spent most of the afternoon in positive territory. the s&p gained 0.14% and the nasdaq rose 0.08%. isn't that why we came back strong? the price at the pump keeps spiking. i paid $3.90 this weekend. it's got to be killing someone, doesn't it? at one time this would have sent this market plummeting. these are real bad ones out of some mexican meeting. and everyone stayed down in anticipation of a terrible european market tomorrow. instead we ignore oil. we turned our noses up at the europeans and we just keep plowing higher. okay, europe is easy to excuse these days. they may not have a lot of growth over there. they may not have much in the way of unit. without it you can see why the g-20 doesn't want to get behind europe until the germans rangle everyone. for the stock market, we'll do fine as long as there isn't a huge blowup in europe. it sure doesn't look like there be one. and that's a major change. that's color of all of 2012. but this gasoline thing. and yeah, i'm from philadelphia. tired of explaining it on jim cramer on twitter that in philadelphia you spell gasoline with a z. it's a regional thing. anyway, you got to think oil is costing us. a little mystifying. at least until you think about all the jammed parking lots and the stuff people are buying when they're shopping first. people are dining out like mad. just try getting into your red lobster or your olive garden on friday, even your chili's. i've given up. i can only wait for so long before the indignity seeps in. you can say this is merely anecdotal. but when you listen to the conference call last week from darden, you know the business is on fire. they're driving, yeah, they're driving to destinations far away over the weekend. i was listening to my morning partner, david faber on our brand-new set tell me how jammed disney. if it were just david not being able to get on mr. toad's wild ride or cut in line at space mountain or the runaway train, that is one thing. but it's an all together another thing when goldman sachs comes out and recommends disney because of the throngs showing up the theme parks instead of higher gasoline prices. espn is great too. third and finally what is really driving consumer spending, here is a head-turner, oddest one of all. your home. yep, the real strength is coming from people fixing their homes. for instance, the home improvement stores. that's how lowe's, low, boy, how long has it been? they blew away the numbers this morning. and remember, lowes has been left in the dust, in the doghouse by home despot. it is not at the expense of home depot. both are doing terrifically as people begin to spend money on their homes again. now we have to puzzle over this. if homes are so bad, why are people spending money on them? because they think for once in five years their houses might be going up in value. it has to be you don't throw good money after bad. in fact, it looks like housing may actually become a serious driver of the u.s. economy this year. and no less, warren buffett is saying as much. now i know the oracle thought houses were going to turn last year. whoa! [ buzzer ] and also never applied to him, but i'm going to do it. [ booing ] . he has home-related plays galore. but this year is different. he is not just saying housing, i'm early. he wants in used. just take a look at this amazing, in my head, snippet from today's incredible interview with becky quick. >> if i had a way of buying a couple hundred,000 single family homes and had a way of managing, the management is really a problem, because they're one by one. they're not like apartment houses. but i would load up on them. and i would take mortgages out at very, very low rates. >> got to love a guy that says the real issues is management and not buying hundreds of thousands of them. i would have thought the buying hundreds of thousands of them was a bit of a stumbling block. anyway, warren is not alone. fantastic housing numbers for january, one that took the index back up to where it was in january 2010 when it was pumped up by the home buyer tax credit. i say infamous because it caused the home buyers to put up so much more inventory precisely when we were trying to get the inventory down. that is right, the tax credit exacerbated the problem. someone should own that i just said it. so is this move sustainable? i'm siding with buffett in this one. at last quote, hormones are taking over. what what. people are hitching up more while others living with in-laws are beginning to lose its allure. it's causing the reverse isle of the equation, something that led to only 305,000 new home sales last year. just 600,000 housing starts, a number where we were when the country was half as big as we are now. buffett thinks a million could soon be in the cards. it's the answer that plays makes more sense. i think you play with where consumers are spending rather than making the bet on new home sales. this moment involves making your home look better for sale. and that means shopping at home depot or lowe's. it means buying new tools to fix up your house, which is why my charitable trust brought more stanley works today. it's the reason why you buy more pier 1 because it's an inexpensive way to make your home look better. it's why panic short sellers may not be as outrageous as you think. it's why buffett -- buffett