想象一下你为一些全球最大的连锁超市供应早餐谷物、瓶装啤酒和切片面包，或者你是全球最大的肉类生产商之一，你购买玉米喂养牲口，然后从卖肉中获取利润。
现在再想象一下：由于干旱造成俄罗斯谷物严重歉收，小麦、玉米及其它农产品价格在短短数周内猛涨了50%，而这些农产品在你的生产成本中占了很大部分。
更糟的是，俄罗斯还下达了粮食出口禁令。这正是泰森食品(Tyson Foods)、百威英博(Anheuser-Busch InBev)、通用磨坊(General Mills)、家乐氏(Kellogg)和卡夫(Kraft)等公司眼下遭遇的情景。然而，与深感惊慌的许多投资者不同，这些大型食品公司很可能经受得住大宗商品市场的动荡。
为什么呢？银行界人士和业内高管表示，2007-08年粮食危机中的惨痛经历，让各大食品公司学乖了，如今它们都使用了衍生工具，因此不会受到最新这轮农产品涨价的冲击。
它们已开始感受到了使用衍生品的好处。这些公司纷纷告诉投资者，它们采用的大宗商品对冲策略，将使它们大体上得以免受小麦、玉米和大麦价格飙涨的影响。
半个多月前，人们开始认识到俄罗斯谷物问题的严重性，谷物食品及方便食品生产商家乐氏召开了一次电话会议，会上向投资者表示，该公司对各类大宗商品进行了90%的对冲。
全球最大的啤酒生产商百威英博上周表示，该公司对2011年底前购买的大麦都进行了对冲，从而避免了严重的成本问题。受俄罗斯和乌克兰旱灾影响，大麦价格过去一个半月翻了一番。
几周前，在俄罗斯谷物短缺问题尚未急剧恶化、该国尚未下达出口禁令时，通用磨坊首席执行官唐•穆里根(Don Mulligan)已向投资者表示，该食品公司为2011财年（从6月算起）进行了“约50%的对冲”。
跨国食品公司越来越多地使用衍生品锁定远期价格，这与2007-2008年的情况显著不同：当时原材料价格飙涨让它们措手不及；它们试图把增加的成本转嫁给消费者，却引起消费者反弹。
如今许多进行了对冲的公司，正是上回遭受重创的公司。当时它们一边面对着生产成本上涨（这在危机初期侵蚀了它们的利润率），一边面对着消费者对售价上调的愤怒（一些消费者因此抛弃这些品牌，投入自有品牌分销商的怀抱）。
银行界人士估计，全球各大食品公司中，在2007-08年危机后展开新对冲操作的公司多达三分之一。
“3年前的价格震荡，肯定促使许多公司把原料成本问题提上了议程，”与数家大型食品公司有密切业务往来的一位银行家表示。“首席财务官们也变得更能接受对冲思想。”
2007-08粮食危机之于食品业，正如1990-91海湾战争引发的油价飙涨之于全球航空业——那就是一记警钟。
摩根大通(JPMorgan)驻伦敦农产品业务主管威尔•施罗普希尔(Will Shropshire)表示，从那以后，各企业“更加注重价格风险管理，并实施了对冲”。
此前很多年里，食品公司并不太担心会遇到价格突涨的情况。只有一些规模最大的公司进行了对冲，而且它们通常只对价格波动较大的若干大宗商品进行对冲，如咖啡、糖和可可。
为此，它们全面检讨了各自在购买远期产品上的习惯，进而纷纷在芝加哥、纽约、伦敦和巴黎等地的大宗商品交易所购买期货和期权合约，以此锁定原料价格。它们还直接和华尔街银行打交道，进行所谓的“场外”衍生品交易（此类合约不在交易所交易）。银行界人士表示，与天然气、铜等其它行业常见的各种复杂衍生品相比，食品公司的对冲手法大多比较简单。
这种转变仍在进行当中。有些公司至今仍在讨论是否使用衍生品，有些公司才刚刚开始使用。巴克莱资本(Barclays Capital)驻伦敦的农业大宗商品销售总监史蒂夫•杰西(Steve Jesse)表示，食品公司态度上的主要转变发生在过去6-9个月内。
对冲已成为一种战略选择，而不再是某些特定时候（如价格下跌时）的投机行为。
尽管如此，银行界人士表示，食品行业的对冲期限比其它行业都要短，比如能源或金属行业企业的对冲期限有的长达10年。由于农产品供应会因天气状况、植物病虫病和种植情况而逐年变化，企业不愿锁定12-18个月以后的价格。
但新英格兰咨询集团(New England Consulting Group)首席执行官加里•斯蒂贝尔(Gary Stibel)警告，对冲本身可能引发各种意想不到的问题。他说，2009年，有些跨国公司买进了太多对冲合约，当价格走低时，就平添了许多成本。
能够把小麦价格推上近两年高位的危机并不多见。斯蒂贝尔表示：“进行一些对冲是有好处的，但对冲过多就会适得其反。你要应对的是一些‘黑天鹅事件'。”
译者/杨远
Imagine you supply the world's biggest supermarket chains with breakfast cereals, bottled beer and sliced bread. Or that you are one of the world's biggest meat producers, buying corn to feed cattle whose meat is your bottom line.
