MINNEAPOLIS — General Mills is promising more deals and promotions across several of its brands in the months ahead, as the company works to boost sales and hold onto price-conscious (and inflation-wary) customers.

“It’s clear that — from the beginning of the year until now… we’ve seen more prolonged value-seeking behavior (from consumers) than we anticipated back in June,” said General Mills CEO, Jeff Harmening, in a call with investors on Wednesday.

The company is now lowering its profit outlook for the rest of the fiscal year, expecting operating profits to fall 2% to 4%, as it expands short-term price cuts and promotions on items like Totino’s Pizza Rolls, fruit snacks and refrigerated baked goods.

“They’ve always done promotions, so I think what this means is that they’re gonna do promotions a little bit more broadly, but they’re still not prepared to actually uh drop the top line prices,” said professor George John, who is the General Mills-Gerot Chair in Marketing at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. “I may hold the General Mills Chair in marketing but I’ve never had any pressure from them to support them.” 

John says he’s not sure the efforts announced by General Mills will be enough to combat a larger trend he’s seen play out for more than a decade.

“Our habits have changed,” John said. “That’s number one. Yes, this is a tactical move it’ll make some difference, but it’s not gonna solve the fundamental problem of the loss of prominence of breakfast cereal.”

Despite General Mills owning 45 different brands that cover everything from dog food to Dunkaroos, John says cereal is still central to the success or failure of the company and if you combine the general public’s changing views on taste and nutrition, with economic shifts like inflation and how we shop, he has deeper concerns.

George John: “I look at one thing in all these annual reports sales because everything else is subject to my competent brothers and sisters in accounting. Sales you can’t fiddle too much and sales have been just beating inflation, which means in real terms it’s stagnant. In organic volume, which means number of physical units shipped, it’s been going down. So that’s the basic picture. Which is not a pretty picture. “

Kent Erdahl: “Having said that, General Mills isn’t just a company behind the labels in the grocery store, it’s a major employer in our area. We’ve seen several of our big corporations cutting back recently (some announcing layoffs). Are you concerned about that?” 

George: “Oh, terribly. I see this every semester. My students I teach are looking for internships and jobs. The anecdotal picture on jobs in our area is a lot grimmer than the the statistics show. I just see it in the faces of my students looking.

It’s tough and it’s toughest on people trying to enter the labor force. There are a bunch of different reasons for that, but when you slow down the growth, that’s what happens. You don’t need to hire, you’re mostly trying to do efficiency cuts and things like that.  That’s not just General Mills. I’d say – generally speaking – our metro areas sort of, um, been caught in that rut.”

MINNEAPOLIS — Holidazzle is back in downtown Minneapolis.

After 10 years in Loring Park, organizers with the Minneapolis Downtown Council are bringing the holiday-themed festival back to Nicollet Mall.

The event will be held Wednesday through Sunday with live music every night on two stages downtown. The event also features food trucks, drinks, and more than 200 vendors that will be selling crafts and holiday-themed gifts.

Holidazzle also features several indoor activities, including a nine-hole mini golf course and a roller skating rink with free roller skate rentals for adults and kids.

For more information click here.

ST PAUL, Minn. — Inside the Minnesota State Capitol, there are many signs of the holidays. Inside the rotunda, a Christmas tree greets those entering the building.

Down the hallway, carolers made up of lawmakers, pastors and Christians sing their reason for the season.

Next to them, though, is what they say is an unwanted guest.

“We have not come here to honor that,” a speaker to the group said, pointing towards a display in the middle of the room.

“I think that the display is poorly timed, and it was done on purpose to be an offense to Christians,” State Representative Jim Nash, R-48A, said.

That display is of a phoenix rising from the ashes, surrounded by paper cranes, underneath an upside-down pentagram. The display was put up by the Minnesota Satanists, and according to the group, is their first holiday display.

“I can’t change the fact that that’s here, I can lend my voice to the fact that I’m not on board with the message behind it,” Nash, who spoke and prayed alongside others in the group of more than fifty, said.

“In a free country, the answer to one person’s speech is another person’s speech,” State Representative Harry Niska, R-31A, said. “If you disagree with it, then express yourself.”

“We celebrate as Minnesotans and Americans, that we’re allowed to have differences of opinion and of religious practice, and it’s all guaranteed and we can do it by the Constitution,” Minnesota Satanists Congregation Leader Asmodeus Sion said. “The reason we put it up was for representation. We wanted to bring joy and beauty to the community, and tertiary to that, we wanted to express our First Amendment rights,” Sion continued.

The group applied for a permit and was approved by the Minnesota Department of Administration, which handles the displays that go on inside the State Capitol building. The Minnesota Satanists display is set to run through next week.

The Department of Administration also said they approved a nativity scene as well.

That plurality of religions is key – and guaranteed by the First Amendment.

“The government cannot establish religion, it cannot discriminate against religion,” Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said.

“If they’re going to allow one display, then they have to allow others,” Kirtley said. “As long as they conform with whatever permanent process the government has established that has to be done in a neutral way.”

Kirtley says just like any other group, if they follow the rules, they have the right to display their religious symbols too.

“If there’s any place that something like that should not be damned, it’s got to be a public space where government operates, because our government is supposed to be the government of the people,” she said. “That’s all the people.”