康尼格拉食品 (CAG) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Conagra Brands Q4 and fiscal year 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions). Please also note, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Melissa Napier, Head of Investor Relations. Ma'am, please go.

大家早安，歡迎參加康尼格拉品牌第四季和 2024 財年財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）。另請注意，今天的活動正在錄製中。現在，我想將電話轉給投資者關係主管 Melissa Napier。女士，請走吧。

Thanks, Jamie. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for our live question and answer session and today's results. Once again, I'm joined this morning by Sean Connolly, our CEO., and Dave Marberger, our CFO. 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 reconciliation and information and our comparability items. Hope you all had a chance to listen this morning to our prepared remarks and I will now ask Jamie to introduce the first question.

謝謝，傑米。大家，早安。感謝您今天加入我們的現場問答環節和今天的結果。今天早上，我們的執行長 Sean Connolly 和財務長戴夫馬伯格 (Dave Marberger) 再次與我會面。我們可能會在本屆會議期間做出一些前瞻性陳述並討論非公認會計原則財務措施。請參閱我們為收益發布準備的評論、演示材料和向SEC 提交的文件，這些信息可以在我們網站的投資者關係部分找到，以了解更多信息，包括我們的風險因素的描述、GAAP 與非GAAP的調節和資訊以及我們的可比性項目。希望大家今天早上都有機會聽我們準備好的發言，我現在請傑米介紹第一個問題。

(Operator Instruction) Andrew Lazar, Barclays Bank PLC

（操作指示）Andrew Lazar，巴克萊銀行 PLC

Great. Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody. Sean. You talked in the prepared remarks about you're expecting sort of gradual transition in fiscal '25 to a more normal operating environment as consumers adjust their reference prices. And I know you've talked a lot through the back part of this last fiscal year that consumers are increasingly ready to sort of engage in your categories just needed to be not just a bit. And it seems like that adjustments taking longer, not just for Conagra, obviously, but the industry at large, why do you think that is and isn't going to require? Or is it requiring more investment than maybe you initially anticipated? And obviously, I ask is one of the biggest debate in the space right now.

偉大的。非常感謝。大家早安。肖恩.您在準備好的評論中談到，隨著消費者調整參考價格，您預計 25 財年將逐步過渡到更正常的營運環境。我知道您在上一財年的後半段多次談到，消費者越來越願意參與您的類別，而不僅僅是一點點。顯然，調整似乎需要更長的時間，不僅對於康尼格拉來說，而且對於整個行業來說，您認為為什麼需要或不需要？或者它需要比您最初預期更多的投資？顯然，我問的是目前該領域最大的爭論之一。

Sure, Andrew here. So I think about that the operative word is transition. It's a process. It's not an event. And as we showed in our charts today for Conagra, that process is working. You saw in the materials today, steady positive inflection on our volume, which is the key metric for us in the past three quarters. And that indicates that our investments to nudge volumes back toward positive territory. We are successfully engaging consumers and importantly, we were able to expand our margins despite that investment. So I was particularly pleased to see volume consumption growth in Q4 in our snacks business in our largest frozen business, which is frozen meals in our refrigerated business and in our international business, all of those posted positive volume growth in the core grocery has a couple of businesses that we'll get more support in fiscal '25, but those investments are baked into our plants.

當然，安德魯在這裡。所以我認為關鍵字是過渡。這是一個過程。這不是一個事件。正如我們今天在康尼格拉的圖表中所顯示的那樣，這個過程正在發揮作用。您在今天的材料中看到，我們的銷量穩步增長，這是我們過去三個季度的關鍵指標。這顯示我們的投資將推動銷售回到正值。我們成功地吸引了消費者，重要的是，儘管有這些投資，我們仍能夠擴大利潤。因此，我特別高興地看到第四季度我們最大的冷凍業務（即我們的冷藏業務和國際業務中的冷凍食品）的零食業務的銷量增長，所有這些核心雜貨業務的銷量都有正增長我們將在25 財年獲得更多支持的企業，但這些投資已融入我們的工廠。

So overall, we have been nudging, nudging is working, but it is a transition. It's a process and we've moved the needle meaningfully, and that will continue to move positive. But it's a transition. It's not one of these events where sprinkle little money on the consumer and they forget that the ever experienced runaway inflation. It's a period of adjustment. And for us, that is clearly happening.

所以總的來說，我們一直在推動，推動正在發揮作用，但這是一個過渡。這是一個過程，我們已經取得了有意義的進展，並且將繼續向前發展。但這是一個過渡。這並不是向消費者撒很少錢的事件之一，他們忘記了曾經經歷過的失控的通貨膨脹。這是一個調整期。對我們來說，這顯然正在發生。

Thanks for that. And I know a good portion of the negative year over year pricing in Refrigerated & Frozen is, I think, more pass through on some refrigerated items. But I guess I'm more curious on what the pricing and competitive environment looks like in the frozen space specifically and sort of how you see that playing out as we start the new fiscal year. Thanks so much.

感謝那。我知道，我認為，冷藏和冷凍食品中同比負定價的很大一部分是更多地轉嫁到了某些冷藏物品上。但我想我更好奇的是凍結空間中的定價和競爭環境具體是什麼樣的，以及在我們開始新的財政年度時您如何看待這種情況。非常感謝。

Sure. Yes, absolutely, yes. We invested in frozen as a result, volume consumption in frozen overall back to just about flat, again with our largest frozen business, single-serve meals already growing volume in our shares are there hit record highs. As you saw materials, merchandising, advertising and innovation have all contributed to that. So it's not been a situation where it's a price-based driver that is driving that, that positive news in the frozen business. It's all of those things. And with respect to the merchandising for us, it's really been about quality display and it's been about frequency, not about deep discountin g. I think what you're seeing in frozen overall and I called this out last year is when when we were at the peak of the inflationary period and people were having to make choices and trade-offs to make their household balance sheet work, they moved some of their purchases of convenience oriented items toward more scratch cooking, and they kept their leftovers and things like that

當然。是的，絕對是的。結果，我們投資了冷凍食品，冷凍食品的整體消費量回到了幾乎持平的水平，我們最大的冷凍業務，單份餐食的數量已經在增長，我們的股票數量也創下了歷史新高。正如你所看到的，材料、銷售、廣告和創新都對此做出了貢獻。因此，冷凍行業的積極消息並不是基於價格的驅動因素。這就是所有這些事情。就我們的行銷而言，這實際上是關於品質展示和頻率，而不是大幅折扣。我認為你所看到的總體凍結情況，我去年指出，當我們處於通貨膨脹時期的頂峰時，人們必須做出選擇和權衡以使家庭資產負債表發揮作用，他們搬家了他們購買一些以方便為導向的物品，以進行更多的臨時烹飪，並且他們保留了剩菜和類似的東西

The challenge with that is that consumers don't really like planning for meals. They don't like preparing meals. They don't like cleaning up after meals. So the need for convenience, that's why I showed that 40 year chartered in our materials today is as strong as it's ever been. And after the consumer has to cut back for a while, they grow weary of those work around behaviors and they come flying back to convenience, which i s why the investments we've made in frozen to nudge consumers have materialized . And we saw growth in our frozen single-serve meals business in the quarter. So I would say this is a category of space that has a 40-year compound annual growth rate of 4%, which I think is the highest department in the grocery store. We went through a challenging period last year where we saw some trading down. We put some targeted investments against it. And now we've seen real positive response and knocking on the door positive in our total frozen business overall, with key businesses like single-serve meals growing and Birds Eye gaining share again, which is great to see as well

這樣做的挑戰是消費者並不真正喜歡計劃膳食。他們不喜歡準備飯菜。他們不喜歡飯後打掃。因此，出於對便利性的需要，這就是為什麼我今天在我們的材料中展示了 40 年特許權與以往一樣強烈。在消費者必須削減一段時間後，他們會對這些變通的行為感到厭倦，他們會飛回便利的地方，這就是為什麼我們在凍結方面進行的投資來推動消費者已經實現。本季我們看到了冷凍單份餐點業務的成長。所以我想說這是一個40年複合年增長率為4%的空間類別，我認為這是雜貨店中最高的部門。去年我們經歷了一段充滿挑戰的時期，我們看到了一些交易的下滑。我們對此進行了一些有針對性的投資。現在，我們看到了真正的積極回應，並在我們的整體冷凍業務中取得了積極的進展，單份餐點等關鍵業務不斷增長，鳥眼再次獲得份額，這也很高興看到

Thanks so much.

