Food company General Mills has confirmed that agencies pitching as part of its on-going US creative review must comply with strict diversity criteria.

According to an interview with Ad Age, chief marketing officer Ann Simonds said that participating agencies are required to be staffed with 50% women and 20% “people of colour” within the creative department.

Last year, the food marketer consolidated its media with GroupM’s Mindshare. Simonds commenting that the goal of the current review is for one core agency to handle the bulk of the work, but to supplement with other partners.

“In any relationship, there is an opportunity to rejigger and represent who we are and how we work some of our incumbents moving forward, but going forward with a commitment to reinventing the relationship as we are [doing],” she told Ad Age.

Chief creative officer Michael Fanuele commented that the review, which is proceeding with some shops not currently on its roster including Deutsch and Mother, is an “exercise in finding the right partners, not the right model”.

Other agencies going through to the second round are said to be incumbents 72andsunny, McCann and a holding company solution from Publicis Groupe.