BOCA RATON, FLA. — Three years ago, General Mills, Inc. unveiled its Accelerate strategy, an initiative focused on building brands, innovating, adding scale and standing for good. Today, that effort continues with an eye toward trends that General Mills believes will define the consumer environment going forward, said Jeffrey L. Harmening, chairman and chief executive officer of Minneapolis-based General Mills.

“First, we see a continued demographic shift toward increasingly diverse, smaller and older households,” Harmening said during a Feb. 20 presentation at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference in Boca Raton. “Second, we believe that the humanization of pets will remain the largest driver of growth in the pet food category. Third, technology advancements, including digitization and AI (artificial intelligence) will continue to permeate both how we work and how we interact with consumers. And fourth, climate impacts and change will continue to grow in importance on the agendas of our consumers, our customers, our employees and our investors.”

Harmening said all the trends are critical as General Mills continues to focus on the things it can control in a world of ongoing volatility in order to drive long-term sustainable growth.

Harmening also spoke to some of the specifics of the company’s Accelerate strategy, and where progress has been made.

In brand building, he said General Mills has increased its media investment by 41% from fiscal 2018 to fiscal 2023, with investment up high single digits through the first half of fiscal 2024.

“We feel good about the support we have in place to continue to deliver bold, relevant and modern messages that resonate with today’s consumers,” he said.

Innovation is another area General Mills expects to take a significant step forward in during fiscal 2024, Harmening said, noting he expects innovation to be a larger contributor to the company’s growth as it moves forward. He described General Mills’ innovation strategy as much more than just new products.

“We think of innovation on a spectrum from developing new products and platforms within our established brands to an expansion of our core to new segments and geographies to portfolio reshaping through scaled M&A as well as creating new vectors of disruptive growth through Gold Medal Ventures,” he said. “Supply chain disruptions over the past few years have had a broad impact from the ability to service customers to driving cost productivity as well as our ability to deliver meaningful scale in our innovation.”

Harmening said General Mills has made significant investments over the past five years to build a world-class digital and technology infrastructure to add scale and profitability. To that end, he said the company’s team of data scientists has grown from running 2,000 models per month to running more than 6 million models that generate more than 500 million individual predictions monthly. He used the company’s recent launch of Cheerios Veggie Blends as an example of how General Mills’ is putting its digital and technology infrastructure to work.

“With the launch of Cheerios Veggie Blends, we focused our efforts on search, content and reviews to boost awareness and encourage trial,” Harmening explained. “First, we optimize search to ensure veggie blends appear to the top results for consumers looking for cereal or Cheerios. We also optimized our visual real estate to communicate key product benefits, including 1/4 cup fruit and veggies per serving, gluten-free and 100% recyclable packaging. And we worked with external partners to drive trial that would generate early ratings and reviews. As a result, Cheerios Veggie Blends is now turning in the top one-third of US cereal category where it’s on shelf.”

Another area of technology that is increasing in importance is AI. Harmening said General Mills is using AI to connect data across customer orders, supply disruptions and inventory levels to ensure it has the right product in the right place at the right time.