克羅格 (KR) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to The Kroger Co. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded.

早上好，歡迎來到克羅格公司 2022 年第四季度和全年收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意正在記錄此事件。

I would now like to turn the conference over to Rob Quast, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

我現在想將會議轉交給投資者關係高級總監 Rob Quast。請繼續。

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for Kroger's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Call. I am joined today by Kroger's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rodney McMullen and Chief Financial Officer, Gary Millerchip.

早上好。感謝您加入我們參加 Kroger 的第四季度和 2022 年全年收益電話會議。今天，克羅格董事長兼首席執行官 Rodney McMullen 和首席財務官 Gary Millerchip 加入了我的行列。

Before we begin, I want to remind you that today's discussions will include forward-looking statements. We want to caution you that such statements are predictions, and actual events or results can differ materially. A detailed discussion of the many factors that we believe may have a material effect on our business on an ongoing basis is contained in our SEC filings. The Kroger Company assumes no obligation to update that information. This morning, we released a presentation to accompany our call today, which can be found on our Investor Relations web page at ir.kroger.com. We encourage you to refer to these materials as Rodney and Gary will make references to the presentation throughout the call. During our prepared remarks, we will share our fourth quarter and full year results. We will update you on the progress our team has made since our Investor Day last year on our Leading With Fresh and Accelerating With Digital strategy. We look forward to returning to a full Investor Day in 2024, where we expect to share detailed plans for how we will achieve synergies and maximize shareholder value from our merger with Albertsons.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，今天的討論將包括前瞻性陳述。我們想提醒您，此類陳述是預測，實際事件或結果可能存在重大差異。我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中詳細討論了我們認為可能對我們的業務持續產生重大影響的許多因素。克羅格公司不承擔更新該信息的義務。今天早上，我們在今天的電話會議上發布了一份演示文稿，可以在我們的投資者關係網頁 ir.kroger.com 上找到。我們鼓勵您參考這些材料，因為 Rodney 和 Gary 將在整個電話會議中參考演示文稿。在我們準備好的發言中，我們將分享我們的第四季度和全年業績。我們將向您介紹我們的團隊自去年投資者日以來在我們的 Leading With Fresh 和 Accelerating With Digital 戰略方面取得的進展。我們期待在 2024 年回到一個完整的投資者日，在那裡我們希望分享詳細的計劃，說明我們將如何通過與 Albertsons 的合併實現協同效應和最大化股東價值。

After our prepared remarks, we look forward to taking your questions. In order to cover a broad range of topics from as many of you as we can, we ask that you please limit yourself to 1 question and 1 follow-up question, if necessary.

在我們準備好的發言之後，我們期待著回答您的問題。為了盡可能多地涵蓋你們中廣泛的主題，我們要求你們將自己限制在 1 個問題和 1 個後續問題（如有必要）。

I will now turn the call over to Rodney.

我現在將把電話轉給羅德尼。

Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'd like to start by sharing how incredibly optimistic I am about Kroger's future. Our performance last year demonstrates how Kroger is consistently delivering for our customers, our associates and our communities and by doing so, creating value for our shareholders. Since announcing our Leading With Fresh and Accelerating With Digital strategy at our 2020 Investor Day, we have made tremendous progress against our commitments.

謝謝你，羅布。大家早上好，感謝您今天加入我們。首先，我想分享一下我對 Kroger 的未來有多樂觀。我們去年的業績表明克羅格如何始終如一地為我們的客戶、我們的員工和我們的社區提供服務，並通過這樣做為我們的股東創造價值。自從在 2020 年投資者日宣布我們的 Leading With Fresh and Accelerating With Digital 戰略以來，我們在兌現承諾方面取得了巨大進展。

As you will see from the chart on Slide 6 of the presentation deck Rob mentioned, we are delivering a fresh, affordable and seamless shopping experience for our customers with 0 compromise on value, quality, selection or convenience. We are advancing our purpose to feed the human spirit by significantly increasing associate wages and uplifting our communities. And we are delivering on our financial commitments through our strong resilient value creation model. With this strategy, we exceeded our financial goals and delivered attractive total shareholder returns during the past 2 years.

正如您將從 Rob 提到的演示文稿幻燈片 6 上的圖表中看到的那樣，我們正在為我們的客戶提供全新、實惠和無縫的購物體驗，在價值、質量、選擇或便利性方面零妥協。我們正在通過顯著提高員工工資和提升我們的社區來推進我們的目標，以滋養人類精神。我們正在通過我們強大的彈性價值創造模型來兌現我們的財務承諾。憑藉這一戰略，我們在過去 2 年中超額完成了財務目標，並實現了具有吸引力的股東總回報。

In 2022, customer preferences shifted in response to inflation and macroeconomic uncertainty. Our customers were looking for more ways to stretch their budget. The gap between food at home and food away from home spending grew in the fourth quarter as more customers gravitated toward affordable meal solutions that restaurants simply can't provide. Our research shows that cooking at home is 3 to 4x less expensive than dining out. And as Kroger was there for our customers, innovating quickly to meet their needs and wants, our nimble and customer-focused approach helped us deliver strong results in 2022, leading to total household growth and enhanced customer loyalty. We saw an especially strong response in our higher income households as this segment grew by 1.1 million households, further illustrating the resiliency in our model and strong value proposition we offer customers across all segments.

2022 年，客戶偏好因通貨膨脹和宏觀經濟不確定性而發生變化。我們的客戶正在尋找更多方法來擴展他們的預算。隨著越來越多的顧客傾向於餐館根本無法提供的負擔得起的膳食解決方案，第四季度家庭食品和家庭外食品支出之間的差距擴大了。我們的研究表明，在家做飯比外出就餐便宜 3 到 4 倍。由於 Kroger 為我們的客戶服務，快速創新以滿足他們的需求和願望，我們靈活且以客戶為中心的方法幫助我們在 2022 年取得了強勁的成果，從而實現了家庭總增長和客戶忠誠度的提高。我們看到高收入家庭的反應特別強烈，因為該細分市場增加了 110 萬戶家庭，進一步說明了我們模型的彈性以及我們為所有細分市場的客戶提供的強大價值主張。

Gary will get into the specific details of our 2022 financial results and outlook for 2023 a little later. Before doing so, I'd like to spend some time reviewing how each pillar of our go-to-market strategy provided meaningful and measurable customer benefits last year and how we will accelerate those benefits in 2023. The foundation of our go-to-market strategy is fresh, our brands, personalization and seamless. By delivering on these 4 pillars, our customers win and Kroger attracts new and more loyal customers. At the center of our go-to-market strategy is a superior customer experience. We deliver that by consistently providing customers a full, fresh and friendly experience.

加里稍後將詳細介紹我們 2022 年財務業績和 2023 年展望的具體細節。在這樣做之前，我想花一些時間回顧一下去年我們進入市場戰略的每個支柱如何提供有意義且可衡量的客戶利益，以及我們將如何在 2023 年加速這些利益。我們進入市場的基礎-市場策略是新鮮的，我們的品牌、個性化和天衣無縫。通過提供這 4 個支柱，我們的客戶贏得了勝利，克羅格吸引了新的和更忠誠的客戶。我們進入市場戰略的核心是卓越的客戶體驗。我們通過始終如一地為客戶提供完整、新鮮和友好的體驗來實現這一目標。

Kroger continued to demonstrate operational excellence in 2022 as we saw improvements in all 3 metrics. We believe our go-to-market strategy is creating a unique value -- customer value proposition designed to perform in many economic environments. We will continue to invest in our pillars and the customer experience to differentiate the value we offer.

克羅格在 2022 年繼續展示卓越運營，因為我們看到所有 3 個指標都有所改善。我們相信我們的上市戰略正在創造獨特的價值——旨在在許多經濟環境中發揮作用的客戶價值主張。我們將繼續投資於我們的支柱和客戶體驗，以使我們提供的價值脫穎而出。

First, leading with fresh. As an important influence on where customers shop, we are constantly improving how we bring even fresher food to our stores and e-commerce experience. Our end-to-end fresh initiative is changing the way our teams deliver on our commitment to freshness and we are incredibly pleased with this success. In 2022, more than 1,400 stores implemented the end-to-end produce solution, driving measurable increases in both fresh and total store sales. In 2023, we will continue innovating the fresh experience to drive customer satisfaction and improve our product mix. We continue to improve inventory management tools, strengthen our supply chain to deliver additional days of freshness and enhance our offerings to meet customer demand.

一是以新鮮引領。作為對顧客購物地點的重要影響，我們不斷改進為商店和電子商務體驗帶來更新鮮食品的方式。我們端到端的新鮮計劃正在改變我們的團隊履行我們對新鮮度承諾的方式，我們對這一成功感到非常高興。到 2022 年，超過 1,400 家商店實施了端到端農產品解決方案，推動了生鮮和商店總銷售額的顯著增長。 2023 年，我們將繼續創新新鮮體驗，以提高客戶滿意度並改善我們的產品組合。我們繼續改進庫存管理工具，加強我們的供應鏈以提供額外的新鮮天數，並增強我們的產品以滿足客戶需求。

As a reminder, our merger with Home Chef brought significant capabilities in in-store and restaurant quality meal solutions. We will be expanding our home chef production facilities to meet this growing customer need.

