The Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.

Greetings, and welcome to the Schepps Warehouse Start Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Alex Aldis, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Government Relations Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. With me on today's call are Chris Pappas, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, and Jim Letty, our CFO. By now, you should have access to our third quarter 2022 earnings press release. It can also be found at www.chefswarehouse.com under the investor relations section. Throughout this conference call, we will be presenting non-GAAP financial measures, including, among others, historical and estimated EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, as well as both historical and estimated adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share. Those measurements are not calculated in accordance with GAAP and may be calculated differently and similarly titled non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. Quantitative reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures appear in today's press release. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our estimated financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Some of these risks are mentioned in today's release. Others are discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which are available on the SEC website. Today we are going to provide a business update and go over our third quarter results in detail. Then we will open up the call for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Chris Pappas. Chris?

Thank you, Alex, and thank you all for joining our third quarter 2022 earnings call. Customer demand was strong throughout the third quarter, and the cadence of business activity returned to seasonal shifts more typical of the pre-pandemic environment. Seasonal September strength due to return from vacations was complemented by a moderate increase in return to office activity in many of our larger markets. While product costs in aggregate remained relatively unchanged versus the second quarter of 22, pricing continues to be firm in most categories. We continue to see new openings and gradual increases in hotel, catering, and event-related business. A few highlights from the third quarter as compared to the third quarter of 2021 include 22.2% organic growth in net sales, Specialty sales were up 31.6% organically over the prior year, which was driven by unique customer growth of approximately 25.9%, placement growth of 42.1%, and specialty case growth of 18.3%. Organic pounds in center of the plate were approximately 11.6% higher than the prior year third quarter. Gross profit margins increased approximately 113 basis points. Gross margin in the specialty category decreased 133 basis points as compared to the third quarter of 2021, while gross margin in the center of the play category increased 238 basis points year over year. Jim will provide more detail on gross profit and margins in a few moments. During the third quarter, our team made progress on a number of key initiatives aimed at further integrating recent acquisitions and leveraging the CW platform to provide our sales teams and customers with a continually growing and diverse product portfolio while creating operational cost efficiencies in our delivery model. In New England, we have ramped up the cross-sell of Allen Brothers Northeast premium protein products on our specialty and produce trucks. This process reduces distribution costs and puts higher gross profit dollar boxes on our key Northeast routes. On the West Coast, we completed the fold-in of University Foods into our Los Angeles Distribution Center and have begun the process of expanding our distribution platform in the Northwest. We have signed the lease for a new facility in Portland, Oregon, and we expect to combine our legacy TW specialty operations with recently acquired Alexis Specialty Foods within the next two years. We look forward to accelerate growth in the region while creating operating leverage once the project is complete. In the Mid-Atlantic region, we have recently completed the retrofit of our Capital Seaboard Distribution Center with the capability to offer customers in the region more of Chef's Warehouse specialty and premium protein products, along with produce and seafood. In Texas, where our specialty business continues to grow rapidly, we are in the final stages of the build-out of our new Allen Brothers protein processing facility located in Dallas. We expect to begin operations in early 2023 bringing us closer to our Texas customer base and adding to our growth in the Lone Star State. I would like to thank all of our team members for their hard work, expertise, and dedication in delivering value for our supplier partners, customers, and colleagues during a successful third quarter. Our people are Chef's Warehouse's greatest asset, and together we look forward to continued growth for the remainder of 2022. as well as into 2023 and beyond. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jim to discuss more detailed financial information for the quarter and an update on our liquidity. Jim?

