Jeffrey Harmening
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at General Mills
Yes. Thanks for that question. You know what I love is that our strategy is working, and it has been working, regardless of what competitors are doing. Our strategy has been working for the last four years, as that inspire continue growth above our long-term algorithm and the fact regaining share in the majority of our categories. And so, I think actually, the worst thing that we could do is look at what somebody else is doing and try to emulate that when the strategy we have is working.
And I say that because, we're executing well on our core business as evidenced by the share gains over the last four years. But we've also integrated M&A quite well and whether that's seamlessly divesting the yogurt business or aggressively growing Blue Buffalo and the pet treat business, we feel great about that.
The other thing I would say is it kind of goes -- people get lost and we talked -- there are a lot of dis-synergies of splitting things up and not only financial dis-synergies, but also capability of dis-synergies. And let me give you a couple of examples. When we bought the Blue Buffalo business, one of the things that we said was that the capabilities we have at General Mills are very similar to what is needed at Blue Buffalo. And one of those is extrusion technology, which is the technology we use in cereal. And we're one of the world leaders, if not the world's best at extrusion technology.
The same would be true for things like thermal processing, where the same technology that's used for wet pet food is used things like soup and yogurt and other things. And so for a whole host of reasons, but ending with our strategy is working. Whatever our competitors do, their strategy may be best for them, but we really like our strategy. We like the way it's working. And at the end of the day, it's creating quite a bit of value for shareholders.