非常感謝。

Ken Goldman from JPMorgan.

摩根大通的肯‧戈德曼。

Hi, good morning and thank you. I wanted to first better understand the comment about the outlook being prudent. On the one hand, your sales and EPS guidance is lower than the Street expected. I think that's helpful and certainly setting a lower bar. On the other hand, as Andrew mentioned, your outlook requires volume accelerate, especially on a two-year basis and you're relying on the consumer getting used to higher prices, as you mentioned, and we just haven't seen that yet. So I'm just trying to dig in a little bit on where you think you're being most

你好，早安，謝謝你。我想首先更好地理解有關謹慎前景的評論。一方面，您的銷售額和每股盈餘指引低於華爾街的預期。我認為這很有幫助，而且肯定會設定一個較低的標準。另一方面，正如安德魯所提到的，您的前景需要銷量加速，特別是在兩年的基礎上，並且您依賴消費者習慣更高的價格，正如您提到的，我們只是還沒有看到這一點。所以我只是想深入了解你認為自己最擅長的地方

Ken I think it's important to you just say we haven't seen that yet and and look at the charts we demonstrated to date, we absolutely have seen we have seen three straight quarters of volume trend improvement in our businesses. And in this most recent quarter, we saw snacks volume consumption that was positive. Our frozen meals consumption grew our refrigerated business volume assumption grew our international business group. So we absolutely have seen traction, and we expect to see continued traction from here. We do. I do not have one of the portfolios out there that some have where there just hasn't been investments and there has not been movement an inflection in the volume line.

肯，我認為這對你來說很重要，只是說我們還沒有看到這一點，看看我們迄今為止展示的圖表，我們絕對已經看到我們的業務連續三個季度的銷售趨勢有所改善。在最近一個季度，我們看到零食消費量呈正值。我們的冷凍食品消費量成長了，我們的冷藏業務量假設成長了我們的國際業務集團。因此，我們絕對已經看到了牽引力，並且我們期望從這裡看到持續的牽引力。我們的確是。我沒有一個投資組合，有些投資組合只是沒有投資，而且成交量線也沒有改變。

We have had steady inflection and no doubt a fair amount of the portfolio is already either close to flat or turning part. So that's an encouraging thing is that it indicates that our investments are doing a good job job of managing the consumer along and engaging with respect to the comment that the guidance is prudent . It's prudent in that it recognizes that consumer adaptation is a process and it's an event. And therefore, it embeds some conservativism around consumer buying behavior, but also some flexible ability for us to continue investing behind volume growth, which, by the way, as we've said from the beginning, is our top priority in terms of nurturing the long-term health of the business. So given that the slope of our volume trends for the last three quarters, we think the outlook is it as a prudent outlook, we had no desire to tried to be heroic with our guide for fiscal '25. I think if you really just digest the progress we've made on these discrete businesses where we've placed investment, I think you can only conclude that it's prudent play.

我們已經經歷了穩定的轉折點，毫無疑問，相當一部分投資組合已經接近持平或轉向部分。因此，這是一件令人鼓舞的事情，它表明我們的投資在管理消費者方面做得很好，並參與了有關指導是審慎的評論。它是謹慎的，因為它認識到消費者的適應是一個過程，也是一個事件。因此，它在消費者購買行為方面嵌入了一些保守主義，但也為我們在銷售增長背後繼續投資提供了一些靈活的能力，順便說一句，正如我們從一開始就說過的，這是我們培育消費者的首要任務。因此，考慮到過去三個季度我們銷售趨勢的斜率，我們認為前景是審慎的，我們不想在 25 財年的指南中表現得過於英雄主義。我認為，如果你真的只是消化我們在這些投資的離散業務上取得的進展，我想你只能得出這樣的結論：這是謹慎的做法。

Thank you for that. And then for my follow-up, I wanted to clarify the first quarter outlook. It's the messaging first that the gross margin from on an absolute level will be down or will be the lowest of the year. Is that year on year ex? Wanted to clarify the gross margin comment? And then more broadly, you talked about on volume and gross margin, tough SG&A lap . It certainly seems like consensus of $0.65 or so many to come down a bit. So understanding you don't provide quarterly specifics, but just trying to get maybe a slightly tighter sense of where you think some of the puts and takes in 1Q will be just so maybe investor expectations are properly aligned

謝謝你。然後，對於我的後續行動，我想澄清第一季的前景。首先傳達的訊息是毛利率的絕對水準將下降或將是今年的最低水準。是前年還是前年？想澄清毛利率評論嗎？然後更廣泛地說，您談到了銷量和毛利率，以及艱難的 SG&A 圈。當然，這似乎是 0.65 美元左右的共識，但要下降一點。因此，了解您不提供季度具體信息，但只是想稍微更嚴格地了解您認為第一季度的一些看跌期權和買入期權的情況，以便投資者的預期可能得到適當調整

Yes, Ken and its Dave, let me let me give you some color on that. So if you look at Q1 a year ago, that was the last quarter where we had significant price mix, right? So around the mid single digit periods. So we're wrapping on that quarter. So if you if you break it down, if you look at our domestic retail business, we expect improvement in volumes, but they're still going to be down year on year, but we expect improvement versus where we came in at Q4 . In terms of volumes, our international business, we actually expect to be lower. We called out some supply chain issues in Canada, and that will impact some of the business than Q1. So we expect Q1 sales a year on year growth in Canada to be lower than it was in Q4.

是的，肯和戴夫，讓我給你一些解釋。因此，如果你看看一年前的第一季度，那是我們價格組合顯著的最後一個季度，對嗎？所以大約是個位數中間的時期。我們即將結束該季度的工作。因此，如果你細分一下，如果你看看我們的國內零售業務，我們預計銷量會有所改善，但同比仍會下降，但我們預計與第四季度相比會有所改善。就我們的國際業務量而言，我們實際上預期會較低。我們指出了加拿大的一些供應鏈問題，這將對第一季的部分業務產生影響。因此，我們預計加拿大第一季銷售額年增將低於第四季。

A couple of things in terms of the margin side, SG&A, we're going to have much higher SG&A in Q1 this year versus last year. Last year, we had an accrual to take down our incentive compensation. So year on year, that's a bounce back and you're going to see that in expense and at that obviously is going to depress operating margin. And then on the gross margin side,

在利潤率、SG&A 方面，我們今年第一季的 SG&A 將會比去年高出許多。去年，我們有一項應計費用來減少我們的激勵薪酬。因此，年復一年，這是一個反彈，你會在費用中看到這一點，這顯然會壓低營業利潤率。然後在毛利率方面，

Q1 is a lower sales quarter for us than other quarters. So you do normally get a little bit of drag from fixed cost relative to the other quarters. And we have the higher trade investments kind of rolling in from the end of last year. But as we said in Sean made said in his comments, we expect gross margins to be stable for the full year. So we're pleased with the productivity. We expect that to continue inflation we call or 3% net for the year. So that a benefit there helps us fund the additional investment that we're going to make. So all those things together that hopefully gives you some color on our Q1. Thank you very much.

