How is this for a defensive stock: the company that makes the food you will be eating as you sit in the bomb shelter waiting for Armageddon. Spam; canned chilli, beef stew, and hash; assorted cured meats; microwavable side–dishes. Not for the gourmet, perhaps, but Hormel offers perfectly palatable ways to greet the end of days.

Of interest to financial survivalists is Hormel’s rock-steady performance. The shares have more than doubled the return of the wider market during the last decade, and whipped consumer-staples indices too. Margins have widened steadily over that period (though they were squeezed a bit by commodity prices last year). The company has failed to lift sales in two of the last 20 years, and those contractions were 1 and 3 per cent. Lyndon Johnson was president the last year the company didn’t raise its dividend. About half the shares belong to the company’s foundation, so management can focus on the long- term.

Last week the company bought Skippy peanut butter, the number two brand in the US, from Unilever. The price, a bit less than 2 times expected annual sales, is not cheap by packaged food standards (Hormel itself trades at 1x). Investors didn’t mind, bumping the shares – already at an all-time high – up 7 per cent in the two days following the announcement.

Hormel itself doesn’t come cheap: it trades at 18.5 times trailing earnings, more than two points higher than its average during the last five years. That said, even at the current level, Hormel is about as safe a stock as one can own, and its valuation is not much higher than peers’. What is worrying is how much an unexciting, well-managed, low-to-moderate growth company costs in the current market. This is no reason to head for the bomb shelter; but buying a few extra cans of spam might be wise.

Email the Lex team in confidence at lex@ft.com

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