Malt-O-Meal Changes Corporate Name to MOM Brands

Malt-O-Meal Company announced the introduction of its new MOM Brands corporate name and identity today in a move to better showcase its growing house of brands to retailers and consumers, and to better reflect the company that it is today. With the introduction of the MOM Brands corporate name, the company will reinforce its continued success and growth in the cereal category by focusing on low-cost innovation and its dedication to providing high-quality, great tasting products. “Our new corporate identity is a better fit for the wide range of products that we now offer,” says Chris Neugent, MOM Brands chairman and CEO. “We approach our business differently than our competitors, and that is what makes us so successful. We’re committed to producing high quality cereal, making our retail customers profitable, and saving families money.” Malt-O-Meal began its cereal-making journey in 1919 by producing one item—Malt-O-Meal Hot Wheat cereal—for which the company was eventually named in 1953. Today, MOM Brands produces much more than Hot Wheat – in fact, it currently produces 10 brands of cereal, including five all-natural ready-to-eat brands and a line of Better Oats instant oatmeal, as well as its core Malt-O-Meal brand ready-to-eat cereal line. The corporate rebranding is part of the company’s growth strategy and the new name will serve as an overarching name and identity to house all of its brands. While the corporate name is changing, all individual brands and product names will remain the same. “Malt-O-Meal will continue to be a brand name we sell, but it will no longer be our company name,” says Neugent. “We’re not the same company we were 10 years ago, and we wanted a name to reflect the company we’ve grown to be. MOM Brands is a great platform for all of our brands.” MOM Brands has experienced steady and strong growth in a category that has been flat for the past decade. MOM Brands now holds the number three spot in the cereal category, beating Post Cereal pound sales for the latest 52-week period of 2011.  Furthermore, the company has tripled its market share in the last several years, all without traditional CPG marketing tactics such as television advertising and Sunday circular coupons. The company’s sales in pounds were up 5.8% in 2011, outperforming big-spending competitors such as Kellogg’s, General Mills, Post, and Quaker. “Today, cereal is the third largest dry grocery category—$8 billion annually—but it is also a category that has been flat for the last decade. But at MOM Brands, sales are up,” says Neugent. “Over the last few years, we have more than tripled our market share and we now have more ready-to-eat brands in the top 50 cereal best sellers than either Post or Quaker. We are outperforming the competition and saving consumers money in the process.” As a further testament to the company’s growth and innovation, the Malt-O-Meal brand ready-to-eat cereal was recently named one of the “Hottest Brands” of 2011 by Advertising Age magazine. The line was selected because it does things differently, like finding new ways to talk to its consumers. Forgoing traditional CPG marketing tactics used by its larger competitors, in 2011 MOM Brands launched its Bag The Box campaign, which emphasizes the environmental benefits of using less packaging by packaging cereal in a bag instead of the traditional bag-and-box. Not only is bagged cereal a cost-saving move, but the bag-only packaging uses 75 percent less consumer packaging by weight, per pound of cereal delivered than the traditional bag-and-box combination. “We pride ourselves on producing high-quality cereal that is affordable to mainstream America. In fact, over the last six years, MOM Brands has saved American families more than $1 billion on breakfast cereal. We’re proving that great cereal doesn’t have to come in a wasteful and expensive box,” says Neugent. The introduction of the new MOM Brands name and corporate identity was announced to all employees in January. The company’s website now reflects the new name and look. In line with the company’s commitment to low cost innovation, the change to MOM Brands on packaging will be done over time and will be gradual.