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'll now provide a comparison of our current quarter operating results versus the prior year quarter and provide an update on our balance sheet and liquidity. Our net sales for the quarter ended September 23rd 2022 increased approximately 36.7 percent to 661.9 million from 484.3 million in the third quarter of 2021. The growth in net sales was a result of an increase in organic sales of approximately 22.2 percent, as well as the contribution of sales from acquisitions, which added approximately 14.5 percent to sales growth for the quarter. Net inflation was 8.7% in the third quarter consisting of 15% inflation in our specialty category and inflation of 2.2% in our center of the plate category versus the prior year quarter. Gross profit increased 43.5% to 157.8 million for the third quarter of 2022 versus 110 million for the third quarter of 2021. Gross profit margins increased approximately 113 basis points to 23.8%. Year-over-year inflation was broad-based across specialty categories. While slightly inflationary on a year-over-year basis, in aggregate, certain center-of-the-plate categories were moderately deflationary compared to the prior year quarter. Selling general and administrative expenses increased approximately 31 percent to $130.3 million for the third quarter of 2022 from $99.4 million for the third quarter of 2021. The primary drivers of higher expenses were higher compensation and distribution costs associated with higher year-over-year volume growth, route expansion, and increased fuel costs. Adjusted operating expenses increased 33.9 percent versus the prior year third quarter And as a percentage of net sales, adjusted operating expenses were 17.6% for the third quarter of 2022 compared to 18% for the third quarter of 2021. Operating income for the third quarter of 2022 was $22.1 million compared to $10.4 million for the third quarter of 2021. The increase in operating income was driven primarily by higher gross profit, partially offset by higher operating costs. Income tax expense was 3.1 million for the third quarter of 2022 compared to 2.8 million for the third quarter of 2021. Our GAAP net income was 8.3 million or 21 cents income per diluted share for the third quarter of 2022 compared to net income of 3.5 million or 9 cents income per diluted share for the third quarter of 2021. On the non-GAAP basis, we had adjusted EBITDA of 41 million for the third quarter of 2022 compared to 23.4 million for the third quarter of the prior year. Adjusted net income was 16.4 million or 41 cents income per diluted share for the third quarter of 2022, compared to 4.5 million or 12 cents income per diluted share for the prior year third quarter. Turning to the balance sheet and an update on our liquidity. During the third quarter, we completed the issuance of a $300 million term loan maturing in August of 2029. The proceeds of the loan were used to repay the $167 million term loan maturing in June of 2025, pay fees and expenses associated with the transaction, and retain approximately $118 million in cash on the balance sheet. More detail on the transaction is available in our 10Q filed this morning. Interest expense for the third quarter of 2022 was $10.7 million compared to 4.2 million in the third quarter of 2021. The increase was driven primarily by approximately 4.5 million of third party transaction fees associated with the refinancing. At the end of the third quarter, we had total liquidity of 322.2 million comprised of 145.4 million in cash and 176.8 million of availability under our ABL facility. As of September 23, 2022, net debt was approximately $349 million, inclusive of all cash and cash equivalents. Turning to our full-year guidance for 2022, based on the current trends in the business, we are updating and raising our full-year guidance as follows. We estimate that net sales for the full year of 2022 will be in the range of $2.45 billion to $2.55 billion. gross profit to be between $575 million and $599 million, and adjusted EBITDA to be between $145 million and $155 million. Our full-year estimated diluted share count is approximately 42.5 million shares. We currently expect our senior unsecured convertible notes to be diluted for the full year, and accordingly, those shares that could be issued upon conversion of the notes are included in the fully deleted share count. Thank you, and at this point, we will open up to questions.

Operator?

Thank you, sir. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and then two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. The first question we have is from Alex Slagel from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning and congrats to all of you. Hard work paying off. Clearly a very strong 3Q and I guess also helped by the favorable summer demand backdrop. So as we shift to more normal seasonality ahead, can you help us kind of think through what the expectations are implied in the 4Q? I guess what the implied EBITDA, fairly similar, I think, to the reported 3Q number and the gross margin at the midpoint, I guess expected to be up year over year, but recent pre-Q levels. Maybe you could kind of talk through some of the drivers there.

Hey, Alex, you kind of trailed off your question at the end there. Could you repeat the second part of your question?

Sorry. I missed that. On the gross margin expectations for the fourth quarter, I mean, I guess it looks like at the midpoint it's to be up year over year, but contract somewhat versus the recent 3Q levels. So if you could kind of talk through some of the drivers there, whether that's, you know, pricing changes or some conservatism or what.