對我們來說，第一季的銷售額低於其他季度。因此，相對於其他季度，固定成本通常確實會帶來一些阻力。從去年年底開始，我們的貿易投資開始增加。但正如我們在 Sean 的評論中所說，我們預計全年毛利率將保持穩定。所以我們對生產力感到滿意。我們預計今年通膨率將持續為 3%。因此，那裡的好處可以幫助我們為我們將要進行的額外投資提供資金。所有這些事情加在一起，希望能讓您對我們的第一季有所了解。非常感謝。

David Palmer from Evercore ISI.

Evercore ISI 的大衛‧帕爾默 (David Palmer)。

Thanks. I wanted to just ask you about the challenging environment comments you made that comment a few times during the prepared remarks, but sometimes we can assume what you mean by that. But I would assume also that there's going to be some differences in the types of challenges you see for category. And I said that you might have more category issues, for example, in Andrent Mills for the you speak to price cap issues, perhaps in vegetables, for example. So could you speak specifically to what those challenges you're talking about, the types of investments that you're making, whether that's just price adjustments through promotion, display or other activity?

謝謝。我只想問您有關挑戰性環境的評論，您在準備好的發言中多次發表過該評論，但有時我們可以假設您的意思。但我還認為，您所看到的類別挑戰類型也會存在一些差異。我說你可能有更多類別問題，例如，在安德倫特米爾斯，因為你談到價格上限問題，例如蔬菜。那麼您能否具體談談您所談論的挑戰是什麼，您正在進行的投資類型，是否只是透過促銷、展示或其他活動進行價格調整？

Yes, David, sure. Today in our material as an example, to your point, I shared the consumption trends for our frozen business. And I showed a line chart that showed our consumption in Q1 was at minus [7.5] and in Q4 was also flat and it's pretty much straight line between from one from Q1 through Q4. So so the volume decline in that business is virtually gone over the course of three periods, and that did not happen by accident. You'll recall that after Q1 we made some, I'll call it test investments in frozen traded, nudge the consumer along to see if they would, it would work. And we got a great response to that in Q2, expanded those investments in Q3 , it was a combination of everything from advertising to merchandising to more support for our innovation and it all had the desired effect.

是的，大衛，當然。今天以我們的材料為例，跟大家分享一下我們冷凍業務的消費趨勢。我展示了一個折線圖，顯示我們第一季的消費量為負[7.5]，第四季也持平，從第一季到第四季之間幾乎是直線。因此，該業務的銷量下降實際上在三個時期內就消失了，這並不是偶然發生的。你會記得，在第一季之後，我們做了一些，我稱之為凍結交易的測試投資，推動消費者，看看他們是否願意，它是否會起作用。我們在第二季度得到了很好的回應，在第三季度擴大了這些投資，這是從廣告到商品銷售再到對我們創新的更多支持的一切結合，這一切都達到了預期的效果。

I think, the types of merchandising that you'd look at. Really, as I mentioned earlier, we're high quality displays. I'd say almost every quarter, the overall merchandising level in the last couple of years was down substantially versus pre-COVID. Now it's moving back up in line with kind of where we've been historically. But the type of promotion is and I'd say in the industry in general has been pretty high quality. It's been I would describe it is reasonable. There are we always have a keen sense for what are the more than price gaps in frozen, David, it's price thresholds where what thresholds can we hit that drive maximum lifts. So we can and we know where those are, we've hit those. That's why we've basically wiped out the volume declines in the fall frozen business because we know what thresholds are particularly important. And and the reason the consumer is ready to be nudged in the frozen business, as an example is because that 40-year chart shows that people rely on high quality, good tasting prepared foods that don't require any prep time and don't require any cleanup when they're forced to . They might have to trim those purchases a little as we experienced a couple of years ago in the last year, but they typically come roaring back. And that's kind of what's happened on the business.

我想，你會關注的行銷類型。確實，正如我之前提到的，我們是高品質的顯示器。我想說，過去幾年幾乎每季的整體商品銷售水準都比新冠疫情之前大幅下降。現在它又回到了我們歷史上的位置。但我想說的是，促銷類型在整個行業中品質相當高。一直以來我都會描述它是合理的。我們總是對冷凍食品的價格差距有敏銳的感覺，大衛，這是價格閾值，我們可以達到什麼閾值來推動最大的提升。所以我們可以而且我們知道那些在哪裡，我們已經擊中了它們。這就是為什麼我們基本上消除了秋季冷凍業務的銷售下降，因為我們知道什麼閾值特別重要。舉個例子，消費者願意在冷凍行業受到推動的原因是，40 年的圖表顯示，人們依賴高品質、美味的預製食品，這些食品不需要任何準備時間，也不需要當他們被迫時要求進行任何清理。他們可能不得不像我們幾年前去年經歷的那樣稍微削減這些採購，但他們通常會捲土重來。這就是企業中發生的事情。

And that's no, that's the strategy that will have across the portfolio is we'll look to your point category by category around what are the key thresholds that we need to hit to maximize our engagement. S ome categories are more price gap oriented, and those tend to be categories where there really was just a couple of competitors. So canned tomatoes is it good example where that's more of a price gap type of category than than others. But most of our categories are more about high quality display and hitting the right thresholds. And just one follow-up on on.

不，這就是整個投資組合的策略，我們將逐類查看您的點，圍繞我們需要達到的關鍵閾值來最大化我們的參與度。有些類別更注重價格差距，而這些類別往往實際上只有幾個競爭對手。因此，罐裝西紅柿就是一個很好的例子，它比其他類別更具價格差距類型。但我們的大多數類別更多的是關於高品質的顯示和達到正確的閾值。只有一個後續行動。

Thanks for that. By the way, on AP margin, do you mentioned that fear and maybe is this the type of year that may be advertising is in this much of the priority, but maybe that starts to step up from future years? How are you thinking about advertising in the past going forward?

感謝那。順便說一句，在美聯社邊際上，您是否提到過恐懼，也許今年可能是廣告的優先事項，但也許從未來幾年開始，這種情況開始加劇？您如何看待過去的廣告和未來的廣告？

It's about the same yes.

差不多是一樣的。

Thanks very much.

非常感謝。

Peter Galbo from Bank of America.

美國銀行的彼得·加爾博。

Hey, guys, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Davis, kind of going through your comments. If we take kind of the productivity savings net of the inflation rate, it's roughly, I think $85 million that will kind of get reinvested back into back into brand investment or price came at a verify that that that kind of checked out on on your end. And maybe just give us a sense maybe of this being kind of incremental investment where and where in the second half, it was it, is it more weighted to refrigerated or way at the grocery? Any kind of color there would be helpful.

嘿，夥計們，早安。感謝您提出問題。戴維斯，正在查看您的評論。如果我們扣除通貨膨脹率後的生產力節省，我認為大約有 8500 萬美元會被重新投資回品牌投資或價格，以驗證您的最終結果是否正確。也許只是讓我們感覺到這可能是下半年的增量投資，是在冷藏還是在雜貨店更重要？任何一種顏色都會有幫助。

Why don't why don't I hit that? And then I'll let Sean fill in any blanks. So you have from a high level, we're really pleased with our productivity. We talked about expecting 4% productivity and inflation, we have around 3%. So clearly, there's some benefit there. And we expect stable gross margins for the full year that allows us to make investments. Those investments will be continued investment in certain trade merchandise that obviously impacts margin. And Sean just described how we go about that. Obviously, frozen and snacking, our priorities, but we also have select operation Unity's in grocery that we're evaluating that we think are important. But we also have other investments that we make that hit cost of goods sold in terms of continue innovation and product quality that we build and other investments that we're making in the supply chain of those do hit cost of goods sold. And in our part of that whole margin basket . So a high level, we feel really good about the efficiency, the operation right now where we can invest to get the volumes continuing to go in the right direction and maintain the gross margin that we finished fiscal 24.

