Do Wall Street Analysts Like Hormel Foods Stock?

Hormel Foods Corporation (HRL), headquartered in Austin, Minnesota, is a leading manufacturer and marketer of various meat and food products. It develops and distributes various meats, nuts and other food products to retail, food service and commercial customers. With a market capitalization of $12.4 billion, Hormel Foods operates in several countries around the world through its retail, foodservice and international segments.

The major packaged foods company has substantially underperformed the broader market over the past year. Hormel Foods’ stock prices have plunged 29% year-over-year and 26.7% over the past 52 weeks, compared with the S&P 500 Index ($SPX)’s 16.5% gains in 2025 and 14.5% returns over the past year.

To narrow the focus, Hormel Foods also underperformed the First Trust Nasdaq Food & Beverage ETF (FTXG) by 7.9% year-over-year and 12.3% over the past year.

Hormel Foods stock prices plunged 13.1% in a single trading session following the release of its mixed third-quarter results on August 28. The company saw strong organic growth across all of its segments, leading to strong 4.6% year-over-year growth in overall net sales to $3 billion, beating street expectations by 1.9%. However, the company’s earnings performance remains dismal. Due to a sharp increase in raw material input costs, the company’s adjusted EPS declined 5% year over year to $0.35, missing consensus estimates by 14.6%, making investors nervous.

For the full fiscal year 2025, which ended in October, analysts expect HRL to generate adjusted EPS of $1.37, down 13.3% year over year. The company has a mediocre track record of earnings surprises. While it met final Street estimates once in the past four quarters, it missed projections on three other occasions.

Among the 10 analysts covering the stock, the consensus rating is “Hold.” This is based on three “strong buys”, six “holds” and one “strong sell”.

This setup is slightly different from three months ago, when two analysts gave “Strong Buy” recommendations and none of the analysts suggested “Strong Sell” ratings.

On November 6, Piper Sandler analyst Michael Lavery maintained a “Neutral” rating on HRL, but lowered the price target from $26 to $25.

HRL’s average price target of $27 represents a 21.2% premium to current price levels. Meanwhile, the street’s high target of $31 suggests a potential upside of 39.2%.

On the date of publication, Aditya Sarawgi had no (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article are for informational purposes only. This article was originally published on Barchart.com