Chicago, 3 July - Soaring commodity costs have taken a major bite out of food companies' profits for more than a year, but it's almost impossible to find out whether, like airlines and fuel, they have been able to hedge those costs.
In fact, shareholders looking for information about how successful some of their favorite food-companies have been in managing these rising costs with hedging strategies will find little to satisfy them.
Hedging involves making an investment to reduce or cancel the risk of price increases. Airlines that hedged their fuel costs, say, three years ago, are sitting pretty right now. Food companies that hedged on a commodity that has run up might also find themselves in good shape.
But, unlike airlines, which give fairly precise details about how well they have covered their future costs for jet fuel, food companies generally do not make specific comments about hedging they have done to cover costs of corn, wheat, oil or other commodities that have had steadily climbing costs.
"We don't really disclose much due to competitive reasons," said Mike Cummins, a spokesman for Sara Lee Corp.
That summarizes the response of many food companies asked by Reuters about their hedging practices.
Hormel Foods Corp's director of investor relations said the company discloses that it takes hedging positions with respect to grains and energy -- but does not detail the extent to which it hedges, or their prices.
Kraft Foods Inc also does not disclose its hedging positions, though it does give a broad summary of the impact it expects from commodities. For example, in April it said it expected that commodity costs would rise 12 percent in 2008, or by $1.7 billion over the prior year.
Wheat prices are up 46 percent in the past year, crude oil prices have doubled and corn is up 118 percent. Executives repeatedly have said the current commodity price environment is unprecedented, especially in the pace of increases.
Food companies do give general forecasts on the impact of commodities on their earnings. But those forecasts have tended to change as frequently as every quarter, as everything from demand in Asia and India to floods in Iowa drive up costs.
"It seems like any time these companies say they have a handle on things, the next earnings period comes out and they say, we didn't have a handle on it," said Morningstar analyst Gregg Warren.
By contrast, airlines often give details on how they hedge their jet fuel costs, although airlines have just one major commodity cost as opposed to the several that food companies must typically manage.
In a regulatory filing earlier this year, American Airlines said it had hedged 24 percent of its 2008 jet fuel demand at an average price of $2.31 a gallon.
Southwest Airlines Co said it had 70 percent of its 2008 jet fuel hedged at the equivalent of an average crude oil price of $51 a barrel.
Some airlines began hedging fuel in the 1990s. Those that did started to report those hedging positions as a way of differentiating themselves to financial analysts, said Robert Mann, airline consultant at R.W. Mann & Co.
"For the airlines, fuel is the No. 1 expense," Mann said, adding that for a major airline, fuel costs can be around 40 percent of total expenses.
But even though the airlines disclose their hedging positions, the information is not always enough, he said.
"It doesn't tell a lot, because it is actually very difficult and fairly inefficient to hedge jet fuel," Mann said.
Some other companies also detail some of their hedging positions, even those in the food industry.
In June, Panera Bread Co, the restaurant chain that had been hit by soaring wheat and fuel costs, said it has contracted about 95 percent of its wheat requirement for the first half of the year at a price that is about one-third lower than what it paid last year.
But most food companies are not likely to disclose more hedging information any time soon.
"If their competitors know they are paying more for a product, then they can go out there and undercut them," Morningstar's Warren said.