ConAgra Brands, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Conagra Brand second quarter and first half fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Melissa Napier. Head of Investor Relations for Conoco Brands. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Wyatt. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for our live question and answer session on today's results. Once again, I'm joined this morning by Sean Connolly, our CEO, Dave Marburger, our CFO, and Matthew Nysas, Senior Director, Investor Relations. We may be making some forward-looking statements and discussing non-GAAP financial measures during this session. Please see our earnings release, prepared remarks, presentation materials, and filings with the SEC, which can be found in the investor relations section of our website, for more information, including descriptions of our risk factors, GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations, and information on our comparability items. Wyatt, please introduce our first question.

All right, it looks like our first question comes from Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Happy holidays. Happy holidays.

Good morning.

Sean, we saw, I guess, during the course of the quarter, sort of a little bit of a gap open up between sort of scanner and sort of ConAgra shipments. And I'm just curious if you saw any benefit from the Thanksgiving timing change on volume in the quarter. that you would expect to reverse in the third quarter, just given others with sort of similar fiscal years have kind of discussed this dynamic?

Yeah, good idea, Andrew. Let's get grounded in some of the detailed facts around Thanksgiving, because I suspect that this dynamic differs by company. For us, in our Q2, shipments were plus 1%, and consumption was plus 0.6%. So they tracked very, very closely. And after the first half, our shipments and our consumption are actually equal. And this is an important fact. As we exited Q2, our inventory levels with customers were essentially even with a year ago. So there really was not a Thanksgiving timing effect for our company. Now, I can't speak to other companies' shipment patterns and inventories entering our Q3, but I can tell you that's our situation.

Thanks for that clarity. And then You talk about incremental inflation and FX as the key reasons for some of the back half EPS pressure versus previous expectations. Is incremental investment, whether consumer or trade, part of this as well? And I ask because it would seem you are seeing a return on some of the spending with the volume and share trends that you spoke of in the prepared remarks, and we continue to hear about the consumer being, you know, more value-seeking for longer than many expected. So I'm just trying to get a sense if that is sort of part of the part of the dynamic around estimate changes for the back half of the year or not?

Thanks so much. Good question, and I think it's very important we clarify this. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the decision to invest to drive the top line back to growth is not a new concept for us. We implemented that strategy in Q2 last year, and those investments have always been built into our plan for this fiscal year. And as I said earlier, those investments are obviously working. If you look at our trend lines going back five quarters, it's been consistently going north. So we weren't surprised at all to see it break into positive territory this quarter, nor am I the slightest bit surprised to see real strength in our frozen and snack business. So that's satisfying, but it's good to be back north. As for the trade component of our investments, mechanically, we plan quarterly, and then we true up actual spend at the end of each quarter. In Q2, our actual spend came in a bit lower than planned, and we've redeployed those funds to Q3 versus cutting them. So, I guess you'd characterize that as a small shift. But I think it's important not to confuse that with us being dissatisfied with top-line momentum and scrambling to add adequate support. We've had our support in place for five quarters. It's working, and we're going to continue to see it work going forward.

Thanks for the clarity.

And our next question will come from Ken Goldman, and we would like those to ask and limit themselves to one question. Ken Goldman, please go ahead.

Hi. In discussing the industry's higher investments in advertising, promo trade, and innovation, Sean, you said the consumer response has varied significantly by category and company. I'm hoping to kind of unpack this a bit. From your vantage point, you know, are there any best practices perhaps that can you know, maybe thoughtfully be applied to the industry as a whole, just given some of those, you know, consumer challenges or those value-seeking behaviors?

Sure, Ken. Here's how I think about it. You know, somewhere in maybe Q2 of last fiscal that I first called out a series of behavior shifts that we saw from cutting discretionary spending to more cooking from scratch to more cooking for many instead of meals for one, you know, preserving leftovers as opposed to throwing them in the garbage. We saw those things emerge last year. And what I've said all along is that the benefit of convenience is the one trend that has been most unshakable over the last 50 years. So we saw some impact early on on frozen single-serve meals. I told you that that was not going to last. Consumers don't like to meal plan. They don't like to prep. They don't like to cook. And they don't like to clean up. And that's exactly how it's unfolded. So my comment before is that really it's category specific. If a category has the benefits that consumers really long for, they can make a behavioral shift for a little while to make their household balance sheet work. But if those benefits like convenience are really important, that shift isn't going to last forever. The other area that I'd say is kind of a signal of what's on trend is within snacking. there's obviously been a movement toward protein snacks and healthy snacks, and our categories are squarely within that. So a year ago, we saw people were kind of trading out, maybe cutting their buying rate a little bit, but the magnetic pull of convenience and healthfulness and healthy snacking is pretty strong. So what we've done all along, as we've said many times, is we've nudged the consumer back to those behaviors that we know they're longing for, using a whole battery of investments from innovation to advertising to high-quality trade like end caps and sampling in certain channels of trade, things like that. And it's been effective. You know, we don't have a lot of categories where it hasn't been effective, but keep in mind we've focused a lot of our investments in frozen and snacks, and we just happen to have brands that are resonating well with consumers in those spaces. Thanks. Happy holidays.

