Food companies sell more heat-and-serve options to fill gaps in short-staffed kitchens

Food-service workers are hard to come by.

Packaged-food companies are filling in for them.

While Hormel Foods, Post and General Mills are best recognized for their consumer retail brands, they each have billion-dollar food-service businesses — providing bacon, eggs and baked goods to restaurants, schools and hospitals — that have grown as commercial kitchens struggle to find enough help.