Yeah, I think it's just a little bit of continued conservatism, maybe just on the gross margin side. I think the fourth quarter is typically our strongest gross margin quarter. There's nothing that would indicate that we would expect anything different, but I think it's reflected in the updated adjusted EBITDA guidance. I think from a guidance perspective, we came into the year with a fairly gradual build type of conservative view, and we've adjusted the guidance throughout the year to reflect the strength that we've seen. You know, the cadence in the third quarter, to your point, was really a return to typical seasonality. July and August were slightly weaker than May and June, and that's typical, although there was an underlying strength to that. And then, as Chris mentioned in his prepared remarks, September, we really saw a some good seasonality strength come back, and especially with some return to the office in some of our business urban markets starting to come back. And we had expected that to come back towards the back half of the year, and it's kind of playing out that way. So right now, as we look into the fourth quarter, we have more visibility in into the fourth quarter than we had prior in the year, and so that's a big part of the guidance raise. I think the guidance raise is really two components. It's the overperformance we saw in Q3, and then, you know, updating for trending going into Q4.

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you. And then just stepping back, bigger picture, I mean, any kinds of high-level goals you have as you get towards year end here and think about what you want to accomplish in 2023 and, you know, whether that's growth or operations or people and, and sort of what you think needs to happen to get there.

Well, I mean, you know, uh, this business, you don't just, you know, flip on the switch. So, uh, you know, our people are prepared. Uh, we anticipate, you know, uh, a great fourth quarter, a record fourth quarter. We get to see the bookings. We see all the parties that are booked by a lot of our major clients. Everybody's geared up for it. You have to have the inventory. We have to have the trucks, the drivers, and all the people available to meet the expectation of the volume. We've been building since coming out of COVID in February and And, uh, you know, uh, we're very blessed that it continues to build, you know, I think we said back in, uh, you know, second quarter and going into the third quarter that we really haven't had a season, you know, I don't know if, you know, in two plus years that we actually had a season, right. You know, uh, I think in 20, the end of 21, you know, we got that last, uh, Omicron and things didn't open and no one came back to the office. So this is really the first one that, uh, you know, do I think it's 100%? I don't think it's 100% in every market and every office setting, but it's 120, 150% in many of our other markets and our businesses. You know, our caterers are back. Cruise ships are coming back. Hotels and events are coming back. So, you know, I think when we kind of gave guidance, we were hedging that even if there was a slowdown and the so-called recession, we would get the big uptick with all that volume that was missing in our business. And I think what we're seeing now is our customers are still doing great, and now we're starting to get all that event activity that was not there before. We're getting cross-selling. So we're anticipating, you know, And, you know, we are anticipating, you know, a really busy fourth quarter. And, you know, we're hoping, you know, especially for all our team members that have gone through, you know, two years of health that, you know, they can really celebrate, you know, in a great fourth quarter.

Great. Good to see it all paying off. Thanks. Thank you, Alex.

The next question we have is from Peter Sala from BTIG.

Great. Thank you, and congrats on the quarter and the year. I wanted to ask just maybe more specifically on the hospitality business. It sounds like that is starting to come back based on your comments. Can you give us a sense on where that is trending today versus where it was pre-pandemic?

Well, I mean, it's really hard. We can't remember back to 2019. It seems like ages ago. But what I am hearing from, you know, a lot of our major clients, you know, and I've been traveling extensively, you know, visiting many markets, there's just no real sign of any slowdown, you know, which is, you know, what I was trepidatious about, right, because we've got to plan inventory, we've got to plan the labor to get us through that. We just keep seeing acceleration. I can't remember back to 2019. I'm sure we can get back to you and do a lot of those comps, but we're seeing the bookings. We're seeing corporate events that we haven't seen in a while. It just seems like it's normal and even more celebratory. than 2019.

Great. And then just on the inflation and the outlook, I think in your prepared remarks, you guys mentioned certain center of the plate items are deflationary. Can you just give us a little bit more color around that? And then is there any reason to believe that the fourth quarter EBITDA margin won't be the strongest of the year?

