General Mills topped Wall Street expectations for quarterly sales and profit on Wednesday, benefiting from higher prices for its breakfast cereals, snack bars and pet food products that helped offset a slowing demand.
Shares of the Minnesota-based company, which have fallen more than 21% this year, rose about 1% in premarket trade, as it also reaffirmed its annual sales and profit targets.
Packaged food makers have hiked product prices multiple times over the past year, in a bid to counter the spiraling impact from higher labour, stronger dollar and raw material costs, even as some of these expenses have now eased from their peaks.
While this has bolstered top-line as well as margin growth for staple food companies, volume has taken a hit with customers becoming less willing to spend on more expensive food items and shifting to cheaper private label alternatives.
Increased Margins
General Mills' gross margin rose 540 basis points to 36.1% in the first quarter.
Its organic average selling prices rose 7 points, while organic volumes were down 2 points.
Organic net sales at North America retail segment grew 4% as it saw a 'modest' inventory rebuild at some retailers in the quarter after being hit by weaker demand in the previous quarter.
Value-Oriented
Its pet food segment logged flat organic net sales as customers shifted towards more value-oriented products as well as smaller pack sizes.
The Cheerios cereal maker reported net sales of $4.91 billion in the first quarter compared with analysts' expectations of $4.88 billion, according to LSEG data.
Excluding one-off charges, General Mills earned $1.09 per share, compared with estimates of $1.08.
Read More: General Mills Forecasts Dour Profit As Price Hikes Impact Demand
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