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CPB, The Campbell's Company

Food Products consumer brand

We are a manufacturer and marketer of high-quality, branded food and beverage products.

On March 12, 2024, we completed the acquisition of Sovos Brands, Inc.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CPB · The Campbell's Company

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$10.3B

+6.4% YoY · 3% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $9.9B 5-yr avg $9.3B

Gross margin 29% 5-yr avg 31%

Operating margin 11.3% 5-yr avg 13.4%

ROIC 7% 5-yr avg 11%

Owner-earnings margin 7% 5-yr avg 9%

Free cash flow margin 7% 5-yr avg 8%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Meals & Beverages (59%) and Snacks (41%).
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 33% and operating margin about 14% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. The operating margin has swung widely — from 10% to 25% — on a steadier 33% gross margin, so what moves it sits below the gross line, in operating spend and one-off charges more than in the cost of the product itself. Inventory runs near 14% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 12%). By owner earnings: roughly 11% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 2 segments, the largest Meals & Beverages at 59%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Meals & Beverages59%$6.0B
Snacks41%$4.2B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2017–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMay 2026
										Income statement
$5.8B	$6.6B	$8.1B	$8.7B	$8.5B	$8.6B	$9.4B	$9.6B	$10.3B	$9.9B	RevenueRevenue
42%	36%	33%	35%	33%	31%	31%	31%	30%	29%	Gross marginGross mgn
8%	9%	8%	7%	7%	7%	7%	8%	7%	7%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
2%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$1.4B	$1.0B	$979M	$1.1B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
24.5%	15.3%	12.1%	12.7%	18.2%	13.6%	14.0%	10.4%	11.0%	11.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$887M	$261M	$211M	$1.6B	$1.0B	$757M	$858M	$567M	$602M	$608M	Net incomeNet inc.
31%	29%	42%	10%	25%	22%	24%	25%	24%	23%	Effective tax rateTax rate
										Cash flow & returns
$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$318M	$394M	$446M	$328M	$317M	$337M	$387M	$411M	$434M	$412M	DepreciationDeprec.
$23M	$589M	$683M	($621M)	($348M)	$28M	($165M)	$108M	$38M	$25M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$338M	$407M	$384M	$299M	$275M	$242M	$370M	$517M	$426M	$427M	CapexCapex
5.8%	6.2%	4.7%	3.4%	3.2%	2.8%	4.0%	5.4%	4.2%	4.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$950M	$898M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$760M	$939M	$773M	$774M	$705M	$671M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
16.3%	13.6%	12.5%	12.6%	9.0%	11.0%	8.3%	8.0%	6.9%	6.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$950M	$898M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$760M	$939M	$773M	$668M	$705M	$671M	Free cash flowFCF
16.3%	13.6%	12.5%	12.6%	9.0%	11.0%	8.3%	6.9%	6.9%	6.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$6.8B	$18M	$0	$0	$0	$0	$2.6B	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$420M	$426M	$423M	$426M	$439M	$451M	$447M	$445M	$459M	$470M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$437M	$86M	$0	$0	$36M	$167M	$142M	$67M	$62M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
24%	—	—	13%	14%	11%	12%	7%	8%	7%	ROICROIC
54%	19%	19%	64%	32%	23%	23%	15%	15%	15%	Return on equityROE
29%	−12%	−19%	47%	18%	9%	11%	3%	4%	3%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
										Balance sheet
$37M	$49M	$31M	$859M	$69M	$109M	$189M	$108M	$132M	$402M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$550M	$510M	$525M	$530M	$544M	$490M	$494M	$587M	$541M	$552M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$902M	$887M	$863M	$871M	$933M	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.5B	InventoryInvent.
$666M	$705M	$814M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.4B	Accounts payablePayables
$786M	$692M	$574M	$352M	$407M	$402M	$479M	$662M	$633M	$642M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.9B	$2.3B	$2.0B	$2.4B	$1.7B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.6B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.4B	$3.6B	$3.4B	$3.1B	$1.8B	$2.9B	$2.2B	$3.6B	$2.9B	$3.0B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.8×	0.6×	0.6×	0.8×	0.9×	0.7×	0.9×	0.6×	0.8×	0.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$811M	$3.9B	$4.0B	$4.0B	$4.0B	$4.0B	$4.0B	$5.1B	$5.0B	$5.0B	GoodwillGoodwill
$7.7B	$14.5B	$13.1B	$12.4B	$11.7B	$11.9B	$12.1B	$15.2B	$14.9B	$15.1B	Total assetsAssets
$2.5B	$9.5B	$8.5B	$6.2B	$5.1B	$4.8B	$4.7B	$7.2B	$6.9B	$8.9B	Total debtDebt
$2.5B	$9.5B	$8.4B	$5.3B	$5.0B	$4.7B	$4.5B	$7.1B	$6.7B	$8.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
12.4×	5.5×	2.8×	3.2×	7.4×	6.2×	7.0×	4.0×	3.3×	3.4×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.1B	$2.6B	$3.2B	$3.3B	$3.7B	$3.8B	$3.9B	$4.0B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.0%	0.9%	0.7%	0.7%	0.8%	0.7%	0.7%	1.0%	0.6%	0.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
$191M	$540M	$16M	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	Goodwill written downGW imp.
										Per share
307M	302M	302M	304M	305M	302M	301M	300M	300M	299M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$19.01	$21.90	$26.84	$28.59	$27.79	$28.35	$31.09	$32.12	$34.18	$33.20	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.89	$0.86	$0.70	$5.36	$3.29	$2.51	$2.85	$1.89	$2.01	$2.03	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.09	$2.97	$3.36	$3.61	$2.49	$3.11	$2.57	$2.58	$2.35	$2.24	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.09	$2.97	$3.36	$3.61	$2.49	$3.11	$2.57	$2.23	$2.35	$2.24	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.37	$1.41	$1.40	$1.40	$1.44	$1.49	$1.49	$1.48	$1.53	$1.57	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.10	$1.35	$1.27	$0.98	$0.90	$0.80	$1.23	$1.72	$1.42	$1.43	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$5.33	$4.52	$3.65	$8.43	$10.33	$11.03	$12.16	$12.65	$13.01	$13.47	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	8-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+7.6%/yr	+3.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−3.4%/yr	−8.2%/yr
EPS	−4.5%/yr	−17.8%/yr
Dividends / share	+1.4%/yr	+1.8%/yr
Capital spending / share	+3.2%/yr	+7.6%/yr
Book value / share	+11.8%/yr	+9.1%/yr

