J & J Snack Foods Corp (JJSF) 2015 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the J & J Snack Foods second quarter earnings conference call. My name is Vanessa and I'll be your operator for today's call. (Operator Instructions) Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

And I will now turn the call over to Gerry Shreiber, CEO. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Vanessa, and good morning, everybody. Let me begin with the obligatory statements. Oh, before that, with me today is Dennis Moore, our CFO; Ted Shepherd, our CED; Bob Radano, our COO of Food Service; Bob Pape, Senior Vice President of Sales; and Gerry Law, Senior Vice President and assistant to me.

Let me begin with the obligatory statement. The forward-looking statements contained herein are subject to certain risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements, which reflect management's analysis only as of the date hereof.

We undertake no obligation to publicly revise or update these statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date hereof.

We had a good quarter overall. Net sales increased close to 10% for the quarter and 7% for the 6 months. Excluding sales of Philly Swirl, which was acquired in May 2014, sales increased 7% for the quarter and 5% for the 6 months.

For the quarter, our net earnings increased by 8% to $14.6 million, or $0.78 a share, from $13.5 million, or $0.72 a share a year ago. For the 6 months, our net earnings were essentially the same as last year at $25.9 million or $1.38 a share. What that really means, we caught up after a slight aberration in quarter one.

Our EBITDA for the past 12 months was $149.8 million.

Food service. Sales to food service customers increased 5% for the quarter and 4% for the 6 months, in large part due to increased sales to school food service customers and convenience stores.

Soft pretzel sales alone were up 6% for the quarter, and 4% for the 6 months.

Italian ice and frozen juice bar and dessert sales were down 7% in the quarter and 4% in the 6 months.

Churro sales were up 9% in the quarter, and a little less than 1% for the 6 months.

Bakery sales were up 7% in the quarter and 7% for the 6 months.

Retail supermarkets. Sales of products to retail supermarkets were up 24% for the quarter and 18% for the 6 months and up 4% for the quarter and 2% for the 6 months without Philly Swirl.

Soft pretzel sales alone were up 5% for the quarter and 4% for the 6 months.

And sales of frozen juice bars and Italian ices were up 9% in the quarter and 7% for the 6 months without Philly Swirl.

Handheld sales in the quarter decreased 5% to $4.6 million and 6% to $9.5 million in the 6-month period.

ICEE and frozen beverages. Frozen beverage and related product sales were up 17% in the quarter and 11% for the 6 months.

Beverage-related sales alone were up 8%, with gallon sales up 10% in our base ICEE business in the quarter and up 5%, with gallon sales up 6% for the 6 months.

Service revenue for others was up 20% for the quarter and 16% for the 6 months.

Consolidated. Gross profit, as a percentage of sales, was 29.8% in both years' quarters and for the 6 months was 29.3% this year.

The gross profit percentage in this year's quarter was driven higher by ICEE and offset by somewhat reduced margins in food service, resulting from lower margin sales to schools and a continued decline in our handheld business and somewhat by higher manufacturing costs.

Total operating expense, as a percentage of sales, increased slightly to 20.9% from 20.6% in last year's quarter, primarily because of increased advertising spending to support SUPERPRETZEL in the retail supermarkets.

Capital spending and cash flow. Our cash and investment securities balance decreased $9.4 million in the quarter, to $216.4 million. We continue to look for and study possible acquisitions as a use of our cash.

We have invested $115 million in mutual funds that [seek] current income with an emphasis on maintaining low volatility and overall moderate duration. Presently, we estimate annual yield from these funds to be about 3.5%.

During the year, we invested $13.2 million on fixed or floating perpetual preferred stock with an estimated annual yield of 5%.

Our capital spending was $9.8 million in the quarter, as we continue to invest in plant improvement and efficiencies and growing our business. We are presently estimating capital spending for the year to be between $35 million and $40 million.

A cash dividend of $0.36 a share was declared by our Board of Directors and paid on April the 2nd. We bought back 4,380 shares of our stock during the quarter at a cost of $444,000.