Next question will come from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Can you just perhaps expand on your leverage targets for the full year inching up a bit? Free cash flow conversion looks like it's coming in better. What's driving that? The leverage kicking up a bit, I assume, is... more about profit as opposed to debt pay down. Can you just update us on, I guess, visibility on free cash flow, how quickly you think you can get to your leverage targets, and in general, how you're thinking about cash deployment maybe over the next year and perhaps over the next several years between the dividend and share repurchases and, you know, of course, M&I. Thanks.

Hey, Chris, it's Dave. Let me take that from the top. So, yes, Our forecasted leverage ratio for this year is now 3.4 times versus 3.2 times. As I said in my prepared remarks, that's entirely due to the takedown in our profit. So in terms of our forecasted free cash flow, we're on track with our plan in terms of how much debt we expect to pay down. The free cash flow conversion is now above 100% because That's a metric of free cash flow as related to net income. So with net income coming down, obviously that's going to go up. But the broader point there is we're really pleased with our performance in free cash flow. The company's very focused on it as an organization. And now that we've come out of COVID, we're really making great progress in working capital, particularly with inventory. Our supply chain organization is doing a fantastic job setting goals to take days of inventory out. You know, things like tax, just other areas of cash, we're just really focused on it. So we're really pleased with the progress, and it's going to continue to be a priority for us. So as I also said in my prepared remarks, we still expect it to hit our long-term leverage target of three times by the end of fiscal 26. And so that's where we are. You know, and then we've always talked about a balanced approach to capital allocation. You know, over the years, you've seen us do A lot of things in terms of M&A, both acquisitions, divestiture, share repurchase, levering up and then paying down our debt. We're open to everything, and we like the flexibility, candidly, that we would have. But we are super focused on getting to that three times target for leverage by the end of fiscal 26.

Okay. Thanks so much. And the next question will come from Thomas Palmer with Citi. Please go ahead.

Thomas Palmer Good morning. Thanks for the question. I wanted to ask, the presentation indicates that the third quarter operating margin is expected to be the lowest of the year. I think this would then imply that 4Q would be the highest of the year. So, I just want to make sure I kind of understand the key drivers of this expected inflection come 4Q. I know there is some incremental pricing Are the investments you noted for the third quarter expected to taper off in the fourth quarter? Just any help on that inflection. Thanks.

Yes. Let me try to give you some perspective on that. So kind of take it from the top. Let me give you a little bit more color on Q3. So we do expect volumes to sequentially improve, as we talked about, in the third quarter. We did talk about, and Sean did a nice job of summarizing sort of the dynamic with trade and the shift from Q2 to Q3. So, that's in there. We also have a little bit more kind of innovation investment, if you will, in slotting that's going to come in for Q3. That's impacting us there. You know, we did comment that we do believe operating margin will be the lowest of all the quarters for the year. Our A&P and SG&A are going to be in line with a year ago. So, you know, it's basically that. And then from an inflation perspective, obviously we've taken up our forecast to close to 4% for the full year, and it will be higher in Q3 than Q4. So that's another kind of dynamic there. So, you know, that's just the flow of how Q3 will go.

Thank you. And the next question will come from Peter Galbo with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Sean, I just wanted to ask, I know you said there was no Thanksgiving kind of timing benefit to the quarter, but slide 15, you have the Staples portfolio with several of the brands that were kind of growing double digits. So just wondering if there was any hurricane impact in the quarter maybe that helped benefit some of the shipments that might not repeat and If so, if you could just quantify that for us.

Thanks very much. Pete, there was a, I would say, characterized it as a very small benefit from the hurricane in the GNS segment, but not material to our overall results for the quarter.

