Sales were also down at the breakfast cereal manufacturer and fell 10% to £135m (€150m) in the same period. The main reason for the fall in sales was due to a £10m pay-out on redundancies where it cut 90 jobs, or around 10% of its workforce last November.

In August, the world’s largest cereal-maker reported that group sales for the quarter fell by almost 7%. This was the sixth quarter in a row where sales fell.

The company is trying to turn around its struggling breakfast cereal division and has been cutting costs to improve margins.

Preferences

This situation is not just particular to Kellogg's. Breakfast cereal manufacturers are struggling to adapt to the shift in consumer preference to fresh foods and items perceived as healthier.

In the UK, breakfast cereal volumes dropped 7% from the four years between 2009 and 2013. Consumption has been dropping at least 1% each year for the last decade. The cold breakfast cereals category is still number one among ready-to-eat breakfast, holding at a $10 billion industry in the US. But that share is being eaten into by the competition, particularly from on-the-go varieties and protein alternatives such as Greek yoghurt.

The most popular way of consuming milk is still with cereal with around 25% of liquid milk consumed in this way.

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