A study of the company General Mills for Professor Kaiser's Principles of Management class, Bethel University Spring 2013.

1. BUS230-1
Taylor Delver, Jesse Dresselhaus, Kolbe Face, Henry Donato

2. Company Profile
 General Mills, like most companies started out small. In
the 1860’s they were simply two flour mills. However
they immediately took stride, pulling ahead of their
competition by producing flour with superior baking
properties.
 General Mills Head Quarters is located in Minneapolis
MN, and is one of the world’s largest food companies.
 In the 1960’s they were already expanding their market
to childrens toys. Ex. Play-Doh, Monopoly, and Nerf.
Fun fact. General Mills has expanded so far that they
even designed and built the three person submarine
that explored the sunken Titanic.

3. Company Profile Cont.
 General Mills is now a very large company, producing
60 million servings of cereal, 27 million servings of
Yoplait Dairy products,14 million Nature Valley bars, 5
million Pillsbury cookies, 2 million pounds of Green
Giant vegetables, and 1 million servings of Haagen-
Dazs ice cream
 General Mills is one of 25 global companies named
twice as the “Worlds Best Multinational Workplaces”
They are currently ranked number 17.

4. Financial Information
 Sales are categorized mainly into three different
segments: U.S. Retail $10.5 billion, International $4.2
billion, Bakeries & Foodservice $2 billion.

5. Financial Information Cont.

6. Key People
 Kendall J. Powell – Chairman of the Board, Chief
Executive Officer
 Donal L. Mulligan – Executive Vice President; Chief
Financial Officer
 Christopher D. O’Leary – Executive Vice President,
Chief Operating Officer, International
 Y. Marc Belton – Executive Vice President, Global
Strategy, Growth and Marketing Innovation
 Ian R. Friendly – Executive Vice President; Chief
Operating Officer, US

7. Products
 Known primarily for its No. 1 selling flour in the U.S,
Gold Medal Flour
 Top brands include Pillsbury (dough and bread), Green
Giant (frozen vegetables), Cheerios (cereal), and Betty
Crocker (baking)
 Other diverse brands include Haagen Dazs (ice-cream),
Yoplait (yogurt), Progresso (soup) snack brands such
as Nature Valley and Chex, and a variety of cereals
such as Lucky Charms, Trix, Cinnamon Toast Crunch
and Wheaties.

8. Industry and Competition
 Prepackaged and Processed Food Industry
 Top competitors include Kelloggs, Kraft and Seneca
 Compared to its top competitor Kelloggs, General Mills
has a higher net profit margin, about double the
earnings per share, and much lower debt
 GM also attributes its success to its joint ventures and
partnerships with other industries within the company
such as J.M. Smucker, Nestle, Haagen-Dazs in Japan,
and Sodiaal in France.

9. Lawsuits
 Fruit Roll-Ups:  Youplait YoPlus:
◦ Settled lawsuit with ◦ Probiotic Yogurt
Center for Science in the (February 2013)
Public Interest (CSPI) ◦ California class action
December, 2012 lawsuit
◦ Claim was that General ◦ Accused of making
Mills was exaggerating misleading health claims
healthiness
◦ General Mills settled for
◦ Settlement: $8.5 million
 Pictures of fruit must ◦ Payments to made to
correspond with customers
presence, not just flavor
 “Made with Fruit” claim ◦ Un-related to Greek-
must be backed up with Yogurt lawsuit (April
a percentage of fruit 2012)
label.  Claim: Contained
unacceptable ingredients for
yogurt, sent to FDA

10. Management Topic
Integration
 Defensive Strategy of Social Responsibility:
◦ General Mills generally takes this strategy when dealing with
conflicts
◦ They do what they need to do to both protect their product,
but also their social image.
◦ Example: In both lawsuits explored, General Mills decided to
settle out of court rather than let a court decide, but didn’t go
out of the way to make lots of changes
 Sustainable Competitive Advantage
◦ General Mills has been working to combat higher
production costs as a way to minimize passing rising food
costs onto consumers. Thus far this hasn’t negatively
effected revenue, and is a successful way to maintain
competitive advantage with the likes of Kellogg, Kraft, and
Sara Lee.

11. Management Topic Integration
Cont.
 General Mills Departmentalization Strategy
◦ Product Departmentalization: organizes work and workers
into separate units responsible for producing particular
products or services
◦ Geographic Departmentalization: organizes work and
workers into separate units responsible for doing business
in particular geographic areas
 Global Management: Consistency Vs. Adaptation
◦ The ice cream brand Haagen-Dazs has experienced
significant success, especially internationally in Asian
countries such as China and Japan
◦ Haagen Dazs has kept its marketing and production
fundamentally and culturally consistent in these countries,
using the high-end, Western brand image to its advantage
◦ However, Haagen-Dazs has adapted to the cultural
sensativity of the food market, by introducing unique flavors
exclusively to certain cultural areas

12. Summary
 If we don't already, we will all eventually work for a
business, so this project was helpful in the fact that
we were able to learn about all the different
aspects that go into successfully operating and
managing a company like General Mills. We were
also able to gain insight into company structure,
legal procedures, origins, product differentiation,
and financial growth. These are crucial areas that a
manager must be able to understand to succeed in
a corporation.

13. Work Cited
 http://www.generalmills.com
 http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GIS
 http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=74271&p=irol-irhome
 http://www.startribune.com/business/184878301.html?refer=y
 http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=b954ceac-07b0-
4420-9a84-0d623d44fcf5
 http://www.cnbc.com/id/100587610
 http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/blog/law/2012/12/general-
mills-yoplait-greek-yogurt-fda.html
 http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/general-mills-
tops-competition--gis-kft-k-sle-cpb0329.aspx
 http://seekingalpha.com/article/660391-general-mills-versus-
kellogg-finding-the-breakfast-producer-of-champions
 http://media2.intoday.in/businesstoday/images/Haagen-Dazs.pdf