is right. when he keeps buying wells fargo and u.s. bancorp. it's why he'll only be right about his bank of america purchase. he'll do better than you because he has a preferred investment with better yield. you get almost nothing with common stock. we're no longer in an economy based on homes. autos are more important. so is retail sales, so is finance, so is manufacturing. but the notion that your home can increase in value has been absent from the agenda for five years. lately, we presume the moment we buy a home, the moment we sign on the dotted line, the moment we take the keys that we're down, we already lost money. a home somehow incredibly became a car, a car that plummets in value the moment it leaves the lot. i lived in my car so i can confuse homes and cars all the time if i want to. what buffett is saying, what i'm saying, what lowe's is saying when it talks about the underpinning psycho of graphics, their word, not mine, of owning a home, is that the value of your house is rebounding at last. that's going to make people spend on their homes despite the rising costs of gasoline, simply because they have to. they have held off for as listening as they can. they deferred for as long as they can. day thsh day can't wait any longer. the thrill of owning a home may be making a comeback, particularly if the banks are willing to give you the 3.5% mortgage. the fact that one of the world's richest man doesn't want to buy one home, he wants to buy hundreds of thousands of homes, worried about the upkeep, is good enough for me to be convinced that the value is there. and if your home might actually be worth more than what i don't paid for it, i think we're going to keep spending. yep, until, well, let's just say throw more money in and get more value. who knows? the impact on the stock market has become palpable. and it could play out positively for months, or maybe even years to come. nick in new jersey? nick? >> boo-yah, jim. >> boo-yah, nick. what's going on, partner? >> great show. i follow you every day on twitter. >> oh, yeah, i'm at jim cramerer. i slag people all day. nothing like a couple of juicy comments. >> love your tweets. my question is running new windows platform phones as well as a megapixel capable phone. but do you believe their greatest comeback will be on a windows 8 system? >> i was talking to my friend james b. stewart this morning. on saturday in "the new york times," i am concerned that a certain point apple is just going to be too big. but at this point, even though i know android is signing people up, it's the iphone s4 that changed the equation. it is going to be like itunes? no. but it's going to be pretty major. olive in michigan. olive? >> caller: yes, boo-yah, boo-yah, boo-yah from general motors employees in michigan. >> man, i'm liking that all fired up triple boo-yah. what's on your mind? >> is the best in ten years. when do you think the stock will begin to show it and start going up again, instead of floating between 11 and $13. >> problematic. let me tell you, a problematic piece this weekend how ford can really make inroads in china. ford is uniquely europe and has big business in latin america. latin america not good. europe awful. they are offsetting the united states. that's why we are stalled at this level that you correctly articulated. thank you, oracle omaha for reminding us that the market is saying come on! make yourself at home, because housing is getting bullish. "mad money" will be right back. >> coming up, proctor a gamble? a consumer study faltered last week. but as a plan of action after proctor's extreme cost-cutting announcement, cramer is finding out if it will be enough, or if it's too little too late. and later, can't beat 'em? join 'em. with the price at the pump soaring, cramer is helping you fight back with five stocks that can profit from the surge in the price of oil. plus, fooled for thought. only one packaged foods company has managed to beat expectations and raise their dividend three times in the past year. is it time to chow down? cramer's exclusive with b & g foods ceo is just ahead, all coming up on "mad money." miss out on some "mad money"? get your "mad money" text alert today. text "mm" to 26221 to get cramer right on your phone. for more info, visit madmoney.cnbc.com. or give us a call at 1-800-743-cnbc. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers. carfirmation. only hertz gives you a carfirmation. hey. this is challenger. i'll be waiting for you in stall 5. it confirms your reservation and the location your car is in, the moment you land. