General Mills is experimenting with shipping snacks via a subscription service to consumers. The Nibblr service, introduced in November, mails subscribers a regular snack shipment that cost about $6 per shipment. Snackers then rate what they tasted, and subsequent deliveries are based off of customer tastes (similar to what Netflix and Pandora does by suggesting movies or music).

Nibblr snacks aren’t General Mills-labeled and are mostly fruits, nuts and trail mixes. General Mills launched Nibblr through a business development unit the company calls 301 Inc. That unit, which started in 2012, was reportedly envisioned by General Mills as a way to partner with emerging companies to develop food products.

Nibblr has an established competitor in Graze.com, a U.K.-based company owned by Carlyle Group L.P. Graze told Bloomberg in December that it launched U.S. operations earlier this year and already has 55,000 customers and is adding 1,000 customers a day. It will begin a major marketing push this month.

General Mills spokeswoman Bridget Christenson declined to say how many customers Nibblr has, but says, “We are pleased with the number of subscribers to date.”

Source: www.bizjournals.com