4/1/2020

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Good day and welcome to the Lamb Weston Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Dexter Congolet, VP Investor Relations of Lamb Weston. Please go ahead.

speaker
Dexter Congolet
VP Investor Relations

Good morning and thank you for joining us for Lamb Weston's Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. This morning, we issued our earnings press release, which is available on our website, lambweston.com. due to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the cautionary statements and risk factors contained on our pilings with the SEC for more details on our forward-looking statements. Some of today's remarks include non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with our GAAP results. You can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations in our earnings release. With me today are Tom Warner, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Rob McDonough, our Chief Financial Officer. Tom will provide an overview of our priorities for managing through the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, as well as some thoughts on the near-term demand environment. Rob will then provide some details on our third quarter results, financial liquidity and capital structure. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tom.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Dexter. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. We're clearly in a time of considerable uncertainty as it relates to the scope and speed of the COVID pandemic and the impact on the global economy, our industry, and each of our lives. We'll do our best to answer your questions relating to consumer demand and our response to the crisis, but please recognize that much is still unknown. As a consequence of this uncertainty, we've withdrawn our financial outlook despite only two months remaining in our physical fourth quarter. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us. We operated through the worst of the outbreak. We've taken steps to enhance sanitation protocols in our production facilities and offices, promote social distancing by having employees work at home when possible, and canceling almost all travel. Second, as a leader in our category, and as I mentioned earlier, we have the obligation to continue to make food and do our part We're confident in our ability to continue to safely produce fries and other frozen potato products. As you can imagine, the demand situation remains fluid, so there will undoubtedly be an effect on our operations and supply chain. We're watching consumer and customer demand and have begun to adapt our production schedules to react accordingly. As appropriate, we'll take further actions to align our manufacturing operations, including temporarily reducing production. Third, we and our joint venture partners are committed to remaining a trusted and valued business partner for our customers as they all manage through supply chain and inventory concerns. Several large QSR chain customers have already indicated to us that fries are a priority item. We and our customers will not like Thank you for joining us. As restrictions have relaxed, we've seen volume climb back to about 70% of pre-crisis demand today. Our team there has responded well and continues to manage through the impact of the virus. We're adopting lessons learned from them to our operations around the world. In other key markets in Asia, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, we've seen only a modest impact on French fry demand. While our sales in these markets mirror these trends, we're continuing to closely monitor the situation for additional evidence of consumer reaction and fry demand. In the US, it's still too early to determine how the impact on demand will play out. Normally, about 65% of all fries are purchased at a quick-serve restaurant, with another 20% purchased at a full-serve restaurant. The remaining 15% is purchased at retail. Our sales breakdown is broadly consistent with that split. Our global segment, which accounts for about 52% of our total sales, primarily serves large QSR chain customers in the U.S. and internationally, largely including Asia, Australia, and Mexico. Our food service segment, which is about 30% of sales, primarily sells to a range of food service operations. We estimate that close to 80% A retail segment historically accounts for about 13% of our sales. Of the price purchased at a QSR, normally about two-thirds have been purchased via drive-thru, carry-out, or delivery, with the remaining third consumed on-premises. Prior to the adoption of more severe social and movement restrictions, we saw little change in orders and shipments to QSR Higher delivery orders cushion much of the decline in on-premise dining. However, with the adoption of more severe restrictions across more states, we're seeing orders beginning to slow. If the China experience provides an appropriate guide, then we would expect QSR volumes to begin to recover at a faster rate than for full-service restaurants after the more severe restrictions are relaxed. Traffic at full-service restaurants and operations in the U.S. is expected to be down much more sharply than at QSRs. While many of these operators are taking steps to boost takeout and delivery sales, we expect this will make up only a fraction of lost business, so our sales to these types of customers are more at risk. In contrast, retail demand for frozen fries has significantly increased as food-at-home consumption rises, with the adoption of social distancing The bottom line is that in the U.S., QSRs that have established drive-through, take-out, and delivery capabilities are in a much better position in the current environment than full-service restaurants and other outlets that largely cater to dine-in traffic. Retail will likely benefit in the near term with more meals prepared at home and pantry loading. In Europe, which has served through our Lamb-Weston-Meyer joint venture, although a high proportion of our The importance of the consumption is dine-in or takeaway via walk-in traffic since drive-through options are much more limited. The impact of the virus on demand so far has been most pronounced in Italy after it adopted severe social and movement restrictions. Other European nations have since adopted similar restrictions, so we expect the decline in demand to accelerate in those countries as well, which will further negatively impact Lem, Weston, Myers' results.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Before turning the call over to Rob, let's talk about our financial liquidity and capital allocation.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