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. even procter & gamble is trouble, then you know the whole darn soft goods complex has got a problem. that's how i felt about the news proctor reported last thursday when they announced the gigantic reinstructing cherring cut, including laying off 5600 workers. don't get me wrong. i think proctor is doing the right thing. but when you see a company trying to reorganize itself in such a major way, you got to ask yourself why. why does procter & gamble have to fire all these people? why do they have to take out $10 billion in costs? was there really that much overhead? that much dead wood? what the heck is going wrong here that all these steps are necessary? this is procter & gamble, for heaven's sake. when i listened to the fourth quarter conference call a few weeks ago and we got to that q&a session, it was like an open rebellion among the analyst. many followed this company for decades. it was heresy. clearly this is not the best of breed that we remember. it's not the proctor of old. proctor has become a troubled company. so what are the problems? how many are company-specific versus industry-wide and will the plan proctor announced on thursday be enough to fix them? man, i don't know. where do we even start here? proctor's markets aren't growing much. the company's operating margins are in decline because developed markets aren't contributing to proctor's growth or earnings. only emerging markets are driving growth right now. that's also why they're doing these massive cost cuts, slashing $3 billion of overhead costs, $6 billion in goods sold and lopping a billion off the marketing budget to boot. good first step. i think it's a good first step for proctor. but it's not enough. even though the stock has been able to lift a couple of bucks based on this news, they can manufacture higher earnings through cost cuts, thaw they can't just create new revenue growth out of whole cloth. that's assuming the company can execute on these changes. keep in mind this is a board decision to become leaner. but when you work your way down the corporate hierarchy, there is no cost cutting. proctor has never seen anything like this before when their volumes go down substantially when they raised prices off commodity increases. so it's anybody's guess whether proctor will be able to deliver on the plan. however, the real problem doesn't have as much to do with procter & gamble specifically. no, the issue is the entire consumer goods industry is in -- let's call it what it is, complete disarray. that's why proctor is so desperate to trim the fat. got a slowdown in birth rates in this country and many areas around the area. input rise across the board. and worst of all generic private store florida brands, the cheap knockoff brands of proctor's products. all this leaves procter & gamble like it's in a serious bind. while the consumer is definitely feeling better and spending more in the wake of the great recession, she is sticking with the cheaper private label brands that work it turns out just as well as the national brand of stuff but costs a lot less. now a little cache. before the recession there was a stigma attached to buying the store brand. not anymore. this cuts at the very essence of the problem. with oil over $100 a barrel, normally in this situation you just want to raise prices, pass on the costs to the consumer. but proctor and its peers are facing such stiff competition from store brand generics, i'm thinking about the stuff we showed you from perrigo or the kirkland private label brand for cosco, right? they can't afford to raise prices for fear it will drive consumers back even more heavily into the arms of private label. if they can't raise prices they have to cut costs. kimberly-clark reported higher costs. conagra talked about higher inflation. general mills preannounced an ugly shortfall. general mills, the general! this was monumental. a monumental sign that things are wrong. general mills never does anything like that. of course, there is also the problem of which costs to cut. proctor decided to take a billion dollars out of its marketing budget, between now and 2016. but that could be a mistake. marketing is what differentiates these guys from private label and fend off competition. pepsi got hurt because it wasn't spending enough to support its brands. now proctor could be following in their footsteps versus a colgate. now, all these companies are finding themselves in a tough spot. but there are also some here that are uniquely proctor's. for example, for the last few years the company has been able to translate growth into actual earnings per share growth. that's another reason why they're doubling down on cost cuts. but it's also the reason why the company has zero credibility on saving money in the eyes of the wall streeters who follow it. i think you to be selective about the industry and buy the stocks only at a discount, unless there is a catalyst like kellogg's under the acquisition of undermanaged by overresearched -- say that a lot, overhead, at former proctor, soon to be former proctor brand pringles. and i'm buying kellogg's for my charitable trust which you can follow along because this is going to be transformative acquisition. this industry is just way too difficult for the big boys right now without catalysts. now with proctor trading at a 16.5 times earnings, that's undeserving. you need a player where the numbers are too low, not too high. i have one later in the show. here is the bottom line. when an iconic company like procter & gamble announces sweeping restructuring, you need to ask what the going wrong. in this case all the big consumer staples are getting squeezed between the rock of higher costs and private label competition. that's just not where you want to be with your stocks right now. after the break, i'll try to save you even more money. coming up, can't beat 'em? join 'em. with the price at the pump soaring, cramer is helping you fight back with five stocks that can profit from the surge in price of oil. and