Steven Cahillane
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at Kellanova
Thanks, Amit. The first thing you'll note about our quarter one is the continuation of broad-based top line growth. Slide number 20 shows our organic net sales growth by region in the first quarter, along with the 2-year CAGR that they had to lap. We generated organic basis net sales growth of 8% in Europe, 6% in Latin America and 17% in AMEA. These are exceptional growth rates. And in North America, where last year's fire and strike left us with low cereal inventory, and therefore, lost sales, our reported and organic net sales were still only down less than 1%. In fact, if you exclude cereal, the rest of our North America business grew by 3% to 4% year-on-year, even against tough comparisons. In a moment, we'll walk you through the key category groups within each region. You'll see the continued exceptional growth of a relatively new growth leg for us, and that's noodles in Africa. You'll see that cereal and frozen foods, the category groups that are the most at home in nature, have therefore seen the most deceleration as consumer mobility has increased.
But outside of North America, with its supply disruption from the fire and strike, we do continue to grow in cereal internationally. But you'll also see that in all four regions, our biggest category group, snacks, continue to grow strongly even against tough 2-year comparisons. Slide number 21 offers the world-class snacks brands we've been talking to you about, and they had another quarter of excellent consumption growth. Pringles continues to gain penetration and distribution in key markets around the world and continued its strong consumption and net sales growth in the first quarter. Cheez-It, already a powerhouse in the U.S., is growing rapidly in Canada and is off to a strong start in its launch in Brazil. Pop-Tarts continues to grow in the U.S., but look at its growth rates in markets like the U.K. and Mexico as well. Rice Krispies Treats is enjoying explosive growth in several markets outside of the U.S. as we put more focus and support behind that unique brand. Not only are these brands continuing to grow in North America, but this chart can give you a glimpse of their international potential. Aside from Pringles, these brands are in very early days of expansion, which is part of our strategy. And their growth rates speak to their long-term potential.
Let's now review each region in turn, starting with North America on Slide number 22. North America's net sales declined slightly on an organic basis, owing to the fire and strike-related impact on cereal. Supply constraints, most notably low inventory heading into the quarter for cereal, did pressure volume. But as we'll see in a moment, we did sustain good momentum elsewhere in the portfolio, especially in snacks. Price/mix grew more than 7% year-on-year as we continue to implement revenue growth management actions. Operating profit declined year-on-year, not only because of lapping a mid-single-digit 2-year CAGR, but also because of the bottlenecks and shortages that persist in the economy and the wraparound impact from the fire and strike we experienced in the second half of 2021. Our snacks business in North America posted organic net sales growth of 5% in the quarter. As you can see on Slide number 23, this sales growth lagged consumption, which remained quite strong. Pringles generated consumption growth of more than 8% year-on-year, lapping last year's double-digit gain. This brand is in very good shape.
We saw strong growth in our core four flavors in standard cans propelled by effective brand building, including our Super Bowl execution. And we saw continued rapid growth in multipacks. And in a sign of resuming consumer mobility, we are seeing a rebound in immediate consumption offerings as well. Cheez-It also sustained its strong momentum, growing consumption in the double digits, with the new Puff'd platform proving to be incremental to both the Snap'd platform and the core cracker line. But we didn't just gain share in crackers because of Cheez-It. We also outpaced the category with the Club and Town House brands. Pop-Tarts grew consumption in the double digits, and so did Rice Krispies Treats, with both brands sustaining excellent momentum through the strength of effective marketing programs and incremental innovation. And while we're at, Nutri-Grain also grew consumption in the double digits, and RX continues to reaccelerate its growth as consumers go back on the move. So our North America snacks business remains very strong.
Let's turn now to North America cereal in Slide number 24. Recall that 2022 is all about recovering from last year's fire and strike. As you know, we entered the quarter with very low finished goods inventory, which obviously hampered our net sales and consumption year-on-year. The good news is that our first order of business in quarter one was restoring production in the four affected plants, which our team achieved and ahead of schedule. With demand holding up well and retailers anxious to restore their inventories, we were able to ship out more product in the first quarter than we had anticipated. This certainly will help us improve consumption going forward. Slide number 25 offers a good way to gauge our progress on restoring supply. It measures our share against our total distribution points. You can see the sharp decline in last year's fourth quarter as retailers ran through their inventory, and we were unable to replenish it. As we ramped up production during the first quarter, you can see product returning to the shelves in the form of recovering TDPs, and therefore, share. This reflects our improving supply and is a testament to the strength of our brands and relationships with our retail partners. This sequential improvement is what we expect to continue to realize as we get through the first half. In fact, this positive trend has continued quite clearly in April.
This will put us right on track to gradually restore commercial plans brand-by-brand towards full recovery in the second half. Our Frozen businesses in North America are depicted on Slide number 26. Eggo consumption growth remained strong, with mid-single-digit growth on top of a mid-single-digit 2-year CAGR. This is good performance given that we've been capacity constrained, especially on pancakes. The even better news is that we have incremental Eggo capacity coming online in the second quarter. In our plant-based business, MorningStar Farms consumption was down against the mid-teens 2-year CAGR comparison, and the category has paused on distribution gains and household penetration gains after surging the past couple of years. We've seen some share loss as competitors have entered and expanded offerings in our segments and, in many cases, competing intensely on price. So in total, North America got off to a good start in the first quarter with progress on supply recovery in cereal and in-market momentum elsewhere in the portfolio. Closing out North America, Slide number 27 highlights some of the exciting innovations and commercial programs we have going into the marketplace. To remind you that even though we're in an unusual supply environment, we continue to delight consumers.
