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.
spk05: Please stand by, we're about to begin. Good day and welcome to the Lamb-Weston third quarter 2022 earnings call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Dexter Congolet, VP, Investor Relations of Lamb-Weston. Please go ahead.
spk08: Good morning and thank you for joining us for Lamb-Weston's third quarter 2022 earnings call. This morning, we issued our earnings press release, which is available on our website, lambweston.com. Please note that during our remarks we'll make some forward-looking statements about the company's expected performance. These statements are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in our SEC filings 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 Bernadette Madriada, our Chief Finance Officer. Tom will provide some comments on our performance, as well as an overview of the current operating environment. Bernadette will then provide some details on our third quarter results and updated fiscal 2022 outlook. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tom.
spk09: Thank you, Dexter. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call today. First of all, I want to thank all my colleagues for their continued dedication and perseverance to keep Land Weston as an industry leader and a strong business partner. Our solid financial results in the third quarter are a direct result of how well our manufacturing, supply chain, and commercial teams have remained focused on improving our operations and serving our customers during a challenging macro environment, which includes the impact of an exceptionally poor potato crop. We continue to be encouraged by strong French fry demand and feel good about our continued progress. Specifically, in the third quarter, we delivered solid sales growth and drove sequential and year-over-year gross margin expansion. And we did this despite the impact of Omicron variant slowing restaurant traffic and disrupting our production and distribution operations more than we expected. We benefited from our previously announced pricing actions to mitigate the significant cost inflation across our supply chain. We've also been driving improvements in our manufacturing operations as we focus on what's in our control. This includes mitigating some of the effects of the poor potato crop with product specification changes and portfolio optimization work that we've discussed previously. Factory labor remains challenging as we remain below preferred staffing levels, but we're making steady progress in a highly difficult labor market. We're addressing the labor gap by focusing on retention and new ways of attracting talent. We'll continue to push hard on our staffing initiatives and are encouraged by the improvements we're seeing. However, we'll take time to get all of our factory staff where they need to be. Like others, we're managing through freight challenges including both cost increases and shipping delays. The freight challenges are impacting our top line as it limits our ability to service full demand. This is caused by a lack of containers for international and domestic shipments and truck driver shortages. This combined with higher fuel costs has also increased our cost to deliver products. We're continuing to navigate through these and other operating challenges and remain on track to deliver our financial commitments for the year. Our capacity expansion investments in Idaho and China also remain on track and will have us well positioned to support increasing customer demand over the long term. Let me provide some brief updates on the operating environment before turning the call over to Bernadette. Let's start with demand. In the U.S., overall fry demand and restaurant traffic in our third quarter remain solid. although it weakened temporarily as the Omicron variant spread quickly. Omicron's impact peaked in January and affected consumer traffic at both quick service and full service restaurants. In addition, some restaurants closed temporarily or reduced operating hours due to staff shortages, which further impacted demand. Restaurant traffic, however, has rebounded to pre-Omicron levels. The fry attachment rate in the U.S., which is the rate at which consumers order fries when visiting a restaurant or other food service outlets, has been fairly consistent since the beginning of the pandemic and remains above pre-pandemic levels. Going forward, we expect restaurant traffic and consumer demand for fries in the U.S. to remain strong, although it may be more volatile in the near term as consumers face significant cost inflation. In contrast, fry demand in retail channels may continue to benefit if demand in out-of-home channels is affected. Outside the U.S., demand in Asia and Oceania remains stable. However, we have not been able to meet that demand due to the limited availability of shipping containers for export. While we expect overall demand in these regions to return to free pandemic levels, Widespread COVID-related government restrictions in key markets such as China may lead to demand volatility in the near term. Demand in Europe, which is served by our Lam West and Meyer joint venture, has also been fairly stable, although it was temporarily affected by the spread of Omicron during the quarter. As in the U.S., we expect demand in Europe may be volatile in the upcoming months as cost inflation and COVID variants temper restaurant traffic. So overall, we expect that demand in the near term will be choppy. We remain confident in the long-term resiliency and growth prospects of the category in the U.S. and our key international markets. With respect to pricing, our price mix growth accelerated sequentially in the third quarter as we continued to execute on our previously announced product and freight pricing actions in our food service and