Now imagine prices of wheat, corn and other agricultural commodities, which comprise much of your input costs, jump 50 per cent in a matter of weeks because of a drought in Russia that has caused catastrophic crop failure.
Worse, Moscow slaps a ban on exports. That is exactly what has happened to companies such as Tyson Foods, Anheuser-Busch InBev, General Mills, Kellogg and Kraft. Contrary to the fears of many investors, however, these big food companies are likely to weather the turmoil in commodities markets .
The reason? They learnt from a bitter experience during the food crisis of 2007-08 and have protected themselves from the latest surge in prices by using derivatives, say bankers and industry executives.
The benefits are already being felt. Companies have told investors that their commodity hedging strategies will largely insulate them from the effects of spiking wheat, corn and barley prices.
In a conference call two weeks ago, when the magnitude of the Russian grain problem had become known, Kellogg executives told investors that the cereal and snack company was 90 per cent hedged on a range of commodities.
Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer, yesterday said it had hedged its barley purchases through 2011, avoiding a big cost problem. The price of barley has doubled in the past month-and-a-half due to the drought in Russia and Ukraine.
A few weeks earlier, before the Russian grain shortage suddenly worsened with the export ban, Don Mulligan, chief executive at General Mills, told investors that the food company was “about 50 per cent hedged” for the 2011 fiscal year, which began in June.
The growing use of derivatives to lock in forward prices marks a big change from the situation multi- national food producers found themselves in in 2007 and 2008, when they were caught off-guard by sudden jumps in prices. Their attempts to pass on cost rises then sparked a consumer backlash.
Many of the same companies that have hedged their exposures were those that suffered the last time round. Then, they were caught between rising input costs, which eroded their margins at the start of the crisis, and, later, anger at the price increases in shops, which drove customers away from their brands and into the arms of private label distributors.
Bankers estimate that up to a third of the world's largest food companies launched fresh hedging programs in the aftermath of the 2007-08 crisis.
“The price volatility we saw three years ago certainly raised the issue of ingredient cost to the boardroom,” says a banker who works closely with several large food companies. “It made chief financial officers more receptive to the ideas of hedging.”
The 2007-08 crisis was for the food industry what the 1990-91 Gulf War spike in oil prices was for the world's airlines: a wake-up call.
Since then, says Will Shropshire, head of agricultural commodities at JPMorgan in London, companies “are paying more attention to price risk management and putting hedges in place.”
For years, food companies did not worry too much about being caught out by unexpectedly steep price rises. Only the biggest groups hedged and, in most cases, they only bought protection for a few volatile commodities, such as coffee, sugar or cocoa.
They sidelined other key agricultural commodities, from wheat and soyabeans to milk and corn, on the grounds the prices in those markets were relatively stable. Moreover, the convention in the industry was to pass on to consumers any rise in costs. Companies learnt in 2007-08 there was a limit to shoppers' loyalty.
As a result, they overhauled their forward buying practices and locked in prices through buying futures and options traded on commodities exchanges in Chicago, New York, London and Paris. They dealt directly, too, with Wall Street banks on bespoke “over-the-counter” derivatives deals that are not traded on exchanges. Bankers say most of the hedges were relatively simple compared to the more exotic derivatives common to other industries, such as natural gas or copper.
The shift to hedging is work in progress. Some companies are still debating whether to use derivatives, while others have only just started. Steve Jesse, director of agricultural commodity sales at Barclays Capital in London, says the main shift in attitudes has happened over the past six to nine months.
Hedging has become a strategic choice, too, rather than an opportunistic punt when, for example, prices fall.
Even so, bankers say that the length of the hedges in the food industry is shorter than in other industries, such as energy or metals, where companies lock in prices up to 10 years ahead. As supplies of agricultural commodities vary each year depending on the weather, plant diseases and planting, companies are reluctant to lock in prices beyond 12-18 months.
Gary Stibel, chief executive of the New England Consulting Group, warns, though, that hedging could itself lead to unexpected problems. Some multinationals, he says, bought too much protection in 2009, when prices were falling, adding to their costs then.
Crises such as the one that has propelled wheat prices to their highest in nearly two years are rare. “Having some hedges is good. Having too much of a hedge is counter-productive. You're dealing with black swan events,” he says.
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