提醒一下，我們與 Home Chef 的合併帶來了店內和餐廳優質膳食解決方案方面的重要能力。我們將擴大我們的家庭廚師生產設施，以滿足這一不斷增長的客戶需求。

Next, Our Brands. The Our Brands portfolio allows us to offer exciting products at great value while driving incremental sales and improving margins. Our Brand's quality and value proposition is especially important when inflation is affecting so many of our customers' lives. To meet the needs of customers on a budget, we launched a new opening price point product line called Smart Way. By consolidating and simplifying several brands into one, we are making it easier for customers while creating a point of differentiation across the full portfolio. We will continue expanding Our Brands to more categories with innovative product offerings. Our goal is to help every customer find high-quality, affordable products they love from pantry staples to fresh food to ready-to-heat restaurant quality meals.

接下來，我們的品牌。 Our Brands 產品組合使我們能夠以超值的價格提供令人興奮的產品，同時推動增量銷售和提高利潤率。當通貨膨脹影響我們眾多客戶的生活時，我們品牌的質量和價值主張尤為重要。為了滿足預算有限的客戶的需求，我們推出了名為 Smart Way 的全新開放價位產品線。通過將多個品牌整合和簡化為一個品牌，我們讓客戶更輕鬆，同時在整個產品組合中創造差異化點。我們將繼續通過創新產品將我們的品牌擴展到更多類別。我們的目標是幫助每一位顧客找到他們喜愛的優質、實惠的產品，從食品儲藏室的主食到新鮮食品，再到即食餐廳優質餐點。

Now I'll move to personalization. Our data science teams are using predictive science to serve customers the right products at the right time and at the best value. Because we know our customers so well, we were able to provide recommendations to start their baskets and deliver personalized offers on the products most important to them, saving them time and money and making their lives easier. In return, our customers reward us with their trust and loyalty, consistently ranking us among the best at being able to offer personalized savings and solutions that meet their needs.

現在我將轉向個性化。我們的數據科學團隊正在使用預測科學在正確的時間以最佳價值為客戶提供正確的產品。因為我們非常了解我們的客戶，所以我們能夠提供建議來啟動他們的購物籃，並為他們最重要的產品提供個性化報價，從而節省他們的時間和金錢，讓他們的生活更輕鬆。作為回報，我們的客戶以他們的信任和忠誠回報我們，在能夠提供滿足他們需求的個性化儲蓄和解決方案方面，我們一直名列前茅。

In 2022, we grew loyalty as our customers more deeply engaged with personalized coupons and fuel rewards. As customers look for more ways to save, digital coupon engagement hit an all-time high during the year. Our combined paper and digital coupons helped save our customers more than $1.4 billion on products they need and want. That's on top of our everyday promotions and all the other value we offer.

2022 年，隨著客戶更加深入地使用個性化優惠券和燃料獎勵，我們的忠誠度得到提高。隨著客戶尋求更多省錢方式，數字優惠券參與度在這一年中創下歷史新高。我們的紙質和數字優惠券相結合，幫助我們的客戶在他們需要和想要的產品上節省了超過 14 億美元。這是我們日常促銷和我們提供的所有其他價值的基礎。

To provide even more value, we launched Boost, the industry's most affordable membership nationwide in July. Early results are exceeding our expectations with incremental engagement and overall household spend. We are evolving Boost with new benefits to further broaden its appeal and create additional customer value. In 2023, we will make significant investments to build out our personalization capabilities, including increasing the use of real-time data to predict customer needs, which will support sales growth during the next 3 years.

為了提供更多價值，我們於 7 月在全國推出了業界最實惠的會員資格 Boost。隨著參與度和家庭總支出的增加，早期結果超出了我們的預期。我們正在改進 Boost，使其具有新的優勢，以進一步擴大其吸引力並創造額外的客戶價值。 2023 年，我們將進行大量投資以增強我們的個性化能力，包括更多地使用實時數據來預測客戶需求，這將支持未來 3 年的銷售增長。

Finally, turning to Seamless. Seamless is growing in importance among our customers, and we expect it will be a significant growth driver over the next several years. We have built a digital platform that offers a seamless shopping experience with 0 compromise, allowing customers to shift effortlessly between store, pickup and delivery solutions.

最後，轉向無縫。 Seamless 在我們的客戶中越來越重要，我們預計它將在未來幾年成為重要的增長動力。我們已經建立了一個數字平台，提供零妥協的無縫購物體驗，讓客戶可以毫不費力地在商店、取貨和送貨解決方案之間切換。

As you'll see on Slide 12, our combination of stores and dedicated fulfillment centers positions Kroger to serve all customer trips from in-stock shopping to rapid delivery on needed now items to large stock up orders. Despite the easing of pandemic-related shopping behaviors that led to a significant increase in online shopping, more and more customers are incorporating e-commerce into their daily permanent routines, recognizing the value and convenience online shopping offers. We expect digital sales will continue to grow at a faster pace than overall food at home sales and believe Kroger is well positioned to deliver double-digit growth in over the next 3 years.

正如您將在幻燈片 12 中看到的那樣，我們的商店和專用履行中心的組合使 Kroger 能夠為所有客戶旅行提供服務，從庫存購物到快速交付現在需要的商品，再到大量庫存訂單。儘管與流行病相關的購物行為有所緩解導致在線購物顯著增加，但越來越多的客戶正在將電子商務納入他們的日常工作，認識到在線購物的價值和便利性。我們預計數字銷售的增長速度將繼續快於整體食品在家銷售的增長速度，並且相信 Kroger 有能力在未來 3 年內實現兩位數的增長。

As we work to become the most trusted online grocery destination, we are focused on 4 key areas that will position us to deliver that growth. We start by providing a compelling Kroger owned digital destination, where we offer customers exceptional value, personalization and freshness in a single, easy-to-use online experience. Second, we are focused on delivering best-in-class fulfillment, driving trust and loyalty by exceeding expectations for quality and freshness. Our delivery approach is unique in the fact that we have a large store network conveniently located close to our customers and large dedicated fulfillment centers designed efficiently to pick large orders. Our dedicated fulfillment centers provide the most reliable experience, the highest in-stock levels, best on-time delivery and one-of-a-kind white glove experience with industry-leading Net Promoter Scores.

在我們努力成為最值得信賴的在線雜貨目的地的過程中，我們專注於 4 個關鍵領域，這些領域將使我們能夠實現這一增長。我們首先提供一個引人注目的 Kroger 擁有的數字目的地，在那裡我們通過單一、易於使用的在線體驗為客戶提供卓越的價值、個性化和新鮮感。其次，我們專注於通過超越對質量和新鮮度的期望來提供一流的履行、推動信任和忠誠度。我們的交付方式是獨一無二的，因為我們擁有一個靠近客戶的大型商店網絡和大型專用履行中心，可以高效地挑選大訂單。我們專門的運營中心提供最可靠的體驗、最高的庫存水平、最佳的準時交貨和獨一無二的白手套體驗以及行業領先的淨推薦值。

Kroger delivery customers are more engaged across our entire ecosystem, spending more and shopping with us more often. Looking ahead, we will continue to learn through our customer fulfillment network with a focus on driving profitability and efficiencies to ensure that we are well positioned to deliver sustainable, profitable growth while delighting our customers.

Kroger 送貨客戶在我們整個生態系統中的參與度更高，消費更多，購物頻率更高。展望未來，我們將繼續通過我們的客戶履行網絡學習，重點是提高盈利能力和效率，以確保我們有能力實現可持續的盈利增長，同時讓我們的客戶滿意。

Next, we are focused on reaching new customers and adding more shopping occasions. Our delivery network allows us to offer enhanced service to new customers, and we will also grow our share of wallet by increasing the number of orders customers place with us. Solutions like Kroger Delivery Now enabled by our vast network of conveniently located stores can connect customers to fresh groceries and household essentials in as little as 30 minutes. This seamless ecosystem makes any shopping experience simple for our customers.

接下來，我們專注於接觸新客戶和增加更多購物場合。我們的交付網絡使我們能夠為新客戶提供更好的服務，我們還將通過增加客戶向我們下的訂單數量來增加我們的錢包份額。像 Kroger Delivery Now 這樣的解決方案由我們龐大的位置便利的商店網絡提供支持，可以在短短 30 分鐘內將客戶連接到新鮮雜貨和家庭必需品。這個無縫的生態系統使我們的客戶的任何購物體驗都變得簡單。

Finally, we are driving our profit flywheel and improving margins by reducing our digital cost to serve and growing our alternative profit streams. To accomplish this goal, we are lowering fulfillment costs, building the density of demand and last mile routing, engaging directly with our third-party vendors and growing digital retail media.

最後，我們正在通過降低我們的數字服務成本和增加我們的替代利潤流來推動我們的利潤飛輪並提高利潤率。為實現這一目標，我們正在降低履行成本、構建需求密度和最後一英里路線、直接與我們的第三方供應商合作並發展數字零售媒體。

Now let me share how we are accelerating growth in our model through alternative profits. During the last several years, we invested heavily in technology to transform our business and enter new high-growth and high-return businesses. These businesses contribute meaningfully to our results with alternative profit businesses achieving $1.2 billion in operating profit in 2022. Kroger Precision Marketing is one of our fastest-growing businesses and is well positioned to win within the U.S. retail media landscape, which is projected to be a $55 billion industry by 2024. What makes our retail media business special is our ability to help brands achieve a greater return on their media investment.