retail segments to offset inflation, and as we began to implement pricing actions in our global segment. Going forward, if we see further inflation, we're prepared to take additional pricing actions, as well as drive opportunities to improve product and customer mix. To that end, last week we began implementing another round of pricing actions in our food service and retail segments, and we expect to see the benefits of these actions gradually build over the next six months. In our global segment, contracts representing about one-third of the segment's volume are up for renewal this year. We've begun discussions with those customers and expect to have most of the contract terms agreed by early fall. With respect to this year's upcoming potato crop, we've agreed to a 20% increase in the contracted price per pound in our primary growing regions in the Columbia Basin, Idaho, Alberta, and the Midwest. This increase reflects our approach for annual price changes that reflect the cost to grow plus an appropriate return for our growers such that they are viable over the long term. We'll begin to see the impact of these higher contracted potato prices during the second quarter of fiscal 2023 as we begin to process the early potato varieties that are harvested in mid-summer. In addition, over the past few months, we've partnered with our growers to contract for acres that represent nearly all of our projected needs associated with this year's crop. The number of acres contracted assumes an average crop year. Planning of this year's potato crop started in March and typically concludes by the end of April, and we'll provide our usual crop updates during future quarterly earning calls as the growing season progresses. Finally, our hearts go out to all the people affected by Russia invasion of Ukraine. Our exposure to Russia is indirect as it runs through our 50% ownership in Land West and Meijer. Last month, the Russia JV began winding down production of Land Weston branded products and paused construction of its previously announced capacity expansion. We continue to monitor the situation, and any decisions regarding that operation will be made in conjunction with our partner in Europe. So, in summary, we feel good about our progress in the quarter, especially given the highly challenging operating environment, and we remain on track to deliver our financial commitments for the year. Our pricing actions and cost mitigation efforts enabled us to drive sequential and year-over-year gross margin expansion. We've agreed on contract price and acres to be planted for this year's potato crop, and we remain confident in the resiliency and long-term growth prospects of the category, although demand may be volatile in the near term. Let me now turn the call over to Bernadette to review the details of our third quarter results and our updated fiscal 2022 outlook.
spk06: Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by echoing Tom's comments, thanking our employees. We appreciate your hard work and dedication. As Tom discussed, we feel good about the benefits from our pricing actions and cost savings efforts to offset much of the significant cost inflation that we've been experiencing. and I'm confident in our ability to continue to manage through this volatile business environment. Specifically, in the quarter, our sales increased 7% to $955 million. Price mix was up 12% as we continued to execute our previously announced product and freight pricing actions in each of our business segments to offset input, manufacturing, and transportation cost inflation. Most of the increase in the quarter reflects these pricing actions, while mixed was also favorable. Sales volume declined 5% as we were unable to fully serve market demand due to logistics constraints, especially for our international shipments, as well as lower production run rates and throughput at our factories, resulting from labor shortages. Increased shipments in our food service segment and to our large chain restaurant customers in North America that are served by our global segment, partially offset the volume decline. However, while volume increased in these channels, it was tempered by the Omicron variant's negative effect on restaurant traffic, on the availability of labor to keep restaurants open, and on our production facilities and supply chain. Gross profit in the quarter increased $24 million. Product and freight price increases, along with favorable mix, more than offset the impact of higher costs on a per pound basis and lower sales volumes. We expanded gross margin by 110 basis points versus the prior year quarter and 270 basis points sequentially to more than 23%. Looking at our costs, double digit inflation drove the increase in cost per pound for the third straight quarter and accounted essentially for all of the increase in the quarter. There were four key areas that drove the increase in cost. First, commodities played the biggest role, led by edible oils, ingredients for batter and other coatings, and packaging. Labor costs also increased due to competition for factory workers. Second, transportation rates continued to climb due to the persistent disruption in global logistics networks. We also continued to use an unfavorable mix of higher cost trucking versus rail to meet service obligations for certain customers. Third, we began to see higher potato costs resulting from the poor crop that was harvested last fall in our primary growing regions. The increase in potato costs reflects the impact of purchasing potatoes in the open market at a significant premium to contracted prices. higher transportation costs for shipping potatoes from the Midwest and Eastern North America to our plants in the Pacific Northwest, lower potato utilization rates, and running production lines at lower speeds to accommodate low-quality potatoes. The