On the innovation front, Cheez-It Puff'd is off to an even faster start than Snap'd, the platform we launched a couple of years ago. Club Crisps is also new to the market, providing a light and fresh snack that's built on the strength of our Club crackers line. For Pop-Tarts, we've launched new flavors like Snickerdoodle, expanded on a simple ingredient line called Pop-Tarts Simply and brought back a fan favorite Frosted Grape. And in Frozen, beyond the lookout for Eggo's new Liege-Style waffle for on-the-go consumption and some exciting new varieties of MorningStar Farms, including a delicious pancake wrapped sausage on a stick. From a marketing standpoint, Mission Tiger is roaring back, helping kids gain better access to use sports. These are just a few examples of why we are so confident that we can sustain our snacks momentum, recover cereal and reaccelerate Frozen. Now let's discuss Europe shown on Slide number 28. Europe had another outstanding quarter, growing net sales 8% and operating profit by 28%, even as it lapped strong year-ago growth for both metrics.
While volume was down against the tough comparisons, Europe's RGM efforts continue to generate price/mix growth. And productivity also helped to cover costs, enabling increased A&P investment. On Slide number 29, you can see that we experienced organic net sales growth in both snacks and cereal in the first quarter despite what were very tough comparisons on a 2-year basis. In snacks, the growth is underpinned by fantastic momentum in consumption for Pringles, which gained share in markets like Germany, Italy and Spain, and lagged the category double-digit growth in the U.K. only because of tougher comparisons. We should also point out that in portable wholesome snacks where categories are rebounding on a return to consumer mobility, our efforts to revitalize brands like Rice Krispies Squares and Pop-Tarts are starting to pay off, with share gains in markets like the U.K. and Italy. In cereal, consumption is moderating across the region as consumer mobility and price elasticity resumes. While we have gained share in the U.K. and Germany, we have ceded share in other markets in part because of lapping tougher comparisons.
Nevertheless, some key supported brands continue to do well, as shown on this slide. A quick word about the situation in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine represent less than 1.5% of our total company net sales and less than 10% of our sales in Europe. We have suspended shipments and investments into Russia, which will have a direct impact on our sales and profit in Europe this year. This is incorporated into our updated guidance. Overall, though, Kellogg Europe is off to a very good start to 2022, and we feel good about the business. Now let's discuss Latin America, turning to Slide number 30. Latin America, too, faced notably impressive comparisons, particularly on a 2-year CAGR basis and especially on operating profit. But this business got off to a good start, with year-on-year net sales growth driven by price/mix growth and operating profit that declined less than we had expected. Slide number 31 shows that our Latin America net sales growth was led by snacks. Here, too, Pringles is showing impressive momentum, outpacing the category double-digit growth in Mexico and Brazil. In portable wholesome snacks, our consumption has rebounded faster than the category in our principal markets of Mexico and Puerto Rico. And cereal category consumption growth remains robust across the region, and we outpaced the category in key markets. However, tough comparisons and regulatory hurdles in Mexico negatively impacted our cereal net sales in the quarter.
Nonetheless, our Latin America business continues to perform well. Let's finish our business review with AMEA on Slide number 32. Quarter one featured another exceptional performance by our fastest-growing region. Despite lapping a strong 2-year CAGR for volume, AMEA continued to leverage RGM for exceptional price realization across the region, which helped it offset the margin impact of high costs. The result was double-digit growth in both net sales and operating profit versus the prior year. Slide number 33 shows how AMEA's net sales growth was generated across all three of our product category groups in the region. Noodles was once again the largest contributor to the growth, reflecting exceptional growth by Multipro in West Africa and our continued expansion of the Kellogg's Noodles brand in markets like Egypt and South Africa. Our strong snacks growth was led by Pringles, which sustained goods consumption growth even as it entered the quarter with low inventories coming out of last year's COVID-related production restrictions.
In portable wholesome snacks, our double-digit growth was strong enough to gain share in Australia and in the rest of the region. In cereal, the overall region's category has decelerated to modest growth, but we had gained share led by Australia, Korea and South Africa. So to close out our prepared remarks, let me briefly summarize with Slide number 35. We're off to a very good start to the year. We remain right on strategy, as ever focused on dependable, balanced financial delivery. We are navigating well through unprecedented cost and supply challenges. And through it all, we have sustained top line momentum, both in net sales and consumption growth.
This reflects the strength of our reshaped portfolio, particularly our international markets and our North America snacks and frozen businesses. It also reflects what we have done on revenue growth management in order to help cover rising costs. Put it all together, and we come out of quarter one ahead of plan, which is an important benefit as we look ahead to continued uncertain market conditions. We are affirming our guidance for the year, and we are increasing the cash we return to shareowners. As always, I can't thank enough the talented, resourceful and persevering Kellogg employees who have made this performance and our bright prospects possible.
And with that, we'll open up the line for questions.