現在讓我分享一下我們如何通過替代利潤加速我們模型的增長。在過去的幾年中，我們大力投資於技術以實現業務轉型並進入新的高增長和高回報業務。這些業務為我們的業績做出了有意義的貢獻，另類利潤業務在 2022 年實現了 12 億美元的營業利潤。Kroger Precision Marketing 是我們增長最快的業務之一，並且有能力在美國零售媒體領域獲勝，預計這將成為到 2024 年將達到 550 億美元的行業規模。我們的零售媒體業務之所以與眾不同，是因為我們有能力幫助品牌獲得更大的媒體投資回報。

For the fifth year in a row, KPM was recognized as a leader in the retail media space by the Path to Purchase Institute, which collects feedback from those closest to the retail media networks and accessing their effectiveness. KPM was recognized as a leader for many of its capabilities, including maintaining its leadership in targeting and measurement capabilities, a testament to the strength of our unique product offerings and the insights we bring to this emerging landscape. Our associates enable our success, and we are committed to investing in theirs.

KPM 連續第五年被 Path to Purchase Institute 評為零售媒體領域的領導者，該機構收集最接近零售媒體網絡的反饋並了解其有效性。 KPM 因其許多能力而被公認為領導者，包括保持其在目標定位和衡量能力方面的領先地位，這證明了我們獨特產品的實力以及我們為這一新興領域帶來的洞察力。我們的員工幫助我們取得成功，我們也致力於投資於他們的成功。

To remain an employer of choice, we support our associates development and holistic well-being. We provide our associates with the tools they need to grow their careers that they want at all stages. In 2022, Kroger was named as a Best Place to Work in IT for the fifth consecutive year and a best place to work for disability inclusion for the third year. We also continue to support our associates through investments in wages and comprehensive benefits. In 2022, we raised our average hourly rates by more than 6% and has now invested an incremental $1.9 billion in associate wages since 2018. Our average hourly rate is now more than $18 and more than $23 when you include comprehensive benefits. We are committed to sustainably increasing associate wages and plan to invest more than $770 million in associates in 2023. We value and respect our associates and investing in their success is just one way we demonstrate that.

為了繼續成為首選雇主，我們支持員工的發展和整體福祉。我們為我們的員工提供他們在各個階段發展他們想要的職業所需的工具。 2022 年，克羅格連續第五年被評為 IT 最佳工作場所，並連續第三年被評為殘障包容最佳工作場所。我們還通過對工資和綜合福利的投資繼續支持我們的員工。 2022 年，我們將平均時薪提高了 6% 以上，自 2018 年以來，我們已經在員工工資方面增加了 19 億美元的投資。如果算上綜合福利，我們的平均時薪現在超過 18 美元，超過 23 美元。我們致力於可持續地提高員工工資，併計劃在 2023 年向員工投資超過 7.7 億美元。我們重視並尊重我們的員工，投資於他們的成功只是我們證明這一點的一種方式。

We take seriously our role in helping to create a healthier and thriving neighborhoods across the country. The centerpiece of our efforts is Kroger's Zero Hunger | Zero Waste social impact plan, an industry-leading commitment to build communities free from hunger and waste. Since launching Zero Hunger | Zero Waste, we have made continual progress toward our goals. We have directed more than $1.65 billion in food and funds to help end hunger, including donating more than 2.3 billion meals. We are making progress on our carbon emissions reduction plan and our brand's sustainable packaging goal. I'm especially proud of our incredible associates who helped us reach a key milestone this year with 100% execution of our surplus food rescue programs across each and every store across the company.

我們認真對待我們在幫助創建全國更健康和繁榮的社區方面的作用。我們努力的核心是 Kroger 的零飢餓 |零廢物社會影響計劃，一項行業領先的承諾，旨在建設沒有飢餓和浪費的社區。自發起零飢餓|零浪費，我們朝著我們的目標不斷進步。我們已投入超過 16.5 億美元的食品和資金來幫助消除飢餓，包括捐贈超過 23 億份餐食。我們在減少碳排放計劃和我們品牌的可持續包裝目標方面取得了進展。我為我們令人難以置信的員工感到特別自豪，他們幫助我們今年達到了一個重要的里程碑，在公司的每家商店 100% 執行了我們的剩餘食品救援計劃。

Looking ahead, we will continue to focus our efforts on our ambitious goal of ending hunger in our communities and eliminating waste, especially food waste throughout the company. In summary, our proven go-to-market strategy led to enhanced loyalty and household growth as we help customers manage the effect of inflation in 2022. We are well positioned to sustain our momentum into 2023.

展望未來，我們將繼續努力實現我們的宏偉目標，即消除我們社區的飢餓和消除浪費，尤其是整個公司的食物浪費。總之，我們行之有效的上市策略提高了忠誠度和家庭增長，因為我們幫助客戶管理 2022 年的通貨膨脹影響。我們有能力將我們的勢頭保持到 2023 年。

And with that, I'll turn it over to Gary to take you through our results and expectations for 2023. Gary?

有了這個，我會把它交給加里來帶你了解我們對 2023 年的結果和期望。加里？

Thank you, Rodney, and good morning, everyone. Before jumping into our 2022 results and sharing our outlook for 2023, I'd like to take a step back and remind you how Kroger's value creation model is enabling the company to deliver sustainable value for our shareholders. We believe our value creation model has been a key to delivering consistently strong results over the past 4 years and is positioning Kroger for growth in years to come.

謝謝你，羅德尼，大家早上好。在進入我們 2022 年的業績並分享我們對 2023 年的展望之前，我想退後一步，提醒您克羅格的價值創造模式如何使公司能夠為我們的股東創造可持續的價值。我們相信，我們的價值創造模式是過去 4 年持續取得強勁業績的關鍵，並為 Kroger 未來幾年的增長奠定了基礎。

The go-to-market strategy that Rodney outlined earlier is the foundation of our model. Over recent years, we have invested significantly in our people, our customers and technology to create a leading omnichannel position in food retail. By executing our go-to-market strategy, we win customers in our core supermarket business, including health and fuel and drive significant customer traffic and data into our ecosystem. This, in turn, allows us to deploy our investments in technology and 84.51° to deliver even greater value for customers and create new high-growth, high-margin alternative profit businesses.

羅德尼之前概述的上市戰略是我們模型的基礎。近年來，我們在員工、客戶和技術方面進行了大量投資，以在食品零售領域建立領先的全渠道地位。通過執行我們的上市戰略，我們贏得了核心超市業務的客戶，包括健康和燃料，並將大量客戶流量和數據帶入我們的生態系統。這反過來又使我們能夠部署我們在技術和 84.51° 上的投資，為客戶提供更大的價值，並創造新的高增長、高利潤的替代利潤業務。

The value generated from these businesses enables us to reinvest back into our supermarkets and drive further store and digital traffic, creating a flywheel effect. We are evolving from a traditional food retailer into a more diverse food first business that we believe can deliver sustainable future growth and succeed in a variety of operating environments.

這些業務產生的價值使我們能夠重新投資於我們的超市並進一步推動商店和數字流量，從而產生飛輪效應。我們正在從傳統的食品零售商發展成為更加多樣化的以食品為先的企業，我們相信它可以實現可持續的未來增長並在各種運營環境中取得成功。

As a reminder, since introducing this model in 2019, we have achieved consistent returns for our shareholders that have significantly exceeded our TSR commitment of 8% to 11%. As you can see in the table on Slide 19, over the past 3 years, Kroger has achieved more than 19% compounded annual growth rate in adjusted FIFO net operating profit and approximately 25% compounded annual growth rate in adjusted EPS. Over this same time period, we generated adjusted free cash flow of approximately $9.7 billion and have returned a total of nearly $5.8 billion to investors via dividends and buybacks.

提醒一下，自 2019 年引入該模式以來，我們為股東實現了穩定的回報，大大超過了我們 8% 至 11% 的股東總回報承諾。正如您在幻燈片 19 的表格中看到的那樣，在過去 3 年中，克羅格的調整後 FIFO 淨營業利潤複合年增長率超過 19%，調整後每股收益複合年增長率約為 25%。在同一時期，我們產生了約 97 億美元的調整後自由現金流，並通過股息和回購向投資者返還了總計近 58 億美元。

Overall, we have delivered nearly 3x the expected return from our TSR model over this 3-year period. Importantly, at the same time, we continue to invest in the business to support future growth. This included improving our price position relative to key competitors since the start of the pandemic, increasing associate wages and benefits by 34% since 2018 and increasing the amount of capital investments allocated to technology and digital capabilities to enable top line growth and margin expansion.

