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Round up the usual banditos

By Ed Goldman

If today’s column were a 1950s movie about corporate shenanigans—like “Executive Suite” or even “The Asphalt Jungle”—there’d be a scene in which an about-to-be disgraced CEO walks into his office and carefully closes the door. A heartbeat later, we hear a gunshot ring out. The CEO, seeing no other way out, has just implemented his exit strategy.

I hope this won’t be the case after the head of snack food giant Frito-Lay finds out his company’s annual revenues just slipped from $24.9 billion to $24.76 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

That’s a shrinkage of $.14 billion, which is equivalent to $140 million, or roughly what the first “Iron Man” movie cost to make in 2008.

Full disclosures: 

1. Frito-Lay is owned by PepsiCo, whose signature product Pepsi Cola is occasionally consumed by this columnist when the place he’s lunching doesn’t serve Coca-Cola. 
2. This columnist also has a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose name makes him sound like a character in the “Harry Potter” movies. 
3. Those movies are produced by Warner Brothers—which did not, repeat not, produce the film “Executive Suite.” MGM did. 
4. Ergo: No conflict. Who says I’m not a serious business writer—besides all of those editors, proofreaders and publishers, I mean?

The underlying though not especially serious question here is: Why aren’t we snacking more prolifically and self-destructively, my fellow Americans? 

According to the Journal, “(T)he downturn is being felt across the Industry. General Mills, Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo and Campbell’s have seen their stocks drop an average of 14 percent over the past year, even as the S&P 500 has risen 8.5 percent.” (Italics mine. And I’d like them returned by close-of-business today.)

Is it just me or does this sound a little like shaming?

ECONOMY: Okay, Frito-Lay, I see you and your snack buddies have been losing money. Even doggie treat sales have flattened, for Peter Paul Almond Joy’s sake. What do you have to say for yourself?

FRITO-LAY: Well, people just aren’t stuffing their faces with empty calories as much as we’d hoped they’d continue to do, like they did during the pandemic.

ECONOMY: I see. And meanwhile, the S&P 500 has grown. And the overall snacking business actually boomed right after the pandemic.

FRITO-LAY: Oh, sure it did. That’s because consumers spent all their stimulus cash on Pringles and Cheez-Its and Twinkie and HoHos. You always liked them better than me and my friends.

ECONOMY (tenderly): Economy don’t choose favorites, Frito-Lay. Now make a big honk-honk sound in my handkerchief then get back to work.

The root cause of this reversal of fortune, even though the snacking industry is still worth about $180 billion, is what the Journal calls “a shift toward healthier options. Demand for high-protein snacks—like Greek yogurt, meat sticks and nutrition shakes—surged last year.”

Question: In what universe are “meat sticks” considered a healthier option? On the planet Carnivore, in the Chocolate- Milky Way?

Besides, what’s wrong with the yogurts from Lebanon, Iceland and South Africa (respectively, laban, skyr and amas)? Is Greek yogurt the only “healthier option”? How do we know that if we open a family-size carton of Chobani Yogurt, Odysseus and a platoon of Greek warriors won’t jump out and destroy all of the Trojans in our post-adolescent son’s medicine chest?