Let them eat cereal!

Not that I haven't had more than a few cereal suppers. Just a few weeks back, I had oatmeal doctored up with blueberries, dried cranberries, raisins, pecans, and a pinch of cinnamon. I may have thrown a few chocolate chips in there while I was at it.

Oatmeal is my occasional fall/winter supper go-to. If I did a cereal dinner during the spring/summer - which would be rare - it would be Shredded Wheat or Cheerios, and whatever fresh fruit's around. In an emergency: raisins. 

So nothing wrong, once in a while, with answering 'What's for dinner?' with 'Cereal!'

Still, it was spectacularly wrong-footed for Kellogg CEO Gary Pilnick to suggest that stressed out consumers cope with rising grocery prices by putting a cereal meal on for dinner. 

Pilnick posed buying cereal for dinner to save money on groceries in an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Feb. 21. He was responding to a question regarding how high food prices are and how more than 11% of disposable consumer income goes toward purchasing it, according to the most recent data available at the U.S. Department of Agriculture....

“The cereal category has always been quite affordable and it tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure,” the cereal company’s CEO said. (Source: Today)

Cereal is a great "destination?" Seriously?

It's one thing for me to do cereal when I'm too tired to come up with anything easier, quicker, or better. Quite another when it's a struggling family with growing kids to feed. Cereal's the destination for breakfast. Cereal's a snack destination for a high-energy kid with a hollow leg. It shouldn't be the regular diet for anyone's family.

Pilnick makes millions of dollars a year. I'm guessing he's not putting a grocery-budget-stretcher dinner of Rice Krispies in front of his kids. 

“If you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do, that’s going to be much more affordable,” he added. “We talk about making sure that we have the right pack at the right price in the right place. So having a different sized pack that’ll have a different price point, that’ll take some pressure off the consumer while they’re shopping. So, those are some of the things that we’re doing. But, in general, the cereal category is a place that a lot of folks might come to because the price of a bowl of cereal with milk and with fruit is less than a dollar. So you can imagine why a consumer under pressure might find that to be a good place to go.”

And how does "having a different sized pack that'll have a different price point...take some pressure off?"

That different price point, that different sized pack, means paying less and getting less by paying more per portion. And it doesn't do a damn thing to offset hunger. We can't afford the family-sized box, kids, so we're using smaller bowls tonight.

Not to mention that so many cereals are full of unrefined carbs and tons of sugars, and that some of Kellogg's brands are not especially good for you. Okay, they're not responsible for Lucky Charms. That would be General Foods. But I don't care how much milk you pour on it, how much fresh fruit you chop in the bowl, there's no way that Apple Jacks are any damned good for you. 

In the full CNBC interview that aired, Pilnick was asked about “the potential” for his cost-cutting solution to “land the wrong way.”

“It's landing really well right now,” he answered. “Over 25% of our consumption is outside the breakfast occasion. A lot of it’s at dinner and that occasion continues to grow. Cereal for dinner is something that is probably more on trend now and we would expect to continue as that consumer is under pressure.”

Ah, cereal isn't just a destination. It's an occasion.  

I'm guessing that poor folks have been making plenty of cereal-based meals since forever, and that, for them, it's not a destination, it's not an occasion, it's a way to fill empty bellies.

Food costs are sky high. I'm shopping (mostly) for one, and I'm always doing a double take when I see how little you get, even when you're paying a lot. I can only imagine what it's like doing grocery shopping when you're on a tight budget and/or food stamps. Especially if you're shopping in a food desert where a lot of what might be on the shelf is sugared up, poor nutrition cereals from the likes of Kellogg's.

Maybe there are a few things that Kellogg's could be doing to help consumers - lower prices by spending less on coming up with more unhealthful products and bait-and-switch packaging concepts - but asking consumers to eat more cereals sure has a Marie Antoinette ring to it, doesn't it?

Let them eat cereal!