GIS General Mills Inc

By Micah Maidenberg 

General Mills Inc. struggled to lift sales in the latest quarter amid weakness in its snack products.

The Minneapolis-based company reported a weaker performance from its snacking products in its North American business, the company's largest by sale. The company's snack brands include Chex Mix, Nature Valley and Bugles corn snacks.

Sales of other products, such as cereal and yogurt in the U.S., were in line with a year earlier. Total sales in General Mills' North American segment fell 2% to $2.34 billion.

Shares of General Mills fell 5.8% to $50.61 in premarket trading.

Overall for the quarter ended May 26, the company reported $4.16 billion in total sales, short of the $4.24 billion analysts predicted, according to FactSet.

General Mills said organic sales, a metric that excludes the effect of currency fluctuations, acquisitions and asset sales, fell 1% in its fiscal fourth quarter, reflecting lower volumes.

The maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurt and Nature Valley granola bars posted a profit of $570.2 million, or 94 cents a share, up from $354.4 million, or 59 cents a share, a year earlier. After adjustments, the company's profit of 83 cents a share was more than analysts' targets.

For its fiscal 2020 year, General Mills said it expects organic sales to rise between 1% and 2%. It forecasts its adjusted profit to increase 3% to 5% versus the prior fiscal year.

General Mills reported an adjusted gross profit margin of 35.3% for the latest quarter, down compared with a year earlier because of higher input cost.

Write to Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 26, 2019 09:11 ET (13:11 GMT)

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