General Mills Inc.'s (GIS) fiscal first-quarter earnings rose 35%, bolstered by acquisitions, and the company expects new products, especially yogurt, to help its slipping domestic sales return to growth this year.
"In our core U.S. market, we are seeing slow improvement in price and volume trends across our retail food categories," Chairman and Chief Executive Ken Powell said. "As we move into the second quarter, we'll be putting full advertising support behind our new items, and we have planned strong levels of in-store merchandising across our product categories."
The maker of Cheerios cereal and Betty Crocker baking products has struggled to mitigate higher raw-material costs with price increases. But pushback from budget-conscious consumers has contributed to lower sales volume and margins in recent quarters.
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