General Mills - Overview and History - Essay Example

? General Mills- Overview and History General Mills- Overview and History Introduction General Mills, Inc. has been in existence for over a hundred and fifty years, and specializes in well-known consumer foods, both as a manufacturer plus marketer, selling these at retail stores. In addition, the company has its hand in commercial baking as well as food service industries as a provider of branded along with unbranded food products. The Company has its outfitted bases in 15 countries and its marketing reach is well over 100 countries. Besides that, the company has its joint ventures manufacturing and marketing products in over 130 countries in addition to republics globally. Its operations are categorized into three- Foodservice and baking, International- excludes their partnership with Japan and Cereal Partners Worldwide, CPW and U.S Retail- consisting of seven divisions of the branded retail products; its joint venture with CPW sees them selling ready-to-eat cereals. Overview Recently, the Company made an acquirement of a natural snacks food corporation known as Food Should Taste Good that is located within Needham Heights. Happening within the same year, 2012, "the Company acquired a 50% interest and a 51% interest in Yoplait Marques S.A.S and Yoplait S.A.S. respectively, and later on, during August, it obtained Yoki Alimentos SA" (Reuters, n.d). Following its mission ‘Nourishing Lives’, the Company has its healthy snacks brands such as Nature Valley bars and Yoplait dairy products still having a large consumer base worldwide. Most notable is its Gold Medal flour that, till today, has remained the number one selling flour in the United States. The Company also participates in philanthropic efforts through its General Mills Foundation, where "more than half a million dollars has been awarded to nonprofit organizations supporting local communities since 1954" (General Mills -foundation, n.d). Furthermore, it has remained consistent in paying dividends to its investors. Coming after the Kellog Company, General Mills is the number two cereals maker in America, in terms of size. General Mills employs an estimated 35,000 employees across its network in Asia Pacific, Europe, Canada, Latin America and South Africa, its manufacturing companies are situated in beyond 30 countries. Products The Company can be said to have had great success because of its consumer-relating brands on all its products. Other than the Gold Medal flour, its breakfast products fetch a considerable consumer base and they include "Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Chex, Wheaties and Trix" (General mills- cereals n.d). The lineup continues on with baking mixes under the name Betty Crocker, frozen bread called Pilsbury and yoghurt called Yoplait and Colombo, the Company also makes vegetables that are frozen and preserved named Green Giant, Progresso soups and Mexican seasonings. General Mills has a natural as well as organic products venture named Small Planet Foods that is responsible for marketing Cascadian Farm vegetables plus Muir Glen soups. In addition, it has a joint venture with 8th venture for marketing and selling soy-based products; where that company has a 50-50 partnership with Dupont. Operations Owing to the fact that General Mills’ has a diverse product range where each may have similar or different specifications, the company took up professional IT services from a Management Information Systems company to design a feature in their product specifications system. This feature would make it possible to conduct mass changes and undo designs of the products. The designing entailed rigorous testing with employees from its U.S and abroad operations also participating. This helped the Company to save time and minimize errors and subsequently, maintain consistent levels of quality in their products, their packaging and delivery to various parts of the world; while at the same time adhering to strict regulations. The system has the added advantage of allowing the Company to make more than 10,000 modifications in its products, enabling it to support innovation efforts. This is because the system facilitates easy adjusting of ingredients, design of cereal boxes, specifications of processes and formulas. Over time, this has afforded them a relatively competitive position within the foodservice and baking products industry as they are able to respond to changes in regulation in any of their global markets. History Coming into existence around the 1860s, General Mills began with focus in milling where it produced flour containing better-quality baking products (General Mills-history, n.d.). Its initial operational base was in Minneapolis and after some time, in the 1960s, the Company decided to market children products named after memorable characters such as Betty Crocker and the Lone Ranger, some of these products are nerf balls, monopoly and easy bake ovens (General Mills-history, n.d.). Cadwallader Washburn is the person responsible for the first milling plant and as he set out on this he received criticism with people saying that his attempts at supplying flour would not match the demand. He brought into existence the Minneapolis Milling Company having the objective of of letting out rights and authority to carry out milling operations in 1856. After 10 years, he created the first flour milling company at a prime location in Minneapolis near the Mississippi river;. in 1874, paying no heed to continued criticism, he put up a second and even larger facility. Within five years, the milling capacity in Minneapolis faced a misfortune when a flour dust explosion wiped out six milling plants, Washburn’s mill included. This reduced the milling capacity to half but this did not deter Washburn. Soon after, he set up a new and advanced mill with the determination of guaranteeing the safety of the operations without compromising on the quality of the flour. His efforts paid off in 1880 when he partnered with Crosby to enter their finest flours into the International Millers’ Exhibition competition; they won the gold, silver and bronze medals. This gave them- the Washburn Crosby Company flour, the recognition of having the best flour in the world; not long after, they changed the flour’s name to Gold Medal flour. This later came to be General Mills and over time came the birth of its characters named after their core products. For example, Betty Crocker was created to respond to questions directed to the company about baking, giving their products a personal touch. Currently, General Mills has revised its core values after remaining unchanged for more than 20 years. This saw them creating five core values that essentially reiterate their commitment to remaining adherent to regulations and constant superior performance, growing their brands, sustaining innovation and treating their employees well. Being a global company, it has been able to keep its culturally diverse employees satisfied by maintaining constant communication with them and providing them with training and career development opportunities (Zeidner, 2011). References General mills. n.d Cereals .Retrieved from http://www.generalmills.com/Brands/Cereals.aspx General mills. n.d History .Retrieved from http://www.generalmills.com/Company/History.aspx General Mills. n.d. General Mills Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.generalmills.com/Responsibility/community_engagement/general_mills_foundation_2010.aspx Reuters. (n.d). General Mills Inc (GIS.N). Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyProfile?symbol=GIS.N Zeidner, R. (2011). “General Mills’ HR Recipe”. SHRM. Retrieved from http://www.shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/editorialcontent/2011/0911/pages/0911zeidner.aspx Read More