Consumer Business Recap: Disney’s Brave ROCKS Box Office, Major Cereals LOSE OUT to Value Brands

Disney’s (NYSE:DIS) film Brave exceeded predictions, as it scored $66.7 million on its opening weekend. Brave is the13th straight Pixar studio product to open as the strongest movie in the country, while it relieved another kids-oriented film, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, of its leading position.

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Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) officially commences operations at its newly acquired refinery near Philadelphia, which will constitute a test case to see if a carrier can vertically integrate with a supplier in order to reduce its fuel costs. The firm’s subsidiary Monroe Energy will begin maintenance on the facility during the next few weeks, aimed at starting fuel production in the fall.

Cereal majors General Mills (NYSE:GIS), Kellogg (NYSE:K), and Post Holdings (POST) lose market shares to the knockoff specialist MOM Brands, formerly known as Malt-O-Meal, as more consumers see the virtue of the latter’s value-oriented proposition with its cereals. MOM is private equity, and markets similar products to its rivals in name and in substance, but sporting average costs per ounce 20 to 25 percent lower. The upstart’s ad budget is tiny compared to what the historic cereal makers shell out, and that is how MOM is able to compete.

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