Tyson earnings miss estimates as meat sales slow

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss Tyson earnings and how inflation is impacting meat demand.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Away from tech.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yes.

JULIE HYMAN: There's also some pain, right? It's not limited to what we're seeing in technology. Tyson Foods. That company reported as well third quarter earnings, but the shares are down about 5 and 1/2%. Slight beat on revenue, but the company failed to meet earnings per share estimates and saw a decline in overall sales.

What's happening here is everything's more expensive. Protein's more expensive. And therefore people are not buying as much protein, right? That bottom line seems to be what's going on here. Meat sales are slowing down for this company. And, obviously, that's problematic.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, investors really getting their feathers pulled out on this one. But, look, to your point, you see volume--

JULIE HYMAN: Oh, no.

BRIAN SOZZI: Volume under pressure in beef. Volume under pressure in pork. Volume under pressure in chicken. Volume under pressure in prepared foods. So, again, to your point, like we've heard from a lot of food companies, they have started to push through massive price increases.

And, finally, this second quarter was the first time you saw consumers perhaps pull back or look for cheaper alternatives. Now you don't even want to get me started on Ball Park hot dogs. We had the discussion on our--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

BRIAN SOZZI: We'll take that offline because they're not good.

BRAD SMITH: If you're grilling Ball Park hot dogs, you need to switch to--

BRIAN SOZZI: My mom used to boil them. Now she's watching.

BRAD SMITH: No.

BRIAN SOZZI: I'm sorry I didn't like your ball dogs, mom. I mean, they were bad. They were bad. I know you're going to text me, but they were really bad. They were bad.

BRAD SMITH: I'm glad you said getting feathers pulled so that my putting chicken nuggets on ice sounds just a tinge better. But at the end of the day, I mean, look, Jimmy Dean-- I used to have a Jimmy Dean every morning, by the way.

BRIAN SOZZI: Those were OK.

BRAD SMITH: I don't know. That-- yes, those were--

BRIAN SOZZI: Boil some Ball Park hot dogs and get back to me.

BRAD SMITH: No, I'm good.

JULIE HYMAN: You had dirty water dogs at home.

BRIAN SOZZI: They were all-- the water was clean. The water-- it was bad. We can't. I can go on for 20 minutes on this.

BRAD SMITH: Well, Jimmy Dean was a hot spot. How about that? The sausage maker sales increased to-- that was up to $13.5 billion in the third quarter. That was at about $12 and 1/2 billion a year earlier. So more people like me perhaps looking to just toss them in there.

BRIAN SOZZI: And then you had the hot dogs filled with the fake cheese. I got-- oh, I got stories.

JULIE HYMAN: I remember those. So we also used to cut open the hot dog and melt cheese inside. But, anyway, Tyson now, to speak to the volume point, the company says that volume this year will now be flat. They had predicted 1% to 2% growth. They're saying this in the conference call. And that demand for premium beef cuts is softer.

This is something you've been talking about. We know far too much about Brian Sozzi's grocery shopping habits. But one of the things we have learned is that you have shied away, perhaps, from some of those more expensive steaks at the grocery store because--

BRIAN SOZZI: Well, they've become eye-popping. Some of the prices here for, let's say, a t-bone steak, a higher cut of meat, sure, 30 bucks. Over $30 for a t-bone. Come on, man. Come on. I mean, that's just too much. It's just too much.

BRAD SMITH: That's not going to work. That's not going to--