We have a strong balance sheet and have sufficient liquidity to weather this crisis, even if it results in a prolonged downturn in demand. Last week, in an abundance of caution, we fully drew down our existing $500 million revolver in order to provide additional financial flexibility in light of the market uncertainty. As you may have seen a couple of weeks ago, we declared our regular quarterly dividend. However, we temporarily suspended our modest share repurchase program. Finally, we'll take the necessary actions to manage our cost structure, working capital, and capital expenditures. This means deferring capital when possible, including postponing all non-critical projects. Let me close by saying that these are extraordinary times. Nothing about confronting this pandemic will be easy, but Lamb Weston is well positioned in terms of our business mix, operating flexibility, cost structure, and liquidity position to weather the storm. Our entire team is committed to stepping up and doing our part to keep feeding people, support our communities, and be a valued, stable business partner for our customers. We're taking the necessary actions in our operations to navigate through this crisis by

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone. As you've seen in our earnings release, our reported performance in third quarter was mixed. However, it's important to note that through February, which was before the impact of the pandemic raced across the globe, we were on track to deliver the financial targets that we outlined on January 3, 2020. We've provided a more detailed description of our third quarter results in our earnings release and in the 10-Q, which we'll file later today. Here are some brief highlights. Net sales increased 1% due to a 1% increase in price mix. Volume was flat as growth in food service segment was partially offset by a decline in our global segment's reported volume. While volume growth of non-customized or J.D. J.D. Edible oils drove most of the input cost inflation, while higher insurance rates and medical expenses drove most of the increase in fixed costs. In addition, unrealized gains on commodity hedging contracts was a $4 million headwind, largely as a result of a $4 million gain that we realized in the prior year quarter. SG&A expense increased Thank you very much. Equity method earnings, excluding comparability items, declined about $2 million, but this was due to a negative $6 million change in unrealized mark-to-market adjustments. Excluding these adjustments, equity earnings increased about $4.5 million. Adjusted EBITDA and Cost Inflation, as well as higher SG&A, drove the decline. Adjusted diluted EPS declined 18 cents, or 19%, to 77 cents, due largely to lower sales and operating profits, as well as lower equity method earnings. Moving to our segments, our food service and retail businesses reported in line with our expectations, and you can find the details in our earnings release and 10Q. Global's reported sales were down 2%, including a 1% decline in both volume and price mix. Volume was down primarily because we lapped a very strong growth of customized and limited-time offering products in the prior year quarter. This created about a 7 percentage point volume headwind. The coronavirus-related impact These declines were nearly offset by a six-point increase in shipments of non-limited time-offering products, as well as a two-point benefit from acquisitions. So after taking into account the timing of sale, J.D. J.D. J.D. J.D. Moving to our cash flow, liquidity position, and balance sheet, we generated about $435 million of cash from operations year-to-date. That's down about 2% versus last year due to increased working capital requirements to support our growth. J.D. J.D. We have a strong balance sheet with about $2.2 billion of total debt at the end of the quarter. Our maturity profile is also attractive. We have an approximately $280 million balance on a term loan facility that matures in November of 2021 and an approximately $290 million balance on another The mandatory annual amortization on these two loans is about $30 million combined. In addition, we have two $833 million high yield notes that mature in 2024 Our second covenant is an EBITDA, including joint ventures, to interest expense ratio of at least 2.75 times. At the end of the quarter, we were at nearly nine times. Now here's Tom for some closing comments.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Rob. These are difficult times for all of us, and we don't know how long these times will last, but we faced challenges before, and we will always come out stronger on the other side. I hope we were able to provide you with some insight on our priorities and our ability to manage through this crisis. We don't have all the answers, but I'm confident that our entire team will focus on doing our part to keep feeding people around the world. We're closely working with our customers and our suppliers as we continue to navigate through this environment, and because of that, Land Weston will continue to be a strong and valued business partner. Thank you for joining us today. Now we're ready to take your questions.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star 1 to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We'll take our first question from Andrew Lazar with Barclays.

speaker
Andrew Lazar
Analyst, Barclays

Morning, everyone. Hope everyone is staying healthy on your end.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Morning, Andrew.

speaker
Andrew Lazar
Analyst, Barclays

Hi there. So, Tom, you know, Land Weston's obviously come through, by all measures, a pretty fantastic couple of years, certainly from an industry supply-demand perspective, almost utopic in certain ways. And I realize there's really not any precedent for this, and much is still very fluid. But just as you think about this generally and thinking forward, With industry capacity having come online this year, and obviously that wasn't proved to not really be an issue given how strong demand was, but with now maybe a weakening of demand for some period of time, I guess how would you at this stage see current events sort of impacting what's been this really fantastic sort of supply-demand balance maybe closer in and then over a longer-term period of time?

