General Mills and other packaged food marketers were in an enviable position early on during the coronavirus pandemic. Shoppers were filling their in-person and online carts with loads of products, from cereals including Cheerios and Lucky Charms to Betty Crocker cake mixes. “We’re all trying to do the same thing, and it’s feed our customers,” chairman and CEO Jeff Harmening told food industry analysts. General Mills was the first major food marketer to explain its current operations as food consumption shifts dramatically from restaurants to homes. Brad Hiranaga, chief brand officer, said “What I think COVID’s done is it’s really accelerated areas that we always knew were important but now are at the forefront of everything we do”. Due to the pandemic, one piece of company-wide marketing that had to change was for the long-running Box Tops for Education program, which last year moved from the familiar trimming of box tops to an app-based receipt scanning process. Marketing that showed kids heading back into classrooms as usual was scrapped for the fall. Now, General Mills wants to help provide access to the Internet or access to laptops so that kids can learn at home.