Comments by a Kellogg’s Company executive sparked an online protest movement called Let Them Eat Cereal.
Kellogg’s CEO Gary Pilnick said in a TV interview that families struggling with high grocery prices should eat cereal for dinner.
In response, Let Them Eat Cereal came up with a list of demands for Kellogg’s.
“Let’s just agree on some basics: it should cost less, it should be healthier, and it shouldn’t destroy the planet,” said Tallgirl, who founded the movement.
A full list of demands can be found on the Let Them Eat Cereal website.
Organizers said these changes should be made without affecting the company’s employees.
The group is calling for a boycott of all Kellogg’s products from April through June.
“If we can financially affect a quarter, a visual drop on a specific day for 90 days and then it goes back up -- if it’s a quarter then it has to show up in their quarterly reports,” Tallgirl said.
But Jobu Babin, Associate Professor of Accounting, Finance, Economics, & Decision Sciences at Western Illinois University, questioned whether the boycott will be effective.
“First of all, that seems like a very short period of time to affect the change that, as I understand it, these people want to do,” he said.
“A company like this is well suited to sort of wait it out.”
But Babin also said that even if there is not a large financial impact from the boycott, there could be a reputational one.
“One way the boycotts can work is by negative publicity,” he said.
Let Them Eat Cereal is not stopping with Kellogg’s.
The group is calling for back-to-back boycotts of Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi to follow this one.
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