later, food for thought. only one packaged foods company has managed to beat expectations and raise their dividend three times in the past year. is it time to chow down? cramer's exclusive with b & g foods ceo is just ahead. all coming up on "mad money." so uh this is my friend frank and his, uh, retirement plan. one golden crown. come on frank how long have we known each other? go to e-trade. they got killer tools man. they'll help you nail a retirement plan that's fierce. two golden crowns. you realize the odds of winning are the same as being mauled by a polar bear and a regular bear in the same day? frank! oh wow, you didn't win? i wanna show you something... it's my shocked face. [ gasps ] ♪ [ male announcer ] get a retirement plan that works at e-trade. you know me. i always like to keep a shopping list of the biggest teams out there. my favorite ways to play them, so when the stocks pull back, you'll be ready to buy. take the incredible running crude that has been driving the entire oil patch higher. one that if you're like me, you're spoiling for revenge over. so why don't we make some money on the trend ourselves? i have no doubt, unfortunately, that oil will stay at sky-high levels which makes the whole complex extremely attractive here. but lately it seems you never get a price break where you can buy the stocks at a discount. until today, where the price of oil actually fell a couple of bucks giving you a nice opportunity in a market where there have been few and far between opportunities to buy the oil. so what oil stocks should you buy? that's the question we're going to help you answer tonight. but not in the way you think, no. i want you to ask yourself which one best matches you, your personality, your individual risk profile. that's the real question. not what is the best, but which one matches your thoughts you, worries, you have to decide what level risk you can handle. it's not like buying a drug stock or utility. it's like one you have to pay a fortune to fill up your tank. have i five names. five great ways to play the oil bull market that we know is going to be ongoing and i need you be in. and i want you the listen. but they're going to be from the most secure to the most risky so that you can pick the stock you feel most comfortable with. why am i doing this? because everybody needs oil exposure. the opportunity is too good to miss. i like the revenge factor. and that means giving you some options that appeal to the most conservative investors out there and others that work for the most aggressive risk-takers. and key to this is considering what hole in your portfolio you're looking for an oil patch name to fill. let's take them down. starting with with the less risky, the core names, down to the ones that should be reserved for pure specs. first, for those you have looking for a play which is more risk-averse, i'm recommending conocophillips. cop, cop. one of the most share friendly, juicy 4.5% yield and huge buybacks that actually matter because they meaningfully shrink the share count. conoco is a great example of breaking itself up in order to unlock valley. company splitting off its downstream refining and marketing business, something that worked for marathon, and keeping the much faster grow exploration and production business. it has a rock-solid balance sheet. terrific assets all over the world. and the most recent quarter was excellent. but it's been a laggard of late. it's got some natural gas which is around here bottoming. it's only up about 5% a year. i think that's about to change. the company has two big catalysts on the horizon. analyst day, march 5th, hey, around the corner, and the breakup becoming official on may 1st. that's why conoco is about to play catch-up to the rest of the oil patch. soy would buy it ahead of these two catalysts as my charitable trust which you can follow along has been doing. this one fits my trust risk profile to a tee. second, in order of security, in order of less risk, there is schlumberger. the largest oil service company on earth, and a stock also owned by my charitable trust. bought the stock for the trust after listening to andrew gould, a fantastic former ceo who really is the best oil man in the world. schlumberger is the huge benefit of the recent increase in oil drilling, all over as companies have upped their capital venture budgets at an astounding 30% clip over the past two years, taking advantage of $100 oil. they have their mitts in every part of the food chain, but i like it because it gets 80% of its sales from outside the u.s., meaning it has much less exposure to the weak domestic natural gas business, unlike baker hughes and halliburton. slb has a 60% share in the deep-water drilling services which has advanced past where it was before macondo as oil companies all across the globe ramp up to capitalize on high prize. 