Outside of pizza, what's better than french fries?/The Fed should be OUT of the business of dictating the fed funds rate/Kishida chimes in

Let's provide more evidence of a mixed economy, especially with the consumer. From the potato maker Lamb Weston:

After going thru their execution troubles with a new ERP system, "Turning now to the demand environment. Overall, global french fry demand remains resilient, but we believe it's currently at or below the historical annual growth rate of about 2% to 4%. According to restaurant industry data providers, restaurant traffic trends in the US have been generally flat to slightly down during the past six to nine months, as consumers continue to adjust to the cumulative effect of inflation on menus."

Here's more, "QSR traffic during the third quarter was flat versus a prior year after growing modestly during the first half of fiscal 2024. Several QSRs have attributed this to less visits by lower income consumers as their disposable income has been more affected by the overall inflationary environment. Meanwhile, traffic at full service restaurants has declined each quarter during fiscal 2024."

As for their international business, "Outside the US, restaurant traffic continued to increase versus the prior year in most of our key markets, but growth has also slowed sequentially from our fiscal 2nd quarter. Similar to the US, we believe traffic in these markets is also affected by consumers adjusting to the cumulative effect of inflation, as well as other macro headwinds."

Bottom line from Lamb Weston, "So, on the one hand, fries remain as popular as ever with consumers. But on the other hand, consumers are going out to eat less often. Because of these trends, we're taking a cautious view of the consumer."

A beneficiary of people eating less in restaurants and more at home is Conagra (a cheap stock we own) and the largest maker of frozen foods you can find at supermarkets, among other places. They also make snacks like Slim Jim and popcorn. They said this about their top line and volume growth, "which again saw sequential improvement driven by our brand building investments in key areas." Volumes and sales though were still down y/o/y.