Yeah, thanks, Peter, for the question. In terms of Center of the plate deflation. Yeah, I think we had mentioned a couple of times on earlier calls that, you know, we had expected some of the, you know, the real strong price increases in the back half of the year last year were mainly center of the plate. And what we've seen is specialty prices, you know, continue to rise through 2022, whereas in aggregate, excuse me, center of the plate prices have been fairly flat and slightly, excuse me, slightly deflationary. Sequentially versus the second quarter, you know, basically flat, especially prices were up one or two percent sequentially in the third quarter versus Q2, and center of the play prices were about flat to maybe one percent deflationary in aggregate. Obviously, different categories, you know, behaved a little bit differently, had slight inflation, maybe some slight deflation, but it's all kind of evening out. It feels like pricing have reset higher and then kind of leveled off. And that's why you've seen the year over year, you know, come down from, you know, kind of 15 to 16% in Q2 to below 10% now, single digits in Q3. And then, I'm sorry, could you repeat the second part of your question?

Yeah, I was just curious on your outlook for the EBITDA margin, maybe for the fourth quarter. I mean, historically, I think fourth quarter is you know, the strongest EBITDA margin? Is that how we should be planning it as well? Or what is your outlook there?

Yeah, I mean, we don't see anything right now that the fourth quarter won't be our strongest quarter from a margin perspective, from an EBITDA margin perspective, revenue and EBITDA. So at the moment, we don't see anything that would change that.

Yeah. And again, the fourth quarter, Peter, the margins are so strong because of all the pastry products that we sell. Those are high margin, right? They're difficult categories to manage. We've been working on this for over 20 years, becoming better at it, having the right inventories, right? I mean, you buy too many Santa's you're taking Santa to 2024. So, you know, you try to right-size your inventory. But those are usually the higher margin items. A lot of the catering items are better margin items. So, you know, what we're seeing now, you know, input costs, you know, everyone keeps asking about inflation, deflation. A lot of the input costs, we don't see those resetting down, right? I don't think labor, you know, once you go to $20 an hour from 17th I don't see that changing in our manufacturers' costs. They can get a little more efficient and have more technology and, I guess, robotics, but gas is still expensive. Diesel is expensive. Our transportation costs across the ponds, all our containers coming in, we are seeing some relief, but it looks like they've all reset higher. I was wrong. I thought a lot of it was going to be more transitory, and now I'm starting to think that a lot of it is just reset up because of energy costs, labor costs, real estate costs. Warehousing is much more expensive than it was three, four, five years ago. I still think that effect of online, the demand of warehousing close to the cities has pushed up a lot of warehousing costs, so In a sense also, I think it's built more of a moat around our businesses. It's really hard to come into this industry now. It was a lot easier years ago, but the cost of facilities, the cost of building our facilities, the cost of debt is more expensive. So it's kind of a yin and a yang as well. As much as there's headwinds, it's also, I think, protecting a lot of us who are strong and are set up you know, with facilities and labor and the expertise to manage through this, I think that's why we're seeing such a tailwind.

Great, Collar. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Peter.

The next question we have is from Andrew Wolfe from CL King.

Thanks. Good morning. I think I'll start with a sort of follow-on to what you're just talking about, Chris. So, I hear what you're saying about cost being up and, you know, industry because of its capitalization and other reasons has a lot of pricing power. So as you kind of look next year, and I'm not asking you to get in front of your guidance, but or even the next few years, it sounds like, you know, profitability expansion as the EBITDA margin goes up should more be driven by gross profit margin than the expense ratio, you know, contracting given the I mean, you know, there's obviously volume has a positive impact on the expense ratio. But let's say relative to history, it's going to be a little more of a gross margin situation, just given what you're talking about with overall inflation being so sticky on the cost side.

