Food in the A.M.

Cereals for consenting adults

When familiar kiddie cereals, such as Cap'n Crunch, Franken-Berry and Count Chocula, are joined on supermarket shelves by Most, Smart Start and Corn Bran, it signals a shift in American breakfast habits. And in the fickle but fruitful cereal industry ($2.3 billion in sales this year) breakfast-food makers are scrambling to keep pace.

What is changing is the average age of the U.S. cereal consumer. Because of declining birth rates, the number of children 13 and under --still the most voracious breakfast-food eaters -- is falling. But adults are gobbling up more cereal than ever. According to a study published by Wall Street's Drexel Burnham Lambert, the biggest increase in morning munching since 1972 is in the 19-to-49 age group. Those 50 and over have also increased their consumption. Says Arnold Langbo, president of the food products division of Kellogg, the industry leader: "Prior to the 1950s it was all family cereals like Corn Flakes. Then came the presweetened cereals like Sugar Smacks, and now we are aiming at a more mature market." Nine new cereals--mostly high in fiber and relatively low in fat and calories--aimed primarily at consenting adults are now being launched.

The marketing challenge is formidable. With after-inflation sales growing only 1% to 2% a year, cereal companies scrap hard for supermarket shelf space and advertise loudly to catch consumer attention. People switch brands as often as ten times a year, and a new brand has only six months to establish itself before losing out to a more popular competitor. Only one-third of new brands survive.

The trend of cereals for big kids started with the introduction of so-called natural breakfast foods made of oats, honey, raisins and nuts with no nutrition-boosting additives. But the bloom of the early 1970s back-to-nature movement faded once it became known that they were heavy in fat and sugar and poor in nutrition. The naturals' market has shrunk from 10% in 1974 to the current 3%. Fortified bran-based cereals, helped by studies showing the health benefits of high-fiber diets, have replaced the natural products. Quaker Oats' Corn Bran is now one of the hottest new cereals on the shelf, while Ralston's Honey Bran and Kellogg's Most have also appeared in the past year. To hit even smaller segments of an increasingly fragmented market, Kellogg is test-marketing high-in-iron Smart Start for women of ages 20 to 40 and is considering a product for adults 65 and over.

Promoting new adult cereals demands an entirely different approach. Television advertising is on early-evening news shows or afternoon soap operas rather than on Saturday morning cartoons. Also, packages no longer carry pictures of gremlins or pixies to grab kids' attention. A box of adult-aimed Total, for example, carries enough charts and statistics to satisfy a computer programmer. Says General Mills Group Vice President Arthur Schulze: "People are interested in a low fat, low cholesterol diet. That helped these products a lot."

Even some of the oldest breakfast products are riding the new adult trend. Grape Nuts, the old staple, which has been around since 1897, is now being suggested as a yogurt topping. And Quaker oatmeal, which remains the most popular cereal of all, with 8% of the market, has started television advertising for the first time in a decade.

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