Campbell’s Slides 9% on 36% Dividend Cut, General Mills Falls 4%, Kraft Heinz Drops 3%

David Moadel

Thu, September 3, 2026 at 8:25 PM GMT+3 5 min read

Quick Read

Campbell's cut its dividend 36% and guided fiscal earnings well below consensus, dragging CPB down 9% and GIS down 4%.
XLP held flat while SPY gained 1%, confirming the selloff targets center-store packaged food specifically, not the broader market or staples sector.
Just released. Our analysts combed the entire stock market and named the ten best stocks to buy right now. The report is free. Enter your email and see if any of your stocks made the cut.

Packaged-food names are selling sharply Thursday even as the broader staples complex holds firm and the wider tape climbs. The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSEARCA:XLP) is flat at $85.57, while the S&P 500 tracking SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is up 1% to $772.73. The selling is inside center-store food, evidently.

jeepersmedia / Flickr

The Campbell's Company (NYSE:CPB) stock is down 9% to $21.53 at midday after the company cut its dividend and guided the coming fiscal year below Wall Street's bar. Meanwhile, General Mills (NYSE:GIS) stock is falling 4% to $38.88 in sympathy with that guidance reset. Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) stock is sliding 3% to $25.43 as the read-across extends to peers with similar U.S. center-store exposure.

Dividend Reset and Guide-Down

Campbell's board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share, down 36% from $0.39, payable November 2 to shareholders of record as of October 1, which takes the annualized payout to $1.00 per share from $1.56. Management framed the reset as a way to accelerate debt reduction, and CEO Mick Beekhuizen didn't soften the message. "Our performance is not where it needs to be, and we are taking decisive action to improve it," he stated.

Free Report, Just Released

Did Any of Your Stocks Make the Top 10 List?

It is an uncomfortable question, and there is now an answer to it.

24/7 Wall St has helped investors make money for over two decades, and our top analysts just finished ranking the definitive Top 10 Stocks To Buy Now. Not the ten biggest companies. Not the ten everyone is arguing about. The ten best stocks to buy right now.

Open your account and look at what you own. Some of it you bought for a reason you could still defend today. Some of it you bought years ago for a reason you can no longer remember.

The report is free. Put the ten next to what you own and find out which is which.

Enter Your Email and See the Ten →

Free from 24/7 Wall St. It lands in your inbox.

For the coming fiscal year, Campbell's guided net sales to decline 2% to 4% and adjusted earnings per share to a range of $1.65 to $1.80. That sits below analyst consensus, which had called for a Campbell's net sales decline of 0.8% and adjusted EPS of $1.86. In other words, the outlook is a contributing factor to the CPB share-price decline.

Snacks Weakness Against Meals Strength

For the fiscal fourth quarter ended August 2, Campbell's net sales fell 8% to $2.14 billion, reflecting a seven-point impact from an extra week in the year-earlier period, with organic net sales down 1% and adjusted EPS of $0.39. The mix is what matters here. Campbell's snacks segment organic net sales fell 6% on weakness in the salty portfolio, while meals and beverages posted 3% organic net sales growth.

Salty snacks are where the damage concentrates. That's where Campbell's new $500 million cost program, targeting savings by fiscal 2030 and replacing a prior $375 million initiative, is aimed, with plant closures and workforce reductions already underway. GAAP results also carried trademark impairments on the Cape Cod and Kettle Brand lines, underscoring how much rework the salty portfolio still requires.

CPB Earnings Explorer — 24/7 Wall St.

Peer Read-Across and Session Scorecard

General Mills and Kraft Heinz aren't reporting today. However, the concerns extend to any large U.S. center-store player after Campbell's just flagged inflation, salty-snack weakness, and a multi-year cost reset. Both peers enter this session carrying their own volume-mix pressure in North America.

Campbell's entered the day down 10% year to date through the prior close and had climbed 6% over the past month, a rebound today's move erases. Kraft Heinz was up 12% year to date, while General Mills was down 9%. Those three starting points mean today's shared decline shows the market pricing read-across from one company's guidance.

What to Watch

A flat staples fund and a rising broad tape tell you this is a category story inside packaged food. Traders can watch for whether the group stabilizes as the Campbell's call fades, or whether the guidance reset pulls sell-side estimates lower on General Mills and Kraft Heinz over coming sessions.

Holders of these names may want to right-size their exposure ahead of the next round of analyst notes. A single company's guide-down can compress peer multiples for weeks, and the sector's yields no longer offer the same cushion after Campbell's just showed a payout can move (we cataloged the seven warning signs a big yield is about to be cut in a free report). Their position sizing should reflect that risk.

Got $1,000? Before You Buy Another Stock, Read This

If you have cash sitting in your account right now, give this two minutes. After more than two decades of helping investors beat the market, our top analysts at 24/7 Wall St. put together a definitive report on the Top 10 Stocks To Buy Today.

They combed the entire market. It's not 10 ideas, not 10 stocks everyone is talking about, it's what their research point to as the 10 best stocks to buy right now, and it's free. Read more here and see which stocks made the cut -->>

Contact editorial@247wallst.com for any questions or corrections.