increase in our potato costs, decrease in potato utilization rates, and how the crop is performing in storage are all in line with the expectations that we shared with you last quarter and we believe we've secured enough potatoes to deliver our volume forecast until we begin to harvest the early potato varieties in July. As a reminder, we will continue to realize the financial impact of this year's pork potato crop through most of the second quarter of fiscal 2023. The final key area that drove the increase in costs are operational inefficiencies explained by labor shortages, Omicron-related absenteeism, especially in January and into early February, and other industry-wide supply chain challenges. This resulted in lower production run rates and throughput in our factories, leading to fewer pounds to cover fixed overhead. As I'll discuss later, we'll continue to see the impact of these costs in the fourth quarter. The effect of lower potato utilization and production run rates in the third quarter was largely offset by a range of cost mitigation efforts, including eliminating underperforming SKUs, changes to product specifications, and increased productivity savings from our Win as One and other cost-saving initiatives. So in short, we're managing well through this highly inflationary and poor potato crop environment. We feel good about how we are controlling those things that we can control, which led to the year-over-year and sequential gross margin expansion. Moving on from cost of sales, our SG&A declined $9 million in the quarter, largely due to lower consulting expenses associated with improving our commercial and supply chain operations as those projects ended, overall compensation and benefits expense, and a $2 million decline in advertising and promotion expenses. The decline in SG&A was partially offset by higher information technology infrastructure costs, including costs to design the next release of a new enterprise resource planning system. Equity method earnings in the quarter were $30 million and included a $20 million unrealized gain related to mark-to-market adjustments associated with currency and commodity hedging contracts. The large mark-to-market gain in the quarter primarily relates to changes in the value of natural gas derivatives at Lamb, West, and Meyer, as commodity markets there have experienced significant volatility. Excluding the impact of these mark-to-market adjustments, equity earnings increased $1 million versus the prior quarter. Favorable price mix and higher sales volumes were largely offset by input inflation and higher manufacturing and distribution costs in both Europe and the U.S. Moving to our segments. Sales in our global segment were up 2% in the quarter. Price mix increased 8%, reflecting domestic and international pricing actions associated with customer contract renewals and inflation-driven price escalators. It also reflects higher prices charged for freight. Volume fell 6%. International shipments, which have historically accounted for about 40% of the segment's total volume, were down nearly 20% versus the prior year quarter due to limited shipping container availability and disruptions to ocean freight networks. Sales volumes to North American large QSR and casual dining restaurant customers increased, but at a slower rate than previous quarters due to Omicron's negative impact on consumer traffic. Global's product contribution margin, which is gross profit left to advertising and promotional expenses, declined 8% to $73 million. Higher manufacturing and distribution costs per pound, as well as the impact of lower sales volumes, more than offset the benefit of favorable price mix. Moving to our food service segment. Sales increased 34%, with price mix up 22% and volume up 12%. As expected, the rate of increase in food services price mix accelerated sequentially to 22% in the third quarter, from 8% in the second quarter, as the benefits of the product and freight pricing actions that we began implementing earlier this fiscal year to mitigate inflation continued to build. In addition, the increase reflects favorable product and customer mix. The ongoing recovery in demand from small and regional restaurant chains and independently owned restaurants as well as from non-commercial customers, drove a 12% increase in sales volumes. While our shipments to restaurants have essentially returned to pre-pandemic levels, our shipments to non-commercial channels have not yet fully rebounded. As with our sales to large chain restaurants in our global segment, the food service segment's volume growth was tempered by Omicron's negative impact on restaurant traffic and labor availability in those restaurants. In addition, manufacturing labor shortages and the effect of Omicron-related absenteeism limited our ability to fully serve demand due to lower production run rates and throughput in our factories. Food services product contribution margin rose 52% to $107 million, with favorable price, volume, and mix more than offsetting higher manufacturing and distribution costs per pound. In a retail segment, sales declined 12% with volume down 24% and price mix up 12. The volume decline reflected two factors. First, more than half of the decline was due to incremental losses of certain lower margin private label products. And second, despite solid category growth, branded product volumes were down as labor and supply chain disruption limited our ability to service demand. The increase in price mix was driven by product and freight pricing actions across our portfolio to offset inflation, as well as favorable mix. Retail's product contribution margin declined 5% to $32 million. Lower sales volumes and higher manufacturing and distribution costs per pound drove the decline. which was partially offset by favorable price mix and a $2 million decrease in