And the next question will come from Robert Moscow with TD Cohen. Please go ahead.

I think the Lamb-Weston call took all the energy out of the sell side, so I'm going to try to inject a little more into this one. So, Sean, you know, you've raised your inflation guidance just a little bit, and it's had a pretty substantial impact to your earnings outlook. You know, is it more difficult than normal to put through pricing to offset higher costs because of where the consumer is right now? And I know the guidance assumes that these costs come right back down again, but some of them look a little sticky, particularly COCO. So what happens if those costs stay high into fiscal 26?

Yeah, let me unpack that for you, Rob. First, taking it from the top, the EPS – call-down today equates basically identically to the inflation in the back half versus what we had previously expected, that's the majority of it, plus FX. So, it just queues up, and that is the reason, back to the earlier question around the leverage going from 3.2 to 3.4. It's not the need to invest more or any of that, and I want to make sure we don't get caught up in that. So on a percentage basis, while it looks, hey, 3% to 4%, on a dollar basis in terms of inflation and the impact on EPS, it just ticks and ties. As to what's driving that, it's really, yes, there's inflation in cocoa and sweeteners, and that's very narrow in our portfolio, and we will be pricing to offset that. But the bigger driver for us has been protein. It's meats, eggs, things like that. And we did anticipate that there would be inflation in the second half, but we anticipated that level of inflation will be lower. And we still anticipate that those peak protein costs are going to come down, you know, pretty much across the board, but there's a bit of a deferral for that. So then it kind of leaves it as a judgment call for, you know, companies like ours, which is, you know, if you believe that the forward curves are going to be coming down, do you want a price increase? start the whole cycle all over again of the lag, the elasticity effect. And right now we think what's in the best interest of the consumer and in the best interest of our shareholder with respect to kind of long-term cash flows and value creation is to keep the top line momentum. And that's what we're doing. It's been working very well for us. It was great to get back to positive territory. And so obviously there's a margin implication near term, but we do see that changing. Now you never know, like we thought the back half was going to be less inflationary if we find ourselves in next fiscal and there's more inflation, we'll deal with that then. But that's just a little color on kind of how we're looking at things now. And I think the headline is we've got really strong brand performance. We've got industry-leading share performance. We think the right thing to do is to keep that momentum. Thank you.

And the next question will come from Alexia Howard with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Morning. Hi, Alexia. Just taking a little bit of a different tack, you announced your Healthy Choice GLP-1 on-track messaging recently. Can you talk about, you know, what insights you've gathered from that segment and plans for maybe expanding that program over time?

Sure. Well, you know, this is an opportunity for me, Alexia, to kind of give a little promotional shout-out to our forthcoming CAGNI presentation this year. The centerpiece of our presentation at Cagney is going to be titled The Future of Frozen and the Future of Snacking. And really the point there is we think our categories are extremely well positioned in a dynamic macro environment, including a macro environment that has speculation around GLP-1s and regulatory and things like that. And we think brands like Healthy Choice could really benefit in that kind of environment. And we think snacks that are protein-centric and fiber-centric as well. With respect to healthy choice, we did add what you might think of as a wayfinder on the front of the package for people that are managing their diet proactively, including using GLP-1. So the title of the wayfinder is called On Track, and we use the language GLP-1 friendly on there and there was an article in the paper last week that kind of talked about that if anybody wants to dig into it more but obviously it's small right now in terms of the number of people on it people who do go on it are still dropping off of it uh and what's interesting about that is a brand like healthy choice we think can be a solution for both somebody who is actively taking a glp-1 drug but also somebody who gives it up but then is seeking to maintain the progress that they've made while on GLP-1s. Those consumers need a bit of an off-ramp, and Healthy Choice provides an excellent off-ramp for them as well. So we're on trend, and we will focus our marketing and our packaging to make sure people know that.

Great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

And the next question will come from Max Gumport with BNP. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for the question. This might be stealing the thunder from your upcoming Cagney presentation, it sounds like, but Sean, you touched on the move within snacking to protein and healthy snacks, and really that's a microcosm for what we're seeing in the broader packaged food industry this year. You've got higher protein categories like nutrition shakes, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, all eating on the growth side, and then you've got unhealthy snacking categories that are showing larger declines. In your view, what's driving this trend, and how long do you think it can persist?

