Conagra Brands is down 11.73 percent. The Chicago-based maker of grocery staples such as Chef Boyardee canned pasta and Healthy Choice entrees is shedding low-margin businesses such as wholesale spices and cooking oil and ending cheap grocery promotions such as 10 frozen dinners for $10.
But the efficiencies wrought by CEO Sean Connolly, who moved the company headquarters last year from its home in Omaha since 1922, appear to be already factored in by investors, who now want to know what the company is doing to get people to choose Conagra products in the crowded grocery aisle.
It’s not easy. While profit margins are improved at Conagra under Connolly, sales themselves are a struggle for most big grocery makers: For fiscal year 2017 ending in June, sales at Conagra fell about 10 percent. The company expects sales gains of 2 percent at the most for the current fiscal year from its roster of staples such as Slim Jim meat snacks and Peter Pan peanut butter.
But the company is optimistic on new products, big on the trend toward packing frozen food in bowls, saying 2018 will see the debut of several bowl-oriented products, such as Power Bowls meat-and-vegetable entrees. Conagra has said it still employs more than 1,200 office workers in Omaha, about 800 in a Council Bluffs frozen food plant and 100 at a candied popcorn plant in Lincoln.