Shares of Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL) stayed green on Tuesday. The stock has dropped 6% over the past three months. The branded food company is set to report its first quarter 2025 earnings results on Thursday, February 27, before market open. Here’s what to expect from the earnings report:
Revenue
Analysts are projecting revenue of $2.95 billion for Hormel in the first quarter of 2025, which implies a drop of 1% from the same quarter a year ago. In the fourth quarter of 2024, net sales decreased 2% year-over-year to $3.14 billion.
Earnings
The consensus estimate for Q1 2025 earnings per share is $0.38, which compares to adjusted EPS of $0.41 reported in Q1 2024. In Q4 2024, adjusted EPS remained flat YoY at $0.42.
Points to note
Hormel is likely to benefit from strength in its flagship and rising brands like Hormel Black Label, Jennie-O, Applegate and SPAM. In Q4, these brands delivered strong growth and expanded households across on-trend categories. The company continues to navigate a dynamic macro consumer environment by reinvesting in its brands, expanding market presence and through product innovation.
Last quarter, the Retail segment saw sales decrease due to declines in the Value Added Meats, Snacking & Entertaining, and Convenient Meals & Proteins verticals, which offset growth in its major brands. Sales in the Foodservice segment benefited from gains in premium prepared proteins, salty snacks, turkey, bacon, and pizza toppings. The International segment benefited from demand in China and strong branded exports for SPAM luncheon meat and Skippy peanut butter.
Hormel continues to make progress on its Transform and Modernize (T&M) initiative, achieving $75 million in operating income benefit during fiscal year 2024. This helped offset impacts from a decline in whole bird turkey commodity markets, and the production disruption at the Suffolk facility.
Although the company is making progress with regard to the Suffolk disruption, it expects some near-term commercial impacts and higher costs, most notably in the first quarter of 2025. Hormel expects $0.04-0.05 of unfavorable EPS impact in Q1 from lower YoY whole bird prices and the Suffolk production disruption.