Hormel Foods Corporation ( HRL ) Q4 2025 Earnings Call December 4, 2025 9:00 AM EST Company Participants Jess Blomberg - Director of Investor Relations Jeffrey Ettinger - Interim CEO & Director Paul Kuehneman - Interim Chief Financial Officer & Controller John Ghingo - President & Director Conference Call Participants Michael Lavery - Piper Sandler & Co., Research Division Thomas Palmer - JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division Benjamin Theurer - Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division Heather Jones - Heather Jones Research LLC Pooran Sharma - Stephens Inc., Research Division Leah Jordan - Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division Max Andrew Gumport - BNP Paribas, Research Division Erica Eiler - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division Yasmine Deswandhy - BofA Securities, Research Division Presentation Operator Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Hormel Corporation's Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, December 4, 2025.
Hormel Foods Corporation faces sector-wide headwinds from shifting consumer preferences and inflation, impacting more processed product segments. HRL's turkey segment aligns well with secular trends toward protein and healthier foods, providing a relative bright spot in the portfolio. Recent leadership changes could introduce elevated execution risk, as the unusual dual‑leadership model may be disruptive to focus.
HRL posts a fourth-quarter earnings beat and modest sales growth, as segment results reveal mixed trends across retail, foodservice and international.
While the top- and bottom-line numbers for Hormel (HRL) give a sense of how the business performed in the quarter ended October 2025, it could be worth looking at how some of its key metrics compare to Wall Street estimates and year-ago values.
Hormel Foods (HRL) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.32 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.3 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.42 per share a year ago.
HRL faces strong retail demand heading into results, but rising input costs and slow pricing recovery threaten near-term margins.
Looking beyond Wall Street's top-and-bottom-line estimate forecasts for Hormel (HRL), delve into some of its key metrics to gain a deeper insight into the company's potential performance for the quarter ended October 2025.
Hormel Foods faces ongoing headwinds, with shares at decade lows and persistent margin pressures from inflation and changing consumer trends. Despite a 5% dividend yield and a strong Dividend King track record, HRL's earnings and guidance remain subdued, limiting near-term upside. Management expects continued challenges into 2026, with only modest growth anticipated and profit margins under pressure from economic and industry factors.
Hormel (HRL) doesn't possess the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely earnings beat in its upcoming report. Get prepared with the key expectations.
Dividend kings are a select group of companies that have been able to raise their dividends consecutively for 50 or more years. This consistency provides reliability for income-focused investors who can depend on some growth to offset inflation and dividend cuts elsewhere. Today, we are looking at 2 names in the consumer staples space that look to be attractive bets for long-term investors, but one is a turnaround play.
Hormel Foods is cutting 250 corporate and sales jobs as part of a restructuring. The owner of such brands as Planters, Skippy and Spam expects to incur restructuring charges of $20 million to $25 million.
Hormel Foods is trading at a multi-decade low (valuation-wise), and the stock offers a historically high 5%+ dividend yield. Despite recent margin pressures from higher input costs and political risks, HRL's revenues remain stable, and we're expecting long-term margin normalization. Analyst forecasts project high single-digit EPS growth for HRL, supporting the case for strong total returns as margins recover.