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Andrew, it's all about the demand curve right now. And obviously, you know, it's a fluid situation, as I indicated in my remarks. And, you know, the most important thing is to, you know, that our customers are talking about is assured supply. And that's what we're focused on. The situation is fluid. You know, how the demand curve is, The most important thing is, you know, what I alluded to in my remarks is, you know, continue to make food products and feed people. And, you know, the indication that I'll talk about is the fact that I do know is that What we're seeing in China. So, you know, we had a downturn. We got through the worst of the crisis over there, at least as we know it today. Production went down 50%. It's running about 70% demand. So as I think about the market, it's all about assured supply, keeping our people safe, producing food safely, all those things. And, you know, it's going to

speaker
Andrew Lazar
Analyst, Barclays

Understood. Thank you for that. And then just a quick follow-up. You know, you've got some very large-scale facilities on the manufacturing side. And are there, you know, certain actions that you can take kind of in the near term when demand slows and sort of the volume leverage becomes, you know, the fixed cost absorption becomes less, you know, less significant? Are there things that you can change in the sort of the fixed cost base or, you Really near-term, should we expect the decremental margin, just given the lack of the kind of volume leverage you're used to, to have an outsized impact on profitability? Trying to get a sense for that, if at all possible. Thanks so much.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, you know, Andrew, as you can imagine, we're looking at a lot of different scenarios in the production plan based on how things are changing every week. I will assure you that as we think through slowing production down, we're taking all the actions necessary to take costs out where we can. At the same time, we've got to support our employees that are coming to facilities every single day. Certainly, Everything's in play and we're reacting in real time. I am super proud of our supply chain team and what they've done and how they've reacted to this. We've taken a lot of steps to ensure that not only are we providing our customers with products, but we're keeping our employees as safe as possible in this environment.

speaker
Andrew Lazar
Analyst, Barclays

So thanks very much and stay well, everybody.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Andrew.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

We'll take our next question from Brian Spillane with Bank of America.

speaker
Brian Spillane
Analyst, Bank of America

Hey, good morning, everyone. Morning, Brian. Morning, Brian. So I have a couple of questions. The first one may be a follow-up to Andrew, and this is one that we've fielded a few times in recent weeks, so it's a really simple question. If you needed to turn a plant off, is there anything that would stop you from being able to do that? I think there's a perception that your plants are kind of like glass vertices that just have to be continuously run. So I just want to make sure if that's the right perception or if you needed to shut down or shutter a plant, is it that complicated to do it?

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, this is Rob. If you think about it, it is food processing facilities. And We very regularly take the lines down for normal sanitation just as part of producing food. And so, you know, every couple of weeks we take a line down. We'll take each of our lines down just to make sure that we're continuing to keep the lines food safe. And so, as you think about this, across the globe, you know, we've got 20 some odd French fry manufacturing plants. and so those are each individual units and within those units there are lines and those lines go down regularly and so in contrast to that perception that it's like a glass furnace, it's continuous. Yes, they're continuous when they're operating but we regularly take them down so that's just part of our process.

speaker
Brian Spillane
Analyst, Bank of America

All right, thanks. And then the second related to the change in capital spending guidance for this year How far can you stretch that? I guess I'm trying to just get a sense for if you're deferring something today, are there some capex needs that are required, whether it's maintenance capex or whatever it would be that you can only defer six months or a year? Just how much flexibility, I guess, do you have on capital spending over, let's say, 12 months or 18 months?

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, this is Rob again. On CapEx, our base level of capital, kind of keep the wheels on capital, is around $125 million a year for the Lamb-Weston consolidated business. So we think we can operate at that level for some period of time and maintain the productivity of the plants. And then last one for me, there's always been a lot of focus around your relationships and negotiations with your customers and there's always been a lot of focus on pricing.

speaker
Brian Spillane
Analyst, Bank of America

But I guess Given this current situation and how fluid or uncertain demand will be, how much flexibility can you provide for your customers in terms of being able to offer them ranges and outcomes on volume? And is that maybe more valuable in discussions you're having with customers today than just purely price?