30% earnings next year, from this an old mature company, selling for less than four times next year's earning estimates. plus, the company gives you a small 1.4% yield. thirst, for an oil company that is not too risky, not too conservative, eog. i'm focused on eog. eog is perhaps the best way from all the unconventional share places i talk about. it's the number one in bakken, north dakota and eagle ford for shale in north texas. eagle ford is so bountiful. those are the two largest domestic oil discoveries since prudhoe bay. company has been growing its oil production and reserves like crazy as part of its shift away from low-priced natural gas and towards much higher margin oil and nat gas liquids. we just heard from eog's excellent ceo mark papa last week. man was he bullish about the company's profits, the last quarter was truly spectacular. eog has given us some phenomenal gains lately, but i still think the stock is real cheap based on its amazing oil production growth. remember that. >> could sell bakken and still have -- if they sold eagle ford, it would be worth the whole price of the company. be careful, though. this stock gets clipped pretty badly on days like today when crude drops. fourth on the riskier side, now i want you to consider national oil well vargo, nov. 70% market share. how did the government let all these companies merge into one? obviously national oil well benefits, but it's risky. because it needs the prices to stay elevated for a long time. longer periods since rigs are expensive and they're long-term investments. the longer drillers believe oil prices will stay sky-high, and i think they will because of the iranian tension. look, the tension is palpable. that the more that oil companies will invest in building out the rig fleets. and the bigger national oil backlogged. that's how you measure, by the backlog. to bet we have entered a permanently high oil, this could be a terrific stock for you to buy. but you need to recognize the risk. if prices drop off too soon, then nov's backlog won't grow as fast as we think and then the stock does get pummelled. have i seen this stock lose two or three points if oil declines a couple of days in a row. definitely not for the squeamish. fifth and most risky, it's magnum hunter, mhr, small, speculative oil sprorgs company, $7 and change. $935 million market cap. like because there are market in bakken and marcellus. this 52% oil, 49% natural gas. it's becoming more oily by the day. plus, magnum hunter is growing production at insanely rapid clip. the most recent quarter the company delivered 455% increase in production. and po from the middle of 2011 to the end of the year, their reserves rose by 44%. six months! staggering numbers. now we just had magnum hunter's gary evans on the show. this was february 13th. he came on and talked about turning his company into an ultra efficient drilling factory. plus, bexp, wow, two smaller companies taken over last year at massive premiums. so magnazin magnum hunter, a lo but a lot can go wrong. one can get hit with funding problems, especially if they need to do an dilutive equity offering to raise money. this is one for speculation only. you can get really hammered on this one. i got to tell you. this is a scenario that is reasonable. if you can't take -- >> the house of pain. >> -- stick with conoco. i think that magnum hunter for some belongs not even in the oil, but in the speculative pick category, not necessarily a petroleum pick. yes, it's that risky. the bottom line, everybody should be able to play this incredible run in oil, get a little revenge, which is why i have given you this menu of stocks with different levels of risk. again, from most secure to most risky. what do we have? we have conoco. we got schlumberger. we've got eog resources, national oilwell varco, and then yes, the riskiest of all, magnum hunter! the most speculative and riskiest. know yourself. know your tolerance for pain. are you the marathon man? able to endure drilling without anesthetic? it seems safe? magnum is for you. afraid of your own shadow? need to be put under for a cavity? go conoco. as for the rest, something in between may be right for you and your portfolio. scott, next to the omaha of the oracle of omaha, scott from nebraska, scott? >> caller: what's happening, cramer? first of all, you got to get the old school. the boo-yah is not working. now it's boom. >> i didn't know that. thank you for filling me in. we're going to change everything radically tomorrow morning. what's going on? >> caller: hey, man, i seen it early this morning, transcanada pipeline, they're make another bid to put the pipeline out there. i want to get your opinion on that. do i buy, sell? what do i do here? >> good luck. here is the problem. i think the president got a lot of support for doing what he did. i'm a member of the sierra club. they're all over. they're backing him big-time. i don't know what has changed since then. the republicans aren't holding the gun to his head. this pipeline, i think it's doomed. if they do get it, it's because we get a change in washington. there you go. okay. let's go to weeks in georgia, weeks? >> caller: boo-yah, jim. what's going on with you, buddy? >> you know, we got that morning show. the new set that was fun. this show we're kicking some butt with these consumer names in oil. what is up with you? >> caller: nothing too much, man. just chilling here in atlanta, georgia. quick question. lnd, cheniere energy. blackstone, they needed some capital. do you feel like i should let it recede a little bit? >> now you got to let i come down, weeks. here is why. you and i both believed in these guys. now we've got guys betting against them and they're frantically covering their short. that's why the stock is going up. atlanta