Jesse Newman and Heather Haddon of The Wall Street Journal report that companies are dangling $5 burger meals and flakier biscuits to encourage consumer spending and keep profits steady. They write:
Food companies are working on fixes for consumers fed up with high prices, while trying to protect some of the biggest profits earned in years.
Restaurant chains this summer are promoting a flurry of deals to keep registers ringing. Food manufacturers are hiking prices at a slower pace, rolling out more discounts and introducing new products, such as “Star Wars”-themed Oreos and Super Mario-shaped mac and cheese.
The companies’ moves aim to lure people back to brands that consumers have ditched as prices skyrocketed. […]
Some food executives and analysts have warned that wooing consumers back will be a slow process or require more investments than companies anticipate.
“It’s not one of these events where we sprinkle a little money on the consumer, and they forget that they ever experienced runaway inflation,” Conagra Brands CEO Sean Connolly said in July.
Read more here.