The record, charted

FY2017–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

300Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

8%low FY2024

Gross margin

30%low FY2025

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

9.5×peak FY2018

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$705Mowner earningsvs.$602Mnet incomelow FY2025

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2017FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned $602M of profit into $705M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$602M

Owner earnings$705M · 7% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$602M	$567M	$858M	$757M	$1.0B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$434M	+$411M	+$387M	+$337M	+$317M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$57M	+$99M	+$63M	+$59M	+$64M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$38M	+$108M	−$165M	+$28M	−$348M
Cash from operations	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.0B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$426M	−$411M	−$370M	−$242M	−$275M
Owner earnings	$705M	$774M	$773M	$939M	$760M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$106M	—	—	—
Free cash flow	$705M	$668M	$773M	$939M	$760M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	7%	8%	8%	11%	9%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $57M), owner earnings is nearer $648M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 3.3×

Adequate

Operating income $1.1B ÷ interest expense $345M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $8.9B · 7.9× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $132M − debt $9.0B

What this means
Netting $132M of cash and short-term investments against $9.0B of debt leaves $8.9B owed, about 7.9× a year's operating profit (8.0× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 24d

Tight

DSO 19 + DIO 73 − DPO 68 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 12%

Solid through the cycle

7-yr median, range 7%–24%; 7% latest = NOPAT $850M ÷ invested capital $12.8B

Industry peers: median 8%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 7 years (it ran 7% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 11%

Solid through the cycle

9-yr median margin, range 7%–16%; latest $705M = operating cash $1.1B − maintenance capex $426M

Industry peers: median 10%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 7% of revenue this year, a 11% median across 9 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $57M of SBC) leaves $648M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.88×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $1.1B ÷ net income $602M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 74%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $521M ÷ Owner Earnings $705M

What this means
Of $705M Owner Earnings, $521M (74%) went back to shareholders, $459M dividends, $62M buybacks. Net of $57M stock comp, the real buyback was about $5M. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.98×

Maintaining

Capex $426M ÷ depreciation $434M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 4 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $10.3B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.77×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $9.0B vs ($674M) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (9-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (9)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +49%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $2.27/share (latest year $2.02), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $13.08/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2017–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 9 of 9