Commentary. Our sales growth of soft pretzels in food service was 6% this quarter, although sales to restaurant chains this year were about roughly flat with last year. Sales to school and convenience store chains were strong.

Frozen juice bars and ice sales in food service were essentially flat.

Handheld sales in food service were down again, as we continued to face challenges in this business.

Churro sales were up 9%, somewhat incredible considering the loss of sales to a major fast-food restaurant last August. Churro sales continued to grow. Excluding that customer, churro sales were up 28%.

Bakery sales continue to be strong, driven by sales to schools and co-packing business.

Sales of soft pretzels in our retail supermarket segment were up a solid 5% for the quarter, due to the recently introduced Superpretzel Bavarian bread product.

And frozen juice and ices were up 9% in this, essentially our slower season.

Handheld sales in retail supermarkets were down 5%, mainly due to lower sales to two customers.

In ICEE and frozen beverages, gallon sales were up a very strong 10%, as sales to movie theaters and convenience stores continued to grow.

Service revenue to others was up 20% in this quarter. This area of our business continues to perform excellent.

Operating income increased $1.5 million in the quarter from a year ago, with operating income in ICEE and frozen beverages higher by $3.5 million; and in food service, lower by $1.9 million.

Operating income in food service was impacted by losses in our handheld business, a shift in sales to lower margin school business and generally, somewhat higher manufacturing cost. We are working to correct and rectify each of these issues.

Our estimated income tax rate was at 36.5% this year and last year [or] for the quarter. We are estimating a rate of about 36.5% in fiscal year 2015.

I thank you for your continued interest and now I will turn back to the listeners for any questions.

Thank you. We will now take questions. (Operator Instructions) John Anderson.

Good morning, everybody.

Good morning, John, how are you?

I'm good, thank you. How about yourself?

Good, John, thanks.

Congratulations on a good quarter. I guess I wanted to ask first about your last comments, Gerry, around food service. Sales were up in the segment this quarter, but as you mentioned, operating income was not. And you kind of called out the handheld business, the mix to schools and also manufacturing costs as things that you're working to rectify.

I was wondering, could you talk a little bit more about what's happening in those areas and how we should think about operating income in food service going forward?

Well, product mix was a big, big part of it, right, and we are also faced with certain competitive issues in the convenience store chain and school food service channel. They're being corrected, John. I wouldn't look at these as any part of -- with any degree of permanency.

Okay, good. In terms of the churro business, that was really, I guess, impressive particularly given the fact that you haven't anniversaried the Taco Bell exit. So what's going on there in terms of the strength that you're seeing? Is this OREO churros getting traction? Is this new distribution? That would be helpful, some color there.

It's a combination, John. OREO churros, which is a terrific product and we're getting a lot of interest in it. We've really just begun to sell the last couple of months and sales are running roughly at a $500,000 to $600,000 of new sales in the last 2 months. We think as we get a little bit further in the third quarter, this will ramp up considerably as the product is getting great, great reviews and it's been getting great inquiries. And now, we're going to have to execute on that, but we have a long list of customers.

It's now spring and they want it in the spring as the new offering. And churro sales are growing overall. Even though we lost the Taco Bell business roughly about last August, I think it's noteworthy that our -- that this category is up for us, despite the loss of the one big customer.

Yes, that's a great performance. You mentioned -- I thought it was interesting, you mentioned [C-stores] as a reason for strength, I think both in the soft pretzel business and in the frozen beverage business. Is there something going on specifically with that channel to increase your presence there or is this (inaudible)?

As you put continued emphasis on it and not so much cross-selling either between our ICEE groups and food service groups. But we have targeted the [C-store] chains, that category, as a way to increase sales. And it seems like we're getting some traction there overall.

Excellent. Last one for me -- just on the Bavarian Pretzel launch at retail. I suppose that's still real early, but is there any -- have you seen any indication of how that product is performing and the sustainability of that? Thanks.

Well, one the products is doing better than the other. So I guess that's a good thing versus a negative. And you were one of the first people to try that product out about a year ago. So I hope that the compliments that we got from you at that event you had, we'll be able to spread that around the country real quickly.