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Well, you know, Brian, Tom, it's all about demand right now and understanding All right. Thanks very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

We'll take our next question from Chris Groh with Stifle.

speaker
Chris Groh
Analyst, Stifel

Hi, good morning. Thank you. Good morning, Chris. I hope you guys are well. I think that's, first of all, on the supply chain. And a bit to Brian's question, but temporarily reducing production, I understand, in this environment. I guess I would understand if you frame that for what you expect to do in the coming quarter or so or a couple quarters. And then I'm curious also how you accommodate So, is it you have to produce these products and put it in freezers? Is that an incremental cost for you? Or how do you accommodate that in this environment?

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Chris, and this is Rob. You're right. We have the raw. The raw, over time, will spoil. We can stretch it out some. Can't stretch it out forever. And so, you know, you... So we have the ability to manage that to some degree, to meet demand, to try and optimize that cost versus the degradation of the raw. Get past September, and it's really tough for us to run raw from the prior year. But we can stretch it out a bit, and so that's exactly the math that we're doing to try and optimize that, given what we're seeing in demand.

speaker
Chris Groh
Analyst, Stifel

Okay. And then just one other question, which is, you know, we knew this quarter had a tough comp for LTOs and customized products. I guess I'm trying to understand, does that become an ongoing concern, say Q4, where I would not have expected that based on the comps, but is that something your customers are doing today? Are they foregoing those opportunities and therefore you have more of a risk in future quarters around this mixed factor from LTOs and customizable products?

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

Let me, let me, There are two components to that. One is LTOs, which there's always some level of volatility depending on what customers want to promote and how to promote it. The other is these customized products. For a number of our large chain customers in particular, which report in the global business unit, there are very customized products for those customers. We started reporting under the new revenue recognition standard in the first quarter of 2019. Under that standard, we recognize the revenue for those customized products when we manufacture it and have a purchase order in hand from those customers, as opposed to traditionally the way I learned it 30 years ago of when the product ships and title changes. There's some volatility in when we receive purchase orders on those things. We have some large customers, and if we don't have timely receipt of purchase order, we don't recognize that revenue. That's what happened between global, if you look at Q2 to Q3. Q2 wasn't really as good in underlying shipments. And so I want to take that revenue recognition piece out of that. In terms of LTOs, interestingly, some of our customers in China are really looking at LTOs and trying to determine when's the right time to launch those to get customer traffic back. And so think about LTOs as a customer traffic incentive, and that's how they use it. And so that's what we're gearing up for. I think if anything, I think they're going to be used, as we indicated in China, to leverage people back into the stores.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Chris, this is Tom. I think that's right, what Rob said in China. But the other thing, as I stated in my prepared remarks, right now in the environment, in the near term, some of our customers are talking about menu simplification. So, you know, the near term, it's about making sure fries are on the menu, their base fry item. You know, some of the promotional items are going to be pushed out for a while.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Okay, that was very good color. Thank you for that.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

We'll take our next question from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs.

speaker
Adam Samuelson
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Hi, Adam. I guess first, Tom, I was hoping to just maybe dig in a little bit on the U.S. trends and the framework that you gave on China and the experience that you've had there over the last couple of months is very helpful and appreciate that this is very dynamic and seemingly changing day by day. But any – you guys have any visibility in terms of regional trends in the U.S. for some of the states and jurisdictions where some of these shelter and planters were put in? versus other jurisdictions where they're not in place or only recently put in place. Do you see some of the U.S. markets following that pattern and any quantification of that, if you could?

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Adam, as you can see, you can appreciate this is a very fluid situation, and I'm not going to get into specific regional areas of our country. What I will tell you is... You know, we've got a team that's analyzing daily order patterns, you know, across the regions. I can't get into specifics because it's, you know, a lot of it beats speculative going forward because it does change. But we're monitoring it certainly as more restrictions on, you know, the social distancing are more pronounced, that's going to impact demand. What I will say is we're watching it closely and we're monitoring it every day. We're watching our order patterns and this is a fluid situation. You can understand that I'm not going to put out any kind of, hey, here's this number or that number in any of these regions because it changes every single day right now. But we've got a team all over it, and we're reacting to what we're seeing every day. And that's what we're doing to manage this business going forward.

speaker
Adam Samuelson
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Okay, that's very helpful. And the second question for me is on Europe and the joint venture and It's probably maybe more Rob. Any framing of where especially your customers, a lot of the QSR customers are just completely shut and they don't have that drive-through as a demand outlet. Just framing the balance sheet liquidity position of the joint venture or tools available to manage that and just thinking about obviously your commitment to the joint venture and any cash needs that that business might have if the demand declines are more severe.

