CNBC Stock Blog
- Mulling Buffett's Stock Advice? Get in With REITs: Fund Managers
- So Now You Can’t Give Microsoft Away?
- Groupon Needs More Disclosure: Analyst
- China’s Steelmakers Set for Turnaround: Analyst
- Bulls Bet Silicon Motion Will Bounce
- Tobacco Stocks a Hot Dividend Play: Analyst
- Forget the Earnings, Disney’s Issue Is the Multiple: Analyst
- Drug Stocks Do Well in ‘Gloom and Doom’ Market: Analyst
ABOUT THE CNBC STOCK BLOG
RSS FEED
CNBC EXPLAINS
Shopping For Nutritious Food Stocks
Text Size 
Food inflation has been front-page stuff for months now, with commodity prices surging and Midwestern floods pushing prices still higher, but Alexia Howard of Sanford Bernstein has found a couple of food stocks that can still nourish a portfolio.
"These companies have been struggling with high commodity-cost inflation for the last 18 months," she told CNBC. "What's different now is they're able to take pricing much more rapidly than they were in 2007; they're not locking themselves into long-term price points; instead, they're having much more frequent conferences with retailers."
Recommendations:
At the top of her list is Sara Lee [SLE
Loading...
()
].
"It's a combination of very strong price increases that we've been seeing in the market data, plus strong productivity improvements," she said. "Sara Lee reduced its head count at the corporate center by 300 people at the end of the last quarter."
She also likes Kraft Foods [KFT
Loading...
()
].
"This is really all about dairy-cost inflation, which has plagued the company over the last year," she explained. "The year-on-year inflation in cheese has basically come down to zero...and that should really start to help Kraft's margins."
Dean Foods [DF
Loading...
()
] is also on the Sanford Bernstein "buy" list.
Disclosures:
Neither Alexia Howard, her family, nor her firm owns shares of Sara Lee, Kraft Foods, or Dean Foods.
During the past twelve months Kraft Foods was a client of Bernstein, which provided non-investment banking securities related services and received compensation for such services.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