A&P expenses. Moving to our liquidity position and cash flow, we ended the quarter with nearly $430 million in cash and $1 billion of availability on our undrawn revolver. Through the first three quarters of the year, we generated about $175 million of cash from operations, That's down about $200 million versus the first three quarters of the prior year due primarily to higher working capital and lower earnings. Year-to-date, we've spent more than $225 million in capital expenditures as we continued construction of our capacity expansions in Idaho and China. We've also returned nearly $230 million of cash to our shareholders, including $103 million in dividends, and $126 million in share repurchases. After repurchasing $50 million of shares in the third quarter, we have just under $300 million remaining under our buyback authorization. Now let's turn to our updated fiscal 2022 outlook. We expect our full year sales growth to be above our long-term target of low to mid single digits. In the fourth quarter, we expect sales to be driven by price mix, as we continue to execute our previously announced product and transportation pricing actions to offset input and transportation cost inflation. However, we expect sales volumes will continue to be pressured, as export volumes remain constrained due to limited shipping container availability, supply chain volatility and labor shortages challenge run rates and throughput at our factories, And as restaurant traffic and consumer demand may slow due to inflation and the persistent effect of COVID variants in the US and key international markets. In addition, please note that we'll be lapping a high volume comparison in the prior year. With respect to earnings for the full year, we expect our gross margin will be 19 to 20%. This update puts us at the high end of the 18 to 20% range, that we provided in our previous outlook. We're comfortable to be at the higher end of that range because of our confidence in the pace and execution of product and freight price increases that we're currently implementing in the market. We have more clarity on the net impact and margin from this year's poor potato crop, and we're making steady progress in stabilizing our supply chain operations and driving savings behind our cost mitigation initiatives. Based on our updated full year estimate, we expect our gross margin in the fourth quarter to be 19 to 21%. That's down sequentially from the 23% we delivered in the third quarter and reflects, in part, our usual gross margin seasonality. It also includes the impact of significantly higher costs held in finished goods inventory that were produced during the third quarter. These costs were driven by incremental costs and inefficiencies associated with very high levels of Omicron-related factory worker absenteeism in January and February that resulted in broad-based production disruptions. Since we typically hold 50 to 60 days of finished goods inventory, we'll realize these costs during our fiscal fourth quarter as that inventory is sold. Below gross margin, we expect our SG&A expenses in the fourth quarter to step up to $105 to $110 million as we continue to invest in the design and build of our new ERP system. We expect equity earnings, excluding the impact of any mark-to-market adjustments, will remain pressured due to input cost inflation and higher manufacturing costs in both Europe and the U.S. For the year, we continue to expect interest expense to be approximately $110 million, excluding the $53 million of costs associated with the senior notes that we redeemed in the second quarter, total depreciation and amortization expense of approximately $190 million, and an effective tax rate of approximately 22%. We've reduced our estimate for capital expenditures to $325 million, from our previous target of $450 million to reflect the timing of expenditures related to our capacity expansion projects in Idaho and China. So in sum, in the third quarter, we delivered solid sales growth and expanded our gross margins behind our pricing actions and our cost mitigation efforts. For the year, we're targeting the upper end of our previous gross margin range due to our confidence in our pricing execution to offset inflation, the more clarity that we now have on our potato costs, and the steady progress that we're making in stabilizing labor in our supply chain. Now, here's Tom for some closing comments.
spk09: Thanks, Bernadette. Let me just quickly reiterate our thoughts on the quarter by saying I am proud of how our land, waste, and manufacturing supply chain and commercial teams are continuing to take the right operating steps to manage through this challenging business environment. We're on track to deliver on our targets for the year, and we remain committed to investing to support growth and create value for our stakeholders over the long term. Thank you for joining us today, and we're now ready to take your questions.
spk05: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, you may signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, star one for questions. We'll take our first question from Peter Galbo with Bank of America.
spk04: Hey, guys. Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions.
spk10: Good morning, Peter.
spk04: Tom, I just wanted to get your thoughts kind of, you know, now that the, you know, summer 22 crop has started to go into the ground. Just how are you thinking about some of the different puts and takes? Obviously, nobody has the perfect crystal ball, but, you know, it seems like drought in the Pac Northwest is still kind of relatively high. You know, you're using a seed crop from last year of a poor crop. You know, heat last year was obviously an issue. Fertilizer, like, how are you thinking about all those puts and takes and encompassed in, you know, in what's gone in the ground?
