Top brands give these food stocks an edge

Article Excerpt

Shares of major food processors held up well during the pandemic as restaurants closed and people ate more meals at home. While rising costs for ingredients and shipping are slowing their earnings growth, their strong brands make it easier to pass along these higher costs to consumers. CAMPBELL SOUP CO. $47 is a buy. The company (New York symbol CPB; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 301.7 million; Market cap: $14.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 3.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.campbellsoupcompany.com) sold most of its international and refrigerated-foods businesses in 2018. That let it focus on canned soups, pasta and V8 vegetable juices. Campbell also kept its snack food operations. They were significantly expanded in March 2018 when the company paid $6.1 billion for snack-foods maker Snyder’s-Lance. In its fiscal 2022 second quarter, ended January 30, 2022, Campbell’s sales fell 3.1%, to $2.21 billion from $2.28 billion a year earlier. If you factor out businesses Campbell recently sold as well as currency…