Dara Walter's boss invited her to a windowless conference room early one morning to break the news.
General Mills was slogging through another quarter of shrinking profits and had announced a few weeks earlier that it would lay off 850 people in a cost-cutting initiative dubbed "Project Refuel."
Walter's boss tearfully read from a script that said the veteran food scientist's job would be eliminated.
"I just remember thinking to myself, 'listen very carefully, and don't cry,' " Walter said. "It's not necessarily about me personally. It's about business, I guess."
General Mills' struggles to adjust to changes in American eating habits have led the company to lay off about 1,500 employees over the past 30 months — about half the cuts in the Twin Cities. The latest round ended in February.
Analysts have cheered the company for striving to reinvent itself, as consumers turn away from the kinds of packaged food staples the Golden Valley-based company has been known for.
But the job cuts have upended the lives of hundreds of Minnesota families. The turmoil also has caused soul-searching among employees, some of whom doubt General Mills can change fast enough to meet shifting consumer tastes.
The company sometimes struggles to keep up as new competitors emerge, such as Chobani in yogurt. General Mills is huge and complex, one employee said, with layers of structure that can slow decisions and action.