General Mills looks to revive cereal sales by charging $13 a box

If General Mills has its way, the most important meal of the day is about to get a lot more expensive.

The food company's plan to revive cereal sales includes selling boxes of the breakfast food for 13 bucks a pop. Launched late last year, its new Morning Summit cereal contains dried cherries and cranberries, pumpkin seeds and whole grain cereal flakes to entice health-conscious consumers.

As CEO Jeff Harmening told the annual Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) investor conference Tuesday: "We're innovating in new product forms that command premium price points, including our new Morning Summit product, which has almonds as the first ingredient and sells for $13 a box."

That said, that $13 price in what consumers would pay at Costco, which has an exclusive deal with General Mills. Third-party sellers are charging substantially more: Walmart is selling the new cereal for $26.27, while Amazon's price tag for a box: $24.70.

Conversely, Cheerios, another General Mills breakfast product, can be had for less than four dollars for a family-size box.

Sales of the breakfast staple stabilized in 2019 after several years of declines in the $8 billion U.S. cereal market, according to Harmening.

"We believe this category improvement has been driven by a combination of our stronger performance and some improving macro and demographic trends, including a stabilization in the balance of breakfast at home versus away from home, as well as a return to growth and the number of households of kids in the U.S.," the CEO said.