Steve Cahillane
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Kellanova
Thanks, Amit. We will organize our discussion around the businesses that will comprise Kellanova and WK Kellogg. Slide number 20 reminds you of the composition of the two businesses. And on this slide you can see how our topline momentum in quarter one continued to span across our portfolio with both Kellanova and WK Kellogg posting double-digit organic net sales growth. Clearly, we are heading into the spin-off with good momentum.
Let's start by discussing the Kellanova businesses leading off with our emerging markets regions. Slide number 21 shows the financial performance of our AMEA region. As you can see, this region sustained its exceptional momentum in the first quarter, posting a third consecutive quarter of organic net sales growth of at least 20%. And equally impressive, it expanded its operating profit margin and accelerated its operating profit growth to 21% year-on-year. And all this in spite of exceedingly high cost inflation and reinvestment into the business.
Let's break the region down into key category groups, starting with snacks on slide number 22. AMEA Snacks posted yet another quarter of explosive topline growth in the first quarter, growing net sales at an organic rate of 26% year-on-year. This growth was broad-based across all of our major subregions and it was led by its biggest brand Pringles. In market Pringles continues to significantly outpace the high-teens growth of the salty snacks category in the region with notable growth and share gains in markets like Australia, Korea, Japan and Thailand.
AMEA cereal also sustained strong momentum. As shown on slide number 23, this business delivered double-digit organic net sales growth again in the first quarter and this growth was broad-based with growth across each of our major subregions, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle-East, North Africa, Turkey region. In market, we have outpaced the cereal category's mid-single-digit consumption growth in the region, which brings us to noodles and other in slide number 24. Led by Multipro in Nigeria, this business continued to deliver organic net sales growth in excess of 20% in the first quarter. Even amidst high inflation and a currency demonetization initiative, Multipro continued to thrive, clear evidence of its competitive advantage and experienced management team.
Meanwhile, we continued to expand our Kellogg noodles business outside of Nigeria. So clearly, Kellogg AMEA is firing on all cylinders. For the full year we continue to expect sustained momentum across all three category groups, delivering yet another year of organic net sales growth, all while improving our profit margins. Now let's discuss Latin-America, starting on slide number 26. Kellogg Latin-America in the first quarter delivered another quarter of double-digit organic net sales growth. This growth was led by Mexico, but we also saw strong growth in Brazil and our Central America and Caribbean subregion. We expanded our operating margin in the first quarter, helping to grow our operating profit by 20% year-on-year, albeit lapping notably high cost in the year-earlier quarter.
Our snacks business in Latin-America continued to deliver double-digit organic net sales growth as shown on slide number 27. This growth was led by Pringles with notably strong growth in Mexico and Brazil. In market, the salty snacks category sustained double-digit growth in those two markets, and Pringles gained share in both. We also have kept pace with a very strong portable wholesome snacks category in Mexico and stabilized our share in cookies in Brazil.
Kellogg Latin-America also recorded double-digit organic net sales growth in cereal as shown on slide number 28. This growth was broad-based with good growth across each of our subregions. In market, category growth rates remained robust in the region and our consumption has kept pace in Mexico and gained share in Brazil and Puerto Rico. So Latin-America continues to perform well and for the year we continue to expect this region to sustain strong topline momentum. It will be led by snacks, but also by growth in cereal with both supported by strong innovation and relevant brand news.
We also expect Latin-America to improve its profit margins this year and it plans to do all this while working on separating its Caribbean cereal business as part of the spin-off. So both of our emerging markets regions are showing current momentum to go with their outstanding long-term prospects.
Now let's turn to our developed markets, starting with Kellogg Europe in slide number 30. Here we continued to post strong 8% organic net sales growth in quarter one with organic growth across our categories, salty snacks, wholesome snacks and cereal. The Kellogg Europe net sales growth would have been in the double-digits were it not for Russia, which we are in the process of divesting. Operating profit declined slightly year-on-year, but it was comparing against an unusually strong year-earlier quarter. In addition, if we were to exclude the Russia business, Kellogg Europe's operating profit would have been up year-on-year in the high-single-digits. So our underlying European business is performing very well.
In snacks, which represents just over half of our sales in Kellogg Europe, we posted another strong quarter as shown in slide number 31. In fact, the first quarter marked the seventh quarter in the last nine in which we have posted double-digit growth in our European snacks business. Specifically, our organic net sales growth accelerated sequentially in the first quarter to 14% year-on-year and this growth would have been almost twice that if it were not for Russia. In market, Pringles has sustained its double-digit growth momentum, gaining share in the region led by the United Kingdom and France.
