Breakfast cereals currently stand at a dramatic crossroads. Although they remain an iconic staple of the British breakfast table, they have been experiencing a slow, long-term decline in volume sales and relevance.
There is no single reason why, but a growing preference for on-the-go options and healthier alternatives has certainly played a part in this slump, which has now continued for more than a decade.
Although leading manufacturers such as Cereal Partners UK, a joint venture between Nestlé and General Mills, recognise this worrying trend, significant investments in production and innovation are still being made.
Brands including Shredded Wheat, Shreddies and Cheerios remain some of the most recognisable breakfast names among Britons.
It is in this context that Nestlé has chosen to invest more than £60 million in its flagship breakfast cereal facility in Staverton, Wiltshire, a move designed to support growth in the category for the next several decades.
Speaking exclusively to Food Manufacture, Nestlé’s business executive officer for Cereal Partners UK & Ireland, James Gerchow, explains why the Swiss giant has made this investment now and how it plans to revitalise the sluggish sector.
Laying down a marker
Nestlé’s expansion plans for Cereal Partners UK’s Staverton factory are no joke. A total investment of £66 million will see the site gain an additional 2,400sq m of manufacturing space, approximately doubling its production capacity.
This will also include the introduction of new equipment, such as extrusion technology, which is set to turbocharge productivity and manufacturing efficiency through continuous processing.
As we can see, Nestlé is still very serious about cereal. And Staverton is set to feature prominently within that vision, with the firm’s long-term strategy to consolidate UK and Ireland cereal production at the facility, creating a modern manufacturing base designed to support growth over the next few decades.
“This strategic decision builds into our vision for the next 20 to 50 years for the breakfast cereal business here in the UK, which is to essentially transform our operating base [at Staverton] into one that fully houses all of our products,” Gerchow explains.
“Our aim is to house all of our breakfast lines on site, which already includes Shreddies and Shredded Wheat, and the intent was to bring Cheerios under the same roof, being the largest brand in our portfolio.”
Although the closure of Cereal Partners UK’s Cheerios factory in the Wirral is the result of a push for a leaner, more streamlined model, Nestlé’s decision to double down on Staverton clearly shows that it harbours significant ambitions for cereal, not only in the UK but across Europe.
Through this sizeable investment, Nestlé expects to create between 40 and 60 jobs at the factory, primarily recruiting engineers and manufacturing technicians.
Benefiting from a high level of automation, Staverton’s employees tend to skew towards higher-skilled roles, and the new jobs created will be no different, as factory manager Craig Ainsborough tells us.
“We’re looking to hire engineers, looking to hire people that have got a technical ability. It may not be that they’ve got a technical qualification, but that they’ve worked in some sort of technical operator background.
“We pay a significant premium for people that we bring in, and we call them manufacturing technicians. We don’t call them operators. We need people with technical aptitude, and then we build on the technical aptitude that they come with. The interview process is quite rigorous.”
It is no longer simply about boots on the ground for Nestlé’s cereal operations. Instead, the focus is on recruiting highly skilled, specialised personnel capable of helping the company take its cereal products to the next level, which will be essential if it is to compete in an increasingly crowded and competitive breakfast market.
Health is wealth
Staverton will be at the heart of this future vision for cereal, which, out of necessity, will see Nestlé expand and diversify its breakfast portfolio to better capture the hearts and minds of 21st-century consumers.
Central to this will be new products focused on offering customers functional health benefits, containing greater amounts of fibre and a wider variety and concentration of vitamins.
Over the last decade, and in the 2020s in particular, the British shopper has grown more health-conscious than ever before, and perhaps more health-literate than ever before to boot.
In this context, it is crucial for traditional legacy brands such as Shreddies, Shredded Wheat and Cheerios to adapt and diversify, something Gerchow is all too aware of.
“Consumers are increasingly looking for the reassurance that the staples that they’re used to are delivering not just the convenience and the taste, but also the health that we increasingly are aware of as a society that we need.
“One of the key contributions that our breakfast cereals make is whole grain. Whole grain is our number one ingredient. It’s across all of our breakfast cereals, so it gives us the opportunity to confidently offer consumers and shoppers a portfolio of cereals that will be contributing whole grain to their diets.”
He continues: “We know that nine out of ten adults aren’t getting enough fibre as it is, so fibre is a really important delivery that comes with our breakfast cereals, and one that we think is really relevant. Breakfast cereals that are whole grain-rich and fibre-rich, I would say, are the first key element of what we think we can offer consumers and what consumers are looking for.”
According to Food Manufacture’s research partner Lumina Intelligence, as many as 83% of consumers worldwide now purchase foods with added benefits, clearly illustrating strong demand for functional ingredients.
Nestlé has already begun to respond to this trend with its new Shredded Wheat Happy Heart and Active ranges, which contain higher levels of fibre, vitamins and minerals designed to support overall health.
Using its leading position in mainstream, health-oriented cereals, Nestlé believes that innovation, in both NPD and production methods, will be the key to outperforming the wider market.
“There’s plenty of growth spaces in the category where we are going to deploy more effectively with the capabilities that we’re building here in Staverton with extrusion. So increasingly, we’ll be able to be the ones that are driving growth in the category, that’s the intent.”
Despite rapidly evolving consumer needs and tastes, Gerchow strikes a confident tone when looking towards the future:
“The category will continue to change over time and consumer preferences will change over time as well. What’s key for us is knowing that we’re in such an important category at breakfast.
“Household penetration of breakfast cereal is north of 98%. Everybody eats cereal at some point during the year, and with relatively high frequency, the UK has the second-highest per capita consumption of breakfast cereal in the world.”
Quiet confidence
But why have breakfast cereals remained such a phenomenon with the British public?
Gerchow identifies convenience, health and taste as the three key pillars behind why the relatively simple product has attained such an iconic and prominent position in Western food culture.
These pillars will continue to be central to Nestlé’s strategy going forward and, the company believes, will continue to set cereals apart in an increasingly competitive breakfast market.
“The future for the cereal category is all about finding ways to better deliver against the evolving needs of people on those three levels. We always need to have tastes that consumers appreciate and love.”
He adds: “We have to make sure that we are increasingly convenient, and that might be with new formats, new sizes, new ways to deliver the product.
“And last but not least, and certainly the most important, is we have to make sure that cereal increasingly delivers on the health agenda.”
The world of breakfast cereals is in transition, it seems, but perhaps rumours of its demise have been a little hasty. The category may be declining by around 1%-2% in volume annually, but Gerchow points out that it is continuing to grow in value.
Given Nestlé’s significant bricks-and-mortar investment in the category at Staverton, alongside a pipeline of high-profile NPD hitting supermarket shelves, the Swiss food giant appears quietly confident that breakfast cereals still have plenty more to give.
