Posted on 12/06/2008 8:17:23 PM PST by Coleus
Judging by Dayna Neumann's pantry, the latest U.S. recession may become a boon for the Campbell Soup Co., just as the last two economic contractions did. Neumann's family, in Louisville, Ky., is bracing "for a rough road ahead," says the 32-year-old working mother. After her 30-year-old husband, Nick, substituted $1.75 Campbell Chunky soup for restaurant lunches in September, she started buying as many as 15 cans at a time.
The appeal of a cheap meal may be good news for sales at the world's largest soup maker, which says it sells to 85 percent of U.S. households. Its shares have already become an outlier in these hard times, outperforming the other 11 companies in the Standard & Poor's Packaged Foods Index in the past three months. The recession will make 2009 "the year of condensed soup, driven by the backdrop of severe economic pressure on the consumer," wrote Mitchell Pinheiro, a Philadelphia-based analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC. In its 139-year existence, Campbell Soup has survived 28 recessions, two world wars and the Great Depression. The Camden-based food giant may outdistance General Mills Inc., maker of Progresso soup, in shipments in 2009, says Terry Bivens, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst in New York.
Campbell Soup is "acknowledged as a way to weather a recession," says Edgar Roesch, a Soleil Securities Corp. analyst in New York who rates the shares "buy." Campbell's U.S. soup sales accelerated by 6 percent in the fiscal 12 months ended July 2001, a period that included part a recession running from March through November of that year, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. Soup sales rose 7 percent in the year ended July 1990 and 5 percent in the next 12 months, overlapping the contraction from July 1990 through March 1991.
As the economy becomes more sluggish in 2008, the company's soup sales in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have climbed 12 percent to 14 percent since late August, according to Alton Stump, an analyst at Longbow Research in Independence, Ohio, who polled managers at 50 locations. He has a "neutral" rating on Campbell's stock. "There will not be a recession in eating," said Harry Balzer, who has studied U.S. eating habits for more than 30 years for NPD Group, a market research firm based in Port Washington, N.Y. "There will only be winners and losers."
Fifty-seven percent of households are serving leftovers for dinner, according to Balzer, versus a historic mean of 55 percent. U.S. workers took an average of 42 homemade meals to work in the 12 months through February, the most since 1995, he said. Campbell controls about 70 percent of the $5 billion-a-year U.S. soup market and is offering two-cans-for-$1 deals to maintain the lead.
Sales of the iconic red-and-white cans of condensed soup, which must be mixed with water, advanced 6 percent in the quarter ended Aug. 3, the company said. Ready-to-serve varieties increased 5 percent as Americans ate at home more, it said. Measured by shipments to retailers, Campbell's volume will increase an estimated 3.5 percent this year and 3.9 percent in 2009, said JPMorgan's Bivens. He projects decelerating shipments for General Mills, cereal maker Kellogg Co. and Sara Lee Corp., which sells Jimmy Dean sausages and frozen desserts.
Over the past five years, Campbell has lost ground to Progresso in sales of soup that's ready to eat from the can. To reverse that trend, Campbell Chief Executive Officer Douglas Conant spent $115 million on research and development in the last fiscal year, up 12 percent from the previous two. His increased investment led to the introduction of pop-top lids, microwavable soups and, more recently, varieties with less salt and fewer chemical additives. He declined to comment. The company has also recently published newspaper ads that say Progresso chicken noodle contains flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate while Campbell's Select Harvest doesn't.
"They've gone on the offensive in the ready-to-serve segment," said Roesch, the Soleil Securities analyst. "They've been waiting until they had a product that in some ways is superior." Jo-Lynne Shane in Philadelphia serves Campbell's Chicken & Stars soup to her three children and makes casseroles with Cream of Mushroom. The 36-year-old homemaker, who contributes to the Silicon Valley Moms blog that offers how-to-spend-less advice, stopped making chicken Marsala and other costly dishes after her husband, Paul, urged her to spend less on groceries. "My husband was bugging me to cut back," Shane said. "He said he could even stand tuna casserole once a month."
What, no Cheez-its ?
AHHHHHHH.........someone else who cooks like me!!!!
Progresso soup is 8/$10 at my local little grocery store.
Time to stock up at a $12.00 savings.
Campbell’s is good, but I prefer Progresso and can afford it at this sale price.
Can’t eat tomato. Tastes like watered down catsup. Chicken w/rice is somewhat more tolerable, once thought rather highly of chicken gumbo. Scotch broth is pretty good and split pea is a quick substitute for the real thing (mummy’s), but so many of those soups have sugar and preservatives or some garlicky stuff that leaves a yucky after taste. Nevertheless, after a childhood with a thermos of that crap, I still like the concept of soup that comes out of a can. Just wish the stuff would have more of a home-made taste, which would probably mean twice as much fat and salt.
Crock pot and internet recipes. Much better.
I always buy the store brand soup because it is so much cheaper, but, I love Campbell’s Chunky soups. I have noticed lately that the chunky soups aren’t as chunky.
Well, you don’t have to mix it one to one with water. And usually I will toss in some fresh spinach leaves, or maybe half a chopped up onion. Toss in some bacon bits! Use your imagination!
Thought this tread was about soup and good old American spam. But you bring up a blackheilcopter crazy conspericy theory story!!! LOL
I like Campbell’s soup, but of course they would be selling lots of their soup since August (meaning cooler weather from fall into winter).
Their Tomato Bisque is great, by the way, for any tomato soup lovers who’d like a little twist.
My point is that if you use a crock pot with fresh ingredients, you get a lot more soup for less moolah. Fresh ingredients tend to be cheaper, and if you like adding your own ingredients to taste, it isn’t too much trouble to start from scratch and get an infinitely better soup.
Some of the store brands are even cheaper and taste pretty good.
I love soup... so much so that I often buy a 5 lb roasting chicken and some drum sticks/wings, carrots, celery, turnips, onions (yellow and white), parsley, salt and pepper... add water + 5 hours of simmering, then straining and de-bone the carcus = meals that will satisfy Trajan88 for days... add bread and butter and big glasses of milk and I’m golden... platinum ;-)
I agree. I make a lot of homemade soups, but I like to have a convenient backup on hand. Progresso split pea soup and a grilled cheese made a good lunch today when putting up the Christmas tree today. Zero degree windchill will do that to you.
We get a shank end ham for Christmas and I love making my own homemade split pea soup and other goodies from the leftovers. You and I are on the same page. :)
Those aren’t PANS of lasagne -— those are servings!!!!!!!
The 8 inch square pan is the smallest I make. When I make lasagna there are, at minimum, four 9x13 pans and then anywhere from 2 to 6 of the 8x8s.
I won’t be making any again until mid to late January because I have 2 left in the freezer, along with 7 dozen tamales and 5 quarts of ham broth. Next week I will be adding 8-10 quarts of turkey broth to that stock pile.
I usually use fettucine noodles... I break them into ~1" pieces... sometimes I use egg noodles.
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