John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the John B. Sanfilippo & Sons, Inc. Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Operating Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeffrey Sanfilippo, CEO. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. and welcome to our 2023 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Thank you for joining us. On the call with me today is Frank Pellegrino, our CFO, and Mike Vinson, our Vice President and Corporate Controller. We may make some forward-looking statements today. These statements are based on our current expectations and involve certain risks and uncertainties. The factors that could negatively impact results are explained in the various SEC filings that we have made including forms 10K and 10Q. We encourage you to refer to the filings to learn more about these risks and uncertainties that are inherent in our business. I am proud to report record diluted earnings per share for our third quarter and our second consecutive quarter of double-digit diluted earnings per share growth. This strong performance was mainly driven by volume growth in all three of our distribution channels, as our net sales increased by $20 million, or 9.1%, compared to last year's third quarter. I'm especially proud of this accomplishment, given the ongoing challenging operating and inflationary environment. Our board of directors met yesterday and approved a $1.50 per share special dividend, reinforcing our goal of creating long-term shareholder value by returning capital to our shareholders. The dividend will be paid June 22nd, 2023 to stockholders of record as of June 1st, 2023. As announced last quarter, we began to ship our new product line of private brand nutrition bars to mass merchandising retailer during the third quarter and anticipate shipping private brand nutrition bars to additional customers during the fourth quarter. We have received favorable feedback from our retail partners and expect to gain additional nutrition for our customers in subsequent quarters. As we look ahead to the fourth quarter and to fiscal 24, we are focused on executing our long-range plan to accelerate volume growth and deliver sustainable earnings growth. We will continue to optimize our cost structure, focus on portfolio optimization, diversify our product offerings, and increase flexibility as we continue to respond to the ongoing macroeconomic volatility. Our strong operating results would not be possible without the dedication of our talented employees who continue to exceed expectations and create value for our customers and shareholders. At this time last year, we were just completing our pricing action to help offset inflationary input costs that most companies faced in 2022. And in Q3 last year, we were also overcoming supply chain challenges. We are in a much better supply and trade environment today, and we are cycling against a full year where consumers have reacted to higher retail prices at the shelf. While there has been demand destruction as a result of the higher prices, we are monitoring consumer behavior and demand trends in all of our categories as retail prices have stabilized. We created a long-range plan that defines our future growth priorities. And over the past several years, the company has made significant investments in our manufacturing capabilities to support those growth strategies. The peanut butter line in our Bainbridge, Georgia facility was upgraded to enhance the quality of our product portfolio and expand capacity. As a result, we've increased our peanut butter business with several key customers in our consumer and food service segments. The most significant equipment investment and new product capability we've made is in manufacturing high-quality energy bars. We developed an extraordinary cross-functional team to enter a new category for JVSS in a short period of time. The hard work, dedication, and leadership demonstrated by our innovation, R&D, engineering, operations, procurement, quality, tech services, marketing and sales departments has transformed the company. JBSS is executing our growth strategy to diversify beyond snack and recipe nuts. And our entry into the energy bar category is a great start. And we are excited about the opportunities ahead to grow this business segment. As I mentioned last quarter, the snack bar category is around $8 billion in size across omni-channels and 6.6 billion in IRI MULO. and consistently grew for over a decade until the pandemic started. Post-COVID, it has bounced back with strong dollar growth this past year. One of the white spaces in the category is high-quality retailer brand offerings. And we believe JDSS can become the partner of choice in the nutrition bar segment for retailer brands, given our strong track record of quality, service, and innovation. We also announced the acquisition of the Just the Cheese brand, completed during the second quarter of fiscal 23. We are excited to add the brand to our portfolio, as it complements our current brand offerings in the snack category. And the acquired production capabilities will help accelerate growth with our private brand and food service customers. The cheese category is an exciting new business segment for JBSS. We recently gained new distribution for this brand in our consumer channel, with shipments beginning at the end of our fourth quarter. We're also planning through this new product capability to develop inclusions and mixes to differentiate our brand and to offer to our private brand partners. In addition to entering new product categories, our long-range growth plan also includes transforming our branded portfolio. I mentioned on our last call the relaunching and rebranding of our Orchard Valley Harvest product portfolio. The new product and packaging are just entering the market now, and we are focused on expanding distribution, building brand awareness and trial with innovative marketing programs, and allocating a portion of the sales to support our partner Conscious Alliance to help end child hunger. We'll report more on our OVH performance in future earnings calls. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Frank to discuss our financial performance.

