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Highlights
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Americans paid roughly 25 percent more on groceries and dining out this March than they paid in January 2020, outpacing the rate of general inflation. Over that same period, the companies behind the country’s ten largest grocery and restaurant brands have together returned or pledged to return more than $77 billion to shareholders
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When pressed, the nation’s biggest food processors and retailers say they’re doing their best to keep prices down and continue to blame inflation. But as these companies hide behind “difficult times,” they’re spending billions of their record profits buying back their own shares on the open market to inflate stock value and issuing generous dividends.
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In 2023, PepsiCo raked in 7.7 billion into repurchasing stock and issuing dividends, with buybacks increasing 843 percent from 2021. In-house analysts expect total cash returns to shareholders will grow to $8.2 billion this year.
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buybacks boomed right before the pandemic when Trump-era tax cuts left corporations with extra cash on hand. Advocates for the tax cuts claimed companies would reinvest that profit back into the economy via manufacturing and jobs — but many began pouring huge sums of money into buybacks instead.
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Walmart raised the price of staples like milk and frozen meals in 2022, helping expand grocery sales by double digits over the previous two years. The retailer’s total revenues reached 9.9 billion dollars in share repurchases, a 277 percent increase over 2021.
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General Mills hiked cereal costs by 12 percent between 2022 and 2023, while also reportedly reducing the family-sized box from 19.3 ounces to 18.1 ounces. When pressed on the shrinkage, a spokesperson for the company told NPR that it allowed for more efficient truck loading, reducing the company’s fuel costs and covering for input inflation. However, behind the scenes, company executive Jon Nudi confided in investors that the company was “getting smart about how we look at pricing” while carrying out “list price increases.” Since the pandemic, General Mills’s annual net sales have grown 19 percent, topping out at 1.4 billion of its own stock from the open market, up from $877 million the year before.
✏️ Action, explanation (propaganda), and the reality behinds the scenes. 🔗 View Highlight
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The CEO of Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, said in 2023 that the company’s price hikes were “a last resort”; that same year, the company brought in 2 billion share repurchase program and returned $678 million to shareholders in dividends.
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the fast food giant resumed its 7.6 billion to shareholders via buybacks and dividends in 2023
✏️ McDonald’s 🔗 View Highlight