Hormel Foods earnings down, but beat expectations - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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Hormel reported earnings of $81 down 8 percent from $88 million in the same period of 2008. Earninge per share were 60 down 6 percent from 64 cents ayear ago. based in Austin, easilg beat analysts’ estimates of 51 cents per share. The firm’xs stock (NYSE: HRL) was up $2.45, or 8 percenyt to $32.87 in Thursday morningg trading. Sales of $1.69 billion, were up 4 percent from $1.62w billion 2008. Analysts polled by Thomso n Reuters wereexpecting $1.7e3 billion in the quarter.
“Changes in consumer behavior resultinb from the recession have had a mixed effect on our saidJeffrey Ettinger, chairman, president and CEO in a Hormel said sales of its grocery products, such as Hormel Dinty Moore stews and were up 6.4 percent. Refrigerated foodas sales and Jennie-O Turkey Store sales increasedr 4.7 percent. The company’s specialty foods segment salesdeclined 5.2 percent. Grocery Products was the only Hormel segmenyt to increase itsprofits (up 9 percent) in the first quartet compared to the same period a year ago. Refrigerate d Foods profits were down 27 percentwhils Jennie-O Turkey Store and Specialty Foods segment profitsx each declined 16 percent.
Hormel reconfirmed its fisca l 2009 earnings guidanceof $2.15 to $2.25 per