General Mills has raised its outlook for this year’s performance, saying that it expects demand to remain high even as supply-chain challenges have held back business.
The company posted net income of $660.3 million in the third fiscal quarter, up 11% from the same quarter last year. Sales for the quarter were $4.54 billion, up only 1% from last year – but up 6% from the third fiscal quarter of 2019, the last one before the pandemic.
General Mills expects sales to rise 5% for the full fiscal year, due largely to raising prices for its products.
Like many food processors, General Mills has been struggling with supply issues. That has shown up especially in its refrigerated dough segments, where fulfillment rates for products like Pillsbury biscuits or Totino’s pizza rolls dropped to the 70% range for the three months ended Feb. 27.
“The biggest issue we’re seeing [with refrigerated dough] is really raw material disruptions, ingredients coming into our plants to run our products. Things like fats and oils and starch and packaging,” Jon Nudi, president of North America retail, told analysts in a call quoted by CNN. General Mills expects fulfillment for these products to be above 80% this quarter.