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, in terms of liquidity and balance sheet position of the joint venture, the joint venture is in good shape in terms of both its balance sheet covenant compliance and in terms of liquidity. They have their own standalone revolving credit line access and the sensitivities we've run there, similar to what we've run here, even in a prolonged downturn in demand, that they've

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

We'll take our next question from Tom Palmer with J.P. Morgan.

speaker
Tom Palmer
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Good morning, and thank you for the question. First, I just wanted to ask on the COGS basket, get an idea of fixed versus variable costs. in terms of mix, both as we look on a near-term time horizon and then maybe if you could help with what portion of those fixed costs maybe you could provide over a several week or so period if needed.

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

Sure, Tom. This is Rob. In terms of fixed variable, we've talked about before that about 70% of our manufacturing costs are variable costs. You can run the math there. The components that are included in fixed, repairs and maintenance sits in fixed, is a big component of that fixed cost, as well as labor and then warehousing. Clearly, on maintenance, if you've got a line down, you're encouraging the folks to not go in with big maintenance crew and do a lot of work, and so those are the kinds of things that you actually have pretty good control over, if that makes sense.

speaker
Tom Palmer
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Okay, thanks for that detail. And then also wanted to clarify some of the mixed factors in the global segment. I think you detailed the sales shortfall mainly came from international, especially China. But then you also called out negative mix from international markets as a margin headwind, which would seem to suggest they grew as a percentage of segment sales. So maybe just reconcile that. And I mean, were U.S. volumes also down in the segment? Or is that more going to be in the fourth quarter that you see U.S. volumes still? Thanks.

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I think that if you look at, again, that reported top line, that revenue recognition issue, that I talked about is a significant piece of that. And then as you look at actual shipments, the international markets tend to have a lower margin on average than our U.S. markets just simply as a result of market structure and then additional freight costs and so forth.

speaker
Tom Palmer
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

So just to clarify, U.S. volumes were up during the third quarter.

speaker
Rob McDonough
Chief Financial Officer

We don't split it out that way publicly, but I will tell you that the revenue recognition issue was largely a U.S. issue. Okay. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

We'll take our next question from Rob Dickerson with Jefferies.

speaker
Rob Dickerson
Analyst, Jefferies

Great.

speaker
Andrew Lazar
Analyst, Barclays

Thank you so much.

speaker
Rob Dickerson
Analyst, Jefferies

So, you know, look, I mean, obviously, right now, you're, you know, you're watching demand very closely, as you say, which is the given. I'm, frankly, I'm a bit new to the Lamb, the Lamb Weston Company and how the harvest works and demand contracts, what have you. So I'm just curious, like, you know, as you, it seems like normally you set those contracts now, right, with the farmers, you know, to figure out, you know, and then what you're based upon. That potential go-forward demand later for the harvest this year in the fall, which will really help supply demand in calendar 21, which seems kind of impossible to forecast at this point. How do you work through that now with the farmers, given just the fluidity of the situation, if you basically still have to contract with the farmers to Secure Supply, you know, come October, November.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Rob, I'm not going to comment on that because we're right in the middle of negotiating contract price at this point and other needs. So I'm, you know, going to not comment on that. And you can respect that until we get through, you know, the process.

speaker
Rob Dickerson
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay, yeah, no, completely makes sense. Apologies for asking. I mean, I would say, though, it seems like there obviously are, you have to have some type of internal guests, you know, kind of some guests to just kind of work, help you work through whatever those negotiations are. I mean, that's kind of where we are. Is that right?

speaker
Tom Palmer
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

That's fair.

speaker
Rob Dickerson
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay, cool.

speaker
Tom Palmer
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

I get it.

speaker
Rob Dickerson
Analyst, Jefferies

Sorry you're in that circumstance. And then I guess just very simplistically, You know, when do we normally, you know, get, you know, kind of a read, an early read on the health of the harvest that would come in this year? I think that's around May. Is that right, May, June?

