On The Call: Campbell Soup CEO Doug Conant says he’s confident soup sales will bounce back
By APMonday, February 22, 2010
On The Call: Campbell Soup CEO Doug Conant
HADDONFIELD, N.J. — Campbell Soup Co. said Monday that it met analysts’ expectations by posting an 11 percent increase in second-quarter profit.
But analysts are concerned about an 18 percent drop in sales of ready-to-serve soups, which the company said resulted from it promoting its relaunched Chunky brand too quietly and too late.
Most of their questions for the Camden, N.J., company during its investor conference call Monday dealt with that drop — and whether the ready-to-serve situation will improve.
QUESTION: What should give us confidence that the organization is ready to deal with what looks like a pretty significant change (in the market)?
REPSONSE: I would note that we have a history of competing in ready to serve soup that gives us a lot of confidence in our ability to compete in ready-to-serve. … So we can talk all we want about it. Now, the challenge is to perform. We have a lot of confidence in our ability to perform in the second half.