Yes, it's a great product. Thanks for all the information. Appreciate it, guys.

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Ryan (sic) [Redmond].

Is it Brian or Ryan? Brian.

That's what I thought, Brian.

Yes, yes, okay. All right. You got the right guy. All right. Hey, Gerry, talk a little bit about as you enter 2015, the grocery store retail space, shelf positioning, maybe advertising pressures, maybe encroachment by private label. As you go into 2015, what does the grocery store side look like?

Let me turn this over to Bob Pape, and Bob is our [top in] market retail and he could comment directly for you.

From a competitive standpoint, there's obviously a lot of activity that's being generated in the store. One of the things we did to invest in the business this quarter was initiate some consumer advertising, which helps support the brand. And also, we're finding that private label is also still a factor, is something that we see is on a bit of a decline, that strategies by the customers are changing. So we want to make sure that our brand is supported adequately and that we continue to remind consumers to pick our products up.

Bob, let me ask you specifically. What is your sensitivity, or what do you think the sensitivity is, to the consumer elasticity? Are they willing to pay up a little more or is it still a very strong value consciousness?

I think value for the experience is important. We have a quality product for a fair price and I think our consumers are enjoying that with our products as it stands now. They're popularly priced and they represent a value to the consumer.

And not only that, Brian, but we've got strong brands. SUPERPRETZEL is a strong brand; LUIGI'S is a strong brand; ICEE is certainly a strong brand. And we're building on these brands. We don't have all of our horses running in that category, but we're getting them set.

Okay. Tell me, there's certainly been a lot of discussion about what, for you, would be a tailwind with some of the commodity deflation. Are you guys seeing any benefits from a cost-of-goods sold standpoint, be it eggs, flour, sugar, cocoa?

Well, let me take part of that question. Your second commodity, flour, I think we're going to be benefiting the second half of this year on that because we booked down contracts and prices have kind of modified. Everything else is pretty flat overall particularly when you add in packaging costs. So we're -- this is certainly a lot better position than it was perhaps 7 years ago, 6 years ago, in 2008, when everything was going crazy. So we're reasonably satisfied right now.

Okay. I'll ask one more and get back in line, Gerry. What, from the standpoint of capacity utilization, one, what are you running across all your plants? I know you've got certainly a significantly amount. And then two, where might your CapEx be spent in 2015 on property plant equipment?

Well, I'll do the same. We're running at about 70% capacity and that may, depending on the time of the year and on certain product launch or promotions, that may move up or down 3%, 4% in there. We are planning a new line. We've installed a couple of new lines in the past years, for the past couple of years. We're planning a new line in Pennsauken, which will give us a lot more flexibility. And that should be completed, I would hope, by this time next year and we'll talk more about that. But I think it's going to give us not only flexibility; it'll give us some efficiency too.

Okay. Thanks, Ger.

Thank you.

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Brian [Redmond].

Okay. That was a short queue. Let me ask you -- and this is specific to -- you mentioned LUIGI'S . The freezer case, Ger, is getting -- there's a lot more certainly competition due to super-premium ice creams. You've got the whole pomegranate flavoring and Edy's. And there seems to be, at least up here in the Great Lakes, Mama Tish's.

There's another frozen ice brand, a third brand, that I've seen. Just talk a little bit about some of that frozen novelty, specifically in the retail side, and how much pressure you're seeing. There seems to be an awful lot of competition and a lot of new flavor introductions.

There is competition and from some very good and sizeable companies, like Nestle's and Unilever. We're there; we're the number one selling Italian water ice in the country. And our ICEE brand is there and ICEE has a brand and an equity all to its own, so overall, [leading] in that category. And I think that the strength of our brands , as well as our flavor offerings, will compete very well. We expect to have an improved year this year in the frozen novelty category. Am I right, Bob?

Absolutely, (inaudible).

Okay. All right. Let me ask Ger -- and certainly, it's a question that comes up and you do a good job answering it every quarter -- about certainly what you're seeing on the acquisition front. And I'm wondering, as you guys have done a fabulous job of buying some of these restructurings and being very price-sensitive and taken local recipes to regional and national distribution.

