General Mill is currently one of the largest food companies in the World. Its 2001 acquisition of Pillsbury, another leader in baking supplies, made it the number five food company in the world and number three in the United States. It is the United States’ leader in yogurt, number two in breakfast cereal (after Kellogg) and the third largest food service supplier in the world. Currently, it is a leading company in ready-to-bake products. The broadly defined group of grains covered by General Mill are of many types, including maize, wheat, barley, sorghum and rice. Nearly half of the grain is used directly as feed grain in the livestock sector while General Mill’s plants further process the other half. The grain processing chain is very long. The first processing step consists of dry milling, resulting in flakes, flour, and white rice, or wet milling, which then result in malt, starch, and glucose. These semi-finished products are used by the company as well as sold to a wide variety of food and no-food processing companies. Examples of food products include; bread and bakery products, beer, pasta and noodles. Nonfood products consist of textile, paper, animal feed and biofuels (Newton et al., 45). General Mill mostly deals with semi-processed products such as flour and starch as well as food products such as bread, bakery and pasta. Consumer habits have shifted rapidly over the past few years, and food issues like health, indulgence, variety, money value, and convenience have become very critical (General Mill). Resultantly, General Mill has made bakery and bread products according to this shift in consumer behaviour. The Corn Flakes are produced from maize and provide guidelines daily amounts for each of the nutrients (Supromma). The corn flakes are recommended for both young children and adults. The special K are made from light, crisp flakes of rice and wheat with succulent red berries and it is a recommended for people intending to lose weight and those wanting to increase fiber intake (Supromma). Weet-Bix cereals are made from whole grains and can be enjoyed by both young and old (Newton 16). Due to bulk market characteristics of the flour market, cost price efficiency and economies of the scale are significant. Besides, General Mill has engaged in forward integration towards the consumer so as to try to add more value to its products. While the breakfast cereal market is mature in the United States, General Mill is looking elsewhere to guarantee its future. It has done very well in snack food, especially in bugles chips. The company has strengthened its position in the joint venture. It works closely with Nestle and Cereal Partners Worldwide, which exchanges General Mill’s cereals and others outside North America. General Mills is also associated with PepsiCo in a joint endeavor called Snack Venture Europe (SVE) selling bugles and other snacks along with PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay snacks (Wright Investors’). Competition Besides the General Mills, the main players in the international cereal trading and processing industries are firms like Cargill, ConAgra and ADM (Howard 17). They all have a wide range of activities in processing and trading of various commodities. ADM is cu