Packaged food company Campbell's (NASDAQ: CPB) fell short of the market’s revenue expectations in Q1 CY2026, with sales falling 4.4% year on year to $2.37 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.50 per share was 4.5% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
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Campbell's (CPB) Q1 CY2026 Highlights:
- Revenue: $2.37 billion vs analyst estimates of $2.38 billion (4.4% year-on-year decline, 0.6% miss)
- Adjusted EPS: $0.50 vs analyst estimates of $0.48 (4.5% beat)
- Management reiterated its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance of $2.20 at the midpoint
- Operating Margin: 10.1%, up from 6.5% in the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow Margin: 1.2%, similar to the same quarter last year
- Organic Revenue fell 4% year on year (miss)
- Sales Volumes fell 5% year on year (2% in the same quarter last year)
- Market Capitalization: $6.46 billion
Company Overview
With its iconic canned soup as its cornerstone product, Campbell's (NASDAQ: CPB) is a packaged food company with an illustrious portfolio of brands.
Revenue Growth
Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can experience short-term success, but top-performing ones enjoy sustained growth for years.
With $9.93 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, Campbell's is one of the larger consumer staples companies and benefits from a well-known brand that influences purchasing decisions. However, its scale is a double-edged sword because there are only so many big store chains to sell into, making it harder to find incremental growth. To accelerate sales, Campbell's likely needs to optimize its pricing or lean into new products and international expansion.
As you can see below, Campbell's grew its sales at a sluggish 2.3% compounded annual growth rate over the last three years as consumers bought less of its products. We’ll explore what this means in the “Volume Growth” section.
This quarter, Campbell's missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 4.4% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $2.37 billion of revenue.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to decline by 2.1% over the next 12 months, a deceleration versus the last three years. This projection doesn’t excite us and implies its products will face some demand challenges.
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Volume Growth
Revenue growth can be broken down into changes in price and volume (the number of units sold). While both are important, volume is the lifeblood of a successful staples business as there’s a ceiling to what consumers will pay for everyday goods; they can always trade down to non-branded products if the branded versions are too expensive.
To analyze whether Campbell's generated its growth (or lack thereof) from changes in price or volume, we can compare its volume growth to its organic revenue growth, which excludes non-fundamental impacts on company financials like mergers and currency fluctuations.
Over the last two years, Campbell’s average quarterly volumes have shrunk by 1.6%. This isn’t ideal for a consumer staples company, where demand is typically stable. In the context of its 1.8% average organic sales declines, we can see that most of the company’s losses have come from fewer customers purchasing its products.
In Campbell’s Q1 2026, sales volumes dropped 5% year on year. This result represents a further deceleration from its historical levels, showing the business is struggling to move its products.
Key Takeaways from Campbell’s Q1 Results
We enjoyed seeing Campbell's beat analysts’ EBITDA expectations this quarter. We were also glad its full-year EPS guidance slightly exceeded Wall Street’s estimates. On the other hand, its organic revenue was just in line with Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this quarter was decent. The stock traded up 3.2% to $22.37 immediately following the results.
Is Campbell's an attractive investment opportunity at the current price? What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