come in. we were believers. the other guys weren't. we made the money. they're just in the poor house. oil's well that ends well. you should be in the oil patch, but you need to know what you can risk. look yourself in the mirror. decide your risk profile. if you're squeamish, it's up here. if you're a daredevil, go with the hunter. stay with cramer. coming up, ride the lightning. take a nonstop thrill ride as cramer goes stock after stock. all your calls taken rapid-fire on the "lightning round." and later, food for thought. only one packaged foods company has managed to beat expectations and raise their dividend three times in the past year. is it time to chow down? cramer's exclusive with b & g food ceo, all coming up. . it is time! it is time for the "lightning round." cramer says calls, buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell, when you hear this sound and then the "lightning round" is over. are you ready, skee-daddy? it's time for "lightning round." start with john in michigan. john? >> caller: c-c cramer, ba-ba-boo-yah. bravo. what do you think? >> i love chipotle. yum, my charitable trust name. let's go to jim in the illini. jim? >> caller: hi, kiddo. >> yo yo. >> i want to know about mlp, kinder williams, plains, or all of the above. >> that's too many. my charitable trust owns kmp. so i'm going the focus on that one being right. let's go to jordan in pennsylvania. jordan? >> caller: boo-yah, jim, from the steel city, pennsylvania. >> man, i'm liking that. the pengs look good. what's up? >> caller: they do. talk about to me about fidelity national financial. >> not bad. regional is good. i think this group is strong. let me go back to what warren buffett said. he likes werveg. >> buy, buy, buy! let's go to jim in south carolina. >> caller: thank you. frontier communication. >> no, no. >> sell, sell, sell. >> i say sell, sell, sell. let's go to ku in california. ku? >> caller: ba-ba-boo-yah, cramer. >> nice. i like to start that in the "lightning round." what is going on? >> what do you think about -- education? >> i don't like any of those stocks. i think for profit education is not going to be a decent place to be for the next few years. wally in kwol. wally? >> boo-yah. >> caller: my 3-year-old granddaughter loves your program. >> there you go. i need that younger demographic and i'm winning it. what is going on? >> i need to know, buy, hold or sell, holly front tell. >> i'm going to give you the hold. not so bad you need to get rid of them. but i do prefer something that has a higher yield and you don't got one. let's go to edward in kentucky. edward? >> caller: yes, ma'am, yes, sir. >> yeah. yo yo. go ahead. >> caller: my question is king cramer, belden incorporated, bec. >> well, i'm on board with that, not just because you made me king. >> buy, buy, buy! >> why? because it's a good housing play. it's a good construction play. i see residential construction coming back. let's go to bob in connecticut. bob? . >> caller: boo-yah, cramer. >> boo-yah. >> caller: i don't know where you get your energy. you're like the energizer bunny. >> there you go. i come to play every day. what's on your mind? >> is the dividend safe at bbet? >> don't know how much of it is natural gas. i'm going to have to do the work because when dividend is not safe and i say safe, i be goat of game. i don't have the answer. that, ladies and gentlemen, the conclusion of the "lightning round"! [ buzzer ] >> the "lightning round" is sponsored by td ameritrade. used to be we socked money away and expected it to grow. then the world changed... and the common sense of retirement planning became anything but common. fortunately, td ameritrade's investment consultants can help you build a plan that fits your life. take control by opening a new account or rolling over an old 401(k) today, and we'll throw in up to $600. how's that for common sense? that's going to have to be done by a certain date. you always have homework, okay? i don't have homework today. it's what's right here is what is most important to me. it's beautiful. ♪ ♪ my dad and grandfather spent their whole careers here. [ charlie ] we're the heartbeat of this place, the people on the line. we take pride in what we do. when that refrigerator ships out the door, it's us that work out here. [ michael ] we're on the forefront of revitalizing manufacturing. we're proving that it can be done here, and it can be done well. [ ilona ] i came to ge after the plant i was working at closed after 33 years. ge's giving me the chance to start back over. [ cindy ] there's construction workers everywhere. so what does that mean? it means work. it means work for more people. [ brian ] there's a bright future here, and there's a chance to get on the ground floor of something big, something that will bring us back. not only this company, but this country. ♪ ♪ where the sun never goes out ♪ ♪ and the sky is deep and blue ♪ ♪ won't you take me american flight 280 to miami is now ready for boarding. ♪ there with you fly without putting your life on pause. be yourself. nonstop. american airlines. earlier i talked about how most of the consumer staple plays are getting squeezed, caught between scilla and intense competition from cheaper, private label brands. procter & gamble being the poster child for what is going wrong. however, there