Pillsbury sales made a quick rise this winter after heavily advertising two-ingredient meal ideas like chicken and dumplings with its cans of buttermilk biscuits.
That’s icing on the cinnamon roll for the General Mills brand, which has grown 60% through the past several years in part because of the success of those famed tubes of dough.
“We’ve taken a brand that’s been around for 70 years, and we kept it fresh with consumers,” General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening said. “We keep in touch with consumer needs and solve the problems they have.”
Pillsbury is one of the Golden Valley-based company’s billion-dollar brands, a roster that includes Cheerios cereal, Totino’s pizza rolls and Blue Buffalo pet food. General Mills bought its longtime Minneapolis-based competitor for $10.5 billion in 2001, its largest deal ever.
As shoppers stretch their dollars following years of breakneck inflation and try to save time in the kitchen, the Pillsbury campaign struck a chord. Sales rose 10% in the past three months, and Google searches for the brand rose 50%.
Harmening said there is an “intangible” value behind a well-known brand like Pillsbury that keeps it top of mind at the grocery store.
“When the consumer brings that home, they know their family is gong to like it,” he said. “And so they turn to us because what they really can’t afford to do is buy something and have their family not eat it.”
Overall, General Mills sales were down for the quarter that ended in February. Revenue dropped 1% to $5.1 billion while profit fell 2% to $1.9 billion.