總體而言，在這 3 年期間，我們的 TSR 模型實現了近 3 倍的預期回報。重要的是，與此同時，我們繼續投資業務以支持未來的增長。這包括自大流行開始以來改善我們相對於主要競爭對手的價格地位，自 2018 年以來將員工工資和福利提高 34%，以及增加分配給技術和數字能力的資本投資，以實現收入增長和利潤率擴張。

Our strong performance and progress with our model in recent years also gave us the financial flexibility and confidence to announce our proposed merger with Albertsons. Upon closing, which is anticipated to be in early 2024, we believe the merger will significantly accelerate our go-to-market strategy and deliver TSR well above our stand-alone model during the first 4 years post close.

我們近年來在模型方面的強勁表現和進步也給了我們財務靈活性和信心來宣布我們與 Albertsons 的擬議合併。預計在 2024 年初完成交易後，我們相信合併將顯著加快我們的上市戰略，並在交易結束後的頭 4 年內提供遠高於我們獨立模式的股東總回報率。

I'll now walk through our full year 2022 financial results. Kroger delivered adjusted EPS of $4.23 per diluted share, an increase of 15%. We achieved identical sales, excluding fuel of 5.6%. The FIFO gross margin rate, excluding fuel, decreased 9 basis points. This reflects the outstanding work of our merchandising and sourcing teams who are extremely effective in managing higher product cost inflation while maintaining competitive prices and helping customers manage their budgets. The OG&A rate, excluding fuel and adjustment items, decreased 19 basis points, reflecting sales leverage and cost-saving initiatives, partially offset by planned investments in associates. And I'm delighted to say for the fifth consecutive year, we delivered cost savings of $1 billion in 2022. Our adjusted FIFO operating profit was $5.1 billion, an increase of 18% from last year. And the LIFO charge for the full year was $626 million compared to $197 million in 2021.

我現在將介紹我們 2022 年全年的財務業績。克羅格交付調整後每股攤薄每股收益 4.23 美元，增長 15%。我們實現了相同的銷售額，不包括 5.6% 的燃料。不包括燃料的 FIFO 毛利率下降了 9 個基點。這反映了我們的銷售和採購團隊的出色工作，他們在管理更高的產品成本膨脹方面非常有效，同時保持有競爭力的價格並幫助客戶管理他們的預算。 OG&A 費率（不包括燃料和調整項目）下降了 19 個基點，反映了銷售槓桿和成本節約舉措，部分被計劃對聯營公司的投資所抵消。我很高興地說，我們在 2022 年連續第五年節省了 10 億美元的成本。我們調整後的 FIFO 營業利潤為 51 億美元，比去年增長 18%。全年的 LIFO 費用為 6.26 億美元，而 2021 年為 1.97 億美元。

Turning now to our fourth quarter results. Adjusted EPS was $0.99 for the quarter, an increase of almost 9%. We saw continued momentum in our identical sales without fuel of 6.2%. Underlying growth would have been 6.7% after adjusting for the effect of Express Scripts. Our Brands contributed another strong quarter with identical sales of 10.1%, reflecting the growing importance to customers of these exclusive to Kroger products. And digital sales also accelerated during the quarter, up 12%, led by 22% growth in Delivery Solutions. Kroger's FIFO gross margin rate excluding fuel decreased 1 basis point and the OG&A rate excluding fuel and adjustment items decreased 56 basis points.

現在轉向我們的第四季度業績。本季度調整後每股收益為 0.99 美元，增長近 9%。我們看到不含燃料的相同銷售額持續增長 6.2%。在對 Express Scripts 的影響進行調整後，基本增長率為 6.7%。我們的品牌貢獻了另一個強勁的季度，銷售額相同，為 10.1%，反映出這些 Kroger 獨家產品對客戶的重要性日益增加。在交付解決方案增長 22% 的帶動下，本季度數字銷售也加速增長 12%。克羅格不包括燃料的 FIFO 毛利率下降了 1 個基點，不包括燃料和調整項目的 OG&A 利率下降了 56 個基點。

Fuel remains an important part of our overall value proposition. Our loyalty program, which can save customers up to $1.25 per gallon has been one of the many ways we have helped customers stretch their dollars over the past year and contributed to our gallon sales outpacing the industry during the quarter. The average retail price of fuel was $3.39 compared to $3.30 in the same quarter last year. Our cents per gallon fuel margin was $0.51 compared to $0.44 in the same quarter last year.

燃料仍然是我們整體價值主張的重要組成部分。我們的忠誠度計劃可為客戶節省高達每加侖 1.25 美元，這是我們在過去一年中幫助客戶擴大開支的眾多方式之一，並為我們在本季度的加侖銷量超過行業做出了貢獻。燃料平均零售價為 3.39 美元，而去年同期為 3.30 美元。我們每加侖燃油的利潤率為 0.51 美元，而去年同期為 0.44 美元。

Adjusted FIFO operating profit was $1.27 billion, a year-over-year increase of 26%. And the LIFO charge was $234 million in the fourth quarter, reflecting sustained higher product cost inflation, particularly in grocery. This compares to a charge of only $20 million in Q4 last year.

調整後的 FIFO 營業利潤為 12.7 億美元，同比增長 26%。第四季度的後進先出費用為 2.34 億美元，反映出持續較高的產品成本通脹，尤其是在食品雜貨領域。相比之下，去年第四季度的費用僅為 2000 萬美元。

Included in our fourth quarter results was a $164 million goodwill and fixed asset impairment charge related to Vitacost.com. The talent and capabilities gained through the merger with Vitacost in 2014 have been key to advancing Kroger's digital platform and growing our digital business to more than $10 billion in annual sales. As our digital strategy has evolved, our primary focus looking forward will be to effectively utilize Kroger store pickup and delivery capabilities, and this reprioritization resulted in the impairment charge. Vitacost.com will continue to operate as an online platform, providing great value, natural, organic and eco-friendly products for our customers.

我們第四季度的業績包括與 Vitacost.com 相關的 1.64 億美元商譽和固定資產減值費用。通過 2014 年與 Vitacost 的合併獲得的人才和能力對於推進 Kroger 的數字平台和將我們的數字業務發展到年銷售額超過 100 億美元至關重要。隨著我們數字戰略的發展，我們的主要關注點將是有效利用克羅格商店的取貨和送貨能力，而這種重新確定優先次序導致了減值費用。 Vitacost.com 將繼續作為在線平台運營，為我們的客戶提供物超所值、天然、有機和環保的產品。

Adjusted free cash flow for the year came in $800 million lower than anticipated. This was entirely due to movements in working capital towards the end of the year. The cause was a combination of factors including higher inflation affecting inventory, some forward buying to protect margins and timing of accounts payable and third-party receivable payments around the year-end. As shared last quarter, we feel comfortable with our overall level of mix of inventory, which is higher due to heightened levels of inflation and in-stocks returning to pre-pandemic levels.

今年調整後的自由現金流比預期低 8 億美元。這完全是由於接近年底的營運資金變動所致。原因是多種因素的結合，包括較高的通貨膨脹影響庫存、一些為保護利潤率而進行的遠期購買以及年底左右應付賬款和第三方應收款付款的時間安排。正如上個季度所分享的那樣，我們對我們的整體庫存組合水平感到滿意，由於通貨膨脹水平升高和庫存恢復到大流行前水平，庫存組合水平較高。

Looking over a 5-year time horizon and smoothing the volatility in working capital experience during the pandemic, we have seen an underlying benefit from working capital over this time period, and we would expect to see further improvement going forward. We remain confident in our ability to generate strong free cash flow. And as shared in our guidance this morning, expect to achieve adjusted free cash flow of $2.3 billion to $2.5 billion in 2023.

從 5 年的時間跨度來看，並平滑了大流行期間營運資金體驗的波動，我們看到了這段時間營運資金的潛在好處，我們預計未來會進一步改善。我們對我們產生強勁自由現金流的能力充滿信心。正如我們今天上午在指引中所分享的那樣，預計 2023 年調整後的自由現金流將達到 23 億美元至 25 億美元。

Turning now to financial strategy and capital allocation. We will continue to be disciplined with our capital investments, prioritizing the highest growth opportunities that strengthen our business and deliver solid returns for our shareholders. As you saw in our guidance this morning, we are anticipating capital investments of $3.4 billion to $3.6 billion this year, which is consistent with our long-range TSR model. Our priorities for 2023 are aligned with our value creation model and are expected to drive future sales growth and margin expansion.

現在轉向財務戰略和資本配置。我們將繼續嚴格控制我們的資本投資，優先考慮能夠加強我們的業務並為我們的股東帶來可觀回報的最高增長機會。正如您今天早上在我們的指導中看到的那樣，我們預計今年的資本投資將達到 34 億美元至 36 億美元，這與我們的長期 TSR 模型一致。我們 2023 年的優先事項與我們的價值創造模式一致，預計將推動未來的銷售增長和利潤率擴張。

To drive sales, our focus is on enhancing our store and digital ecosystem. We apply a data-driven approach to make decisions on a store-by-store basis, prioritizing store formats and locations with the highest growth potential. Additionally, we are continually enhancing our seamless experience including investing in technology to improve the customer proposition and augmenting personalization, which will, in turn, create additional alternative profit opportunities. We continue to invest in areas of the business that will drive operating margin expansion, including enhancements to our supply chain capabilities. These investments help improve margins and differentiate our fresh offering.