spk09: Yeah, Peter, so it's early on in the planning and how we – look at every crop year, certainly we look at history, but we plan it at average historical levels. In terms of the impact that we had last year because of the high heat, which is highly abnormal, it's early innings and we're going to have to really monitor it. No impact from a seed But, you know, as I said in my prepared remarks, you know, as the crop progresses, as we always do in July and October, we'll give you an update. But we plan for an average yield quality crop year every year. So, you know, we'll adjust it as we learn more as the growing season progresses.
spk04: Got it. No, that's helpful. And Bernadette, maybe if I could ask on gross margins, you know, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned the fourth quarter would follow kind of historical seasonality or more normal historical seasonality. As we continue to process this kind of lower quality crop through the first half of next year, would you still expect, I guess, first quarter, second quarter seasonality to kind of come back into play as other elements of the business start to normalize?
spk06: Yeah, absolutely, Peter. You know, the first half of next year will continue to be affected by this year's poor crop. And then once we move into next year's crop, which, as Tom mentioned, we're planning will be average, that's when, you know, we should be able to get closer to those pre-pandemic margins.
spk10: So there, Peter? Yep, sorry, still here. No, thanks very much, guys. I'll pass it on.
spk05: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Andrew Lazar with Barclays.
spk01: Morning, everybody.
spk05: Morning, Andrew. Morning.
spk01: Hi. So I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think you just may have mentioned that your, I guess your anticipation would be that you still get back to sort of your more normalized margins in the second half of fiscal 23. With some of just the recent news and knock-on effects on the next wave of inflation for a lot of items, you know, even potatoes sort of out of the mix for a minute as those are contracted, you know, I guess how do you continue to sort of have the comfort level in that? Is it just that you're seeing, obviously, the pricing go through, and therefore, given what we've seen more recently in terms of incremental costs, there's the confidence that, you know, more can be passed through in a timeframe period? that allows you to get back to those margins as you had initially expected? Or is there something else?
spk09: Yeah, Andrew, there's a couple things. You know, certainly an average crop is going to help that, obviously, significantly. And, you know, as we plan our You know, we're in the middle of planning our physical 23. We have a point of view on what inflation is going to be, which I won't get into until the next call as we wrap our plan for 23 up. But, you know, we have a – and have been executing our pricing actions. And, you know, this – as we're all dealing with, you know, inflation is – challenge but I'm confident in how we've been executing and we're in the early innings of contract negotiations with some of our bigger customers and we're gonna work we'll work through it and the team is doing a great job so I feel very confident we will pass through this inflation and and we're going to get some help from the crop next year if it comes in on an average level. So those are really the two things that gives me a lot of confidence that we're going to get back to pre-pandemic margin levels, and there's no indication right now that's telling me that we're not, and so I feel really good about it.
spk01: Great. And then I realize you're in the early innings of some contract negotiations for the third of those large customer contracts that are coming up for renewal. For the remainder of them that aren't not yet up for renewal, I know you've talked about the possibility of sort of maybe expanding or kind of expanding the definition of what some of those sort of inflation escalators or how they're defined in those contracts to try and get some relief even for contracts where they're not up for renewal just yet. And I'm just trying to get a sense of how progress has been made there. Are you able to get some additional pricing through, even where there's not a contract that's up for renewal?
spk09: Yeah, I mean, we're having very robust conversations with those customers, Andrew. And, you know, we're partnering with them. We're working through it. And we're being very transparent with what our inflation is, what we're dealing with. And I would say those conversations have been very positive. Everybody understands the environment we're all working in. And, you know, so again, the team's doing a great job having those conversations, being very transparent with the customers, letting them know what we're dealing with and what is potentially coming at them. when their contracts are coming due. So, it's a work in progress, but we are making progress. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.
spk03: Good morning. Thanks for the question. Good morning, Tom.
spk02: So, first I just wanted to ask on the potato side. When you consider yield losses and spot market purchases, what is your potato inflation? I'm really just trying to understand how much of the 20% higher contracted rate might be offset by normalized yield per acre and fewer spot market purchases next year.
