The General and Me

Bienvenido loyal reader! Please join Bruce and Mary as they traverse the food aisles at local grocery marts exploring  General Mills (son Joe’s employer) connection with Mexico. As usual for those of you email subscribers who prefer to view these posts from the blog-site, please click here.

 We start our search at Pacsadeli, a cool restaurante supply (and retail) store on Calle 56, 37 y 35, Centro.

Pacsadeli has lots of things hard to find elsewhere but not much for GMI products except for Bisquick.

 Our next stop is Superama out on Tecnologico.

 Here’s a cooler full of Haagen Dazs, GMI’s entry in the premium ice cream market.

 And the next stop is “our” Walmart, on Paseo and Av Aleman. This is where we do our weekly grocery shopping. As I have mentioned elsewhere, we were not Walmart shoppers in our previous lives, but down here the Walmart social contract is much more civilized.

 In the mood for Cheerios? Lots of choices here. As you can see the branding is Nestle. Back in 1990 GMI and Nestle formed a 50/50 venture called Cereal Partners World-Wide which has grown into the number 2 cereal producer in the world (behind #1 Kellogg Company) marketing into 130 countries. And CPW has been here a long time, entering the Mexican market in 1992. But I have a question for my GMI readers, and don’t be shy, now. Since this is a 50/50 venture why is 100% of the branding going to Nestle S.A. ?

 If you want to have fun with prices, here is the factor, today: .079, so 33P is $2.61USD.

 If you look closely you can see the CPW branding on the side of the box, at the bottom.

Trix has had some staying power, eh?

 I did not know that Nature Valley is a GMI brand.

 And who does not know that the General now commands controlling interest in Yoplait, the number 2 Yogurt brand in the world (yes the evil Dannon is still number 1)

 And now for something completely different. I have this image here only so that meat eaters can see some prices in a Mexican Walmart. Remember, .079 is the factor. Keep in mind these prices are por kilo.

 And another brand with staying power. We boomers grew up with Chex Mix, now it comes ready-made.

Ok, ok…. I gotta come clean. The main reason, really,  for this post (not that I don’t enjoy a shout-out for GMI people) is to congratulate Joe (and brag about nuestro hijo) on his recent promotion to Territory Manager for the Bakery Ingredients Group, East Region. The General will be moving Joe and his lovely bride Meryah to the Philly area shortly. FYI: We have already reserved the caretakers’ cottage on the future Kelley compound. You go, Joe!!

Thanks for visiting, gentle reader. As usual Bruce loves comentarios and is expecting several enlightening ones from GMI followers, who according to Joe, comprise about 90% of Bruce and Mary’s blog fans. Hasta proxima Domingo! 

February 5, 2012 · Bruce · 4 Comments
Posted in: Life in Merida