為了推動銷售，我們的重點是增強我們的商店和數字生態系統。我們採用數據驅動的方法在逐家商店的基礎上做出決策，優先考慮具有最高增長潛力的商店形式和位置。此外，我們不斷增強我們的無縫體驗，包括投資技術以改善客戶主張和增強個性化，這反過來又會創造額外的替代利潤機會。我們繼續投資於將推動營業利潤率增長的業務領域，包括增強我們的供應鏈能力。這些投資有助於提高利潤率並使我們的新鮮產品脫穎而出。

And finally, an essential element of our value creation model has been our ability to take cost out of our business. We remain focused on eliminating waste in areas that did not affect the customer experience and we are making investments in technology to improve store productivity, lower digital fulfillment costs and reduce waste and shrink. These improvements will drive an incremental $1 billion of cost savings in 2023, which would mark our sixth year in a row of delivering $1 billion of savings.

最後，我們的價值創造模式的一個基本要素是我們降低業務成本的能力。我們仍然專注於消除不影響客戶體驗的領域的浪費，並且我們正在對技術進行投資以提高商店生產力、降低數字履行成本並減少浪費和收縮。這些改進將在 2023 年推動 10 億美元的增量成本節約，這將標誌著我們連續第六年實現 10 億美元的成本節約。

In closing, I'd like to share some additional color on our expectations for 2023. While there is still uncertainty regarding the economic outlook, our go-to-market strategy is resonating with customers, and we believe our successful value creation model positions us well to navigate evolving market conditions.

最後，我想就我們對 2023 年的預期分享一些額外的色彩。雖然經濟前景仍然存在不確定性，但我們的上市戰略引起了客戶的共鳴，我們相信我們成功的價值創造模式使我們處於領先地位很好地駕馭不斷變化的市場條件。

Before I go into the details of our 2023 guidance, there are a couple of unusual factors that I'd like to highlight. First, Kroger's decision to terminate our agreement with Express Groups in December of 2022 is expected to have a negative impact of 150 basis points on identical sales without fuel. This decision is not expected to have a material effect on profitability.

在詳細介紹我們的 2023 年指南之前，我想強調幾個不尋常的因素。首先，克羅格決定於 2022 年 12 月終止我們與 Express Groups 的協議，預計這將對不含燃料的相同銷售額產生 150 個基點的負面影響。該決定預計不會對盈利能力產生重大影響。

Second, 2023 will include a 53rd week. We expect the effect of this extra week at approximately $0.15 to our adjusted net earnings per diluted share for the year. With that important context, we expect to achieve identical sales without fuel of 1% to 2% in 2023. Excluding the effect of Express Scripts, our underlying identical sales without fuel growth is expected to be between 2.5% and 3.5%. We expect to achieve adjusted FIFO operating profit of between $5 billion and $5.2 billion and adjusted net earnings per diluted share of between $4.45 and $4.60, including the expected benefit of the 53rd week.

其次，2023 年將包括第 53 週。我們預計這一額外的一周對我們今年調整後的每股攤薄淨收益的影響約為 0.15 美元。在這一重要背景下，我們預計 2023 年在沒有燃料的情況下實現相同的銷售額增長 1% 到 2%。排除 Express Scripts 的影響，我們在沒有燃料增長的情況下的基本相同銷售額預計在 2.5% 到 3.5% 之間。我們預計調整後的 FIFO 營業利潤在 50 億美元至 52 億美元之間，調整後的攤薄後每股淨收益在 4.45 美元至 4.60 美元之間，包括第 53 週的預期收益。

We expect to grow revenue by continuing to invest in our customers through competitive pricing and personalization and providing fresh products and a better shopping experience across our store and digital ecosystem. We will fund investments in gross margin in 2023 by improving our product mix as we accelerate momentum with our Fresh and Our Brands initiatives and by growing our alternative profit businesses.

我們希望通過具有競爭力的價格和個性化服務繼續投資於我們的客戶，並在我們的商店和數字生態系統中提供新鮮產品和更好的購物體驗，從而增加收入。我們將在 2023 年通過改善我們的產品組合為毛利率投資提供資金，因為我們通過新鮮和我們的品牌計劃加快發展勢頭，並通過發展我們的替代利潤業務。

As Rodney mentioned earlier, we will also continue to invest significantly in associate wages and this will be funded by our planned cost-saving initiatives. While we believe fuel margins will remain structurally higher than historical averages, fuel profitability is expected to be a headwind to our model in 2023 as we lap historic fuel margins from last year. Our 2023 guidance assumes a LIFO charge of between $300 million to $350 million as a result of lower product cost inflation compared to 2022. While this amount is well above historical levels, LIFO is expected to be a year-over-year tailwind and should more than offset lower fuel profitability.

正如羅德尼之前提到的，我們還將繼續對員工工資進行大量投資，這將由我們計劃的成本節約計劃提供資金。雖然我們認為燃料利潤率在結構上仍將高於歷史平均水平，但隨著我們超越去年的歷史燃料利潤率，燃料盈利能力預計將在 2023 年成為我們模型的不利因素。由於與 2022 年相比產品成本通脹較低，我們 2023 年的指導假設 LIFO 費用在 3 億至 3.5 億美元之間。儘管這一數額遠高於歷史水平，但 LIFO 預計將成為同比增長的順風，並且應該更多而不是抵消較低的燃料盈利能力。

In terms of quarterly cadence, we expect identical sales without fuel to be above the top end of our guidance range in the first half of the year as we continue to experience heightened levels of inflation. In the second half of the year, we expect identical sales without fuel to be at or slightly below the bottom end of our range as we expect inflation to taper later in the year. We expect adjusted earnings per diluted share in quarter 1 will be slightly negative year-over-year as we cycle 22% growth in EPS from Q1 last year. Quarter 2 and quarter 3 are expected to be within our annual guidance range and quarter 4 is expected to be above our guidance range as we cycle the higher LIFO charge in '22 and benefit from the 53rd week.

就季度節奏而言，我們預計今年上半年不含燃料的相同銷售額將高於我們的指導範圍的上限，因為我們繼續經歷更高的通貨膨脹水平。在今年下半年，我們預計不含燃料的相同銷售額將達到或略低於我們範圍的下限，因為我們預計通脹將在今年晚些時候逐漸減少。我們預計第一季度調整後的每股攤薄收益同比略有負數，因為我們的每股收益較去年第一季度增長 22%。預計第 2 季度和第 3 季度將在我們的年度指導範圍內，而第 4 季度預計將高於我們的指導範圍，因為我們在 22 年循環了更高的 LIFO 費用並從第 53 周中受益。

As you know from Rodney and myself this morning, Kroger is operating from a position of strength and the investments that we have made in our go-to-market strategy provide exciting opportunities for future growth. Our team is energized by these opportunities and we believe Kroger is well positioned to continue to deliver attractive and sustainable returns for our shareholders.

正如你今天早上從羅德尼和我本人那裡了解到的那樣，克羅格的運營處於有利地位，我們在上市戰略中所做的投資為未來的增長提供了令人興奮的機會。我們的團隊因這些機會而充滿活力，我們相信 Kroger 有能力繼續為我們的股東提供有吸引力和可持續的回報。

I'll now turn the call back over to Rodney.

我現在將電話轉回給 Rodney。

Thanks, Gary. Before we open up the floor to your questions, let me provide an update on our pending merger with Albertsons. During the past few months, we've spent time getting to know Vivek and the Albertsons leadership team. We are incredibly impressed with their talent, culture and commitment to their customers and communities. We look forward to bringing together our 2 highly complementary organizations to provide customers with lower prices and more choices while realizing the long-term value we expect this merger will deliver.

謝謝，加里。在我們開始回答您的問題之前，讓我提供有關我們與 Albertsons 即將進行的合併的最新消息。在過去的幾個月裡，我們花時間了解了 Vivek 和 Albertsons 的領導團隊。我們對他們的才能、文化以及對客戶和社區的承諾印象深刻。我們期待著將我們這兩個高度互補的組織合併在一起，為客戶提供更低的價格和更多的選擇，同時實現我們預期此次合併將帶來的長期價值。

We are working cooperatively with regulators responding to the Federal Trade Commission's second request and in discussions about the transaction, while also working to identify potential buyers for the stores, we expect to divest to obtain clearance for the transaction. We are pleased with the level of interest received thus far, and we'll work towards finding a solution that benefits all stakeholders. We remain on track to close the transaction in early 2024.

我們正與監管機構合作，響應聯邦貿易委員會的第二項要求，並就交易進行討論，同時也在努力確定商店的潛在買家，我們希望剝離資產以獲得交易許可。我們對迄今為止收到的興趣程度感到滿意，我們將努力尋找一個有利於所有利益相關者的解決方案。我們仍有望在 2024 年初完成交易。

During the quarter, we launched our integration planning efforts with the goal of preparing for a seamless cultural and operational integration. We expect to create customer benefits beginning day 1 post close. The integration team is developing work streams with clear objectives and milestones to deliver value for our customers, associates, communities and shareholders. We are pleased with the progress we've made to date, and we'll continue to provide updates as we have them.