Yeah. You know, Andy, so much has changed. You know, it's kind of like a reset in our industry. You know, when you used to look at margins, I mean, obviously we look at margin, but, you know, I call it the spread right now. It's really leveraging your overhead. So there's been so much inflation and, you know, we're not trying to be, you know, a giant broad liner. There's enough of those and they do a phenomenal job at what they do. You know, what we do and what we sell is a lot of expensive products. And, you know, It's changed from, you know, gross profit margins to gross profit dollar business. So, you know, when chocolate is now, you know, $300, $400 a case and, you know, prime beef is, you know, a center cut filet prime today is, I don't even know, $50, $60. The business has changed. You know, it's managing your overhead. It's managing your drop size. and it's getting that spread. The crystal ball for next year, we always look at the trend. The trend is business is strong. Our clientele, their clientele is spending. God willing, we don't get another crazy, crazy variant or something that disrupts the industry again. And It's really about selling the expensive boxes. I think I've been saying this for the last few years, coming out of COVID, that the pipeline was always frothy. The industry is continuing to consolidate for many, many, many reasons. A lot of it is that it's just so much more expensive today to expand for a lot of the smaller businesses. It's healthcare, it's facilities, it's labor. It's technology, so we continue to see that the industry will consolidate. We think we'll be one of the winners as a consolidator. We're building these new facilities to be able to consolidate, so this is not a new business, but it is a new way to manage the business, and I think Chef is really prepared for it, and we're making those investments, and we're putting the cash back into the business, and we have a talent officer and nothing, you know, there's every day we focus on, you know, more and more, you know, acquiring talent to, you know, add to our bench and really, you know, we're on that trajectory to be, you know, 4 billion and 5 billion and, and way beyond that. And, you know, the team is really focused and doing a great job.

Okay. Thank you. That's a, that's a really helpful color on your kind of vision. I wanted to ask a kind of specific question, maybe more for Jim, on the gross margin contraction on the specialty side. Was that kind of like what's going on with eggs and just hitting the margins and not really the profit dollars? Or is there something else beyond certain hyperinflation in some of the categories you sell on specialty?

It's really, you know, that's the year-over-year comp, and it's really just what I said earlier. Specialty prices continued to rise through the Q1, through Q2, and then, you know, through Q3, although sequentially, you know, kind of flattened out versus Q3, but when you compare it to last year, you know, inflation in specialty was 15% year-over-year, whereas in center of the plate, it was essentially flat. So that's just going back to what Chris said. We're getting more gross profit dollars, really strong gross profit dollar growth. If it comes at the expense of a few basis points of compression on margin, that's just managing price effectively. So we're getting the gross profit dollar growth to drive EBITDA growth, and that's really just the year-over-year comp given what specialty prices have done.

Got it. So the last thing for me is kind of a follow-up on that is if pricing and specialty is starting to sequentially normalize or stop going up that much, what do you think the driver there is? We're not talking much about supply chain disruptions as we were a year ago and so on, but you are a big importer. Are things like overseas freight and other things – starting to normalize in terms of, you know, pricing and event, you know, I think availability has been okay, but you know, I guess, you know, what do you see there for, it's hard to see your cost outlook, but obviously you have buyers doing this every day.

So, yeah, I think the word normal is, uh, you know, we're far from normal. Um, it's, it's better, but, uh, it's, it's, it's still a monster to deal with. I mean, our logistics teams and category teams, it's, uh, you know, never worked harder and, uh, you know, it's, uh, it's far from normal. So, um, you know, margins, um, we're in such a different world than we were, you know, in 2019, you know, uh, this industry is obviously highly competitive, right? And it consolidates a lot of specialty little distributors. And then obviously we know all the big players. And it's about really your labor at this point too. I mean, a lot of the times in big accounts, it'd be very competitive bidding. And maybe you took business at very low and no margin for various reasons. And And today, you know, our focus is if we can't make money, we really don't want the business, you know, because you just can't get the labor. And, you know, we're managing to a number. We're managing to, you know, every division, you know, has a goal to produce an amount of GP, you know, and manage their expenses. So there is no crystal ball that can give you exactly what may happen next year. But I think we're pretty set up to handle and get the kind of number we're looking at. So if we're looking to make X dollars next year, that's our target, and that's what we're managing to.

Great. Thanks. And like everyone else, congratulations on how the business is trending. Take care.

Thanks, Andy.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one now. The next question we have is from Kelly Bania from BMO Capital.

