Packaged Food manufacturers are experiences falling sales volumes due to inflation based rising prices, increase GLP-1 usage and decreasing federal government subsidies and benefits.

Manufacturers are lowering prices, and therefore shrinking margins, to try and support sales volumes as well as trimming underperforming products from their skews.

Short interest in the Packaged Foods & Meats sub-industry has increased by +80% over the last two years as the S&P 500 Packaged Foods Index fell -14%. This year we have seen a +1% increase in short interest in the sub-industry even as the sector rose +8%.

There are two battleground stocks in this sub-industry, Beyond Meat Inc (BYND US) with $69 million of active long holdings and $102 million of active short holdings and Tootsie Roll Industries Inc (TR US) with $110 million of active long holdings and $107 million of active short holdings.

Short interest in the Packaged Foods & Meats sub-industry has been rising steadily over the last two years as the index declined. We can expect short selling to continue as the industry continues to see weakness in their sales.

The largest shorts in the sub-industry are the biggest names in the sub-industry, short interest has increased by $720 million over the last thirty days with Kraft Heinz Co (KHC US), The Hershey Co (HSY US) and McCormick Co (MKC US) seeing the largest increases.

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