Kraft Heinz and Campbells are the big brand-names hitting new lows – along with others in the sector – as tariffs affect an industry that uses steel to make cans. Many packaged foods come in cans and the tariffs make the can prices go up and customers find other products to consume.
Other factors may be at work but the unexpected quality of the tariffs may have caught packaged food executives by surprise. It’s not just the steel and the cans, the added costs affect almost all imported goods and those costs get passed on to shoppers. Not to mention, these old-school brand names had already been struggling with newer competition.
Campbells.
The market capitalization of The Campbells Company is $9.52 billion. The stock is a component of the S&P 500. This year’s earnings are off by 4.71%. Over the past five years, earnings have increased by 15.98%. The price-earnings ratio is 21. The debt-to-equity ratio is 1.88. Campbells pays a 4.79% dividend.
The October 2023 low gave way in April 2025 and the stock has continued downward from there. The tiny red circle shows where in late April the 50-week moving average crossed below the 200-week moving average, a sign of considerable price weakness – especially while stock market indexes had rallied.
Flowers Foods.
With a market cap of $3.37 billion, Flowers trades with a price-earnings ratio of 14.87. Earnings this year are down by 14.06% and up over the past five years by 8.55%. The debt-to-equity ratio is 1.51. Average daily volume comes to 2.59 million shares. The company pays a dividend of 6.17%.
In February 2025, the stock dropped below the previous support level, the lows of November 2023. This is another of the food products group that has failed to participate in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rallies from April to the present. Flowers’ 50-week moving average crossed below the 200-week moving average in February 2023.
Kraft Heinz
The well-known brand name packaged foods with the cheese-and-ketchup name has a market cap of $30.51 billion. It’s a component of the S&P 500 and of the Nasdaq 100. This year’s earnings have dropped by 15.30%. The past five years earnings have shown a gain of 7.39%.
The small red circle on the weekly price chart indicates where, in late 2024, the 50-week moving average crossed below the 200-week moving average. That signal of weakness proved accurate as the stock continued to this week’s new lows.
Treehouse Foods
Treehouse Foods is a Russell 2000 small caps component. The market cap is $1.04 billion. The price-earnings ratio is 159. The debt-to-equity ratio is 1.04. Earnings this year are off by 7.35%. There is no five-year earnings record yet as the company has not been around that long.
The November 2024 low near $28 was broken through in March 2025 and the price has continued to drop with a new low hit this week. Note that the 50-week moving average crossed below the 200-week moving average in April 2024, a signal of weakness.
Stats courtesy of FinViz.com. Charts courtesy of Stockcharts.com.
No artificial intelligence was used in the writing of this post.
More analysis and commentary at johnnavin.substack.com.
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