Hi, good morning, Kristen Dim, and congrats on another strong quarter here. I guess I just wanted to ask about, you know, long-term EBITDA margins. So this year, going to come in very strong, I guess, at least 6%. And with the high end of your goal long term at 7%, just curious if there's any puts and takes from a margin perspective or, I guess, factors that maybe were tailwinds this year that might not be as repeatable. Just trying to think if we could, you know, moderate as we go forward either from investments or tailwinds that are not repeatable before we go back to that 7%. goal or just how you think about that long-term goal in any different way given how the year has played out?

Yeah, thanks for the question, Kelly. I think, you know, I think we don't want to get too far ahead of January when we give guidance for 23 and then kind of update our medium to long-term growth algorithm. But, you know, I'll let Chris jump in as well. But, you know, overall, you know, given the dynamic changes that Chris mentioned in the industry, etc., You know, at its basic core, I don't think it's changed. We'll continue to target mid-single digit organic growth. We'll continue to be a consolidator from an M&A and acquired growth perspective. And then, you know, as Chris mentioned in his prepared remarks, a number of fold-in type of activities that are happening right now and will continue to happen as we build facilities in places like New England and consolidate the businesses that we've acquired over the past few years and started to grow as we grow Texas and as we consolidate our operations in Northern California under a project that's already underway. Our goal will be to continue to generate operating leverage as we grow, strengthen the balance sheet as we grow, And that's a pretty powerful combination. So I'll ask Chris to add whatever his thoughts are.

Kelly, I think it goes back to, I said, you know, we're going to be a 7% or higher company if we're growing slower. And the only thing that would, I think, you know, deter us from achieving that type of margin is that If we're buying more companies that we think we get really good value and we can, you know, chef-icize them. And sometimes that takes a few years. So if we continue to do, if we went on our track right now and did nothing, I think that's an easy target. If we take, you know, if we're entrepreneurial, which we always have been, and we take advantage of the market and what's happening in the industry and, you know, all of a sudden we're on a really fast track to, you know, be a $5 billion company. The even a margin might be lower because we bought companies that are much lower margin, even a margins than us. And the work begins, right? Consolidating them, putting them into our facilities, putting the technology in, adding all the chef products. So I would say, you know, If we grow faster to five billion, we might be lower than that, and if it goes slower and more traditional businesses are added, that's a pretty easy target.

Thank you, that's very helpful. Also just curious if you could just touch on availability of labor, what you're seeing on the wage front, and just how that's progressed relative to your expectations.

Uh, you know, again, I go back to, uh, you know, this is not a new business, so I think it's a very experienced team and we've, we've seen, we've, we thought we saw it all before, uh, COVID, but, uh, you know, labor has always been a battle, you know, uh, since we started the company, you know, 35 years ago, uh, labor's a battle. We're always shorthanded. Every division is shorthanded. So, um, it's, uh, Obviously, coming out of COVID, it was a monstrous challenge for the team to gear back up because the volume came back so quickly. But I think labor is – we're getting a handle on it. It's reset at a higher number. I think we're really competitive because we're able to – you see the numbers, so the business is doing well. So that means we do have labor. Excessive labor – I think we're far from that, you know, and, you know, even hearing from our customers, you know, we're finally seeing customers in, you know, parts of New York that couldn't open for lunch because, you know, the predictability of people coming back in is part of it, but they just didn't have the labor. And I'm starting to hear from, you know, just about every area we're doing business that it's better, you know, so. better from where we started, which was horrific. I think it continues to be figured out. I think more and more people are coming back into the labor market. I'm optimistic that that trend is going to continue. Not without a fight. I wish the politicians would get together and figure out really how to allow us to find labor and give us enough choices to get labor to meet the demand because the demand is there. And now we have to really figure out, I don't want to get political, but all our immigration policies and where's the balance because our industry is starving for labor.

Okay, that's very helpful. And maybe just one last one for me just on Allen Brothers. Chris, I think you mentioned broadening that out to the East Coast. Maybe just an update on which regions Allen Brothers is in today, where it could go, what could be the potential long-term cross-selling opportunity there, and what is the impact? Does it cannibalize some of your other center of the plate business? Just maybe help us think about the strategy overall there with Allen Brothers.

