Shares of Coca-Cola Consolidated (COKE 6.47%), America's largest independently owned bottler of Coca-Cola (and 35%-owned by The Coca-Cola Company itself, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence), jumped 9% through 9:55 a.m. ET this morning after the company reported earnings last night.
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Coca-Cola Consolidated Q2 earnings
Despite shipping slightly lower volumes of soda (down 1%), the Coca-Cola bottler reported sales growth of 3%, a 4% increase in gross profit, and a 5% increase in operating profit for the second quarter of 2025. This implies that both prices and profit margins increased.
Coca-Cola Consolidated earned a 14.7% operating profit margin in the quarter, and turned $1.9 billion in sales into $2.15 per share in net profit -- up 16% year over year.
Is Coca-Cola Consolidated stock a buy?
Management didn't give hard guidance in its report, but noted that cash flow in the first half of the year was about $406 million, and the company expects capital spending to be about $300 million for the year. This would appear to imply Coca-Cola Consolidated might do as much as $500 million in positive free cash flow this year.
Relative to the stock's near-$10 billion market capitalization, that makes the math on this one quite easy: Coca-Cola Consolidated stock sells for a price-to-free-cash-flow ratio of about 20. Between the 0.9% dividend yield and the 16% growth rate in profits, that sounds about right to me -- so long as Coca-Cola Consolidated can keep growing at 16%.
Personally, I'd be surprised if that happens, though. Coke's recent announcement that it will begin selling soda sweetened with cane sugar might spark a surge in experimental buying in the short term. Longer-term, though, 16% growth for a mature beverages company seems like a stretch to me.
I'd be a seller of Coca-Cola Consolidated stock.
