Malt-O-Meal Becomes MOM Brands
The Malt-O-Meal Co. has changed its corporate name to MOM Brands, a move the company says will better showcase its growing house of brands to retailers and consumers, and to better reflect the company that it is today.
With the new 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,” said 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.”
When Malt-O-Meal was founded in 1919, the company produced one item: Malt-O-Meal Hot Wheat cereal. Today, MOM Brands 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.
“Malt-O-Meal will continue to be a brand name we sell, but it will no longer be our company name,” Neugent said. “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. “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,” Neugent said. “Over the last few years, we have more than tripled our market share.”
The Malt-O-Meal brand ready-to-eat cereal was recently named one of the “Hottest Brands” of 2011 by Advertising Age. That year, 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.
“We pride ourselves on producing high-quality cereal that is affordable to mainstream America,” Neugent said. “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.”
Minneapolis-based MOM Brands is the largest family-owned cereal company in the United States.