本季度，我們啟動了整合規劃工作，目標是為無縫的文化和運營整合做準備。我們希望在交易結束後的第 1 天開始創造客戶利益。整合團隊正在開發具有明確目標和里程碑的工作流，以為我們的客戶、員工、社區和股東創造價值。我們對迄今為止取得的進展感到滿意，我們將繼續提供更新。

We achieved exceptional results in 2022, building on our record years in 2020 and 2021, and we exceeded our commitments in our Leading with Fresh and Accelerating with Digital strategy. Our folks strategy is focusing on our customers, our associates and our communities is working. Our customers are telling us that we're doing a better job serving their needs. We continue to improve our associate wages and comprehensive benefits with a 34% increase in the last 5 years. And we are helping to create healthier thriving communities through our Zero Hunger | Zero Waste work. We believe our momentum is sustainable and will only accelerate upon the completion of our pending merger with Albertsons.

在 2020 年和 2021 年創紀錄的年份的基礎上，我們在 2022 年取得了非凡的成果，並且我們超越了我們在“以新鮮事物引領”和“以數字方式加速”戰略方面的承諾。我們的員工戰略專注於我們的客戶、我們的員工和我們的社區。我們的客戶告訴我們，我們在滿足他們的需求方面做得更好。我們繼續提高我們的員工工資和綜合福利，在過去 5 年中增長了 34%。我們正在通過我們的零飢餓 | 幫助創建更健康、繁榮的社區。零浪費工作。我們相信我們的勢頭是可持續的，並且只會在我們與 Albertsons 即將完成的合併完成後加速。

With that, Gary and I look forward to taking your questions.

有了這個，加里和我期待著回答你的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question for today comes from John Heinbockel of Guggenheim Partners.

（操作員說明）我們今天的第一個問題來自 Guggenheim Partners 的 John Heinbockel。

Rodney, I wanted to start with since it's the beginning of a new year. As you guys think about your consumer deciles, quartiles, however you look at it, what's the wallet share opportunity right, maybe from the average consumer to your best, most loyal consumer. And where is the -- when you do sort of a gap analysis, where is the gap? Is it fresh? Where are the biggest pockets, right, where the average consumer is not spending as much as the most loyal.

羅德尼，我想從新年開始說起。當你們考慮你們的消費者十分位數、四分位數時，不管你怎麼看，錢包份額機會是多少，也許從普通消費者到你最好、最忠誠的消費者。當你做某種差距分析時，差距在哪裡？新鮮嗎？哪裡是最大的口袋，對，普通消費者的消費不如最忠誠的消費者多。

And John, thanks. I love the question. And we always look at it slightly different because we look at the opportunity is all the business. And even in places where we over-index, there's still a lot of opportunity. Customers that are most loyal to us will still spend 30% to 50% of their spending somewhere other than Kroger. And that's an opportunity for us to improve our position. When you look at Fresh, we start off with a higher share of Fresh than we do in the other parts. But it's an area where we're meaningfully better than our competitors. So our ability and focus on growing our business is to really -- what we find is full Fresh and friendly resonates with all customer types, and we do it in a way where there's 0 compromise.

約翰，謝謝。我喜歡這個問題。我們的看法總是略有不同，因為我們認為機會就是一切。即使在我們過度索引的地方，仍然有很多機會。對我們最忠誠的客戶仍會將 30% 到 50% 的支出花在 Kroger 以外的地方。這是我們改善地位的機會。當您查看 Fresh 時，我們開始時 Fresh 的份額高於我們在其他部分的份額。但這是一個我們明顯優於競爭對手的領域。因此，我們的能力和專注於發展我們的業務是為了真正——我們發現新鮮和友好的東西與所有客戶類型產生共鳴，我們以零妥協的方式做到這一點。

So a customer on a budget can get great value from Our Brands. They can save 7% to 10% by buying Our Brands versus national brand. If you look at our Home Chef and products related to that, a customer can get a meal for 1/3 to 1/4 of what it costs going out. So it's really all of those together. And our opportunity -- our sweet spot is always the customer that likes a good value for the money and Fresh is incredibly important and friendly is incredibly important. That's our sweet spot where we connect the best and that is a growing area across the U.S., and we operate in many markets that are growing as well. So for us, that's really our sweet spot and our opportunity and our strategy is oriented around that. And then technology just provides the support for that make it easier for the customer.

因此，預算有限的客戶可以從我們的品牌中獲得巨大價值。與民族品牌相比，他們可以通過購買我們的品牌節省 7% 到 10%。如果你看看我們的家庭廚師和與之相關的產品，顧客可以用外出花費的 1/3 到 1/4 吃一頓飯。所以它真的是所有這些在一起。而我們的機會——我們的最佳點始終是喜歡物有所值的客戶，而 Fresh 非常重要，友好非常重要。那是我們聯繫最好的地方，這是美國不斷增長的地區，我們在許多也在增長的市場開展業務。所以對我們來說，這真的是我們的最佳位置和我們的機會，我們的戰略就是以此為導向的。然後技術只是提供支持，使客戶更容易。

Great. Maybe secondly, right, if you look at the Express Scripts impact, so how much of that is pharmacy versus none, right? And I know you guys have always said pharmacy customers among the most loyal customers. How do you think about losing trips, right, because of this and then maybe using right, your data, okay, we know who -- I think you know who the Express Scripts customers were. We can do incremental outreach to make sure we don't lose trips with those particular households.

偉大的。也許其次，如果你看看 Express Scripts 的影響，那麼其中有多少是藥房而不是沒有，對吧？我知道你們一直說藥店顧客是最忠誠的顧客。你如何看待失去旅行，對，因為這個，然後也許使用正確的，你的數據，好吧，我們知道誰——我想你知道 Express Scripts 的客戶是誰。我們可以進行增量外展，以確保我們不會失去與這些特定家庭的旅行。

If you look the numbers that Gary provided by far, the majority of that's pharmacy. Our teams are doing great work on using our discount cards to be able to help customers identify other alternatives. And in fact, in many cases, they're saving money. We're also going directly with some other companies to provide the benefit rather than going through a PBM. So by far, the majority of the estimate that Gary provided is pharmacy. And we're using the things that you said to make sure that we don't lose that customer connection and we don't lose the trip to the grocery store.

如果您查看加里目前提供的數字，就會發現其中大部分是藥房。我們的團隊在使用我們的折扣卡方面做了大量工作，以幫助客戶確定其他替代方案。事實上，在很多情況下，他們是在省錢。我們還將直接與其他一些公司合作以提供收益，而不是通過 PBM。所以到目前為止，加里提供的大部分估計是藥房。我們正在使用您所說的內容來確保我們不會失去與客戶的聯繫，也不會失去去雜貨店的機會。

I don't know, Gary, anything you want to add to that?

我不知道，加里，你想補充什麼嗎？

I think you said it well, Rodney. I think that John described it, but work the team has done around using our data and personalization to make sure we're protecting the customer. We think it's working.

我認為你說得很好，羅德尼。我認為 John 描述了它，但團隊圍繞使用我們的數據和個性化所做的工作來確保我們保護客戶。我們認為這是有效的。

Our next question comes from Ed Kelly of Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的埃德凱利。

Thanks for all the color. A question for you to start. Rodney, just kind of big picture. We're coming off of an inflationary cycle that really none of us have ever sort of seen before. And obviously, there are a lot of implications associated with that. But as you look forward into '23 and sort of thought about providing guidance, how do you think the industry is going to evolve off of the heels of that? Meaning what's the level of inflation that you've embedded within your ID guidance of 2.5% to 3.5% ex Express.

感謝所有的顏色。一個問題讓你開始。羅德尼，有點大局。我們正在擺脫我們之前從未見過的通脹週期。顯然，這會產生很多影響。但是，當您展望 23 世紀並考慮提供指導時，您認為該行業將如何發展？這意味著您在 2.5% 至 3.5% ex Express 的 ID 指導中嵌入的通貨膨脹水平是多少。

How do you think about like the promotional backdrop and how that changes? Are you happy with your underlying tonnage for instance or volume given what's happened with pricing and what we've seen with comps at some like value players like Walmart, et cetera. Just kind of curious, is that how all of that played into the way you're thinking about guidance?

你如何看待促銷背景以及它如何變化？考慮到定價發生的情況以及我們在沃爾瑪等價值玩家等公司看到的情況，你對你的基礎噸位或數量感到滿意嗎？只是有點好奇，所有這些是如何影響你對指導的思考方式的？

Yes. If you look at inflation overall, we would expect inflation to be higher in the first half of the year than the second half of the year and the quarterly insights that Gary provided really reflected that. If you look at the thing that we feel really good about, and I shared specifics on the prepared comments, the higher income customer is really resonating with our value proposition, and we're having meaningful increases there in terms of that customer.

是的。如果你從整體上看通貨膨脹，我們預計上半年的通貨膨脹率將高於下半年，加里提供的季度見解確實反映了這一點。如果你看一下我們感覺非常好的事情，並且我在準備好的評論中分享了細節，高收入客戶確實與我們的價值主張產生了共鳴，並且我們在該客戶方面取得了有意義的增長。

And one of the things I always think it's important for people to realize is the profitability of that customer is higher as well because they shop for the full mix of our stores and they would be buying more produce in Fresh departments and Deli bakery, which is driving some of that profitability shift. So when you look at overall, we feel really good on how we're connecting with our customers. We feel really good at how we're improving on Fresh. And when you look at the share that we're getting with the customer that really focuses on that, we feel good about. When you look at it overall, we're always striving to do better. And I feel good about the progress we're making. We're excited about the opportunities we have in front of us, and we still think we can continue to do better. In terms of specifics on inflation, Gary, I'll let you share the specific inflation assumption because it's pretty -- during the year, it's obviously pretty wide range.