為什麼我不打那個？然後我會讓肖恩填補任何空白。所以你從高水準來看，我們對我們的生產力非常滿意。我們談到預期生產力和通膨率分別為 4% 和 3% 左右。很明顯，這有一些好處。我們預計全年毛利率穩定，使我們能夠進行投資。這些投資將是對某些明顯影響利潤的貿易商品的持續投資。肖恩剛剛描述了我們如何做到這一點。顯然，冷凍和零食是我們的首要任務，但我們也在雜貨店中選擇了 Unity 的業務，我們正在評估我們認為重要的業務。但我們也進行了其他投資，這些投資在我們建構的持續創新和產品品質方面影響了銷售成本，而我們在供應鏈中進行的其他投資確實影響了銷售成本。在整個保證金籃子中我們的部分。因此，在高水準上，我們對效率和目前的營運狀況感到非常滿意，我們可以進行投資，以使銷售繼續朝著正確的方向發展，並維持我們在 24 財年完成的毛利率。

Got it. Okay. That's all it. And then, Sean, just kind of thinking about the productivity number and it's a question your peers as well. I guess just what's the risk that we start to push the productivity lever to hard and you know that did that create, I don't know, lower lower ingredient quality or potential issue is just in your as your kind of getting maybe to productive. I think it's a question that we face a lot of well. So thanks very. much

知道了。好的。僅此而已。然後，肖恩，想想生產力數字，這也是你的同事的問題。我想我們開始將生產力槓桿推到最高點的風險是什麼，你知道這會造成，我不知道，原料品質下降或潛在問題就在你身上，因為你可能會提高生產力。我認為這是我們經常面臨的問題。所以非常感謝。很多

Yes, I think our investors should know that that's like the third rail for us. We would not cut quality of our products and we've been and worse in the consumer experience to drive productivity. In fact, if you look at Pete, over what we've done over the last 10 years, it's exactly the opposite of that. We have infused tons of money into our food quality and our packaging to modernize this portfolio to make it the kind of stuff that people are willing to pay more for and conclude that it's a better value than and when it was lower quality and lower price. And so that is that is precious for us that is central to our innovation success that we've had. And that is not the kind of productivity we're talking about.

是的，我認為我們的投資者應該知道這對我們來說就像第三軌道。我們不會降低產品質量，而且我們一直在提高消費者體驗以提高生產力。事實上，如果你看看皮特，看看我們過去 10 年所做的事情，情況恰恰相反。我們在食品品質和包裝上投入了大量資金，以使該產品組合現代化，使其成為人們願意花更多錢購買的東西，並得出結論，它比低品質和低價格時更有價值。因此，這對我們來說很寶貴，也是我們創新成功的核心。這不是我們談論的生產力。

We're talking about really a lot of what we've been doing is not only just getting our service levels back in our labor pool stable, but investing technology and harnessing technology. So we can run our plants more efficiently and really, really kind of do the opposite, which is the time zero loss and no waste and be a high-quality as we can be. So rest assured that's not part of the playbook.

我們談論的實際上是我們一直在做的很多事情不僅是讓我們的勞動力池恢復穩定的服務水平，而且是投資技術和利用技術。因此，我們可以更有效地運作我們的工廠，並且真正做到反其道而行之，即時間零損失、無浪費，並儘可能做到高品質。所以請放心，這不是劇本的一部分。

Thanks Sean.

謝謝肖恩。

[Mats Gulfport] from BNP.

[Mats Gulfport] 來自法國巴黎銀行。

Thanks for the question. I might be reading a bit too much into it. It feels like while you are still encouraged by the direction of the volume recovery, you're maybe a bit less optimistic on the pace of that recovery than you were just last quarter. And it felt like you were moving towards that Mendoza line of flat to positive volumes. If that threat to just give us an update on sort of what's changed over the last three months in terms of what you're seeing in the consumer environment, thanks.

謝謝你的提問。我可能讀太多了。感覺雖然你仍然對銷售復甦的方向感到鼓舞，但你對復甦的速度可能比上個季度不太樂觀。感覺就像你正朝著門多薩線的平坦到積極的體積前進。如果這種威脅只是讓我們了解過去三個月中您在消費者環境中看到的變化的最新情況，謝謝。

That sound right, max on that's now I feel at all, in fact, if you look at the trends of the consumption that we've shown, there has not been a business that has stalled. I you know, in our we've had steady upward trajectory from Q1 through Q4, just virtually everywhere in the business. Now as Dave points out, there's plenty of noise in this year's Q1. So I get that we've got to be helpful for you guys and understand Q1, for example, part of that is not just on on the stuff that impacts margin. But we've got some significant merchandising events in Q1 of last year that we've shifted to Q2 this year to take more advantage of holiday and the lift we get there.

這聽起來是對的，我現在最大的感受是，事實上，如果你看看我們所展現的消費趨勢，就會發現沒有一家企業陷入停滯。我知道，在我們的業務中，從第一季到第四季度，我們幾乎在所有業務中都有穩定的上升軌跡。現在，正如戴夫指出的那樣，今年第一季存在著許多噪音。所以我知道我們必須為你們提供幫助並了解第一季度，例如，其中一部分不僅僅是影響利潤率的事情。但去年第一季我們舉辦了一些重要的促銷活動，今年我們已將其轉移到第二季度，以便更多地利用假期和我們到達那裡的機會。

So I I feel like what we're seeing here is , as I mentioned to you, Andrew, and Ken process that's unfolding in a fairly linear way, ex the noise in terms of just the underlying trend line. And I think that's going to continue. And I think we've these are discrete investments that we put business by business and where we've done that, we've seen a response.

所以我覺得我們在這裡看到的是，正如我向你提到的，安德魯和肯，這個過程正在以相當線性的方式展開，除了潛在趨勢線方面的噪音。我認為這種情況將會持續下去。我認為我們有這些獨立的投資，我們按業務進行投資，在我們這樣做的地方，我們已經看到了回應。

So we'll do that against more businesses as we go into into fiscal '25, here, and I think we'll see a continued response. And meanwhile, while we're doing it, if you think about our two most critical strategic businesses in the portfolio, frozen and snacks, we held or grew market share in 80% of those two that combined business, that is about the best you're going to find in the industry. So so these are not only being the volume line in a very predictable way, but we are gaining share. And that just shows you the how well our brands are resonating vis a vis either competitors and how well our innovation is resonated with consumers as well.

因此，當我們進入 25 財年時，我們將對更多企業採取這種做法，我認為我們會看到持續的反應。同時，在我們這樣做的同時，如果你考慮我們投資組合中最關鍵的兩項策略業務——冷凍和零食，我們在這兩項合併業務中保持或增長了80% 的市場份額，這對你來說是最好的選擇。因此，這些不僅以非常可預測的方式成為銷售線，而且我們正在獲得份額。這只是向您展示了我們的品牌與競爭對手的共鳴程度以及我們的創新與消費者的共鳴程度。

Great. And then on food service with volumes down 10% in the quarter, you called out the QSR weakness as well as some actions to eliminate a low profit business. I was just curious if you could disaggregate for us the magnitude of each of those two impacts and also what you're seeing on the QSR side in terms of how that weakness could progress over the coming year?

偉大的。然後，關於本季銷量下降 10% 的餐飲服務，您指出了 QSR 的弱點以及一些消除低利潤業務的行動。我只是好奇您能否為我們分解這兩種影響的嚴重程度，以及您在 QSR 方面看到的情況，即這種弱點在未來一年會如何發展？

Yes, I'll just make a quick comment here, David, add whatever you want. But our foodservice, I think everybody knows as a channel we can do, you know, in the last several months and traffic's been down and no company, I think has been exempt from that. But so we've had a bit of that. But that's really kind of out with a big part of what you're seeing in our foodservice business. We have had a very serious margin experiment expansion philosophy on our foodservice business, where in the last year we exercised a fair amount of value over volume strategy. And so that negatively pressured our volumes. But I think our operating margin foodservices up a massive amount. Dave, I don't know if we were going to want to find that, but up 400 basis points.

