Food makers adjust to changing tastes

Article Excerpt

Consumers continue to shift to healthier foods, and these four leading food makers are quickly adapting. Each company now makes more products with low sugar and salt, and all four have cut their costs. Those moves, along with their well-known brands, should spur long-term growth for each food maker, particularly in developing countries. However, currently, their shares look expensive in relation to their immediate prospects. PEPSICO INC. $113 (New York symbol PEP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 1.4 billion; Market cap: $158.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.6; Dividend yield: 2.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.pepsico.com) is the world’s second-largest soft-drink maker after Coca-Cola. Its other brands include Frito-Lay snack foods, Gatorade sports drinks, Tropicana fruit juices and Quaker Oats cereals. PepsiCo continues to launch new drinks and snacks with less sugar, salt and fat. Those “guilt-free” products now account for 45% of the company’s total sales. As part of this strategy, PepsiCo recently purchased KeVita Inc., which makes fermented probiotic beverages. Probiotic products…