Written by StockNews.com

Kellogg Company (NYSE:K ) early Thursday posted mixed first quarter earnings results, but backed its full-year outlook, which is ahead of analyst expectations.

The Battle Creek, MI-based breakfast food maker reported Q1:

• earnings per share (EPS) of $1.06, which was $0.07 better than the Wall Street consensus estimate of $0.99,
• revenues fell 4.2% from last year to $3.25 billion, however, missing analysts’ view for $3.28 billion...[and that]
• comparable operating profit edged 0.5% higher...to $518 million.

Looking ahead, K:

• reiterated its full-year outlook of 8-10% EPS growth, which equates to $4.03 to $4.09 per share. That’s significantly higher than Wall Street’s consensus view for $3.93.

The company commented via press release:

“While our Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions and parts of our North America region performed largely as expected, our U.S. Morning Foods, U.S. Snacks, and Europe region got off to a soft start to the year. It was in these businesses that we saw a meaningfully lower-than-trend net sales and operating profit performance. While this weighed down overall results, as previously indicated, many of their underlying negative factors were largely concentrated in Q1.”

...Year-to-date, K had declined -5.14% prior to today’s report, versus a 7.38% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.

K currently has a StockNews.com POWR Rating of C (Neutral), and is ranked #38 of 61 stocks in the Food Makers category.