是的，我將在這裡快速發表評論，大衛，添加您想要的任何內容。但是我們的餐飲服務，我想每個人都知道我們可以做的一個管道，你知道，在過去的幾個月裡，流量一直在下降，我認為沒有一家公司可以倖免。但我們已經經歷過一些這樣的事情了。但這與您在我們的餐飲服務業務中看到的很大一部分確實有點不相符。我們對餐飲服務業務實行了非常認真的利潤率實驗擴張理念，去年我們實施了相當數量的價值超過數量的策略。因此，這對我們的銷量造成了負面壓力。但我認為我們的餐飲服務營業利潤率大幅上升。戴夫，我不知道我們是否想要找到這個，但上漲了 400 個基點。

So we've gotten the impact we were looking for from our value over volume. The top line part is a little bit soft attributable to the traffic piece that we've seen elsewhere. But but that the overall takeaway around top-line foodservice, the primary driver is our value over volume strategy, and that has had a very material expansion on our operating margins there. Anything else you'd add to it yet? Not just going to and especially in light of popcorn and some tomato businesses, we're just we're not just weren't making the money that we wanted to make. So we got out of those businesses.

因此，我們已經從我們的價值而不是數量中獲得了我們所尋求的影響。由於我們在其他地方看到的交通部分，頂線部分有點軟。但是，圍繞著頂級餐飲服務的整體外賣，主要驅動力是我們的價值超過數量的策略，這對我們的營業利潤率產生了非常實質的擴張。您還有什麼要補充的嗎？不僅僅是去，特別是考慮到爆米花和一些番茄業務，我們只是沒有賺到我們想賺的錢。所以我們退出了這些業務。

Great. Thanks very much.

偉大的。非常感謝。

Robert Moskow from CD. Cowen.

CD 中的羅伯特·莫斯科。考恩.

Hi, thank you, Sean. Getting you have a lot of brands that skew more heavily towards towards lower income consumers and you have a lot of brands that skew the other way. Are you seeing any differences in terms of how those brands are performing, like low income versus high income? Because there's a lot of of when food companies are asking why things are slowing, they tend to point to that that cohort and you have a pretty broad portfolio. So do you see more in one versus the other?

嗨，謝謝你，肖恩。讓你有很多品牌更傾向低收入消費者，而你有很多品牌則相反。您是否發現這些品牌的表現有何差異，例如低收入與高收入？因為當許多食品公司問為什麼事情正在放緩時，他們往往會指出這個群體和你有一個相當廣泛的投資組合。那麼，與另一種相比，你在其中看到的更多嗎？

Yes. I think any large diversified food companies is going to sell products to pretty much every income level. And I think the headline in the last year and level people in support and higher income consumers just on principle didn't like the new price points they were seeing in the basket and they would say would trim their normal purchases. So to get to your point, it's things like when we looked at Snap and and some of the sunsetting of the excess payments, did we see any material impact in the business? Not really a little bit, but not much.

是的。我認為任何大型多元化食品公司都會向幾乎所有收入水平銷售產品。我認為去年的頭條新聞和支持者以及高收入消費者原則上不喜歡他們在購物籃中看到的新價格點，他們會說會削減他們的正常購買量。那麼，為了表達你的觀點，當我們研究 Snap 以及部分超額付款的取消時，我們是否看到了對業務的任何實質影響？確實不是一點點，但也不是很多。

So I would just I would say that the value seeking behavior we saw in the last year really was across income cohorts. You're always going to have more sensitivity for the lowest income bracket. And and that's where you tend to see those thresholds that I talked about a little earlier with Dave matter the most, Rob, because if you if you are going to invest in a high quality merchandising event and you can get to material a meaningful threshold for that lower income consumer, i t tends to manifest itself in high lifts. And we have we've done that. We have seen higher lifts than we've seen on average kind of in the last 10 years. I think what that tells you is people who have trimmed their buying rate are ready to get back to buying rate. They just need a little bit of that nudging. And I think those those thresholds probably mean that most of the people who need them the most.

所以我只想說，我們去年看到的價值追求行為確實是跨收入族群的。您總是會對最低收入階層更加敏感。羅布，這就是我之前與戴夫討論過的那些門檻最重要的地方，因為如果你打算投資高品質的行銷活動，並且你可以為以下活動設定一個有意義的門檻：對於低收入消費者來說，它往往表現在高電梯上。我們已經做到了。我們看到的升力比過去 10 年的平均升力還要高。我認為這告訴你的是，那些降低了購買率的人已經準備好恢復購買率了。他們只需要一點點推動。我認為這些閾值可能意味著大多數最需要它們的人。

Great. Thank you.

偉大的。謝謝。

Nik Modi from RBC.

來自加拿大皇家銀行的尼克莫迪。

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I just thought maybe I can just follow up on Rob's question out from a different angle. And Sean, I'd love your perspective on this . I mean, I'm wondering if there's a mismatch between, you know, where the consumers are versus how you're spending on in Canagra has been very on a on the forefront of digital on marketing for many years. But it seems like a lot of older consumers tend to over-index categories. And I'm curious if you think there's a mismatch between where you're spending the money, which is more digital versus kind of more traditional media, which is where some of these older consumers tend to Tropic . Any thoughts on that?

謝謝。大家，早安。我只是想也許我可以從不同的角度跟進羅布的問題。肖恩，我很想聽聽你對此的看法。我的意思是，我想知道消費者所在的位置與您的消費方式之間是否存在不匹配。但似乎許多老年消費者傾向於過度索引類別。我很好奇你是否認為你花錢的地方不匹配，更數位化的媒體與更傳統的媒體，而這正是一些老年消費者傾向於 Tropic 的地方。對此有什麼想法嗎？

Well, if you think about our what I'll call our brand building spend in total, by far the biggest investment we make is in new product innovation, product and package. So it's actually right into the COGS line. And if you look across the food space, you feel you won't probably find the breadth of innovation that we do around here. Why does that matter? Because that the consumer spend the bulk of their time shopping, whether it's shopping online, shopping in store, and we want our products to be a resting at the point of purchase. We want our products to be provocative to look modern and contemporary because we believe that appeals to us all age groups, young, middle older, it doesn't matter. So that's our biggest spend. And then we also invest with our customers.

好吧，如果你考慮我們的品牌建設總支出，到目前為止，我們最大的投資是在新產品創新、產品和包裝上。所以它實際上就進入了 COGS 線。如果你放眼整個食品領域，你會覺得你可能找不到我們在這裡所做的廣泛的創新。為什麼這很重要？因為消費者大部分時間都花在購物上，無論是網上購物還是實體店購物，我們希望我們的產品能夠在購買時得到休息。我們希望我們的產品具有挑釁性，看起來現代和現代，因為我們相信這對我們所有年齡層的人都有吸引力，無論是年輕人還是中老年人，這並不重要。所以這是我們最大的支出。然後我們也與我們的客戶一起投資。

We invest in high-quality display. We invest in the proper shelving, right eye level. And again, that's the kind of investment that is agnostic to age group. And the smallest piece of it is the AP. piece of it, which is heavily focused on the social media around. And the reason for that is because we're trying to find we're trying to drive by reality, we're trying to get word of mouth about our products and just because virality may start online in TikTok or on Instagram. It doesn't now the point of those types of investments as they get consumers talking. And when you get consumers talking, they talk to their friends, they talk to their families, t hey talk to their moms and dads. And that's how you drive brand saliency top of mind this an intriguing, the new innovation. So. So we have investments all across the board from product to in store to online. And we're highly confident we're reaching every demographic. And frankly, if we weren't, you would not have seen the types of volume inflection domains.

