PepsiCo Inc.’s (PEP Quick QuotePEP - Free Report) snacking business continues its trend of bringing newer tastes for its fans. This time, the Doritos brand comes forward to launch the Doritos Flamin’ Hot Cool Ranch Flavored Tortilla Chips just in time for the holiday season.

The variation combines the classic Cool Ranch flavor with a spicy, bold crunch twist. The company plans to roll out the Doritos Flamin’ Hot Cool Ranch to all stores and retail outlets by the New Year.

PepsiCo has been attracting customers for some time now with its Flamin’ Hot line-up of snacks, be it the original Cheetos Crunchy Flamin’ Hot or the latest Doritos innovation. The company earlier launched flavors like Doritos Flamin’ Hot Nacho and Doritos Flamin’ Hot Limon, which won customers’ appreciation.
What’s More?
Strength in its global snacks and foods business, and growth in the beverage category have been keys to PepsiCo’s growth story. The Frito-Lay’s (“FLNA”) and Quaker Foods (“QFNA”) businesses constitute its Snacks/Food business.

The food business has been benefiting from share gains in salty and savory snacks, meals, and instant oatmeal. Solid revenue growth across key trademark brands like Doritos, Cheetos and Ruffles aided revenue growth for the FLNA business in the third quarter of 2021. Smaller brands, including PopCorners and Bare, also reported double-digit revenue growth.

Revenues for the Quaker business benefited from market share gains in meals and instant oatmeal, including innovative product launches like the Cheetos Mac ‘n Cheese and Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal.

Meanwhile, gains in the beverage business have been driven by market share growth in the liquid refreshment beverage category, with share gains in the carbonated soft drinks, Ready-to-Drink Tea and water categories. Many of its key brands performed exceptionally well in the third quarter, including double-digit growth in Mountain Dew, LifeWtr, bubly and Aquafina, high-single-digit growth in Pepsi, and mid-single-digit growth in Starbucks.

The company continues to invest in its Zero Sugar products and other functional beverages in the carbonated and non-carbonated categories to offer more choices to consumers. It is also tailoring price and package styles as demand evolves.

PepsiCo has been continually focused on driving greater efficiency and effectiveness by driving down costs and plowing back these savings to develop scale and core capabilities. In 2019, the company delivered in excess of $1 billion in productivity savings, keeping it on track to generate productivity savings of at least $1 billion annually through 2023.

The company expects to achieve the productivity goal through savings generated from restructuring actions. As part of the restructuring actions, it estimates incurring pre-tax charges of $2.5 billion through 2023 (with a cash portion of $1.6 billion). Savings from the productivity and restructuring plans should go a long way in driving the top line and margins.

Overall, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have rallied 16.9% in the past year compared with the industry’s 6.4% growth.
 
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
 
3 Beverage Stocks to Watch
Some better-ranked stocks are Compania Cervecerias Unidas (CCU Quick QuoteCCU - Free Report) , Diageo (DEO Quick QuoteDEO - Free Report) and The Duckhorn Portfolio (NAPA Quick QuoteNAPA - Free Report) .

Compania Cervecerias, a beverage company principally based in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, and Bolivia, currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Shares of the company have jumped 4.9% in the past year.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CCU’s current financial-year sales and earnings per share (EPS) suggests growth of 34% and 110.3%, respectively, from the year-ago period’s reported figures. Compania Cervecerias has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 29.6%, on average. It has an expected EPS growth rate of 15.6% for three-five years.

Diageo, an alcoholic beverages company operating worldwide, carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. The DEO stock has gained 34.9% in a year.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DEO’s current financial-year sales and EPS suggests growth of 30.7% and 13.5%, respectively, from the year-ago period’s reported numbers. Diageo has an expected EPS growth rate of 9.2% for three-five years.

Duckhorn, a producer and seller of wines in North America, currently carries a Zacks Rank #2. NAPA has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 158.7%, on average. Shares of the company have risen 29.5% in the past year.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NAPA’s current financial-year sales suggests growth of 7.9 from the year-ago period’s reported figures. Duckhorn has an expected EPS growth rate of 10.9% for three-five years.

Source: Zacks.com

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