经济学人 | Food producers 食品生产商（2023年第29期）

文章来源：《经济学人》Apr 15th 2023 期 Business栏目 Food producers

For years nutritionists have advised Americans to steer clear of grocery shops’ central aisles and instead fill their trolleys from the outlying shelves. Fresh meat, dairy products, fresh fruit and vegetables often line supermarket walls; cans, boxes and other packages of less salubrious processed food are stacked in the middle. Some shoppers have heeded that advice: sales of canned soup have been lacklustre in recent times, even as those of fresher refrigerated potages have grown. Now makers of the packaged stuff are staging a comeback. This says as much about shifting economic conditions as it does about products on shelves.

多年来，营养学家一直建议美国人避开杂货店的中央过道，而是从外围货架上购买商品。鲜肉、奶制品、新鲜水果和蔬菜经常排列在超市的外围货架上；而不太健康的罐装、盒装、包装等加工食品则堆放在中间货架上。一些购物者已经听从了这个建议：近来罐装汤的销量一直低迷，而新鲜冷藏汤的销量却在增长。现在，包装食品的制造商正在卷土重来。货架上的产品反映了经济状况的变化。

This month Conagra, which owns brands including Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn, Bird’s Eye frozen veg and Duncan Hines cake mixes, reported bumper results for its latest quarter. Sales and margins were all up year on year. The company expects higher earnings in the fiscal year to May than it had previously forecast. A few weeks earlier General Mills, which peddles canned soups, frozen vegetables and breakfast cereals, unveiled similarly juicy quarterly numbers. McCormick & Company, which sells spices and sauces, and the J.M. Smucker Company, best known for jams and peanut butter, are likewise having a sweet time of it. Investors are licking their lips: Conagra’s share price has risen by 8% in the past 12 months, compared with a decline of 7% for the S&P 500 index of large American firms. General Mills’ has shot up by 23%.

康尼格拉拥有黄油爆米花、鸟之眼冷冻蔬菜和邓肯·海恩斯蛋糕粉等品牌。本月，它公布了最新季度报告，业绩亮眼，销售额和利润均同比增长。该公司预计截至 5 月的财年收益将高于此前的预期。通用磨坊是销售罐头汤、冷冻蔬菜和早餐麦片的公司，几周前，它公布了同样亮眼的季度业绩报告。麦考密克是销售香料和调味品的公司，J.M斯马克公司以果酱和花生酱闻名，这两家公司业绩也亮眼。投资者们收获颇丰：康尼格拉股价在过去12个月中上涨了8%，而大型美国公司标普500指数下跌了7%。通用磨坊的股价上涨了23%。

For America’s packaged-food firms, the past decade was a cycle of famine and feast. Lean years before the pandemic ended when restaurants closed amid covid-19 and people stocked their pantries. Stimulus cheques from the government meant that shoppers were flush and the food companies were not being nagged by their retail partners to offer discounts. Then in 2022 people began dining out again, putting pressure on volumes even as commodity-price shocks caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed up costs.

对于美国包装食品公司来说，过去十年是饥荒年和丰收年的循环。艰苦岁月是疫情结束之前的几年，那时候餐厅因疫情关闭，人们囤积了食品。政府发放的刺激消费券意味着购物者手头宽裕，而且食品公司也没有被他们的零售合作伙伴唠叨着要提供折扣。然后是2022年，人们开始再次外出就餐，加上俄乌战造成的大宗商品价格冲击推高了成本，这对销量造成了压力。

As big food’s results show, the industry is managing to ride out the latest tumult. For one thing, the pandemic may have altered consumer habits, leading to a lasting bump in the consumption of frozen and packaged meals. Americans are still eating more meals at home than they were before the first covid-19 lockdowns. According to EY, a consultancy, nearly three in four consumers anyway do not carefully distinguish frozen vegetables from the fresh sort, treating them as the same category. And though inflation is leading shoppers to trade down from branded products to retailers’ cheaper private-label offerings when buying things like cosmetics or home goods, they are still happy to pay a bit extra for premium grub; 20- and 30-somethings in particular seem readier to spend larger shares of their income on food and are less likely to trade down than their elders.

美国大型食品公司的业绩表明，该行业正在设法渡过最近的动荡期。一方面，疫情可能已经改变了消费者的习惯，导致冷冻和包装食品的消费量持续增长。与第一次疫情相比，美国人现在在家里吃饭的次数更多。根据安永咨询公司的数据，近3/4的消费者并不会仔细区分冷冻蔬菜和新鲜蔬菜，消费者将它们视为同一类别。另一方面，尽管通货膨胀导致购物者在购买化妆品或家居用品等物品时从高档品牌产品转向零售商更便宜的自营品牌，但他们仍然愿意为优质食品支付更高的价格；尤其是二三十岁的年轻人似乎更愿意将更多的钱花在食物上，而且与年长者相比，他们不太可能消费降级。

The food giants also benefit from a diverse range of products and brands, which they are adapting to changing consumer tastes. Conagra has introduced“crustless pizzas”—microwavable boxes of sauce, cheese and meat—to appeal to the carb-phobic. Its vegan Power Bowls seem tailor-made for the avocado-loving yoga crowd. General Mills is marketing cereal as an after-school snack and alternative to dessert in the evening, rather than just something to munch for breakfast. And although they managed to maintain or even expand their margins by raising prices in line with their costs or faster, they might be all too content to take advantage of cheaper inputs without concomitant price cuts.

食品巨头还受益于多样化的产品和品牌，它们正在适应不断变化的消费者口味。康尼格拉推出了“无皮披萨”——可放在微波炉里加热的酱料、奶酪和肉的盒子--以吸引那些低碳水化合物饮食的人群。其纯素食“能量碗”似乎是为爱吃鳄梨的瑜伽人群量身定制的。通用磨坊将麦片作为课后零食和晚上甜点的替代品来营销，而不仅限于当作早餐食品。尽管他们成功做到了根据成本来快速提高价格，以维持甚至扩大利润率，但他们可能太自满而没有采用“减量不减价”的策略。

Can the good times last? The biggest question-mark hangs over sales volumes, which could be crimped by those higher prices and a looming economic slowdown that may prompt shoppers to start pinching pennies. If wage growth slows or unemployment ticks up, at some point people will probably cut back even on smaller luxuries. Should one food firm decide to trim prices in an effort to boost volumes at its competitors’ expense, an old-fashioned price war may erupt. For the time being, though, the foodmakers will keep reaping the peace dividend.

好时光能否持续很久？最大的问号在销量上，价格上涨和日益临近的经济放缓可能会抑制销量，这可能会促使购物者开始节约用钱。如果工资增长放缓或失业率上升，到某个时候人们可能会削减小型奢侈品的消费。如果一家食品公司决定降低价格，以牺牲竞争对手的利益来增加销量，则可能引起一轮价格战。不过，就目前而言，食品制造商继续收获和平红利。