are still some plays that make sense. b&g foods. bgs for you home gamers. a mall company that buys up neglected brands and breathes new life into them. you probably have some of their stuff in your kitchen and you don't even know it's theirs. ortega, las palmas, cream of wheat. b & m beets. wrong guys. and b&g pickles, which is the stock and trade of my refrigerator. i've always liked b&g because the company pays a hefty dividend, one it just raised by 17.4% earlier this month are where now it yields over 4.5 at these levels. it's relatively unscathed by the problems that are making so many other food stocks difficult to own. for example, b&g doesn't have much in the way of mainstream commodity exposure. so the margins aren't being crushed by higher food costs. at the same time, that means they don't need to raise prices aggressively, by nearly as much as the soft goods plays that are losing customers because of sticker shock. consumers see the higher prices, they decide to switch to the cheaper private label store brand. but b&g only plans to raise prices by about 2% this year. frankly, that's almost indiscernible. and 118% gain since i got behind it. so will b&g return to its long-term record of out performance, or is it going to be dragged down? i think this company is different which is why i'm thrilled to have dave wenner, the ceo of b&g foods here tonight to talk to us about where the business is headed. dave, welcome back to "mad money" how. are you? >> glad to be here. >> have a seat. okay. first of all, because near and dear to our hearts, there was a big report that came out from a brokerage firm in november saying there is no way the company can continue to raise the dividend there you are, going ahead and doing it. >> well, because we did what we always do. we did a very good creative acquisition. the culver brands that we bought from unilever added $28 million to our free cash flow. the dividend increase you just talked about distributes $8 million of that $28 million to our stockholders. so great acquisitions like that allow us to be very comfortably raise the dividend. >> and culver's has mrs. dash that you called out to say that's an underinvested brand. explain that that means to buy an underinvested brand. >> well, it's a brand where at the very least we can't find any new product activity in the last three years. and that's about as far back as we can figure. and it makes sense in the context of unilever, because a successful mrs. dash new product is going to do $4 million in sales. so that's meaningless to unilever. it's a waste of their time. to us it's very meaningful. those are the kind of brands we pick out of big food companies when they put up for sale. they mean something to us. we get behind them. we launch new products. we pursue distribution and grow the brands where they were declining under the big companies. >> one of the things i like to do is read through the conference calls. >> yep. >> and the whole group of foods. the conference calls have become unruly almost. proctor's was a rebellion. but in your conference call, people are kind of scratching their heads. they're saying what the heck? why are you not having to raise price dramatically, and therefore, frankly, losing volumes like some of your competitors? >> well, we just don't have the commodity exposure that a lot of other people do. you know, we're not heavily into using things like wheat and corn and things like that. wheat is one of our biggest purchases. it's $13 million a year. it's just not a huge piece of our business. so when you average it all out, as you said, our cost increases last year are about 1.5% of sales. it's going to be 2% this year. the price increases we've already put in place are going to cover us on that. >> now we did some price compare. and some of your brands, frankly, when i look at an aunt jemima, all right, you've got pretty good -- you're at 0.93 cents per ounce. for vermont-made. aunt jemima is more expensive. but that's not typical. you actually are over the other guys when it comes to cream of wheat. you're over them when it comes to the maple grove. the ortega you charge a little more. are you able to charge more because these are brands that are near and dear and our moms told us were good? >> another good question. well, cream of wheat is a unique proposition. it has a very loyal following. we don't think consumers go into a store saying i'm going to buy oatmeal or i'm going to buy cream of wheat. they buy one or the other. so the price comparison isn't really a true price comparison. >> but that's unique. >> and that's why we like these niche brands that have great consumer loyalty, because they last through any kind of economic circumstances. >> now a lot of companies have to spend a fortune in r&d to come up with new brand extensions. why did it cost to come up with chocolate cream of wheat? it had to take some of your earnings. >> no, because we do it all in-house. our quality assurance people at our facility that make this product did an awful lot of the work. we do a little bit of outside consulting, depending on the product. but a lot of times it's done with very low cost. and we don't do the huge market research that a large company would do either, you know. it's more of a gut call of we think this is a good idea. we're