Tara Lachapelle, Columnist

Sorry, But Bob Evans Sausage Is Pricey Enough

Traders must think foodmakers are really desperate.
Photographer: Lennart Preiss/Getty Images
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Microwavable sausages are signaling that America's most powerful food-industry executives are being taken for fools.

It seems the leading U.S. packaged-food companies -- General Mills Inc., Kellogg Co. and the like -- are perceived as so desperate to buy growing brands that they'll pay absurd prices. That's the only explanation I can think of for why some investors are bothering to wager on rival bids for Bob Evans Farms Inc. when the maker of heat-and-eat foods already agreed to a rather toasty deal with Post Holdings Inc. last month.