Workers place cans of Campbell’s soup on supermarket shelves in San Rafael, California.
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Campbell Customers are preparing their own meals at the highest speed in about 50 years, offering the latest indications of everyday people who tighten their wallets amid financial concerns.
“Consumers have been cooking at home at the highest level since early 2020,” Campbell CEO Mick Beequizen said Monday, adding that consumption is rising within the entire revenue range in the diet and beverage category.
Beekhuizen painted similarities between today and the times when Americans were facing the early stages of becoming a global pandemic. It was a period of broad economic uncertainty as the COVID virus affected all aspects of daily life and caused massive reforms in spending and employment trends.
The trend seen by Pepper Ridge Farm and V-8 makers comes when Wall Street and economists start to wonder what’s next in the US economy after President Donald Trump’s tariff policies sparked recession horror and abused consumer sentiment.
Lao sauce is on display along the shelves of a New York grocery store on August 7, 2023.
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More food at home can indicate that people are eating less and Americans are tightening their belts. It can write bad news for the GDP. Two-thirds of that rely on consumer spending. A recession is generally defined as a shrinking two linear quarters of GDP.
It can also highlight the everyday American sour outlook on the national economy. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was categorized last month as one of the lowest levels on record.
Campbell’s remarks came after the soup makers broke Wall Street expectations in the third quarter. Goldfish and Rao parents earned 73 cents per share, excluding one-off items, but with revenues of $2.48 billion, analysts had expected 65 cents and $2.43 billion, respectively, by fact set.
The shares added 0.6% on Monday. Despite that profit, the stock price fell by more than 18% in 2025.