spk09: Yeah, Tom, we won't get into our yield and our processing performance, those kind of things. We don't talk about that. But, you know, the cost increase is 20%. You know, the big impact are two things to our P&L this year from a potato processing standpoint. It's yield per acre, which is down because of the weather conditions. So we've had to procure more potatoes on the open market. And You know, it's no secret. We've trucked potatoes from the East Coast, like other processors have, and that costs more money, obviously. And it's also how the quality of the potatoes processed through our factories. So the yield to make a pound of French fries, it takes more potatoes just because of the quality and size and all that. So it's, you know, we take... we take the hit in two different areas. It's yield per acre and it's processing efficiency in our factories. We haven't disclosed what the overall impact is because we're still trying to understand it as we take these potatoes out of storage. Typically, this time of year, it's always a cyclical issue because your quality of potatoes coming out of storage is less than when you're coming right out of field. So we're still, you know, we have an estimate on what the overall impact for the year is going to be, but we're still, you know, have two months to go here, two, three, four, five months to go in processing these potatoes.
spk03: Okay, understood.
spk02: And then maybe switching just to the capital expansion plan, CapEx coming quite in a bit below your initial outlook, but indicated in the prepared remarks, that both plant expansions remain on track. So what's really causing the delays this year, and why is that not affecting the timing? Is it there's just a ton of catch-up coming next year, and as long as that takes place, you'll still be on track?
spk06: Yeah, that's absolutely right. This is Bernadette. It's just a matter of timing, and, you know, when those equipment pieces are coming in, but based on our current projections and what we're seeing from our vendors, we're still on track with the estimated completion date. It's just a function of timing between this and next year.
spk10: Okay, great. Thank you. You bet.
spk05: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Rob Dickerson with Jeffries.
spk11: Great. Thanks so much. So, Tom, just kind of a question on segment margins and kind of, you know, the differentiating factors between, let's say, you know, food service and the global segment. You know, if we look at food service now, right, the op margin Q3 was actually already higher, I believe, than pre-pandemic, which is a great positive and it's obviously driven by pricing. The global side, you know, not so much, right? It takes a little bit more time there. And maybe this kind of ties into Andrew's, you know, question on the contracted side. You know, I guess first, if we think about the go forward where pricing is now a food service, we're assuming kind of, you know, more normalized, you know, demand environment. You know, is it your perspective that, you know, that's a margin that we, you know, you hope you can retain? as you get into Q4, maybe next year, all things considered. And then on the global side, even as you get into the back half of next year, even if the crop is, or if it weren't normalized and some of those costs roll off, should that global margin just be going up anyway, just because of the incremental pricing you would be getting from your other negotiations in that segment as you get through the summer. So I'm just trying to get a sense of kind of margin potential on the go forward, you know, even if the crop weren't normal, if that makes sense.
spk09: Yeah, well, I, you know, the plan is as we look at our inflation, our plan for 2023, we're factoring in, you know, pricing actions and cost savings to to offset all the inflation and to get our margins back to pre-pandemic levels. That's where we're headed. And there's going to be puts and takes as we negotiate these contract prices with our customers. But again, it is dependent upon an average crop, which we'll know in the next six months where the crop's going to end up. But You know, that's where we're driving the business. And, you know, again, my confidence level is very high that we're going to continue to execute towards that based on how we've been executing with some of the pricing actions we've taken today. But it's going to take time. The global segments are laggard. we'll get through the negotiations and you'll see improvement in the back half in the global segment specifically.
spk11: Okay, okay. And then maybe just so I understand this a little bit better, you know, obviously the potatoes are contracted, you know, with the growers, you have to go out in the open market, buy some more, understood. You know, if we're thinking out, you know, multi-year period, right, as you get to the end of this year, um and then let's say you you know re-contract with those growers if there were some you know increased costs uh you know to to the growers right as as we you know get to the end of this year for the forward um i mean it still sounds as if kind of pass-through pricing ability uh in the business um you know would still be alive and well and the potential for either further pricing on the multi-year would still be possible. It's not as if you would say, right now we've taken a lot of pricing, we feel like we're in a good spot, we have to be careful about it. It's still very contingent on what the cost of those potatoes would be on the go forward. Is that right?
spk09: Well, yeah, it is. Let me step back. You have to understand what we're doing from a pricing standpoint. We're pricing through inflation. And it's as pervasive as I've ever seen it, a lot of us in the industry. So, you know, when you think about that and you also think about the importance of French fries on a menu, it's a profit driver. So, you know, it's... It's going to be a continuation. Cost to grow is potentially going to go up, and we'll continue to price through just as we have in past years. So, you know, it's a question of, you know, to me, there is an element that at some point, if the costs continue to increase to the levels they are, what's the elasticity of a French fry? And right now we haven't seen it. So we'll continue to run our game plan and we'll adjust to the market, you know, down the road.