Yeah. So, you know, we bought Allen Brothers, I forget what year, and, you know, we went through a really very long, tough learning curve, but we bought Allen Brothers because it's one of the only brands in food service in a business that there's not a lot of brands. It took us a while, but Allen Brothers right now is just becoming a world-class brand in food service. The team now is doing an unbelievable job in a very tough market and I believe that it's going to double. I don't want to give you two years or three years, but the potential and how it's accelerating and the people that are joining us and the clients that are rewarding us, I think that business is going to highly accelerate over the next few years.

Thank you. Thanks, Kelly. Kelly?

The next question we have is from Todd Brooks from the Benchmark Company.

Hey, good morning to you both, and congratulations as well. A couple questions here. Chris, you talked about kind of momentum with cross-sell, and Kelly's question on Allen Brothers is part of that. But you're building out the specialty produce category. You're building out the seafood category as well. And as I think about the organic growth target, that mid-single digits, that was in place pre-pandemic as well. But I'm hoping you can talk about kind of cross-sell as a driver of organic growth and just the appetite of your customers, given your service levels, the fact that you service them so well over the pandemic as you have new offerings to provide them with the uptake. for customers to, to just grow into bigger drop sizes with chef as they're able to get produce or seafood or, or, um, or other products from you. So I guess within the organic growth outlook, how much of that's driven by, um, cross sell that you guys really kind of control the success with.

Sure. Great, uh, great question. And, uh, you know, the, the major driver of, you know, the new facilities, you know, Florida is delayed, but, uh, Hopefully, sooner than later, we're able to get in that building, and that's a master cross-cell building, right? The same in L.A. Most of that building is built, but the outlook for labor, never mind traffic that's in all the major cities, anyone who's traveling is seeing how bad traffic is. You have to figure out how to get efficiencies in your transportation. And I think the, the, the companies that figure it out the best, because, you know, you don't want to homogenize the business. We've watched a lot of competitors do that. So, you know, I always go back to it's a hybrid model, you know, we're here to service the client any way that they want. But my prediction is that, you know, they want quality, but they also want savings and, the savings come by allowing companies like ourselves, I call it share the truck, right? So when that CW truck leaves, I think over the next 10 years, it'll transport seafood, it'll transport meats and other proteins and produce with specialty and all the frozen products. So That's why I always say, you know, CW is a specialty broadliner. We're not a regular broadliner. You know, nothing we do, you know, besides, you know, maybe some of the technology is typical of a broadliner, but there is so much that goes on behind the scenes, you know, to do what we do, you know, at the quality level. You know, I always say that, you know, Shep does the hard stuff. So we're not trying to do $60 billion, but, you know, we think that we are going to be a much, much bigger company. And a lot of it is that cross-selling, you know, and you've got to have the talent and you've got to have the expertise to handle those products because a lot of them are perishable. A lot of them require expertise in buying and moving around and shipping from, you know, 40 countries and over 1,500 probably now suppliers. So I think that's our moat. You know, a lot of companies come after us and certain pieces are our business, but It's so hard to replace us because of the moats I think we've built around our business, and it's not easy. Every day we struggle, and obviously we fail ourselves to success, but handling seafood and handling a lot of the cut shop proteins and produce now, and I think our hybrid approach and the investments in the new buildings, there's at least two a year, major buildings going up, and I think that is going to drive that mid to high single level organic growth that you're seeing is coming because of the ability to execute that hybrid cell.

That's great. Thanks, Chris. That's helpful. And then just a final question for me. And Chris, you touched on this in your comments, but was wondering if we get more color on the nature of kind of that building enthusiasm about the event holiday business this year, what you're hearing from customers and, how those events are maybe manifesting themselves this year versus obviously maybe a little bit of activity last year as far as are we getting back to bigger events? Are we seeing more corporate events? Just where is this excitement that you're seeing year over year? And is there a way to gauge how much progress back towards pre-pandemic levels that event business is tracking towards? Thanks.

