(Reuters) – Kraft Heinz Co raised its forecast for annual organic sales growth and beat quarterly estimates on Wednesday, helped by higher prices for the Heinz ketchup maker’s packaged meals and condiments.
Pandemic-induced disruptions to the global supply chain and surging raw material costs forced Kraft Heinz, like other packaged food makers, to increases prices for it sodas and snacks, but some retailers are now pushing back citing waning consumer demand.
Last month, Kraft had stopped supplying some products, such as tomato ketchup and baked beans, to Britain’s biggest supermarket group Tesco as the retailer resisted charging customers higher prices at a time of surging inflation.
The two companies came to an agreement to bring back Kraft’s products to store shelves earlier this month.
Kraft said on Wednesday a key measure for its sales volumes fell 2.3 percentage points in the second quarter hurt by a slowdown in demand due to price increases and supply constraints.
Still, the Philadelphia Cream Cheese maker forecast 2022 organic revenue to increase by a high single-digit percentage, compared with its prior outlook for a mid single-digit percentage increase.
Net sales fell about 1% to $6.55 billion in the second quarter ended June 25, but beat analysts estimates of $6.39 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Excluding items, it earned 70 cents per share, above estimates of 68 cents per share.
(Reporting by Mehr Bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Shailesh Kuber)
