Conagra Exits Celeste Pizza, Pours Money Into Popcorn and Meat Sticks

Conagra Brands is exiting its Celeste frozen pizza line as it moves to slim down a portfolio of more than 400 single-serve meal SKUs and redirect spending toward popcorn and meat sticks, two categories where it holds market leadership.

CEO John Brase, who took over in June, told analysts the company is studying other SKUs to cut and brands to divest. The review is ongoing, and the company expects to realize the majority of the benefits over the next 12 to 18 months, according to Conagra's first-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings transcript.

"There are certain brands and categories where we simply just don't see a future," Brase said on the earnings call. "It just makes sense to exit those small and really unprofitable brands or low-profit brands as soon as possible."

Reducing the single-serve meal count, Brase said, would create "an optimized assortment [that] can help drive velocity on our most impactful offerings."

Culling to invest

The cuts are not purely defensive. Exiting Celeste frozen pizza allows the company "to redirect our resources toward brands and categories where we have greater scale and stronger growth potential," Brase said.

The Chicago-based maker of Healthy Choice and Orville Redenbacher plans a "significant step-up" in investment behind meat sticks and popcorn. "Those are the two critical levers to get us back to a growth trajectory in those important businesses," Brase noted.

Brase, a former J.M. Smucker executive, told Food Dive in July he was prepared to make "bold decisions" to turn around Conagra. He said the company has been slowed by a complex portfolio and a failure to invest enough in its on-trend snack and frozen offerings.

He also flagged marketing as a gap. Conagra has not done enough to communicate the value of its brands to shoppers, he told investors, calling it a "tremendous opportunity" during a challenging stretch for cash-strapped consumers.

Pricing into a downturn

The portfolio reset comes amid sputtering sales. Food companies broadly have been hit by a slowdown in consumer spending and a shift by shoppers toward healthier, less processed offerings.

Conagra recently forecast organic net sales for its 2027 fiscal year to drop between 1% and 3%, after slipping 0.4% in the prior year.

Despite pressure on consumers, the company still plans to raise prices on some frozen foods and other products. The increases are likely to result in volume declines, the food maker warned.

For marketers and retail partners, the message is a narrower shelf presence ahead: fewer Conagra SKUs in frozen, with media and innovation dollars concentrated behind a handful of scale brands in snacks.