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The per-share profit compared very favorably to the 18 cents earned in last year's similar quarter. However, in terms of analyst expectations, the performance was relatively unimpressive. Earnings.com indicates that 41 cents is what the market was looking for.

Shares of Del Monte (NYSE: DLM) are up over 9% in early afternoon trading. And the volume is doing gangbusters business. The market is responding to the company's fourth-quarter results. The numbers did tell an overall fun story.

To begin with, revenues saw a big jump of 20%. As many news items have pointed out, price increases helped out. It should also be pointed out that the company's press release indicated that an extra week skewed things a bit. That's okay, though, it was still a good top-line performance. Earnings per share from continuing divisions came in at $0.35, which meant that Del Monte grew the bottom line by 75% (a couple elements affecting the perception of this profit expansion was a better tax situation linked to a positive change in California tax code and a $0.04 per-share transformation expense recorded in Q4 2008). Analysts said the company might earn $0.26 per share. That's a pleasant difference, isn't it?

In an interview with Reuters, Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) reported that it expects sales in China to gain 10% in 2009. "This is one of the times when I love being in the food business. This is a market that, whatever happens in the economy, people still eat. And we have a range of products to serve everybody's needs," explained Lorna Davis, the company's president of operations in China. "Opportunities here are just huge," she added.

The projected 10% sales growth for 2009 roughly corresponds with Kraft's 2008 sales results in China. The food firm plans to maintain its healthy pace of expansion by way of a 20% boost to advertising spending. "If you want to build your business here and you don't spend more than 10 percent of your total revenue on advertising, you are not going to grow," asserted Davis.

Heinz (NYSE: HNZ), whose supermarket colleagues include Kraft (NYSE: KFT) and Kellogg (NYSE: K), reported Q4 numbers earlier today. Can't say they were the stuff of a growth investor's dreams. Earnings per share came in at $0.55 versus $0.61 in Q4 of last year. The top line had trouble because of currency effects. Sales dropped over 5%. However, organic revenues increased over 5%. Unfortunately, volume decreased 2%. As can be seen, things aren't totally awesome at Heinz.

The company came in one penny ahead of expectations according to my earnings preview. Other sources say Heinz essentially met expectations. No matter what, management has its work cut it out for it in terms of offsetting currency woes and getting those volume stats on the rise.

Heinz (NYSE: HNZ) is set to report Q4 data before the opening bell on Thursday, May 28. How will the company do? And by that I mean, will it beat the earnings expectation?

In general, that's what the market looks for. Sometimes the market cares more about beating the analyst game than it does about profit growth. Might sound strange, but that's what you see from time to time. Of course, even when a company beats, it may not make much of a difference when it comes to price action (I'll get to that in the last paragraph).

I think Heinz will indeed beat on the bottom line. I'm going by recent history here. According to Earnings.com, Heinz is expected to report 54 cents per share tomorrow. The company went beyond the call in the first three quarters of its fiscal year. Why miss on the last quarter of the year? I think the trend is in on this one.

Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) served up a tasty broth of estimate-beating soup this past Friday. According to Trey Thoelcke's earnings preview, the market was looking for $0.42 per share and $1.8 billion in net sales. Well, according to Jon Ogg's coverage, Campbell delivered $0.48 per share and roughly $1.7 billion in net sales. So, revenues came in somewhat soft, but the bottom line was a success as far as Wall Street was concerned.

One thing Campbell investors want to look at is the gross margin. This metric tells you how the company is doing in terms of cost control. The press release stated that gross margin went up to an adjusted 40.3%. Last year at this time, management reported a gross margin of 38.6%. Pricing helped out, as well as efficiency initiatives. It's cool to see that Campbell can leverage price actions to propel its gross margin. It shows the power of its brand equity.

Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL) hasn't been a bad stock. Its recent performance is firmly in the green. Shares of Hormel have increased in value by 8% year-to-date. Over the last six months, the stock is up by roughly 16%.

Now we come to the food entity's second-quarter report, which was issued on Thursday. Do the numbers indicate that the stock will continue to trend higher? Or is now the time to sell?

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) might not have the best growth rates going these days, but truth be told, I thought the company's Q3 report was acceptable given everything that is going on.

Yes, sales declined by 8%, driven by currency effects. Organic sales, however, increased 1%. Earnings per share increased 2% to 84 cents. This beat Wall Street forecasts by four pennies according to this source.

• Jefferies upgraded MICROS Systems (NASDAQ:MCRS) to Buy from Hold as it believes the company's cost cutting is running ahead of Street expectations. The firm raised its target on shares to $25 from $18.
  
• KeyBanc upgraded Cheesecake Factory (NASDAQ:CAKE) to Buy from Hold. The analyst believes companies will beat EPS estimates given lower commodity costs, focus on cost controls, and reduced drag of inefficient, new restaurants on unit level margins. Additionally, they believe reduced mortgage payments from refinancing will incrementally help traffic.
  
• Keefe Bruyette upgraded First Niagara (NASDAQ:FNFG) to Outperform from Market Perform on valuation following the company's Q1 results. The firm raised its target price to $15.
• American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
  
• Royal Gold (NASDAQ:RGLD) was upgraded to Sector Performer from Sector Underperformer at CIBC and to Neutral from Underperform at Banc of America/Merrill.
  
• Micron (NYSE:MU) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.

Supermarket staple ConAgra Foods (NYSE: CAG) reported earnings for the third quarter on Thursday. Wall Street was bullish on the company since the bottom-line performance beat the expectations of analysts. Shares of the stock closed up over 9% at the end of yesterday's trading session.

Sales increased slightly over 6% and net income came in at 40 cents per diluted share on an adjusted basis. That was good for an 18% growth rate on the bottom line. Market analysts were only counting on 36 cents per share. So, you can see why the market was excited.

General Mills (NYSE: GIS), a cereal manufacturer whose colleagues at the supermarket include Kellogg (NYSE: K), Kraft (NYSE: KFT), and Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB), is all set to report earnings on Wednesday, March 18. This will be for the third quarter, and according to the following source, analysts are expecting $0.88 per share. It won't be an impressive performance if General Mills merely meets expectations. In the previous year's Q3, the company did $0.87 per share. Obviously, $0.88 wouldn't be much in terms of growth.

Costco (NASDAQ: COST), a warehouse club that competes with BJ's Wholesale Club (NYSE: BJ) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), reported earnings for the second quarter on Wednesday. The company experienced a significant drop in the bottom line. Costco earned 54 cents per share on a diluted basis. That represented a decline of 26%. Analysts thought that 59 cents per share was doable. It wasn't. Net sales dropped 1%. Excluding gasoline and currency effects, same-store sales went up by 5% overall during the quarter (including those items, comps declined 3%).

Well, now, what does this tell us about Costco? It tells us that the whole thesis that people will be looking to save money by shopping at warehouse clubs doesn't necessarily translate into a successful earnings picture. Hey, what can you do? We're in a grand recession. And it's getting worse. Of course, it should be noted that Costco management must strive to work even harder to get people to spend more money in their stores. In fact, BJ's did pretty well with its numbers: Costco's competitor beat the analysts, even after adjustments.