Here's why it's been hard to find dough, pizza rolls at the grocery store
General Mills has been struggling to get Pillsbury dough and Totino's pizza rolls on grocery store shelves in recent months, but shoppers who are looking for these items are in luck — things are improving.
Golden Valley-based General Mills in its presentation of quarterly financial results on Wednesday blamed supply shortages as to why shoppers haven't always been able to find its various refrigerated dough, pizza and hot snacks products as easily in recent months.
General Mills' frozen pizza brands include Totino's and Annie's, while its refrigerated dough brand is Pillsbury.
So-called services levels for these products dropped into the 70% range, well below the high 90% range where General Mills likes to be to ensure shoppers can find the products they're looking for when they go to the store, the company shared this week (see table below).
CEO Jeff Harmening said Wednesday "supply-driven challenges" in the refrigerated dough, pizza and hot snacks category in the U.S. caused lower customer service and reduced on-shelf availability in the third quarter. But General Mills said it responded urgently to address the problems, which led to a rebound at the end of Q3, something Harmening expects to continue into Q4.
However, the company expects to see product availability below normal levels in Q4.
The supply chain disruptions that have challenged General Mills included bottlenecks at distribution centers and more recently disruptions in sourcing raw materials and ingredients to make the products, Jon Nudi, president of North America retail at General Mills, explained, according to CNN.
Related [Dec. 3, 2021]: Fresh off $3.1B profit, report says General Mills plans to increase prices of grocery items
In some cases, these issues has forced General Mills to tweak some of its recipes based on the availability of ingredients, and has also been calling suppliers to "to make sure that we're being prioritized for ingredients."
Meanwhile, General Mills says the price for commodities, including wheat, has increased. This something that could continue to be exacerbated due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a major wheat-producing nation.
That being said, General Mills, which reported net sales of $18.1 billion in fiscal year 2021 and says it is less prone to extreme volatility, has been raising prices to help offset inflation, passing these costs to customers instead.
General Mills posted profits of $815 million on net sales of $4.5 billion in Q3, which ended Feb. 27.