going with it. >> okay. one of the things that you talked about that has really hurt the other guys, packaging costs. but you found some way. are you allowed to reveal? how did you cut packaging costs? >> simply a matter of consolidating the purchases we make into single purchases with single vendors, taking the economy a scale and lowering your cost on that. so we've had some ups with some things, like i'm sure plastic is going to go up with this year with oil going up. >> right. >> but corrugated can go down. wand those volumes, steel cans can go down with volume purchases. and the net net of it is the packaging is pretty neutral. >> how did you see the dollar store coming and the other guys didn't? you have some real good dollar store exposure. >> it's not a matter of seeing it. i don't think we were any quicker to understand it than anybody else, but we moved very quickly. we can move. we're small. we're nimble. and lord help you if you're small, the least you can do is be fast. >> right. >> and we are. and we get it. so this new product, this chocolate cream of wheat, this is the store version, this is the dollar store version. and we are just quick to take advantage of what we see as movements in the market and react to them much faster than a large company could. >> well, you've made our viewers a huge amount of money. keep doing that and keep reinvesting, it's been such a win. thank you so much. david wenner, president and ceo of b&g foods, bgs. guys take advantage of the fact it's just resting. it's about to accelerate. stay with cramer. coming up, muffin backlash? find out what cramer and the oracle of omaha strongly disagree on. we're in the final stretch. but there is more to come. as jim leads the pack in the final no-huddle offense. i'm hearing way tao too much about what apple must do with its cash position, and not enough about apple's phenomenal earnings, how it's really doing. don't get me started on the idea of a stock split. you really need a stock split to buy this one? move on. the notion being a couple of shares work pretty well. buy a couple of shares and work well with berkshire hathaway in the '80s. it can work for you now. just buy a couple shares. why doesn't the an sense of a dividend bother me in apple. pretty simple. it all comes down to earnings, and earnings momentum. apple has it. but after reading warren buffett's report this weekend, i was surprised at how little earnings momentum berkshire has. instead buffett is focusing on building the book value. that's all well and good if the company is willing to buy back stock to take advantage of the discount because what it's worth and where it's trading, a discount that buffett chatters abouted through the investor ladder. but buffett chose not to buy much stock at all. he is not putting his money where his mouth is. i regard that somewhat quizzical if you really believe your stock is undervalued. buffett highlights the ibm stock as being terrific. buffett's maddingly inconsistent on this issue. fact, if the market really cared about book value, then berkshire would be much higher, and it doesn't. that's why i suggested berkshire wants to bring out its value and give shareholders a decent return, berkshire co. should give a dividend. am i being maddingly inconsistent? because i accept the dichotomy between a gross stock and a value stock. buffett is trumpeting as a value play. when i buy i want the pace to wait while the value is being bought out. sadly, buffett's love of buybacks for other companies, maybe not his own, is palpable. so berkshire probably won't be paying you a dividend any time soon. as long as the oracle of omaha remains in charge. apple, however, is a growth stock. it's got some terrific earnings momentum. i think the company can earn $55 a share in fiscal year 2012. that's phenomenal growth. and a classic earnings per share growth analysis, measuring the growth rate versus the price to earnings multiple, apple may be the cheapest growth stock in the universe. so if that's the case, why doesn't apple use cash to buy back its own stock? isn't that what buffett said they should have been doing? of course. the company wants to save its money for a rainy day. to put all that money to work you need a noah's ark. would have, should have, could have. frankly, i don't care. apple doesn't need to augment its pure earnings per share by changing the device deviser. i don't think that's the case here. this is still tech. somebody could still come up with a better mousetrap within the foreseeable future. so maybe the stock isn't as cheap say in the very far out years as it is now. how about a dividend? love, love, love one. i would. but let's be realistic here. why the heck are we criticizing apple about paying a dividend giving incredible returns it's generated for shareholders, an astounding 30% year to date. yes, we want that cash back. but i for one am not going to hold apple's feet to the fire on this one. please, you want a stock like berkshire to go higher, you got to give us a dividend. you want a growth machine like an toll go higher? then they just need to keep doing exactly what they have been doing. it is working. enough said. stay with cramer. hey cramer! >> boo-yah. >> see the world through the eyes of jim cramer. 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