我們投資於高品質的顯示器。我們投資於合適的貨架、合適的視線高度。再說一次，這種投資與年齡層無關。其中最小的部分是 AP。其中一部分主要集中在周圍的社交媒體上。原因是我們試圖發現我們正在努力以現實為導向，我們正在努力獲得有關我們產品的口碑，只是因為病毒式傳播可能始於 TikTok 或 Instagram 上。現在，這些類型的投資不再是它們的重點，因為它們讓消費者議論紛紛。當你讓消費者交談時，他們會與朋友交談，與家人交談，與父母交談。這就是您如何將品牌顯著性放在首位，這是一項有趣的新創新。所以。因此，我們進行了從產品到實體店再到線上的全面投資。我們非常有信心能夠涵蓋每個人群。坦白說，如果我們不這樣做，您就不會看到音量變形域的類型。

That's helpful. And then just maybe if you can give us an update on plunging and some of the channel work with suggest there's some pressure there, some kind of encroachment competitors McFadden. I'm just curious if you have any perspective on kind of how that brand is faring right now?

這很有幫助。然後也許你能給我們提供有關暴跌的最新情況，以及一些通路合作表明存在一些壓力，某種形式的侵蝕競爭對手麥克法登。我只是好奇您對該品牌目前的表現有何看法？

Yes. I think to kind of wrap your mind or a Slim Jim slit, you got to think Slim Jim enjoyed it absolutely explosive growth through the pandemic. Which saw the business increase in size dramatically. That led to some capacity constraints for us. And so between this past year, between the capacity constraints and the tough comps, those are things we had to deal with in fiscal '24, but now with good investment, good innovation and capacity available to us. Again, the business is already growing again, volumetrically and I would expect that to continue Slim Jim is a $1 billion juggernaut And and that's not going to change.

是的。我認為，要讓你的頭腦或 Slim Jim 的開衩，你必須認為 Slim Jim 在大流行期間享受了絕對爆炸性的增長。這使得業務規模急劇擴大。這給我們帶來了一些產能限制。因此，在過去的一年中，在產能限制和艱難的競爭之間，這些是我們在 24 財年必須處理的事情，但現在我們擁有良好的投資、良好的創新和產能。再說一次，業務量已經再次成長，我預計 Slim Jim 會繼續發展，成為價值 10 億美元的巨頭，而且這一點不會改變。

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

偉大的。我會把它傳遞下去。謝謝。

Tom Palmer from Citi.

花旗銀行的湯姆·帕爾默。

Thanks for fitting in. I just wanted to clarify on promotional activity, other types of brand building that you referenced, both in response to consumers compare to historical norms and relative to what we might have seen, say in late 2023? And then are you seeing much response from your competitors are based on your actions?

感謝您參與其中。那麼您是否看到競爭對手根據您的行動做出了很多反應？

I would say on the categories that have been described as normal rate when you go to a store for frozen meal is 10 and you cut that back to 8. That means that after you run out after eight people in the household or job of opening the freezer, expecting their fee to more instead, they've got to make a sandwich from scratch or they had something and that grows frustrating. And so what happens then is if we can get to the right price thresholds and get a high-quality display people like, I think good this phenomenon, I'm going to replenish it in my normal cadence . And that's kind of what we've seen two shows up in in better lifts on it. In terms of competition across the category, look at anybody, I think in the industry is trying to get volumes on north again.

我想說的是，在被描述為正常價格的類別中，當你去商店購買冷凍食品時，價格是10 份，然後你將其減少到8 份。中的8 個人後，冰箱，期望他們的費用更多，相反，他們必須從頭開始做三明治，否則他們有一些東西，這會變得令人沮喪。那麼接下來會發生的是，如果我們能夠達到正確的價格閾值並獲得人們喜歡的高品質顯示器，我認為這種現像很好，我將以正常的節奏補充它。這就是我們所看到的兩個在更好的電梯中出現的情況。就整個類別的競爭而言，看看任何人，我認為該行業正在努力再次擴大銷量。

And so I think everybody has had room to do more promotion and that's fine. That's fine because the consumer need some help. And I think there are getting it on, but not everybody has equal brands. So you're not going to get equal lifts in frozen it as an example, we've got look at our market shares there. Wherever all-time record market shares are the biggest frozen player there is and that's in large part. And all the category growth in the last 10 years is because of the quality of the innovation, which frankly is just difficult for anybody to match.

所以我認為每個人都有進行更多促銷的空間，這很好。這很好，因為消費者需要一些幫助。我認為確實有，但不是每個人都有相同的品牌。因此，以冷凍為例，您不會獲得同等的提升，我們已經了解了我們在那裡的市場份額。凡是市佔率創歷史新高的地方，都有最大的凍結玩家，而且這在很大程度上是這樣。過去 10 年所有品類的成長都歸功於創新的質量，坦白說，這是任何人都難以匹敵的。

Thanks for that. And then just a quick one on Ardent Mills. The language in the release or the prepared remarks will refer to it is moving towards a more normalized level of operation. I just want to make sure I understand this because we think about that $150 million outlook, which is kind of consistently started off last year as well as a more normalized rate, or is that like normalizing and we should look for maybe a glide path slightly lower for over a series of years?

感謝那。然後快速介紹一下 Ardent Mills。新聞稿或準備好的評論中的語言將表明它正在朝著更規範的操作水平邁進。我只是想確保我理解這一點，因為我們考慮了 1.5 億美元的前景，這是從去年開始的，也是一個更加正常化的利率，或者是像正常化一樣，我們應該尋找一個稍微下滑的路徑連續多年走低？

Thom, let me trying to give you some color on that. I did spend a little time in the remarks on on Ardent Mills. That's really split into two basic businesses , just the flower business that they sell at a margin. And then this business that I called commodity revenue type business. And this is things like, you know, them hedging flow, lower transactions, you know, storing we know based on futures curves speculating on on feed prices and wheat and corn future. So all that kind of trading activity that is very difficult to forecast with precision, right and Ardent Mills as they have significant capability in the area. And so the way that we're going to do this with Ardent Mills, as we're going to give you guidance on what the number is based on our latest estimate from management and in each quarter or we're going to update on it because it can it can ebb and flow. But over over the course of the year right now, the guidance we gave is our best ever estimate.

湯姆，讓我試著給你一些解釋。我確實花了一點時間在關於 Ardent Mills 的評論中。這實際上分為兩個基本業務，只是他們以利潤出售的花卉業務。然後這個業務我稱之為商品收入型業務。這就是，你知道，他們對沖流量，減少交易，你知道，儲存我們根據飼料價格以及小麥和玉米期貨推測的期貨曲線所知道的資訊。因此，所有此類貿易活動都很難準確、正確和熱情地預測，因為他們在該領域擁有強大的能力。因此，我們將與 Ardent Mills 合作，我們將根據管理層的最新估計以及每個季度為您提供有關數字的指導，或者我們將對其進行更新因為它可以，它可以潮起潮落。但在今年的過程中，我們給出的指導是我們有史以來最好的估計。

Okay, thank you for that.

好的，謝謝你。

Chris Harris from Wells Fargo.

來自富國銀行的克里斯·哈里斯。

Hey, thank you very much. So I just wanted to maybe clarify or clarify, but get a bit more context on the pricing comments in the presentation around competitive price tomato pricing will be lapping and then you'll be taking new pricing on some cocoa? I guess when you when you think about those two things, does that net out neutral for the year? And then how would you see overall pricing trending perhaps ex those items for the broader business, especially after the context of the stable gross margin, despite some investments. Then I have a quick follow-up.

