Frozen Foods Stage a Comeback

The entire consumer packaged goods (CPG) world was excited by one of the industry’s blockbuster acquisitions of 2018: Conagra Brands bought Pinnacle for $8.2 billion, largely because of Pinnacle’s strength in the freezer case. For decades, that icy cavity largely had been ignored as the linchpin of any deal.

It turns out that Conagra may have overpaid because of performance window dressing by Pinnacle executives. (See sidebar on Pinnacle Doesn’t Deliver as Anticipated.) But Cona…