BellRing Brands, Vital Farms, and General Mills shine in the latest Nielsen data
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U.S. food retail sales in retail channels tracked by Nielsen over a four-week period that ended on August 10 were up 1.8% year-over-year, vs. +2.3% in the prior tracking period. Volume was up +0.7% and pricing was +1.1% higher.
Some of the Nielsen sales data standouts were BellRing Brands (NYSE:BRBR) +18.2% Y/Y, Danone (OTCQX:DANOY) +3.8%, Vital Farms (VITL) +36.1%, and Simply Good Foods (NASDAQ:SMPL) +4.0%. Packaged food giants General Mills (GIS) and Hershey (NYSE:HSY) saw sales trends improve sequentially for the tracking period.
Laggards per the Nielsen data included Utz (UTZ) -5.1% Y/Y, WK Kellogg (KLG) -2.5%, Beyond Meat (BYND) -12.8%, and B&G Foods (BGS) -5.0%.
M&A has been a major focus in the food and beverage sector since the massive Kellanova-Mars deal was announced. Piper Sandler tipped off last week that Hershey (HSY) may be motivated to add more salty snacks to better compete with a combined Kellanova/Mars and Utz (UTZ) would be a logical candidate.
“While we do not know what (if any) salty snacks businesses HSY may have on its radar, we have long considered salty snacks pure-play UTZ to be an attractive potential addition to a larger company’s portfolio,” analyst Michael Lavery wrote.