嘿，非常感謝你。因此，我只是想澄清或澄清，但要了解更多有關演示文稿中有關競爭性價格番茄定價的定價評論的背景信息，然後您將對一些可可採取新的定價？我想當你考慮這兩件事時，今年的淨值是中性的嗎？然後，您如何看待整體定價趨勢，也許除了這些更廣泛業務的項目之外，尤其是在毛利率穩定的背景下，儘管進行了一些投資。然後我會進行快速跟進。

While this let me start, Sean , you can fill. And so, you know, all of our pricing is inflation justified. So we've obviously taken significant pricing over the last two to three years. But you look in fiscal '24, there was significant inflation in tomatoes. So we took pricing during fiscal '24. So that will all -- wrap on that in fiscal '25. And then as you know, there's been significant inflation in cocoa. So with our Swiss Miss business, we are going to have pricing that will be effective Q2, so that it's all based on on inflation. So they're really the two big areas right now .

讓我開始吧，肖恩，你可以填補。所以，你知道，我們所有的定價都是通貨膨脹合理的。因此，在過去的兩到三年裡，我們顯然採取了重大定價。但你看看 24 財年，西紅柿出現了嚴重的通貨膨脹。因此我們在 24 財年進行了定價。這將在 25 財年結束。如你所知，可可出現了嚴重的通貨膨脹。因此，對於我們的瑞士小姐業務，我們的定價將在第二季生效，因此一切都基於通貨膨脹。所以它們現在確實是兩大領域。

In terms of the impact on price mix there, obviously, tailwinds to price mix, right? So when you take prices, you're going to get benefit from that. But then when we increase investment and trade merchandising, that's above, that's within the net sales line. So that shows up as more of a headwind in terms of the overall impact. So so those will net. So as we go into fiscal '25, you'll start to see kind of price mix play out for our Grocery & Snacks business. Sean mentioned we see some select opportunities in grocery and where we want to, but we want to do some investment. And so that will play out as fiscal '25 moves on. And that will be reflected in the price mix line. So we're not going to give specific guidance on price mix by segment, but they're there and the general dynamics that should help you.

就對價格組合的影響而言，顯然對價格組合有利，對吧？因此，當您採取價格時，您將從中受益。但是，當我們增加投資和貿易商品時，這超出了淨銷售線。因此，就整體影響而言，這更像是一種逆風。所以那些都會淨的。因此，當我們進入 25 財年時，您將開始看到我們的雜貨和零食業務出現某種價格組合。肖恩提到，我們在雜貨店和我們想要的地方看到了一些精選機會，但我們想做一些投資。隨著 25 財年的推進，這種情況將會顯現出來。這將反映在價格組合中。因此，我們不會按細分市場提供有關價格組合的具體指導，但它們的存在以及一般動態應該對您有所幫助。

Okay, great. I said it would be a quick follow-up, maybe maybe a bit more than that, but we'll still see some 80% holding or gaining share. And the strategic frozen and snacks, clearly very good share momentum in those areas w here your focus you did, however, mention that the Staples work in progress.

好的，太好了。我說這將是一個快速的後續行動，也許比這更多一點，但我們仍然會看到大約 80% 的控股或獲得份額。戰略冷凍食品和零食顯然在您關注的領域表現良好，但是，請提到史泰博的工作正在進行中。

Can you just comment on the areas where you are seeing competitive encroachment and perhaps specifically how you see private label developing and some of these areas that given the that's a retailer focus? Just any context on this that comes to mind is helpful. Thank you.

您能否評論一下您看到競爭侵蝕的領域，也許具體來說您如何看待自有品牌的發展以及其中一些領域是零售商關注的焦點？只要想到的任何相關背景都會有幫助。謝謝。

Yes, we've had we've as I mentioned, we've seen value-seeking behavior now for a couple of years. And it really is in every category that people buy in food and beyond food, we've tackled and much of that in the portfolio. There's still some places that we haven't pursued to that. So we've got a couple of canned food businesses as an example, with tomatoes and canned pasta, where we haven't put a lot of attention. Those are categories where they are not like other categories, they're not exempt from a trade down if your price thresholds are not right if you're gaps or not, right . So we've got the vast portfolio. We've got a couple we've got a handful of space is not many that we haven't really put energy against that will put some investment against.

是的，正如我所提到的，我們已經看到價值追求行為已經有幾年了。事實上，在人們購買食品和食品以外的每一個類別中，我們都已經解決了這個問題，並且在產品組合中解決了其中的大部分問題。還有一些地方我們還沒做到這一點。因此，我們以一些罐頭食品企業為例，其中包括西紅柿和罐頭麵食，我們沒有給予太多關注。這些類別與其他類別不同，如果您的價格門檻不正確，無論您是否有缺口，它們都不能免於降價，對吧。所以我們擁有龐大的產品組合。我們有一些空間，但空間不多，我們還沒有真正投入精力來進行一些投資。

That's baked into the outlook that we gave you today. And we know on those businesses, they are the kinds of businesses we talked about earlier where when you get your fundamentals in the right spot be at a gap, albeit a threshold. And you get the right kind of display support, you tend to see outsized lift. So there are few spaces there.

這已融入我們今天向您提供的展望中。我們知道，在這些業務上，它們就是我們之前討論過的那種業務，當你的基本面處於正確的位置時，就會出現差距，儘管有一個門檻。當您獲得正確的顯示支援時，您往往會看到超大的升力。所以那裡的空間很少。

But overall, I mean, if you think about the peer set, our strategic spaces are back to pretty much flat. We're already growing volumetrically. I don't think you're seeing that a lot of other portfolios. And I also don't think that you're seeing in other folks, key strategic domains, 80% of that portfolio holding or gaining share. So I want to make sure we emphasize that because we have been we were one of the first companies to say that we were going to guide. We said overtly, we're going to target our key strategic domains for investment. If we since we believe the consumer was ready to be nudge and we have seen tremendous response, we're back to pretty close to that and then does align and in some cases already positive territory, there are.

但總的來說，我的意思是，如果你考慮一下同行，我們的戰略空間又回到了幾乎持平的狀態。我們已經在規模上成長。我認為您沒有看到很多其他投資組合。我也不認為你在其他人、關鍵策略領域看到 80% 的投資組合持有或獲得份額。所以我想確保我們強調這一點，因為我們一直是最早表示我們將提供指導的公司之一。我們公開表示，我們將針對關鍵策略領域進行投資。如果我們相信消費者已經準備好接受推動並且我們已經看到了巨大的反應，那麼我們就會回到非常接近的水平，然後確實會保持一致，並且在某些情況下已經是積極的領域。

So so that's in between that and our share performance in those strategic domains. I'd like to set up as we go into the fiscal year. We'll deal with the noise in Q1, but the fundamentals look pretty solid to me to my eyes.

因此，這介於我們在這些策略領域的股票表現之間。我想在進入財政年度時進行設置。我們將處理第一季的噪音，但在我看來，基本面相當穩固。

Okay. Thank you. Both .

好的。謝謝。兩個都 。

Rob Dickerson from Jefferies.

來自傑富瑞集團的羅布·迪克森。

Great. Thanks so much. I guess, Sean, just to come back to the grocery will be more Staples business. There does seem like it's lagging a little bit there for the various reasons you mentioned and feel a bit more investment going in there as we get through the year . But I am just curious kind of we're much more broadly speaking as we if we go back to pre-COVID, right cut as you enter the company and we look through all the different brands and segments, there did seem to be kind of a feel a bit of a the potential of divestment.

偉大的。非常感謝。我想，肖恩，只要回到雜貨店就會有更多的史岱波生意。由於您提到的各種原因，它似乎確實有點滯後，並且隨著我們度過這一年，感覺那裡的投資有所增加。但我只是好奇，我們的範圍更廣泛，如果我們回到新冠疫情之前，當你進入公司時，我們會審視所有不同的品牌和細分市場，似乎確實存在某種感覺有點撤資的潛力。

You know, on some of those grocery brands just to kind of focus the overall portfolio, right? And then we can come back particularly will 80% holding didn't share and strategic domains. This is our focus. So I'm just curious, as you think forward in the next few years, like, I guess, why not just kind of step away, you know, from some of those brands sort of in line with what you've been speaking about Oilfield Service side?

