According to a report by Key Note, the breakfast cereals market continued to grow at an impressive rate in 2014, rising by 3.9% in market value despite falling volume sales. However, its growth remains highly dependent on the ongoing impact of high inflation on retail prices.

Breakfast cereals enjoy extensive brand awareness having played a prominent role in consumers younger years cemented on breakfast tables. Despite this, the industry has been confronted by several problems, not least a depleting consumer base as the result of a mass exodus triggered by the widening multitude of alternate breakfast options, such as breakfast drinks and biscuits.

Breakfast cereals remain highly popular among British consumers, upheld for their superior source of energy and nutritional fortification. However, the industry is changing as breakfast cereals become increasingly absent from shopping baskets in line with changing eating habits and consumer demand. The market has responded accordingly and cereal aisles have dramatically changed in appearance, driven by demand for health, convenience and nutrition. Over the past few years product choice has shifted from frivolously packaged, excessively sugary and brightly coloured boxes to natural, unadulterated cereals in quaint, fresh packaging laden with nutritional information and advice.

The shift has been most apparent in the childrens subsector, which has faced mounting concern among parents about sugar content as awareness grows of matters of diet and health, catalysed by worsening childhood obesity. It is plain to see why the market grows more competitive as brands scramble to secure growth in an ever more saturated marketplace.

Therefore, in the face of difficult market conditions it is essential that the market remains dynamic, committing ongoing investment to new product development and marketing. This has been the source of much recent market growth, from brand extensions to hot cereals to convenient formatting, and has allowed the breakfast cereals market to remain on its toes in the face of adversity.

Breakfast cereals 2015 forecasts market value growth of 12.9% between 2015 and 2019.