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

No, we usually have a good idea, and what we do, and we'll continue to do it, is we'll have an early read in July, and we'll provide full color on how we're seeing the crop in October.

speaker
Rob Dickerson
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay, okay, fair. And then just lastly, you know, just in terms of, you know, overall labor situation, I mean, obviously, I think every company is probably dealing with the same thing. But for now, at least you feel, you know, comfortable with your supply chain, right, ability of workers to get to the plants. So it's more about demand forecasting. You know, variable moving forward relative to anything on the labor side. And that's it. Thank you so much.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Rob, it's all about demand forecasting. We've got, you know, obviously our protocols in place in terms of reacting to The COVID situation in our plants and you know we're taking necessary actions to adjust our production scheduling as I mentioned earlier and we'll continue to do that and you know I'm committed to continue to support our employees as they come to the plants every day and produce food to feed people in the U.S. and around the globe so you know it's a fluid situation You know, it's emotional. The most important thing is to do everything we can for the health and well-being of our employees, and that's the focus.

speaker
Rob Dickerson
Analyst, Jefferies

Sounds great, really.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you so much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

We'll take our next question from Carla Casella with J.P. Morgan.

speaker
Carla Casella
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Hi. I'm just wondering, so on the food service retail and the production side, How many of your plants are doing both food service and retail and how easy is it to switch lines from one line of production to the other?

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

We don't break out specifics on which plant produces what. What we've done is we've been able to convert some of our, quote, food service lines to retail to meet that demand where we can. Not all lines are created equal. So it's a matter of how these lines are configured. But I will tell you what we've done everywhere possible is to shift that production from food service to retail and ensure that as we look at the demand curve across Our product line, we're adjusting where we can, and the supply chain team has done a terrific job converting at light speed to adapt to the environment that we're operating in. So what I will tell you, I'm not going to tell you specifics, but we're doing everything we can to convert lines where we can.

speaker
Carla Casella
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Okay, great.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

We'll take our last question from Rebecca Schumann with Morningstar. Yeah, good morning. Thank you for that question.

speaker
Rebecca Schumann
Analyst, Morningstar

So it can be difficult to get a read for exactly what is happening in China, but, you know, there have been some reports of, you know, that new cases of the COVID-19 virus are spiking up again as people are getting back to work and back out in the general population. Are you seeing anything in your demand data to indicate that that is happening?

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

This is Tom.

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

You know, I know that the news that's coming out is mixed. That's what I know. Factually, what I know in our business and in China is what I stated earlier. When all this happened in January, February, the last two, three weeks, our business fell off about 50%. Teamwork threw it. They did a terrific job. The China team continuing to operate, provide food for people, and now we're seeing... This is about 70% of normalized levels. With the recent news that you alluded to, it's new news to all of us. I can't speculate on what our business is going to do, but as I stated earlier, we're managing this every day. We're looking at the data. It's very fluid. We haven't seen any indications based on what you alluded to, the new news, the new cases. And so it's really a day-to-day thing that we're going to continue to monitor. But right now, we haven't seen any change based on the last 24 hours. But again, we're watching this every single day based on what we know.

speaker
Rebecca Schumann
Analyst, Morningstar

Yeah, okay, great, thank you. And then my next question is a follow-up to the previous question. You know, several packaged foods companies have been reporting, you know, surges in demand in the last few weeks of, you know, 70 to 80%, you know, specifically in some frozen food categories where you reside. And, you know, I was just wondering if, you know, you talk about trying to shift some production over to the retail product. Is it likely that you have enough additional capacity to meet that type of demand in retail?

speaker
Tom Warner
President & Chief Executive Officer

What I will say is what we've done is shift as many lines as we can to retail based on the demand changes we're experiencing. We are doing everything we can to meet the demand. I'm not going to give you a percentage of what we're seeing in our retail business, but obviously it's up. We'll do all we can to help support the retail demand that we're seeing. We have changed some of our production lines where we can, again, to support the retail demand surge.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

That concludes today's question and answer session. Mr. Kongbele, at this time, I will turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

speaker
Dexter Congolet
VP Investor Relations

Thanks, everybody, for joining the call. I'd be happy to arrange for follow-up calls and conversations. If you would, just email me and we can set up a time. Other than that, hopefully everybody stays safe. And again, thanks for joining the call.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

Q3LW 2020

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