Frank? Thank you, Jeffrey. Starting with the income statement, net sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2023 increased 9.1%, 238.5 million, compared to net sales of 218.6 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2022. The increase in net sales was attributable to a 5.0% increase in sales volume, which is defined as pound sold to customers, and a 3.9% increase in weighted average sales price per pound. The increase in the weighted average selling price was mainly attributable to the normalization of selling prices with tree nut acquisition costs, as well as higher commodity acquisition costs for peanuts and dried fruit. Sales volume increased 2.1% in the consumer distribution channel, primarily due to a 2.1% increase in sales volume for our private brands, partially offset by a 0.6% decrease in sales volume for branded products. New private brand peanut butter business at a mass merchandising retailer and increased peanut butter distribution at a grocery store retailer were substantially offset by lost distribution with a private brand grocery customer that occurred in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022. Excluding this lost distribution, private brand sales volume grew by 4.7%. The sales volume decrease for our branded products, which includes Fisher Recipe Nuts, Fisher Snack Nuts, Orchard Valley Harvest, and Cellar Style Nuts, was mainly attributable to a 15.7% decrease in the sales volume of Fisher Snack Nuts. due to decreased merchandising activity at a major customer and a seasonal rotation at a club store does not repeat in the current quarter. This decrease was significantly offset by a 20.8% increase in sales volume of Orchard Valley Harvest due to the timing of sales to a major customer in the non-food sector who delayed their orders from a previous quarter and increased promotional support at that same customer. Sales volume increased 18.9% in the commercial ingredients channel due to a 30.5% increase in sales volume to food service customers due to increased peanut butter distribution at existing customers. Sales volume increased 7.5% in the contract packaging distribution channel primarily due to increased peanut and cashew distribution at an existing customer. Third quarter gross profit margin as a percentage of net sales increased to 20.9%, compared to 18% for the third quarter of fiscal 2022, as margins have returned to more normalized levels. The prior comparable quarter was negatively impacted by higher than anticipated commodity acquisition costs and other inflationary costs increases. Gross profit increased 10.4 million, or 26.3%, due to the same reasons contributing to the increase in gross profit margin, as well as increased sales volume. Total operating expenses for the current third quarter increased $6 million in the quarterly comparison, due to increases in intensive and base compensation, consumer insight research, and related consulting expenses, as well as a one-time gain in the comparable quarter, which did not reoccur in the current quarter. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in credit expense. Total operating expenses for the current third quarter increased 11.7% of net sales from 10.1% for last year's third quarter due to reasons I just cited. Interest expense for the current third quarter increased to $600,000 from $500,000 for the third quarter of fiscal 2022, primarily due to higher weighted average interest rates. Net income for the third quarter of fiscal 2023 was $15.7 million, or $1.35 per diluted share, compared to $11.9 million, or $1.02 per diluted share for the third quarter of fiscal 2022. Now taking a look at inventory. The total value of inventories on hand at the end of the current third quarter decreased 20.8 million, or 9.8%, compared to the end of the third quarter fiscal 2022. The decrease in the value of inventories was primarily due to lower commodity acquisition costs for all major tree nuts, partially offset by higher acquisition costs for peanuts and other raw materials, and higher on-hand quantities of other raw materials and caches. The weighted average cost per pound of raw nut and dry fruit input stock on hand at the end of the current quarter decreased 24.1% compared to the weighted average cost per pound at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2022. And it was driven by lower acquisition costs for all major tree nuts. Moving on to year-to-date results. Nut sales for the first three quarters of the current year increased 9.6% the $765.5 million compared to the first three quarters of fiscal 2022. The increase in net sales was primarily attributable to an 8.8% increase in the weighted average selling price per pound and a 0.8% increase in sales volume. The sales volume increases in the commercial and greenish channel and contract packaging channels were offset by a slight sales volume decline in the consumer channel. Growth profit margin was unchanged at 20.5%. Total operating expenses for the current year-to-date period increased to $7.8 million to $88.2 million. The increase in total operating expenses was mainly due to increases in incentive, base, and equity compensation expense and sales broker commission expense. In addition, a non-reincurring gain of approximately $2.3 million in the sale of our Garrysburg North Carolina facility, which occurred in the first quarter of fiscal 2022, also contributed to the overall increase. These increases were partially offset by decreases in advertising spend and credit expense. Net income for the first three quarters of fiscal 2023 was $48.2 million, or $4.14 per diluted share. and credit income of $44.4 million, or $3.83 for diluted shares in the first three quarters of fiscal 2022. Please refer to our 10-Q, which was filed yesterday, for additional details regarding our financial performance for the third quarter of fiscal 2023. Now, I'm going to call over to Dr. Shane Filippo to provide additional comment on our operating results for the third quarter of fiscal 2023 and discuss category trends.

