Everyone loves breakfast for dinner — usually. One big exception is when the CEO of a major breakfast cereal company suggests that people who are having trouble affording food right now thanks to greedflation just eat their cereal for dinner. Especially when they happen to be one of the companies that has, in fact, been jacking up their prices for no good reason.
“The cereal category has always been quite affordable, and it tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure,” Kellogg’s CEO Gary Pilnick said amid a discussion about high grocery prices on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last week. “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.”
Oh, is it really?
CNBC host Carl Quintanilla asked Pilnick if perhaps he thought those comments might “land the wrong way” with consumers, but Pilnick laughed that right off, “In fact, it’s landing really well right now. Cereal for dinner is something that is probably more on trend now, and we would expect [it] to continue as that consumer is under pressure.”
Well, it looks like Pilnick was very, very wrong about that and consumers were, in fact, pretty pissed off about his comments — especially in light of the fact that, when it comes to price gouging, Kellogg’s is one of the biggest offenders.
Via MarketWatch:
Kellogg’s has been advertising the idea of cereal for dinner since summer 2022, when the rate of inflation reached a 40-year high.
A 48-box variety pack of Kellogg’s cold breakfast cereal cost $29.26 on Amazon as of Sunday, compared with around $10 in March 2020, according to the price-tracking website Camelcamelcamel.com . The price of that variety pack peaked at $38 in late 2023. The product listing tracked by Camelcamelcamel.com is sold by Amazon.
Ever since Pilnick made those comments, people have been talking about boycotting Kellogg’s. Activists on TikTok are pushing to do it in a more strategic way, aimed specifically at getting Kellogg’s, and ultimately other companies, to lower their prices and stop the price gouging.
In a video that has received over 2.5 million views, TikTok user TallGirl624 called for solid boycott strategy — a #LetThemEatCereal campaign — that is highly reminiscent of UAW president Shawn Fain’s stand-up strike plan.
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The plan is to go by the quarter — to boycott Kellogg’s starting April 1 (because they’re fools but also because it’s when the second quarter begins) and continue for three months. If they don’t lower their prices by at least 25 percent, the boycott continues. According to the Linktree for the #LetThemEatCereal campaign (which also offers alternatives to Kellogg’s products for those who buy them), the Quarter 3 target will be Nestle and the Quarter 4 target will be Coca-Cola. This way, these companies and others will be able to really see the impact of the boycotts and feel more pressure to drop their prices.
Twenty-five percent, not-so-coincidentally, is the amount that prices for groceries have increased over the past four years. Other goods have gone up by 19 percent and have started to decline, but the price of food just keeps increasing, and it’s time to do something about it.
Last week, when word got out that Wendy’s was going to implement dynamic pricing throughout the day — like the “surge pricing” we see with rideshare companies when rides are in high demand — people were so pissed off that the company was forced to walk it back and swear they were not going to do anything of the kind, that they were just going to offer discounts during slow parts of the day. It’s still kind of the same thing, but they’re trying their darnedest to frame it differently because of the backlash.
We can’t just stop buying food entirely, and the food companies know this — which is exactly why they are fine with raising their prices so exorbitantly. However, targeting individual corporations one at a time makes it possible to make a big point without having to starve. If we make boycotts doable rather than overwhelming, people are more likely to participate and to keep the pressure on.
Should you wish to participate (and you should!) here is a list of Kellogg’s products along with some recommended replacements, and a link to the ever-helpful Buycott app and barcode scanner that will let you know if something is being boycotted, so you don’t have panic attacks about whether or not you can buy strawberries in the produce aisle because you think the boycott was over but can’t get the internet to tell you for sure. Not that that very specific thing has happened to anyone we know.
The fact is, there are more of us than there are of them and we have the power to vote with our wallets and fight back, so we may as well do so.
PREVIOUSLY:
If you're poor, the problem isn't only the cost of food - it's access to food and time to prepare it. Getting groceries and preparing a meal are not such easy tasks for people with three kids, two jobs, no car, and living several miles from a real grocery.
How much can a box of cereal cost anyway? 30 dollars?