您知道，其中一些雜貨品牌只是為了集中整體產品組合，對吧？然後我們可以回來特別是80％的控股沒有分享和戰略領域。這是我們的重點。所以我只是好奇，當你展望未來幾年時，我想，為什麼不遠離其中一些品牌，就像你一直在談論的那樣油田服務方？

Yes. There's a bunch in there, Rob. Let me just mention real quick on the first bar in terms of our what we call our Staples domain, which are basically staple products for assets that's refrigerated combination, refrigerated businesses and some grocery businesses. And we invested in some of the refrigerated businesses in Q4. I actually saw our refrigerated brands grow volume metric.

是的。那裡有很多人，羅布。讓我在第一個欄位快速提一下我們所謂的 Staples 領域，這些領域基本上是冷藏組合資產、冷藏業務和一些雜貨業務的主要產品。我們在第四季度投資了一些冷藏業務。我實際上看到我們的冷藏品牌的銷量有所增長。

In our grocery business. We had some businesses that were wrapping an easy comp because some supply chain challenges. Last year, they grew meaningfully in Q4. And then we had some other businesses that infact mentioned a couple that we've got to get through. So there's a lot that goes in there. We also under shipped consumption in that Grocery & Snacks business in Q4. So that was that was really a part of what you saw in terms of where we stood versus consensus in the quarter. But to your broader point, if you go back to the deck we shared at the last cagney, I don't know that there's been a more active portfolio in the last nine or so so years in terms of reshaping the portfolio for better growth and better margins, including divestitures, we've done as many spins or divestitures as they think about anybody.

在我們的雜貨店業務中。由於供應鏈面臨一些挑戰，我們的一些企業正在包裝一個簡單的補償。去年第四季度，它們實現了有意義的成長。然後我們還有其他一些業務，實際上提到了一些我們必須解決的問題。所以裡面有很多東西。第四季雜貨和零食業務的出貨消費也低於預期。因此，這確實是您所看到的本季度我們的立場與共識的一部分。但就你更廣泛的觀點而言，如果你回到我們上次卡格尼分享的平台，我不知道在過去九年左右的時間裡，在重塑投資組合以實現更好的增長和更好的利潤，包括資產剝離，我們已經進行了盡可能多的分拆或資產剝離。

So we're always open to that. I think what I would want investors to assume there's anything that's not strategic for us where So somebody else would offer something that is above the intrinsic value of the asset. Why wouldn't we be open to that? Of course, we have been in the past, we would be again in the future, but we also have to be we have that sharp pencils in terms of how much overhead to those assets absorb, what would the margin, what does the economic value we would lose if we were to exit them and are we going to be paid for that?

所以我們對此始終持開放態度。我認為我希望投資者假設有任何對我們來說不具有戰略意義的東西，因此其他人會提供高於資產內在價值的東西。我們為什麼不對此持開放態度？當然，我們過去曾經經歷過，將來也會再次經歷，但我們也必須擁有鋒利的鉛筆，了解這些資產吸收了多少管理費用，利潤是多少，經濟價值是多少如果我們退出他們，我們就會遭受損失，我們會為此得到報酬嗎？

So so you won't find any on entrenchment here against the concept, but we have to be very buttoned up in terms of does it create value or does destroyed value for our shareholders? Because over time, I think what you'll see as we invest in the businesses we own will add bolt-ons that are additive to our growth into our margin. And we'll we'll divest stuff that is a drag either on growth or margin and not a strategic fit. I think that's always been our playbook, and I don't think that will change over time.

所以你不會在這裡發現任何反對這個概念的東西，但我們必須非常保守地知道它是為我們的股東創造價值還是破壞價值？因為隨著時間的推移，我認為當我們投資於我們擁有的企業時，您會看到，這將增加我們利潤成長的附加因素。我們將剝離那些拖累成長或利潤率且不符合策略的東西。我認為這一直是我們的策略，而且我認為這不會隨著時間的推移而改變。

Got it. Yes, fair enough. And then just maybe quickly for Dave. I normally don't ask about impairments of the quarter, the colored being called out previously, well, I understand it changes in rates. What have you like? Are there certain areas that we should just be aware of or certain brands that maybe have been driving a bit more those impairments? And that's all I guess.

知道了。是的，很公平。對戴夫來說，也許很快。我通常不會詢問本季的減損情況，有色人種之前已被提及，嗯，我了解利率的變化。你喜歡什麼？是否有某些領域是我們應該注意的，或者某些品牌可能造成了更多的傷害？這就是我的猜測。

Yes, no, from So yes, obviously, the fourth quarter we go through our impairment testing. We do it every year. I mean, we really look at impairment both at the brand level and for goodwill, which is based on our reporting level, which means there's several different brands that come together that then go against goodwill that's been allocated to those. So it's two different types of impairment. This quarter, we actually had impairments both in brands and goodwill. And as I mentioned in my comments, there were three key drivers that the higher interest rates, which obviously impact discount rates because you're basically doing discounted cash flows when you do impairment on goodwill and you're using a room royalty methods, which essentially is a discounted cash flow type concept.

是的，不，從所以是的，顯然，第四季度我們進行了減損測試。我們每年都會這樣做。我的意思是，我們確實會在品牌層面和商譽層面考慮減值，這是基於我們的報告水平，這意味著有幾個不同的品牌聚集在一起，然後違背了分配給這些品牌的商譽。所以這是兩種不同類型的損傷。本季度，我們實際上在品牌和商譽方面都出現了減損。正如我在評論中提到的，利率上升有三個關鍵驅動因素，這顯然會影響貼現率，因為當您對商譽進行減值並且使用房間使用費方法時，您基本上是在進行貼現現金流量，這本質上是一個貼現現金流類型的概念。

So obviously, discount rates have an impact in there, but they're up based on interest rates. You also when you do goodwill, you look at the industry market multiples and that that is something that impacted this year as part of the impairment. When you look at the food industry and you look at it as an average that we have much lower industry market multiple. So that actually impacted us and was part of our impairment that we took.

顯然，貼現率會產生影響，但貼現率會根據利率而上升。當您進行商譽時，您還會查看行業市場倍數，這是今年影響減損的因素。當你觀察食品產業時，你會發現我們的產業市場倍數要低得多。所以這實際上影響了我們，也是我們所承受的損害的一部分。

And then the third, these assumptions we have on net sales. And obviously in this environment where we're your volumes are down, we're investing that does impact your short-term forecasts on net sales. And when you do that, that can impact any particular reporting unit our brand, depending on kind of where it sits. So we feel great about our business. We talk about our business very openly and you guys have a very good feel for what our strategic priorities are. This is the standard analysis that we go through. But but more than 50% of the impact is really from the interest rate and a lower market multiple,

第三，我們對淨銷售額的假設。顯然，在您的銷售量下降的環境下，我們的投資確實會影響您對淨銷售額的短期預測。當你這樣做時，這可能會影響我們品牌的任何特定報告單位，這取決於它所處的位置。所以我們對我們的業務感覺很好。我們非常公開地談論我們的業務，你們對我們的策略重點有很好的認識。這是我們要經歷的標準分析。但超過 50% 的影響實際上來自利率和較低的市場倍數，

Makes sense. Thank you so much.

說得通。太感謝了。

Thanks.

謝謝。

And ladies and gentlemen, at this time, I'm showing no additional questions. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Melissa Napier for closing remarks.

女士們先生們，此時我沒有提出其他問題。我想請梅麗莎·納皮爾（Melissa Napier）致閉幕詞。

Thanks, everyone, for joining us for our live Q&A session today. Investor relations is around and available to take any follow-up questions that you may have. H ave a good day, everyone. Thank you

感謝大家今天加入我們的現場問答環節。投資者關係隨時待命，可以回答您可能提出的任何後續問題。祝大家有美好的一天。謝謝