U.S. Food: If They Could Just Hold Share…

Research evidence excerpt

U.S. Food: If They Could Just Hold Share…

Equity Research

U.S. Food

10 June 2026

If They Could Just Hold Share…

Our analysis suggests that large cap packaged food volumes

continue to lag underlying category growth, with most names

still losing share despite meaningful efforts to improve U.S. Food NEUTRAL

volume performance over the past year. U.S. Food

Andrew Lazar

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andrew.lazar@barclays.com

BCI, US

Joshua Bader, CPA, CFA

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Last week, we were struck by commentary from KHC CEO Steve Cahillane at an industry

conference, in which he noted that if the company had been able to simply hold share within its

US retail categories, it would be sufficient to drive positive sales growth in this segment. This

echoes a theme we have highlighted previously. Recall that earlier this year, as part of our

Barclays Global Consumer Staples 26 “what ifs” for 2026, we examined the implications of large

cap packaged food companies merely maintaining share within their categories.

At the time, we observed that while volumes for most large cap packaged food companies were

declining, underlying category trends were somewhat more resilient, with overall packaged

food volumes having been modestly positive through a large part of 2025, and total food

volumes (including perimeter categories such as proteins, rice, fruits, and vegetables) were

stronger still. This suggested to us that the core issue was not necessarily category demand as

much, but rather an inability for large cap players to hold share within their categories.