorz brand, according to The Impulsive Buy.
- The cereal will be available at select Walmart stores this month. When it hits shelves, a store locator page will be available for consumers to find the location nearest to them.
- This product comes after Post and Mondelez's Nabisco subsidiary announced Oreo O’s will return to U.S. grocery store shelves on June 23 after a 10-year absence.
Dive Insight:
A week after announcing that Oreo O's will return to grocery store shelves as a Walmart exclusive, Post and Mondelez are back together at the breakfast table with another cereal. Similar to Oreo O's, the spin on a classic campfire favorite will be available at select Walmart stores later this month. The companies are not trying a bold new flavor, but instead giving consumers another cereal that squeezes a well-known snack into a cereal box.
For the three companies involved, it's a smart and creative move in a marketplace where Amazon and other online retailers are making a bigger play in the food space. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, continues its push to flood its grocery aisle will one-of-a-kind products available only at its stores — a draw to customers, especially millennials, who will come to buy the Honey Maid S’mores but potentially load their carts up with other items. It also marks Walmart's latest partnership with Mondelez; the retail giant recently announced it would carry a new Jelly Donut Oreo cookie.
Post, the maker of Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts and Honey Bunches of Oats, is betting on the idea that even though consumers claim they want healthy options for breakfast, they are willing to fill their bowl with sugary, highly indulgent products, too. According to the CDC, more than 80% fail to eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables, and many eat too much sugar and refined grains.
As Oreo O's and now the Honey Maid S’mores cereals seem to show, shoppers may be even more inclined to eat that sugary treat if the ingredients are a reconstituted form of something they have munched on most of their lives. With a recent survey from market research firm Mintel showing 40% of millennial shoppers believe pouring a bowl of cereal is too much work and are trading cereal for breakfast bars, shakes and other on-the-go breakfast solutions, Post and other breakfast-focused companies are stretching themselves to find growth.
It remains to be seen just how popular Honey Maid S’mores will be, but Mondelez and Post are making it as easy as possible to track down a box by rolling out a store locator function to help consumers find the cereal. It mirrors a similar tactic Hershey used when it created an online app to help shoppers find a favorite Easter treat: Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs.
As this latest nostalgia-inducing cereal product shows, corporate America knows when something works, whether its an exclusive product or a new version of an old childhood favorite. Expect more food manufacturers to follow suit.