What are you seeing in the deal market? And is there any aptitude, Gerry, with given how large you are now, that maybe you would be shopping for a little larger deal or is it still about being able to grow something organically, and it doesn't really matter what size the deal is?

Brian, yes to both your questions. We've looked at some things which are very sizeable compared to the things that we've done in the past from $100 million up to $200 million. We look at them very carefully. And again, we don't want to take undue risk and buy something and then have to worry about it afterwards, that it doesn't fit or we can't integrate it properly, but yes, we're looking at things.

They've become more pricier. For one reason or the other, we have not executed on them. It's not for our lack of trying. When I said we're studying a couple of things -- and we still are -- we continue to look for acquisitions as a good use of our cash, given our conservative and well managed efforts.

Okay. That's all for me. Thank you much.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have a few more questions in queue. Our next question comes from Akshay Jagdale.

Hello, Akshay, how are you?

Good, how are you doing?

Good, thank you.

For a minute, I thought I wouldn't get to ask a question but --

Well, that happens.

Anyway, so just wanted to follow up on the mix issue. I want to make sure I understand it correctly as it relates to your margin performance. So it seemed like frozen beverages and frozen juices and ices, on a consolidated basis, represented more of your sales this year than a year ago. And I believe overall, that's what's driving the margin profile of the business not being as high as, I guess, we would've thought, right.

Is that what you were referring to in terms of mix negatively impacting margins? Because you'd think with the solid performance you had in soft pretzels and churros, that margins would be great.

Yes, well, let me -- maybe I have to back up; maybe I didn't explain myself. The margins in school food service are less, in some cases, significantly less, than what they are in our regular food service core products. And that had an impact on our food service profits. The margins on ICEE are good, and have always been good, and ICEE particularly had a tear-'em-up quarter, where they were clicking on -- as a matter of fact, they're clicking on all eight cylinders and we hope -- hopefully, that will continue.

Okay. So just following up again on M&A, can you talk a little bit about what's -- if you were to sort of prioritize or rank the issues that have prevented you so far from acquiring something, is it valuation; is it fit; is it size? Those would be the three top things that I would think about but -- or maybe it's just the availability of assets. It didn't seem like the last one is the issue.

It seems like you've been looking at a lot of assets. But what would you say generally has prevented you, in the last couple of years, from making a larger size acquisition? Is it generally valuation or fit or -- ?

Besides my CFO Dennis, who practices very conservative discipline, not only on me, but my whole team -- it really has not been size and there has been discussions around multiples. And you're aware that we like to take the dollar and squeeze the green off of it, and then after we do acquire something, build it and integrate it. But the one or two things that we have been looking at for some time have not been dealt to others.

And we're still in the market and hopefully, we're going to be able to execute on our plan for acquisition. In the meantime, we're building up some cash; we're returning it to shareholders. and we're investing it in safe, conservative instruments, so that's not so bad.

Not at all. Your soft pretzel and churro performance especially this quarter was nothing short of outstanding. So can you talk a little bit about churros? I know you mentioned the OREO churro. Can you put that into context from what you're hearing from consumers? How does that compare to when you first launched the churros at Taco Bell, for example? And obviously, that ended up being a huge success too. But what are the early indications? Are you more or less optimistic about that relative to some of the more recent successes you've had?

Well, when we first launched the regular churros at Taco Bell, we launched in roughly 5,000 or 6,000 stores. And it was a matter of multiplication, so much times so many stores within a 60-day launch period. This is a little bit different. The launch is -- we have a license for Mondelez. OREO is well, well known. On a positive side, we don't have to explain what an OREO is to -- nationwide.

Years ago, and even more recently, we had to explain to people, well, what's a churro? What is a churro? So I think overall, we might have a bigger pie to fill. But it's going to take smaller bites in there. And it's going to be added to be added to the menu of existing operations. But I think overall, by this time next year, we'll really have something to crow about with OREO churros.