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 9 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 17% → 12% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices but names price competition too — and the margin slipped, so the pressure is winning here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 17% early to 12% lately, median 14% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth −3%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 3% a year over the record.
Worst year 2024 · 10.4% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −0.3%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Our failure to obtain or adequately protect our intellectual property, including in response to developing artificial intelligence technologies, or any change in law that lessens or removes the current legal protections of our intellectual property may diminish our competitiveness and adversely affect our business and …”

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, May 3, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$2.6B

Cash & short-term investments$402M
Receivables$552M
Inventory$1.5B
Other current assets$154M

Current liabilities$3.0B

Debt due within a year$864M
Accounts payable$1.4B
Other current liabilities$729M

Current ratio0.87×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.38×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.14×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($395M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$864M due · $402M cash cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the May 3, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−4.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 0.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($5.3B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($8.6B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$9.2B$316M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2017–2025

Over the record, the business generated $11.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$3.3B · 29%
Dividends$3.9B · 36%
Buybacks$997M · 9%
Retained (debt / cash)$2.9B · 26%

Returned to owners$4.9B
62% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $3.9B as dividends and $997M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $6.4B and cash and short-term investments rose $365M.
Average price paid for buybacks$45.75
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 10M shares were bought for $474M, about $45.75 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $36.00 (2021) to $52.63 (2023); its heaviest year, 2022, paid $43.95 ($167M).
Net change in share count−2.6%
The diluted count fell from 307M to 299M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$1.53/sh
Paid in 9 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 1% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained−11%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($1.8B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $203M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.11 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 9-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$9.3B63% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth

Cash spent acquiring$9.4Bover 9 years buying other businesses, against $3.3B of capital spent building

$747M written down across 3 years (2017, 2018, 2019): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 9-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mick J. Beekhuizen	$9.9M	$3.6M	$760M
2022	Mick J. Beekhuizen	$10.3M	$13.0M	$939M
2023	Mick J. Beekhuizen	$11.7M	$11.1M	$773M
2024	Mick J. Beekhuizen	$12.3M	$17.4M	$774M
2025	Mick J. Beekhuizen	$7.0M	$3.5M	$705M
2025	Mick J. Beekhuizen	$11.1M	−$6.9M	$705M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio128:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2025 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$57M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 5% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why The Campbell's Company is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2017–2025.

3 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?7.7% vs 14.1%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 14.1% early in the record and 7.7% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$2.5B → $8.9B
Debt rose from $2.5B to $8.9B while owner earnings went from about $954M to $751M — about 2.6 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 12 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?5 of 9 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 5 of the last 9 years, $2.4B in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
≈$2.1B · 21% of revenue on the largest customer (TTM)
“Our largest customer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and its affiliates, accounted for approximately 21 % of our consolidated net sales in 2025 and 22 % in 2024 and 2023.”verify →
Does management own its misses?
3 plain admissions in this year's filing
“During the second quarter of 2025, we performed an interim impairment assessment on our Allied brands trademarks as our sales performance was below expectations.”verify →
Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Pension & retirement, Income taxes as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Food Products

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
MDLZMondelez International Inc.	$38.5B	39%	13.9%	7%	10%
HRLHormel Foods Corporation	$12.1B	18%	11.0%	13%	8%
HSYThe Hershey Company	$11.7B	45%	21.3%	28%	17%
CAGConAgra Brands Inc.	$11.3B	28%	14.8%	8%	9%
CPBThe Campbell's Company	$10.3B	33%	13.6%	12%	11%
STZConstellation Brands Inc.	$9.1B	50%	29.9%	9%	25%
SJMThe J.M. Smucker Company	$9.1B	38%	13.5%	6%	12%
FLOFlowers Foods	$5.3B	74%	5.9%	8%	6%
Group median	—	39%	13.8%	9%	10%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what The Campbell's Company has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, The Campbell's Company earns about $1.1B on its 11.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 6.9% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($1.1B) Net of stock comp (−$53M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−3%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’25−4%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $671M on 298M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-06-02; net debt $8.5B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh CPB against another business →

The owners of CPB: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "The Campbell's Company (CPB), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CPB, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← CPAY its page in the Manual CPF →

Industry order: ← CAG the Food Products chapter DMC →