General Mills Inc. said last week its fiscal fourth-quarter profit almost doubled as consumers flocked toward the food maker’s well-known brands such as Cheerios and Yoplait.
Adjusted earnings per share beat Wall Street estimates, although sales came in slightly short.
Chairman and CEO Ken Powell said increased marketing efforts, which were implemented by the food maker to highlight its brands for shoppers who may be tempted to switch to cheaper store brands during the recession, appeared to pay off.
“In today’s very challenging economic environment, our leading food brands offer the quality, convenience and value that consumers are looking for and, as a result, our businesses are showing strong growth,” he said.
“In 2009… we significantly increased the level of consumer marketing support for our brands. These actions have positioned General Mills to achieve another year of good growth in fiscal 2010.”
The Golden Valley, Minn.-based company earned US$358.8 million, or $1.07 per share, for the three months ended May 31, up from $185.2 million, or 53 cents per share, a year ago.
Excluding restructuring charges, a loss on some product lines that were sold and other items, profit was 86 cents per share.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, whose estimates generally exclude one-time items, forecast earnings of 81 cents per share.
Quarterly sales rose 5% to $3.65 billion from $3.47 billion, helped by an extra week in the period. Still, sales fell short of Wall Street’s estimate of $3.69 billion.
Many of the company’s segments posted double-digit sales growth including Yoplait, Big G cereals and Pillsbury USA.
Results were not as strong overseas, dropping 5% due to the stronger dollar.
