BOCA RATON, FLA. — General Mills, Inc. is looking to extend its portfolio of breakfast products with the test marketing of Bfast, a shelf-stable liquid breakfast drink for consumers on the go. The company discussed the new product during the Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference taking place this week.
“It is a milk-based product with the nutrition of a breakfast cereal,” Ian Friendly, chief operating officer of U.S. Retail for General Mills, Minneapolis, told Food Business News. “Which is, as we define cereal: vitamin nutrition, whole grains and fiber, and it’s pretty low calorie, too.”
Mr. Friendly said Bfast is analogous to a product sold in Australia called Up&Go and manufactured by a company called Sanitarium. Up&Go is a liquid nutrition beverage, but Sanitarium has extended the product platform to include a reduced-sugar variety, a high protein variety and an on-the-go breakfast yogurt.
“We’re excited about it,” Mr. Friendly said. “We think it helps on breakfast on the go. You could argue our grain snacks business has grown dramatically satisfying that consumer niche and so we already have a sense about that need.”
