Specialty food company Lancaster Colony (NASDAQ:LANC) will be announcing earnings results tomorrow before market open. Here's what investors should know.

Lancaster Colony missed analysts' revenue expectations by 1.5% last quarter, reporting revenues of $485.9 million, up 1.8% year on year. It was a strong quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts' gross margin estimates.

Is Lancaster Colony a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it's free.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Lancaster Colony's revenue to be flat year on year at $468.3 million, slowing from the 15.2% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $1.40 per share.

The majority of analysts covering the company have reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Lancaster Colony has missed Wall Street's revenue estimates twice over the last two years.

Looking at Lancaster Colony's peers in the shelf-stable food segment, some have already reported their Q1 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. McCormick delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 2.4%, beating analysts' expectations by 3.3%, and Simply Good Foods reported revenues up 5.3%, falling short of estimates by 1.3%. McCormick traded up 8.8% following the results while Simply Good Foods was down 1.2%.

Read our full analysis of McCormick's results here and Simply Good Foods's results here.

Valuation multiples for many growth stocks have not yet reverted to their early 2021 highs, but the market was optimistic at the end of 2023 thanks to cooling inflation. The start of 2024 has been a different story as mixed signals have led to market volatility, and while some of the shelf-stable food stocks have fared somewhat better, they have not been spared, with share prices down 3.6% on average over the last month. Lancaster Colony is down 7.7% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $212.2 (compared to the current share price of $190.81).

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