spk10: All right. Super. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Chris Crow with Stiefel.
spk12: Thank you. Good morning.
spk09: Morning, Chris. Hi.
spk12: I had a first question, a bit of a follow-on to Rob's question there, and you have another price increase going through – I guess that would be – I think that's in food service and retail. It sounds like that would take hold roughly in September or so if we think about the timing it takes to get that through. I'm just curious how to think about that. Is that related to – that you're bearing now, is it any way getting in front of what is going to be a higher potato cost next year, and given the timing when this takes hold? So I just wanna understand that price increase, if I could.
spk06: Yeah, Chris, this is Bernadette. It absolutely is related to the significant cost inflation that Tom was just referring to that we're seeing now, and we're passing those costs through. And we'll continue to monitor the environment and the inflation that we continue to see in packaging, ingredients, oil, et cetera, and make decisions in terms of when further pricing actions may be necessary to offset that significant inflation that we're seeing.
spk12: Have you said what percentage this price increase is?
spk06: No.
spk12: Do you want to?
spk09: Chris, we don't disclose that.
spk12: Okay. Thank you. I just had one more question for you if I could, which is if I'm just thinking about the piece of your global division that was affected by, and you mentioned how it was down 20 plus percent in volume. Quick math, let's say it's about a 4% drag on volume on the overall company. I just want to make sure, is that math in the right area there? And maybe related to that then, more importantly, is export volume clearing anymore now? Are you getting more on the road? And maybe are competitors coming in? Or is anyone else able to come in and satisfy that volume?
spk06: Yeah, so as it relates to the global volume, the math you did there is right in terms of the impact on the total company volume. And then as we look at export volume, it is starting to increase. We're seeing a few more containers be available than what we saw during the third quarter. So that is a positive sign, but it's still much lower than what we've seen previously and what we've come to expect for that international business.
spk12: Okay. Thank you for your time today.
spk05: Thanks, Chris. As a reminder, Star 1, if you would like to ask a question. We'll take our next question from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs.
spk00: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. This is actually Guillermo stepping in for Adam. I was wondering if you could provide some additional color on a few items. We think about the next 6 to 12 months. What are your expectations on cost inflation and what parts of your Cox basket have become more or less inflationary compared to your prior call?
spk09: Yeah, so we've indicated we're up 20% on potato raw price. In terms of the overall basket inflation, we're right in the middle of putting together our 2023 plan, and we'll give some more color on that in the upcoming earnings calls on what our overall view of inflation is for 2023. Okay.
spk00: That's helpful. Thanks. And if I could ask a follow-up, how does the performance in your JV compared to your base business, any differences in volume trends or inflationary pressures?
spk06: Yeah, no. As it relates to our joint venture, they're seeing very similar inflationary cost increases. And then more recently, certainly as a result of what's going on between Russia and Ukraine. There have been large increases in prices for natural gas, and then we've had to make some changes to the oil that's used in that joint venture. But absolutely, they're seeing the same impact on their business as what we're seeing here from an inflation standpoint.
spk00: Thanks, and congrats on the quarter.
spk05: Thank you. We'll take our next question from William Reuter with Bank of America.
spk07: Good morning. So I know you contract for your raw material, sorry, for your raw potatoes. In terms of the other oils that are part of your cost of goods sold, other ingredients and packaging, what level of forward contracting purchases do you do there?
spk06: Yeah, so as it relates to our oil purchases and contracting, as it relates to price, we have contracts in place for first quarter of 23 and some of second quarter, but a pretty minimal amount. Beyond there, we don't have any other contracts in place.
spk07: Perfect. And then secondarily, given the delay in CapEx associated with the two expansion projects, Do you have an early sense of even ballpark where CapEx could be for fiscal year 23?
spk06: Yeah, we're in our planning process right now, so we don't have anything to share today, but certainly we'll provide you an update at our next earnings call.
spk07: I understand.
spk10: Okay, thank you. Thank you.
spk05: At this time, that will conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Kongbole for any additional or closing remarks.
spk08: Thanks for joining the call today. Happy to take any follow-up questions over the next number of days. Please email me so we can schedule a time. Happy opening day, everybody, and kind of go from there. Thank you.
spk05: That will conclude today's call. We appreciate your participation.
Disclaimer