\n
[ad_1]
\n<\/p>\n
Days after the CEO of Kellogg\u2019s The boycott, proposed on TikTok, would run from April 1 to June 30 and calls for customers to purchase products from other companies in order to send Kellogg\u2019s a message during the second quarter of its fiscal year. They\u2019re also demanding that Kellogg\u2019s lower its prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no reason for you to jack up your prices the way you did, except to screw us,\u201d one TikTok user said<\/a> in a video with 2 million views and more than 300,000 likes, and counting, as of Friday. \u201cAnd you know what? Now we\u2019re going to screw you \u2014 while eating some other brand\u2019s cereal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cInflation has continued to rise year over year over year, and they continue to do nothing about it,\u201d added another TikTok user calling to boycott Kellogg\u2019s<\/a> in a video with more than 655,000 views and 118,000 likes. \u201cFirst we were told that we drink too much Starbucks. Then it was, stop having so much avocado toast. Now Kellogg\u2019s CEO wants to tell us, \u2018Oh, you can\u2019t afford dinner, that\u2019s OK, just buy Frosted Flakes and you\u2019ll be all right.\u2019 Touch\u00e9 there, but I will not be eating Kellogg\u2019s Frosted Flakes.\u201d<\/p>\n WK Kellogg Co. CEO Gary Pilnick made the comments that inspired the protests in an interview with CNBC last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe cereal category has always been quite affordable, and it tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure,\u201d Pilnick said. \u201cIf you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do, that\u2019s going to be much more affordable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The price of a bowl of cereal with milk and fruit is less than a dollar, he estimated.<\/p>\n Consumer advocates, however, noted that Kellogg\u2019s is among the companies that have raised prices in the past two years<\/a>, helping fuel higher-than-normal inflation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cKellogg\u2019s CEO found an angle to exploit an industry-driven food-insecurity crisis to bulk up his company\u2019s profits, but everyday families should not have to make these kinds of choices in the first place,\u201d Liz Zelnick, the director of the economic security and corporate power program at Accountable.US, a left-leaning consumer advocacy group, said in an email to MarketWatch.<\/p>\n The solution to what Zelnick called price gouging by the food industry is not for consumers to eat Froot Loops every meal, she said, but for Congress to pressure food companies not to raise prices even as they post near-record profits.\u00a0<\/p>\n The price per unit of Kellogg\u2019s products was up by 17.1%<\/a> in October compared with the same month a year earlier, the highest increase among ready-to-eat cereal brands, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.<\/p>\n A Kellogg\u2019s representative confirmed to MarketWatch that the company\u2019s last major price increase was in March 2023. On the company\u2019s most recent earnings call, Pilnick said, \u201cWe are still working our way through that,\u201d implying that the company was still seeing the effects of the 2023 price increase.<\/p>\n Kellogg\u2019s did not respond to a request for comment on Pilnick\u2019s interview and did not immediately respond to a separate request for comment about the boycott.<\/p>\n Kellogg\u2019s has been advertising the idea of cereal for dinner since summer 2022, when the rate of inflation reached a 40-year high.\u00a0<\/p>\n A 48-box variety pack of Kellogg\u2019s cold breakfast cereal cost $29.26 on Amazon Asked during the CNBC interview whether his suggestion could land the wrong way, Pilnick said the idea of cereal for dinner was actually \u201clanding really well right now.\u201d About 25% of Kellogg\u2019s cereal consumption happens outside of breakfast, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of it is at dinner, and that condition continues to grow,\u201d Pilnick said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Accountable.US published a report<\/a> in 2023 arguing that corporate profiteering \u2014 the tendency of companies to raise prices while rewarding shareholders and padding profits \u2014 is pushing up consumer prices<\/a> beyond the impact of supply-chain disruptions caused by the pandemic and recent geopolitical tensions. Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank, released a similar report recently that found corporate profits were behind more than half of the inflation<\/a> seen from April to September 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHigh prices at the checkout line is not an accident,\u201d said Rakeen Mabud, the chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kellogg\u2019s specifically is part of a concentrated cereal market with very few competitors, leaving families without many choices, she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s one reason prices are still high even as inflation has been coming down, Robert Reich, a former secretary of labor and the co-founder of Inequality Media, said in an email to MarketWatch.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey can get away with overcharging consumers because they have near-monopoly power \u2014 or so few competitors they can easily coordinate price increases,\u201d Reich said.<\/p>\n Some have disputed the \u201cgreedflation\u201d narrative. Commentary last month from the libertarian Cato Institute, for example, said that \u201cnonsense on profit-driven inflation<\/a>\u201d had \u201cdangerous policy implications.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, U.S. consumers spent a greater share of their income on food in 2022 than they had in 30 years, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report that cited Agriculture Department data.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n \u201c<\/span>\u2018Telling people that they should resort to cereal for dinner, as these mega-corporations make huge profits off of higher prices on essentials like food, is cruel.\u2019\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p>\n
\n KLG,
\n
\n suggested that inflation-weary families should eat cereal for dinner, some outraged consumers pointed out that the cereal and snack company had raised its own prices in recent years and called for a three-month boycott of Kellogg\u2019s products.<\/p>\n\n\u2018Families should not have to make these kinds of choices\u2019<\/h2>\n
\n AMZN,
\n
\n as of Sunday, compared with around $10 in March 2020, according to the price-tracking website Camelcamelcamel.com<\/a>. The price of that variety pack peaked at $38 in late 2023. The product listing tracked by Camelcamelcamel.com<\/a> is sold by Amazon.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u2018High prices at the checkout line is not an accident\u2019<\/h2>\n
\n\n
\n