5 Plant-Based Food Stocks to Buy and Hold for the Next 10 Years

2. General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 37

General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) manufactures and sells branded consumer foods worldwide. The company markets its products under the Annie’s, Betty Crocker, Cheerios, Chex, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Häagen-Dazs, Lucky Charms, Pillsbury, Trix, and Wheaties brands, among others. General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS)’s plant-based investments include No Cow protein bars, Good Catch vegan seafood, and Kite Hill’s yogurt and cheese. 

On June 29, General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) declared a $0.54 per share quarterly dividend, a 5.9% increase from its prior dividend of $0.51. The dividend is payable on August 1, to shareholders of the company as of July 8. On July 13, the stock delivered a dividend yield of 2.82%. 

RBC Capital analyst Nik Modi on July 1 raised the price target on General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) to $68 from $66 and maintained a ‘Sector Perform’ rating on the shares. The company reported another quarter of solid performance, and its FY23 guide was driven by greater pricing offsetting slowing volumes and a rise in inflation, the analyst told investors. The analyst added that he sees General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) executing well in a tough environment, even though the quarter did show some “volume softness”. 

According to Insider Monkey’s data, 37 hedge funds were bullish on General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) at the end of Q1 2022, up from 36 funds in the prior quarter. Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies is the leading stakeholder of the company, with 4.4 million shares worth $300 million. 

Here is what Miller Howard Investments had to say about General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) in its Q3 2021 investor letter:

“Other stocks providing balance against our cyclicals include General Mills (GIS). They pay good dividends supported by stable business models and have a conservative amount of debt. The dividend yield on our Income-Equity Strategy is now 3.6%. The No-MLP version yield is 3.5%. Both yields are roughly 2.5 times the yield on the S&P 500 Index, and we are seeing dividend increases across our portfolios. Our income advantage over the broad market is significant, yet we also believe that we have enough cyclical tilt to perform well in a recovery. We continue to monitor a variety of risks, with inflation and COVID-19 trends being most important.”