General Mills CEO keeps a steady hand in turbulent time for Big Food

Of course General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening eats cereal almost every morning.

As the food industry navigates rapid change, it’s nice to have some consistency.

Harmening is one of the longest-tenured food company CEOs in the country. Since 2017 he’s steered General Mills through major acquisitions and divestitures, pandemic sales surges and the long inflation hangover that has followed. Or as chief financial officer Kofi Bruce called it, “some of the most disruptive periods in recent history.”

And the waves aren’t ebbing. Legacy food companies are facing a consumer rebellion against high prices and a patchwork of state-led policies on processed foods and ingredients. Then there’s weight-loss medication, sharper store-brand competition and the Make America Healthy Again movement.

Harmening often points out General Mills — a 159-year-old company that once designed a submarine and owned Red Lobster — has a long history of adaptation. It’s what kept the company alive and growing to the $19 billion behemoth that leads many grocery store categories today.

That willingness to change has to continue if General Mills wants to thrive and not just survive.

“There’s a wisdom that comes with having the courage to change and the ability to change,” Harmening said. “But at the same time, what are you going to keep constant?”

Even the notoriously pessimistic Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard thought the company has been “doing all the right things” to spur growth after General Mills’ investor day last month.

“For now, the company seems to be making some slow but steady progress,” she wrote.

Besides, Harmening, 58, isn’t ready to talk about his own legacy just yet. There’s too much still to do.

“I’m excited about the direction we’re going,” he said. “I’m actually pretty energized.”

There’s also more changing to do. The company is going through another restructuring, the second major reorganization of Harmening’s tenure. Brands might come and go as consumer tastes shift. Already artificial colors are on the way out.

“It’s not that you have to be perfect,” he said. “You just have to change better than everybody else.”

When Harmening first decorated his corner office in Golden Valley, General Mills did not sell pet food, and it still held tight to Yoplait and Hamburger Helper.

Since 2017, General Mills has spent more than $10 billion acquiring pet food brands and has sold off the yogurt and boxed-meal businesses the company helped pioneer.

Blue Buffalo was a massive bet that had many critics inside and outside the company. But it has been a major driver of growth for General Mills as pet parents started spending big on their dogs and cats.

“There were a few people unhappy when we did that,” Harmening said. “Courage is important.”

Nature Valley bars are losing market share, according to NielsenIQ data, and the baking mixes category Bisquick and Betty Crocker command is seeing less traffic. Pillsbury holds an 80% market share on canned dough, but its discounts and price cuts are bringing people in, which is unsustainable for long-term growth.

Harmening remains stubbornly optimistic about the company’s prospects.

“It is really hard to be certain in a dynamic environment,” he said, “but you can be clear. I think we’re clear on what it is we’re trying to do, where things have not gone as well as we want, where they’re going really well.”

Harmening prides himself on going to bed and waking up about the same time every day — 6:30 a.m. He tries to work out in the morning, even though his job has its strenuous moments, too.

“People say the job I have is like a marathon. It’s more like interval training,” he said. “You sprint for a while, and then you pause. And you sprint for a while, and you pause.”

“We said we have two things we want to accomplish: One is that we want to keep our employees safe, and the second is we want to keep the food supply safe,” he said. “That’s it. No financial metrics. And that was a command intent to the organization.”

That “command intent” is one of several leadership pillars, like authenticity, courage and empathy, that Harmening teaches students at DePauw University, his alma mater.

“In order for you to lead, someone has to follow, and people aren’t following strategies and plans, they’re following people,” he said. “They follow because they trust you, and people have a choice of whether they follow you or not. You cannot command somebody to follow you.”

Harmening came up through General Mills as a marketer, and he sells his vision for the company with an almost laid-back charm. Even as he’s sticking to a script, like onstage at investor day last month, there’s a tenor of improvisation and approachability more common in politicians than Fortune 500 CEOs.

And Harmening does have to play politics from time to time, as he was one of several food execs invited to the White House to speak with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this year. Harmening has worked to keep the company in the national conversation with his role on the Consumer Brands Association executive committee.

Harmening’s brother, who is also a CEO at Wisconsin-based Associated Bank, said the General Mills leader has had a solid focus and discipline since they were kids.