我一直認為讓人們意識到這一點很重要的一件事是，該客戶的盈利能力也更高，因為他們購買了我們商店的全部組合，並且他們會在 Fresh 部門和 Deli 麵包店購買更多產品，這是推動了一些盈利能力的轉變。因此，當您從整體上看時，我們對與客戶的聯繫方式感到非常滿意。我們對 Fresh 的改進感到非常滿意。當你看到我們與真正專注於此的客戶所獲得的份額時，我們感覺很好。從整體上看，我們一直在努力做得更好。我對我們正在取得的進展感到滿意。我們對擺在我們面前的機會感到興奮，我們仍然認為我們可以繼續做得更好。就通貨膨脹的細節而言，加里，我會讓你分享具體的通貨膨脹假設，因為它很漂亮——在這一年裡，它的範圍顯然相當廣泛。

Sure. Yes. Thanks, Rodney. Thanks for the question, Ed. From an inflation perspective, what we're seeing at the moment is that we've seen in the last couple of quarters, inflation has really sort of stabilized. And what we're starting to see is in the Fresh categories, sort of deceleration of inflation, but grocery is -- has remained pretty stubborn in terms of the levels there.

當然。是的。謝謝，羅德尼。謝謝你的問題，埃德。從通貨膨脹的角度來看，我們目前看到的是，在過去幾個季度中，通貨膨脹確實已經趨於穩定。我們開始看到的是新鮮類別，通貨膨脹率有所下降，但雜貨店 - 就那裡的水平而言仍然非常頑固。

So we're assuming, as Rodney mentioned, in the first half of the year that a gradual decline, probably grocery remaining fairly stubborn where it is today, but some of the Fresh categories continuing to show some deceleration. And then we're expecting sort of towards the end of the year that we get to sort of between low and mid-single-digit inflation level rates about sort of 4% to 5% would be our assumption around where we think inflation starts to come down to in the way that we build our assumptions for the year. And obviously, Our Brand...

所以我們假設，正如羅德尼提到的那樣，在今年上半年逐漸下降，可能雜貨店仍然相當頑固，但一些新鮮類別繼續顯示出一些減速。然後我們預計到今年年底，我們將在大約 4% 到 5% 的低和中等個位數通貨膨脹率水平之間，這將是我們認為通貨膨脹率開始的假設歸結為我們為這一年建立假設的方式。顯然，我們的品牌...

Okay, just a quick followup...

好的，只是一個快速跟進......

Go ahead, Ed.

去吧，埃德。

Got you. Just a quick follow-up, Gary. The FIFO gross margin outlook for '23. I think there is a decent -- I mean, it seems like there's a decent impact associated with Express, given there's no P&L impact of losing the comp. Just how are you thinking about FIFO gross margin ex fuel in '23?

明白了只是快速跟進，加里。 '23 的 FIFO 毛利率展望。我認為有一個體面的 - 我的意思是，似乎有一個與 Express 相關的體面影響，因為失去補償沒有損益影響。您如何看待 23 年的 FIFO 毛利率（不包括燃料）？

Yes. As you know, we generally don't get into a ton of specific guidance. But I would say, in general, we're thinking and the way we built our model is very much in balance and consistent with what we delivered in 2022 in terms of -- when you think about gross margin, we'll be continuing to invest in the customer in key areas of value whatever important to them, whether that's pricing, promotions continuing to roll out Boost, which creates a short-term headwind as you build the loyalty of the customer and get the incremental value over a longer period of time.

是的。如您所知，我們通常不會涉及大量具體指導。但我要說的是，總的來說，我們正在思考，我們建立模型的方式非常平衡，並且與我們在 2022 年交付的內容一致——當你考慮毛利率時，我們將繼續在對客戶重要的關鍵價值領域投資客戶，無論是定價，促銷活動繼續推出 Boost，這會在您建立客戶忠誠度並在較長時期內獲得增量價值時造成短期逆風時間。

We believe that there'll be some continued meaningful tailwinds in our gross margin rate as we continue to execute on our go-to-market strategy. So thinking about alternative profit streams. The work I mentioned in my prepared remarks about continuing to see improvement in Our Brands penetration, which is helpful to gross margin. And so we overall, think it's going to be a pretty balanced year. There's an awful lot going in there as we're investing in the customer, investing in the experience. But as our model is now kind of reaching more of a rhythm and maturity of delivering on those gross margin improvements that we're able to balance those things.

我們相信，隨著我們繼續執行我們的上市戰略，我們的毛利率將繼續出現一些有意義的順風。所以考慮替代利潤流。我在準備好的評論中提到的關於繼續看到我們品牌滲透率提高的工作，這有助於提高毛利率。因此，總的來說，我們認為這將是非常平衡的一年。當我們投資於客戶，投資於體驗時，那裡發生了很多事情。但是，由於我們的模型現在在某種程度上達到了實現毛利率改善的節奏和成熟度，因此我們能夠平衡這些因素。

I would say from an Express Scripts point of view and some of the other work that we've done around Kroger Specialty Pharmacy are making sure that we're really focusing on profitable growth in our health and wellness business that those probably create a call it, a sort of 10 basis point tailwind in gross margin, but a 10 basis point headwind in OG&A. It's kind of net, net neutral in terms of the operating profit impact, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, but it will change the optics a bit just because the sort of pulling those sales numbers out of our overall business model.

我想說，從 Express Scripts 的角度來看，我們圍繞 Kroger Specialty Pharmacy 所做的一些其他工作正在確保我們真正專注於我們的健康和保健業務的盈利增長，這些可能會創造一個調用它，毛利率有 10 個基點的順風，但 OG&A 有 10 個基點的逆風。正如我在準備好的發言中提到的，它對營業利潤的影響是淨中性的，但它會稍微改變光學效果，只是因為將這些銷售數字從我們的整體商業模式中拉出來。

Our next question comes from Simeon Gutman from Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Simeon Gutman。

My first question, it's a little similar to Ed's question. If you look at the FIFO EBIT guided for 2023, essentially, call it, flattish. I'm just rounding relative to '22. If you divide the business up into core, I don't know alternative and maybe gas as profit pools, and I don't know if those would be the right 3, the big ones to focus on. Can you give us a sense of the movement within getting to that flat -- roughly flat for EBIT year-over-year?

我的第一個問題，與 Ed 的問題有點相似。如果您查看 2023 年的 FIFO EBIT 指南，基本上可以稱之為持平。我只是相對於 22 年四捨五入。如果您將業務劃分為核心業務，我不知道替代品和天然氣可能是利潤池，而且我不知道這是否是正確的 3 個重點關注的大項目。您能否讓我們了解一下達到該水平的運動——息稅前利潤同比大致持平？

Yes. I think what I'd probably say, Simeon, as I think about it, the sort of 3 bigger picture moving parts that I tried to sort of tee up the overall guidance with as well. So I think about it as the 53rd week adding, call it, $0.15 of earnings per share. So that's helping with -- think of $0.01 of about $9 million to $10 million. So I think if it's like $150 million tailwind from the 53rd week. I think of gas, so fuel being a headwind of -- in the sort of $200 million to $250 million range.

是的。我想我可能會說，Simeon，正如我所想的那樣，我也試圖將整體指導與 3 個更大的圖片移動部分結合起來。所以我認為這是第 53 週增加，稱之為每股收益 0.15 美元。所以這有助於 - 想想大約 900 萬到 1000 萬美元的 0.01 美元。所以我認為如果從第 53 週開始有 1.5 億美元的順風。我想到了天然氣，所以燃料是一個逆風——在 2 億到 2.5 億美元的範圍內。

And then I would think of the sort of core supermarket business is really sort of continuing to grow year-over-year. So the gap is more than offsetting the impact of the 53rd week. The core supermarket business sort of executing on our value creation model, as I mentioned. So underlying sales growth in that 2.5% to 3.5% growth because the Express Scripts business really hasn't contribute to the bottom line, continuing to invest in the customer, continuing to execute on our plans around driving cost out of the business and improving mix and those things net overall getting us to a slight improvement. And I'll probably -- we won't get into the specifics obviously of breaking down the individual pieces, but we really categorize all profit as part of the overall ecosystem because we don't have media revenue unless we're driving the digital supermarket business. So we very much look at it as a total ecosystem.

