Some brief comments from Sanderson Farms pertaining to sales trends and demand.
Food prices continue to rise and it is only a matter of time before this comes to impact the bottom line for restaurant stocks. SAFM echoed many restaurant management teams in calling out unemployment as a key factor suppressing demand. Some comments in the bullets below:
- [On inflation] “Prices during our fourth quarter were higher by 26% when compared to the fourth quarter a year ago but were 2.4% lower than during our third fiscal quarter”
- “Softness in the boneless breast market continues to reflect weakness in the market for almost all protein consumed away from home. This includes the demand for white meat from all of our food service customers, including our casual buying customers and our food service distributors”.
- Management continues to see lower consumption of protein outside of the home and they don’t expect to see a meaningful improvement in foodservice demand in fiscal 2011 until job picture improves
- Demand for prepared foods was strong through the first week of November and then evaporated…
Howard Penney
Managing Director