(Sound effect)

Perfect. One last one, more sort of bigger-picture. Obviously, your sales are more exposed to what I would call discretionary spending than most other food companies that we follow, given your exposure to movie theaters, ballparks, etc., and obviously, [C-stores]. So can you -- would you say that lower gas prices and the corresponding incremental spending from those savings has maybe helped you this quarter?

And also, has weather, like lapping last year's harsh winter also helped you a little bit this quarter? I know it's always hard to quantify that, but do you think that those factors have helped you a little bit in this quarter?

You're right on, [Akshay]. This was a tough winter. From January, February, March, we had more snow and more snow days here in the East than I can remember in the last couple of years. But there's no question that the lower price of fuel -- so the average person can get in his car more often and drive somewhere and they spend more.

And if they can go in and they can buy a gallon of gas for less than $3 or $2.50 or $2.60 in there, they'd be more likely to buy a doughnut, a pretzel, an ICEE, or one of the products we're selling in the [C-stores]. And there's been more emphasis by us and our team, not only the past 6 months, but the past 3 or 4 years, that are bearing fruit now in the convenience store channel.

Perfect. I'll pass it on, thanks.

Thank you. Jonathan [Heaney].

Hello, Jonathan, how are you?

I couldn't be better, Gerry. How are you?

Good, Thank you.

I wanted to ask about the handheld business, a little decline. It's had its ups and downs. Do you have a lot of available capacity there? And could you tell us -- I know it came with quite a bit of capability and it's been an up and down ramp. But could you talk about the potential there and what you see over the next year?

I'm going to be careful about the potential. And I appreciate you saying we've had a lot of ups and downs with it, because they've mostly been down.

(Laughter)

And I say that not with tongue in cheek; I say that with a little bit of Mr. Bill.

(Sound effect)

All right, that we're not pleased with what's happening. We're addressing certain things. We have plenty of capacity, plenty of capacity, and two exceptional USDA plants. And we're looking at ways to manage that capacity better and certainly, to grow the products better. And I would be less than candid with you and everyone else if I said we have all the answers. But trust me, we're working very, very hard to correct that.

Okay. One other question I guess I had. You said -- and I'm sorry if you answered this elsewhere. But you gave us a figure for what you were doing in schools and convenience stores together versus food service. Could you -- were schools or -- could you give us a number what your total convenience store business was up roughly?

I don't have that at the tip of my head. I know our school business alone was up $6 million for the period, which is significant. And more importantly, our school business, which was challenged over the last couple of years by changes in formulation and restriction, seems to have recovered in the past 6 months or 9 months. And we have some products that were made especially for schools that are being widely accepted.

And with the exception of today in Baltimore, where all the schools are closed, I am fairly optimistic about our school food service business, and equally optimistic that we can build on our C-store growth that's been evident in the past few months.

Got you. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Brian [Redmond].

Yes, Gerry, just to follow up on that. You talked a like about formulations and everybody knows about Michelle Obama wanting to eat broccoli on a stick. The problem is kids don't eat it. When you look at some of the formulation stuff that you guys have developed for that school services, has the success been meeting school district menu constraints? Or has it actually has good unit sell-through and the kids are eating it?

Well, yes, it's meeting the requirements, all right. And the sell-through and eating part of it is getting better and better, because at first, we were -- and no surprise, you can make it and it can have all of this vitamin and the sugar out and all this. And the kids don't eat it, that gives us another issue. But we believe we're overcoming that hurdle and we're getting more participation from the districts and the schools in the program.

Okay. And then just one more, Gerry -- from the standpoint of being in the snack food category, when you're looking at making acquisitions, when you're looking at adding capacity to plants, there's been -- there's some fairly divisive political situations between states being pro-business. You talked a little bit about Baltimore this morning. States like Texas, Florida, states like the Carolinas, Wisconsin, being more pro-business versus states like New York, Illinois, Maryland and California, where you've seen kind of an exit, more of an anti-business. Does that at all, from a state standpoint, determine for you where you put acquisitions or make acquisitions or put CapEx, or is it just a non-event?

