Prepare To Pay More For Cheerios As General Mills Struggles

(CBS/CNN) – Your morning bowl of cereal may be getting a little more expensive.

The Wall Street Journal reports General Mills is going to hike prices on cereals and snacks due to higher ingredient and shipping costs. General Mills brands include Cheerios, Wheaties, Haagen-Dazs ice cream, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Yoplait yogurt and Progresso soups.

CEO Jeff Harmening tells the newspaper that higher ingredient and shipping costs are too blame. In addition to raising prices, General Mills will sell some items in smaller packages and alter discounts, the Journal reports.

General Mills is hardly the only food company that is struggling. The entire industry is in a tough spot right now. Costs are going up, but Amazon, Walmart and other grocery companies are trying to keep prices low.

That's great for supermarket shoppers but bad for General Mills and makers of other staples like Kellogg, Campbell Soup, ConAgra and the Warren Buffett-backed Kraft Heinz. Those stocks all fell Wednesday and are down for the year as well.

General Mills has a bigger problem though. Consumers aren't eating sugary cereals as much as they used to and they are also shunning the company's Yoplait brand of yogurt. Cereal sales dipped slightly in the quarter while yogurt sales fell 8% from a year ago.

General Mills is trying to find new ways to boost revenues with healthier products like the 2014 acquisition of organic macaroni and cheese maker Annie's.

The company also announced plans earlier this year to buy natural pet food company Blue Buffalo for $8 billion. The purchase should be completed later this year. But for the time being, it looks like General Mills shareholders will remain hungry for more savory returns from the stock.

(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. CNN contributed to this report.)