By Micah Maidenberg

General Mills Inc. said it saw higher input costs in its North America business during the company's latest quarter, which helped to dampen operating profit.

The maker of grocery staples like Cheerios cereal, Häagen-Dazs ice cream and Gold Medal flour on Wednesday said profit attributable to the company weakened to $416.8 million for its fiscal fourth quarter from $625.7 million for the comparable period last year.

On a per-share basis, earnings slipped to 68 cents from $1.02.

General Mills also reported a quarterly adjusted profit of 91 cents a share, ahead of forecasts from analysts, who predicted 85 cents a share on that metric.

Sales fell to $4.52 billion from $5.02 billion, but were better than the $4.36 billion that analysts had predicted for the period that ended May 30.

On a comparable basis, sales were down 6%, a performance the Minneapolis-based company said reflected a difficult comparison versus the same period in 2020, when demand for packaged food shot up as the Covid-19 pandemic intensified.

Overall, sales for the company's large business serving retail customers in the U.S. and Canada were down 17%.

"Net sales declines totaled 30 percent in U.S. Meals & Baking, 16 percent in U.S. Cereal, 6 percent in U.S. Yogurt, and 2 percent in U.S. Snacks," the company said.

General Mills also reported that higher input costs were a factor that weighed on operating profit in the North America business.

Write to Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-30-21 0741ET