April 5 (Bloomberg) — Frozen pizza, microwave dinners and macaroni and cheese are eating into Campbell Soup Co.’s U.S. sales.
Discounting by Campbell, the biggest U.S. soup maker, failed to lift sales in the past month, said Alexia Howard, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. Campbell lost market share in the four weeks ended March 20 as its soup sales dropped 4.2 percent, according to data that market researcher Nielsen Co. released to clients last week.
More consumers are buying competing products from Nestle SA, ConAgra Foods Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. as sales in the $5 billion U.S. soup industry fall, according to data from the companies and research firms. The most recent decline exacerbates market-share losses over more than two decades.
The share of at-home lunch meals with soup fell to 12 percent from 14.4 percent from 1985 to 2009, and dinners with soup shrank to 5.6 percent from 6.5 percent, according to market researcher NPD Group. In the same period, the percentage of meals with pizza, macaroni and cheese or a frozen entrée rose,
Campbell Chief Executive Officer Doug Conant, 58, called last quarter’s 18 percent drop in ready-to-serve soup sales a “hiccup,” blaming a lack of promotion at retailers and Campbell’s failure to fully take into account the competition from other simple meals. Conant said on a Feb. 22 conference call that soup sales would rebound this quarter, helped by marketing plans.
