Hey listeners, your money briefing is on a break, but we're still here to keep you informed on important money matters.

Today, we've got a peek under the hood of the U.S. economy, courtesy of earnings season and company's financial reports.

Hey listeners, it's Wednesday, August 6th. I am Jesse Newman for the Wall Street Journal,

and this is What's News in Earnings, our look at the broad themes that stood out in the latest

earning season. Today, we're digging into what's happening at some of the nation's biggest food

companies. Times are tough in food. Consumers are anxious, they're hunting for deals and carefully guarding

their wallets. At the same time, food companies are dealing with tariffs and surging costs

for raw ingredients like cocoa and coffee, and some are hiking their prices again. They're doing

this at a time when consumers are already buying less and profitability in the industry is down.

So here with us to discuss all of this is Wall Street Journal's very own Erin Back.

Aaron is the editor for Wall Street Journal's heard on the street column, where he writes from time to time about these big food makers,

and he's here to tell us all about what they're doing.

Aaron, great to have you with us.

Hi.

So let's start high level.

What do food company earnings reports over the past few weeks tell us about how consumers are faring these days?

The results are pretty poor, and the

performance of those stocks reflects that. I looked at five of the biggest food companies,

Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Campbell, Conagra, and J.M. Smucker, and their organic sales,

which is an industry measure that looks at basically sales without currency fluctuations or like mergers and divestitures.

It's a very standard measure in the industry.

It was down at four of the five in the last quarter.

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