Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) and we’ll go first with Brant Johan with RBC Capital Market.
Edward Aaron – RBC Capital Markets
A couple of questions for you; so on the Cream of Wheat this is the first you’ve talked about any response to promotions being less than very positive, I’m just kind of wondering if it’s caused you to rethink anything strategy wise in terms of the promotion of that brand going forward.
David Wenner
Well, actually the promotions from a retailer point of view were almost two positive Ed. It moved volume into the first quarter and out of the second quarter. We had a very, very good March based on a promotion we did in March and we saw a lot of customers buy in on that promotion, so a very strong March depressed second quarter sales and that’s why I used the four month comparison of the four months where we owned it 2007 versus the four months in 2008 and showed you that we are up 4.5% over that same four months.
We didn’t see the response at the consumer level we might have hoped to see, we saw a weaker response than we hoped from consumers. So we’re rethinking how we’re going to do the September promotion and I’ve actually recast it in light of that and its still a work in progress in terms of what promotions work and don’t work but we’re trying something new in September?
Edward Aaron – RBC Capital Markets
As far as the pull forward of sales into March, I mean was that something that you had internally model for. In other words, realizing that you knew in April that you had a good March were you expecting a higher level of sales and actually came in for the second quarter for the brand?
David Wenner
We were and as I have said it was because we expected more pipeline fill on the new products. We thought that would backfill what we lost on the existing products into March. That did not happen as much as we would have hoped. As I said we’ve acceptance at a wide range of retailers, but there is fully a third of them that haven’t ordered the product yet. In some cases people have actually deducted the sorting money and installed haven’t ordered the product. So we’re all over people to get those products into the store here before we drop our September FSI and do the promotions in September.
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