Yeah. You know, again, when you speak to all the hotel operators and obviously, you know, casinos on one side, cruise ships, and then just, you know, I just finished a trip and, you know, when you see tents out for, you know, 500 people or 1,000 people, you know, it makes you very, very happy to see that coming back. So it's... It seems like it's going to be a pretty strong season. Anything can happen. God forbid something horrible happens. You've got a war going on in Ukraine. Still the virus is out there. We might get five blizzards. We've had that before right through the party season. It's hard to predict, but from my seat right now, it looks like a great fourth quarter.

That's great. Thanks and congrats again. Thanks, Bud.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one now. The next question we have is from Ben P. from Lake Street Capital Markets.

All right. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations to you all for a great quarter. Chris, I'd like to ask kind of a follow-up to your comments around the moat that you have long established. I'm wondering if you can talk about how you've observed your broad-line peers viewing the independent space as a potential source of growth over the past few quarters as conditions have improved. Are you seeing that these peers are increasingly looking to your market as a source of growth? Um, you know, or is that, that been, you know, relatively static here over the past few quarters as conditions have improved?

Yeah. I mean, I think if you hear, um, every last earnings call from, you know, the big major, uh, broad liners, uh, everyone always talks about the independence. You know, I always go back, uh, you know, into Jim's office and say, are our numbers right? Because it seems like they've taken all our business. And, uh, he goes, no, we're fine. You know, uh, the numbers are real. Uh, You know, it's just such a giant industry, you know, when you think about, you know, from bodegas to, you know, fast food, independents from all different type of independents, you know. There's taco chains that, you know, are private, that are independent. They have 20 facilities. So, you know, it's really hard to identify, you know, what everybody is talking about when they say independence, right? So I just know that to do what we do day in and day out is extremely difficult. And I've learned over my 35 plus years, you know, I've tried to go after some of the very large business that the broad liners, they're much better at it. They're set up at it. And It's just hard to have two masters. The way we load trucks, the way we go about the street, our salespeople, you can do it, but to do it well, I say you can go to a party and if it's 30 people and there's five people on top of you and servicing you, you're going to get unbelievable service. It's hard to do that when you go to a a setting that has 1,000 people coming in, right? So that's why I always say our core customer, 100-plus seats, the chef is there, probably an owner. Everybody's out to give you unbelievable hospitality. I kind of think that's who Chef is. And I think, you know, when we look at, you know, going after giant chain business, it's just a different animal. You have to run your warehouses differently. The way you go about it, it's, you know... You're operating a facility that might be five football fields. You're just not as nimble. So, you know, we build our facilities. We don't like to get them too big, you know, not to go too much in depth of, you know, what makes chef, chef, right? Because, you know, we have so many competitors, but what we do is really hard and it's specific and it's geared towards a certain industry. And I always say we kind of stay on our own mat. I mean, we kind of go off it a little bit. You know, we'll play with larger customers, and we're looking at opportunities around the country right now that, you know, I always say the great thing about Chef is there's nobody like us, and the bad thing is there's nobody exactly like us to buy. So we're always taking some business, buying a business that we can convert into a Chef warehouse over time. And, you know, the reason to buy someone like that is because it gives you routes, which takes a very long time to get. And we'll take those opportunities and we'll take that long road over four, five, even six, seven years of rebuilding it as a chef warehouse. And I think you could see from the success our team has been able to produce that we're pretty good at it. And It's just not plug and play. It's really hard to do what we do.

Yeah, very good. Yeah, I hear that loud and clear. Very good. Well, again, congratulations on a great quarter. Thanks for taking my questions, and I'll get back in queue. Thank you. Thank you, Ben.

Thank you, sir. Gentlemen, at this stage, there are no further questions. Would you like to make any closing comments?

Sure. We'd like to thank everybody and all our analysts and the questions. Couldn't be prouder of what this team at CW goes all the way down the chain. It takes such a big team to produce these kind of numbers and service our customers. We're so proud of the the numbers that they're putting up and their ability to really rebound coming out of COVID. So a big thanks to them. And we look forward for everyone joining us in our fourth quarter call. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that then concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.