Thanks. Well, snacking is, you know, how big is snacking? You know, it's $80 billion. It's a huge space, and it's a space that has always had a tremendous amount of variety, and depending upon what the hot macro trends are, you'll see some shifting within that space from variety to variety. It just so happens that for a whole host of reasons, Things like protein and fiber are super on trend right now. And, you know, who knows how that will change. I don't see any change on the horizon in terms of protein and fiber and low carb really being on trend. And so we are highly concentrated in our snack business in those benefit areas. And what happens when you get on trend like that is, the categories grow and retailers add new brands just to satisfy the demand. So when you think about big categories, you know, in the food industry, you see cookies as an example. You see a lot of variety, and that's needed to satisfy demand. So that's why you see in areas like meat sticks new brands showing up because that's textbook, and that's why we acquired the fatty smoked meats business because it's a new brand, it's playing that role, and it's growing at a super fast rate. So We now have in meat sticks what we call the trifecta smokehouse between Slim Jim, Duke's, and Fatty, and we think having a suite of brands there, just like we do in popcorn and seeds, is the best way to continue capitalizing on that growth. But I don't see those trends changing, and I like being protein-centric, fiber-centric, and I like not being DSD. That's a good combination for snack business. Great. Thank you very much.

And the next question will come from Rob Dickerson with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. Just a quick, easy question. I might be wrong, but I thought Q2 was supposed to be the highest kind of spend for the year just in terms of advertising and promotion. But then I also hear maybe there's a little bit more trade going into Q3, and I heard a little time shift. And then also, I think you said kind of, you know, total SG&A and ad and promo would be the same in Q3 relative to last year's Q3, right, which implies, you know, Q3 is higher. So was there, like, anything that just kind of occurred in the quarter where you say, okay, hey, you know, we might have a few new innovations that might have slipped into Q3, so maybe we'll also shift some of that ad and promo, or maybe we want to, you know, promote a little bit more in December, the holidays, just trying to gauge, you know, kind of the I mean, I guess it's seasonality to a certain extent on ad and promo, but just kind of how you're thinking about that as we kind of move through Q3. You want to hit that?

Yeah, let me take that, Rob. So just to kind of take it from the top, you know, from a dollar perspective, we spend the most in Q2 in terms of trade merchandising, just in terms of absolute dollars. Although Sean talked about it, we were a bit favorable to our forecast, and that shifted to Q3. From an A&P perspective, we are ramping up A&P, so that will continue to ramp up so that by the end of the year, I think our A&P percentage is pretty much in line with the prior year is what we said. And so that would ramp up, and that obviously will start in Q3. I mentioned, too, that we did have a little bit of innovation investment that was higher, that we expect to be higher in Q3. versus what we had forecasted before. Again, not really material, but it is an increase versus what we had forecasted before. And then SG&A, as you had commented, we're still kind of our commentary is the same in terms of where we expect SG&A to be. So they're really the dynamics, I would say, that hopefully answered your question.

Yeah, Rob, most of those events are easy to plan. You know, Thanksgiving and Christmas and Lent, you know where they fall in the calendar. You can plan around them. The ones where you have to stay more agile is support for business like Swiss Miss where the weather moves around and you want to try to have your investment track with when the weather hits. But I wouldn't say that, you know, that type of variability is material at all in the scheme of our spending. Okay, perfect. No, that was great. Thank you.

And the next question will come from Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Seeing if you could comment on the competitive environment in frozen. A large peer has talked about adding capacity in the category and stepping up some investments to support its growth. So just seeing if you have seen any shift in behavior yet and how you think these changes could impact your ability to continue to drive volume improvement going forward.

Well, Frozen is an absolutely awesome space. We've been saying that pretty much exclusively for about 10 years, so I'm glad people are starting to recognize the opportunity in the space because it's a vast domain within the retailer store, and we've been really the only ones that have been active in driving that. And as a result, our products and our innovation machine is well out ahead of our competition. You can see that in extremely strong market share. So we love our model. We're just going to continue to drive it and lead it. And to the degree the retailers continue to appreciate how much upside and innovation space remains in Frozen, the faster the overall category is going to grow. And we're the leaders globally in Frozen and certainly clearly in the U.S., as you can see by the share numbers. And we intend to stay that way.

Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time, and I would like to turn the call over to Matthew Nisus for closing remarks.

Thank you, Wyatt, and thank you all for joining us today. Please reach out to Investor Relations with any additional questions.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Happy holidays, indeed. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.