And in portable wholesome snacks, we are experiencing double-digit consumption growth overall and we have gained two full share points in the UK, led by Rice Krispies Squares. Our cereal business in Europe also sustained growth in the first quarter as shown on slide number 32. The growth was slower than recent quarters as we have seen rising price elasticity, as well as intentional reduction of certain less profitable merchandising activities. Nevertheless, we continue to execute well in a challenging market. So when we look at the full year for Kellogg Europe, we continue to expect the region to post another year of solid topline growth, led by snacks.
In fact, this should be a sixth consecutive year of organic net sales growth in our European snacks business. As mentioned previously, we are navigating through cost and supply pressures, which are particularly heavy in the first half and we are in the process of divesting our Russia business, a transaction that is contingent on Russian government approval.
And now we'll turn to Kellogg North America, beginning with slide number 34. As you can see, it was a very strong quarter for Kellogg North America. We recorded organic net sales growth of 14%, with price-mix accelerating for a fourth consecutive quarter as we continued to implement revenue growth management actions in order to catch up with input cost inflation. This revenue growth management along with productivity and diminishing bottlenecks and shortages enabled an expansion in profit margins that drove operating profit up 21% year-on-year.
Importantly, we again generated organic net sales growth in all three category groups during the first quarter. Slide number 35 shows how our largest category group snacks sustained its net sales momentum by growing 15% in the quarter. In market, Pringles well outpaced the US salty snacks category's double-digit growth led by our multi-packs and our core four flavors, In crackers, Cheez-It lapped an exceptionally strong year-earlier quarter but we did see double-digit consumption growth by our Club and Town House brands. And in portable wholesome snacks, our decision to discontinue various Kashi bars and the prioritization of capacity-constrained Pop-Tarts SKUs mass continued momentum in Rice Krispies treats and a resurgent Special K bars business.
Our frozen foods business also grew net sales in the first quarter as shown on slide number 36. Here, the growth has been more modest in part because of supply disruptions, both in our Eggo frozen breakfast business and especially in our MorningStar Farms plant-based foods business. Meantime, both Eggo and MorningStar Farms are leading brands with strong commercial programs planned. So we are confident in our ability to improve our frozen performance as the year progresses. All of the regions and categories we've discussed up to now will be part of Kellanova and all of them are showing strong and continued net sales growth to go with progress toward recovering margins.
Now we're going to turn to our North America cereal business, which forms the vast majority of what will be WK Kellogg Co. As shown on slide number 37, this business continues to recover rapidly and posted another quarter of double-digit organic net sales growth. In the US, the cereal category grew at a double-digit rate in the quarter and we gained nearly 3 points of share year-on-year as our resumed commercial activity is producing share gains across our portfolio led by Rice Krispies, Special K, Raisin brand and Frosted Flakes.
This recovery is evident in our US away-from-home business as well. We gained several points of share across each of our major channels, convenience stores, foodservice and schools. And in Canada where the restoration of inventory has come a bit more recently, our consumption growth was even more pronounced and we gained roughly 6 points of share year-on-year. So, the recovery continues in our North America cereal business.
Turning to slide number 38, our North America region is off to a strong start in 2023, giving us confidence in the full year. Snacks is expected to sustain its momentum while we have plans in place to improve our performance in frozen and our North America cereal business continues its recovery. We are off to a good start on our margin recovery in North America, even as we reinvest in our brands. So the business is in good shape as we set up for the spin-off of WK Kellogg.
So let me summarize on slide number 40. We're off to a very strong start to this year. Around the world and across our key categories and brands, we have clearly sustained growth momentum and our profit margins impacted over the last 18 months by accelerated input cost inflation, economy-wide bottlenecks and shortages, and even a fire and strike are starting to recover. These underlying trends with a strong first quarter already in the book are what give us increased confidence in a raised full year outlook that had already called for sales and profit growth above our long-term targets.
But while we are executing our plan and delivering on our current year results, we are also busy creating the future. This includes, most notably, our planned spin-off of our North America cereal business. We are full steam ahead on this work. As we work through every detail of this important undertaking we have become only more confident that this will create real value for our shareowners. We'll have a more focused WK Kellogg able to leverage its scale in North America cereal with a fit-for-purpose strategy, expertise and resource allocation, and we'll have greater visibility into a global snacking oriented Kellanova that has been and will continue to be delivering above-average financial performance.
I couldn't be more proud of and grateful for our team members around the world who are executing with agility and passion amidst an external environment that remains incredibly dynamic. And with that, we'll open up the line for questions.