Great. Thanks, Frank. Appreciate the financial updates. I'd like to now share some category and brand results with you for the quarter. As always, the market information I'll be referring to is IRI-reported data, and for today it is the period ending March 26, 2023. When I refer to Q3, I'm referring to 13 weeks of the quarter ending March 26. References to changes in volume or price are versus the corresponding period one year ago. We look at the category on IRI's total U.S. definition, which includes food, drug, mass, Walmart, military, and other outlets, unless otherwise specified. And when we discuss pricing, we're referring to average price per pound. Breakouts of the recipe, snack, and produce nut segments are based on our custom definitions developed in conjunction with IRI. And the term velocity refers to the sales per point of distribution. First, the total nut and trail mix category was flat in dollars and down 2% in pound volume in Q3. This is actually slightly better pound rates than we saw last quarter, while retail dollars slightly declined. All segments continued to decline in pound volume in Q3, while trail mix and snap nuts grew dollars. Overall, prices across the category were up in Q3 versus the prior year 3%. Pricing has started to moderate across segments. For references, prices were up 5.3% in just Q2 of this year. Now we'll cover each segment in more depth, starting with recipe nuts. The recipe nut segment was down 1% in dollar sales and down 3% in pound sales. This is slightly worse dollar performance than we saw in Q2, but better pound performance. Prices of recipe nuts were up 2.1% versus last year. Price increases have moderated since the beginning of our fiscal year. Our Fisher brand had another successful quarter, growing 20% in dollars and 21% in pounds. Fisher's performance resulted in growing dollar share 2.9 points, and Fisher remains the branded leader. Fisher's performance was driven primarily by increased distribution and velocity in the mass channel. Now let me turn to the snack nut segment. In Q3, the snack nut segment was up 1% in dollar sales and down 1% in pound sales. This is slightly better than the performance we saw in Q2. Like we saw in recipe, pricing is starting to stabilize in the snack nut category, with prices up 1.6%. Fisher Snack performed worse in the category, down 3% in dollars and 11% in pounds. On peanuts, the largest nut type within our Fisher brand, we are continuing to see significant competitive pricing and promotional pressure. We are executing our competitive response by balancing profitable growth and not contributing to devaluation of the peanut category. We have also lost distribution on Fisher's Snack's smaller pack sizes as consumers are looking towards larger value packs. We continue to see strong results in the oven roasted, never fried line across our large sizes. We are focused on continuing to build distribution and drive velocities against this line. The trail and snack mix segment was up 5% in dollars in Q3 and down 2% in pounds, relatively consistent with the performance we saw in Q2. Prices of trail mixes were up 7.3%, slightly less than the last quarter. Our Southern style nut brand declined 5% in dollars and 8% in pounds. The clients were slowly driven by the club channel as competitive and pricing pressure has increased. The brand continues to grow in mass and grocery. Private brands continue to drive the trail mix category growth up 6% in dollars in Q3. Our last segment, Produce Nuts, declined 2% in dollar sales and 5% in pound volume in Q3. This is slightly worse than the performance we saw in Q2. Our Produce Nut brand, Orchard Valley Harvest, declined 14% in dollar sales and 10% in pound sales given by distribution declines in a mass retailer offsetting strong performance in the grocery channel. We have started the repositioning and relaunch of this brand, as I mentioned, and we should start seeing new products flow into the market next quarter. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Michelle to open up the line for any questions. Michelle?

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1-1. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 1-1 again. Again, to ask a question, please press star 1-1. I'm not showing any questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Jeffrey Sanfilippo for closing remarks.

Thank you, Michelle. In closing, first I want to say I'm so proud of this organization and every person that helps support our business. This is an extraordinary quarter. It's been an extraordinary year in spite of the headwinds we face across this country. We also face a number of challenges in the future, which include the impact of ongoing inflation in food and other input prices, rising interest rates that reduce economic growth, and the potential for an economic downturn in the markets in which we operate. We also continue to experience a tightening in the labor market for those employed at our production facilities, which has led to increased labor costs. However, I am very confident in the strategic investments we have made in our people, customers, and capabilities to overcome these challenges and drive future earnings growth. Our company and our team of dedicated leaders and frontline associates throughout the organization remain steadfast and strong. We have always adapted quickly to overcome headwinds. And our insights, innovation, R&D, marketing, and sales teams are laser focused on consumer behavior and consumption trends to develop new products and pursue new brand opportunities, as well as pursue elevated demand with our private brand retail partners. I'm confident we have the right strategies, talent, and business model to continue to grow and provide exceptional value and innovation for our customers and consumers. We appreciate your participation in the call, and thank you for your interest in our company. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.