Not really, Brian. We look at these kind of things, but hey, we're a New Jersey-based company. We're very happy here. We've been headquartered in Pennsauken for 43 years plus 7 months. Notwithstanding that New Jersey has some of the higher tax rates in the country, our business has performed here. We're also in California; we also have a plant in Texas.

We have 16 different operating plants today and some of them have come -- a lot of them have come through acquisitions. And I believe, and we believe, that if we execute well and grow our business solidly, that the states and the environment will have less of an impact.

All right. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Francesco Pellegrino.

Good morning, Gerry.

Hello, Francesco, how are you?

Hey, Gerry, how's everything going?

Good. I finally called you back last night. It was after 8 o'clock and I got -- they wanted a series of numbers for me to connect to you. So I finally just gave up, knowing that we would talk today.

You gave up on me?

No, I did not. But around 8 o'clock, all right, I could not get through to the phone number that I had for you.

All right. I appreciate it, but hopefully, I can get my question through to you now. A lot of the topics I wanted to discuss were already covered. I just wanted to hit on one thing. The Company is sitting on a lot of cash. I know this isn't a question about what you guys are going to be doing with your cash on hand.

But it seems as if the mutual funds you guys are sitting on right now, I see that you're sitting on some unrealized losses that total $3.1 million. Could you just maybe remind us of what mutual funds you guys are sitting on? And you guys are a very conservative [story]. When you buy a niche product, you really do your homework on the company. You don't get into any industry that you can't dominate.

So it's a relatively conservative company, but you're sitting on some really risky mutual funds that sort of have exposed the Company to some significant unrealized losses. Can you just give us a little bit more color in regards to what's happening right there?

Well, I will, but keep in mind, we're getting our yields on a regular basis in there. So the risk itself may be -- well, let me turn this over to Dennis Moore.

Yes, Francesco, you're correct in that there is a degree of risk. And some of the bonds are [bond]-bonds; some are floating rate bonds, which hopefully, would mitigate the risk if interest rates do begin to rise. But we have been earning in excess, in dividends, in excess of the decrease in the value of the bonds.

So from an overall standpoint, the way we look at it is, well, we're ahead of the game by going into this investment process I guess almost 2 years, 3 years ago, overall, we've earned more than the value of the funds at the time. However, you were right, there is some degree of risk that [we're taking]. We're ahead of the game.

You point to the consistent yields. Makes sense, but right now, this thing is growing to a point where it can really more than offset your consistent yields. And if you're looking to make a bet that interest rates are going to rise, this is a company -- it almost seems as if it would be a poor natural hedge because this is a company that performs relatively well when interest rates rise. Because the consumer still -- their purchasing consumption habits still go towards your product.

Francesco, let me interrupt for a second. We're really -- we're not looking to take big risks with any -- we're looking for ways to park some cash. And admittedly, until we either make a big acquisition or provide another use for this.

If you're looking to have a use for this cash, and look, you guys haven't done a deal in more than, I would say, about 12 months. Sooner or later, you're going to have to access this cash. And it looks like you'd have to close out this $3.1 million loss sooner rather than later.

Well --

Yes, but Francesco, yes, and you are right, but if and when we do that, we'll be saying, okay, well, we have to realize this loss but -- and let's say it's $3 million. But then we can also say, well, overall, the funds generated -- depending what happens -- $6 million in income over the period. So we look at it as we're ahead of the game, even though we might have to take that loss at -- in one particular period.

Okay. Makes sense. I got no further questions. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks again, guys.

That's all you have, Francesco? I am disappointed.

I was a lot more eager to talk to you last night and then all my questions got asked right now. So this is the best I can do right now, Gerry.

All right.

But thanks again.

All right. Take care.

Pardon me, Francesco. We have no further questions in queue. If you did have another question, you could go ahead.

That's it for me, thanks again.

Thank you very much. (Operator Instructions) And we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Shreiber for closing remarks.

Thank you, Vanessa. And I want to thank everybody for joining us on this conference call. And I look forward to our next quarter's conference call with you and again reporting good news. Take good care. Bye now.

And thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. We thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.