然後我會想到那種核心超市業務確實在逐年持續增長。因此，差距足以抵消第 53 週的影響。正如我提到的，核心超市業務在某種程度上執行我們的價值創造模型。因此，2.5% 至 3.5% 的潛在銷售額增長是因為 Express Scripts 業務確實沒有為利潤做出貢獻，繼續投資於客戶，繼續執行我們圍繞降低業務成本和改善組合的計劃這些東西總體上使我們略有改善。我可能會 - 我們不會詳細說明分解各個部分的細節，但我們確實將所有利潤歸類為整個生態系統的一部分，因為除非我們推動數字業務，否則我們沒有媒體收入超市業務。所以我們非常重視它作為一個完整的生態系統。

Right. And then as a follow-up on the backdrop regarding pricing inflation, it seems like the backdrop is maybe more oligopolistic than one would have thought, not that it's not competitive out there, but in terms of price and wondering what that's a function of and maybe what could disrupt it? Is that a fair assessment?

正確的。然後作為關於定價通脹背景的後續行動，似乎背景可能比人們想像的更具寡頭壟斷，並不是說它沒有競爭力，而是在價格方面，想知道這是什麼的功能和也許什麼會破壞它？這是一個公平的評估嗎？

We would certainly describe it and look at it different than that. And we've invested in pricing -- I'm trying to remember for the last 20 years or so every single year and would expect to continue to do that. And we fund that through process change, identifying other things to get costs out. And an awful lot of our promotions are much more directed personalized to the customer. So it's not what you see when you go to a store to look on a shelf because we provide a significant higher percentage of our value to our customers through fuel rewards and personalized offers that are connected one-on-one from -- in using technology and digital so that each person is individual.

我們肯定會描述它並以不同的方式看待它。我們在定價方面進行了投資——我試圖記住過去 20 年左右的每一年，並希望繼續這樣做。我們通過流程改變來資助它，確定其他事情來降低成本。我們的很多促銷活動都更加針對客戶的個性化。所以這不是你去商店看貨架時看到的東西，因為我們通過使用技術一對一連接的燃料獎勵和個性化優惠，為客戶提供更高比例的價值和數字化，這樣每個人都是獨立的。

So we would certainly not describe it that way. And we view it -- every year is incredibly competitive, and everybody is working hard to do a better job and the customer gets the benefit of that.

所以我們當然不會那樣描述它。我們認為 - 每年的競爭都非常激烈，每個人都在努力工作以做得更好，而客戶也從中受益。

Our next question comes from Michael Lasser of UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 Michael Lasser。

Between the comments that you had indicated at the early start of the call, where you're working on the profitability of your digital business, along with what it sounds like a slowdown in the rollout of your Ocado shed this year, have you evolved your thinking on the long-term profitability of digital sales for Kroger because you had previously indicated that you expected the incremental margin on an incremental dollar of sales to be at or above an in-store dollar of incremental sales.

在您在電話會議初期表示的評論之間，您正在致力於數字業務的盈利能力，以及今年 Ocado shed 的推出似乎放緩，您是否改進了您的考慮克羅格數字銷售的長期盈利能力，因為您之前曾表示您預計銷售額增量的增量利潤率將等於或高於店內增量銷售額的美元。

When you look at our digital business long term, we wouldn't see the profitability be any difference in this supermarket when you look at it over a longer period of time. And if you look, what we find is a customer when they move online, they actually after a year engage with us more in store than before. So what we're really focused on is having an ecosystem where the customer thinks food, they think Kroger. And what we're finding is the customer routinely moves back and forth between the different channels.

當你從長遠來看我們的數字業務時，我們不會看到這家超市的盈利能力在較長時間內有任何差異。如果你看一下，我們發現客戶在網上移動時，實際上一年後他們在店內與我們的互動比以前更多。因此，我們真正關注的是擁有一個生態系統，讓客戶想到食物，他們想到 Kroger。我們發現客戶經常在不同渠道之間來回移動。

If you look at each piece of it, every single day, you're working to figure out ways to improve processes and take costs out. And then on top of it, obviously, retail media is an important part of the driver. So when you look at it long term, we really see no change in the opportunity and potential. We're incredibly excited and everything that we see, we think it will be more important in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years to have where the customer engage with us through multiple ways. And the digital channel is a critical part of that, and we find the customer engages with us digitally, even when they don't shop digitally. So for us, we see it as exciting as we did before. We don't see the long-term profitability being different. And we're working continually in terms of both internally and with our partners on how to improve processes.

如果您查看它的每一部分，每一天，您都在努力找出改進流程和降低成本的方法。然後最重要的是，顯然，零售媒體是驅動力的重要組成部分。所以當你從長遠來看時，我們真的看不到機會和潛力的變化。我們非常興奮，我們看到的一切，我們認為在 3 年、5 年、10 年內讓客戶通過多種方式與我們互動將變得更加重要。數字渠道是其中的關鍵部分，我們發現客戶以數字方式與我們互動，即使他們不進行數字購物。所以對我們來說，我們認為它和以前一樣令人興奮。我們認為長期盈利能力沒有什麼不同。我們在內部和我們的合作夥伴方面不斷努力改進流程。

Maybe just to add, Rodney -- Michael, to the sort of short-term answer to Rodney's long-term perspective, I would say that we are seeing the benefits flow through in the profitability that we talked about on prior investor meetings. So if you think about our existing digital business today, pick up through the store delivery, what we're seeing is the cost to serve. We had our best ever quarter for the cost to serve a digital order in the Q4 of 2022.

羅德尼 - 邁克爾，也許只是為了補充羅德尼的長期觀點的短期答案，我想說我們正在看到我們在之前的投資者會議上談到的盈利能力帶來的好處。因此，如果您考慮我們今天現有的數字業務，通過商店送貨取貨，我們看到的是服務成本。在 2022 年第四季度，我們的數字訂單服務成本達到有史以來最好的一個季度。

Rodney mentioned media, the amount of media revenue we generate per digital transaction continues to grow. So those are 2 of the big drivers that we expect to drive digital profitability, and we continue to see improvements in '22, and we expect improvements in '23 that were actually part of the tailwind in the financial model I described earlier. So we remain on that path and we are making good progress.

羅德尼提到媒體，我們每筆數字交易產生的媒體收入持續增長。因此，這些是我們期望推動數字盈利能力的兩大驅動因素，我們將繼續看到 22 年的改進，我們預計 23 年的改進實際上是我之前描述的財務模型的順風的一部分。因此，我們仍然走在這條道路上，我們正在取得良好進展。

And Gary, just to clarify that, then why slow the rollout of the Ocado sheds? And my second question just at this time. To get to the slightly below the low end of the range for ID sales by the end of the year with still low to mid-single-digit inflation, do you assume that there's going to be a unit erosion by the end of the year as -- I don't need to tell you guys, groceries are expensive and in a tough economic environment that may get worse by the end of the year. The consumer may be pulling back even further, and we just want to make sure that you factored in some conservatism into your outlook.

加里，只是為了澄清這一點，那為什麼要放慢 Ocado 棚屋的推出呢？我的第二個問題就在這個時候。為了在今年年底前達到略低於 ID 銷售範圍低端的低至中個位數通貨膨脹率，您是否假設到今年年底會有單位侵蝕-- 我不需要告訴你們，雜貨很貴，而且經濟環境艱難，到年底可能會變得更糟。消費者可能會進一步退縮，我們只是想確保您在您的前景中考慮了一些保守主義。

Sure. Thanks, Mike. I'll try and be brief on those 2. So I think just to clarify on the first part of the question, I was describing the majority of our digital business today. So think about pickup through the stores, think about the work that we're doing in delivery to customers today. And when we share that doubling our digital profitability, that was based on those metrics. And so how do we improve the cost to serve, how do we improve digital media revenue.

當然。謝謝，邁克。我將嘗試簡要介紹一下這兩個問題。所以我想只是為了澄清問題的第一部分，我描述了我們今天的大部分數字業務。所以想想通過商店提貨，想想我們今天在向客戶送貨方面所做的工作。當我們分享我們的數字盈利能力翻倍時，那是基於這些指標。那麼我們如何降低服務成本，如何提高數字媒體收入。

On the customer fulfillment centers, we're very much in the middle of that journey right now of sort of 18 months or so into those first 2 facilities, really kind of fully understanding the scale of demand to how the customers behave and how you optimize that model. So I'd say more to come on that as we continue to understand that sort of key phase of those first 2 facilities really seeing the progress there on profitability. But from a customer demand, the customer experience, we're seeing all the sort of things we have hoped to have seen around customer engagement.

在客戶履行中心，我們現在正處於前兩個設施大約 18 個月的旅程中間，真正充分了解客戶行為的需求規模以及您的優化方式那個模型。因此，隨著我們繼續了解前兩個設施的那種關鍵階段真正看到盈利能力的進展，我會說更多。但是從客戶需求、客戶體驗來看，我們看到了我們希望在客戶參與方面看到的所有事情。

And we are actively looking for sites for some preannounced locations too on those and finding the sites ended up being a little bit more difficult than what we would have expected.

我們也在積極尋找一些預先宣布的地點的地點，並發現這些地點最終比我們預期的要困難一些。

And I think just very brief on your second question, Michael. But for us, it's about maintaining flexibility. We believe we built our model to be able to adapt and to deliver value for our customers. We gave directional numbers just because I think it's helpful on inflation because of the LIFO calculation. But our expectation is our goal will be to continue to deliver more value for customers and over time grow our share and obviously make sure we meet the customer where they are and we expect the second half of the year to have some -- definitely some things that we don't know how to perfectly plan for. We need to make sure we're nimble and agile to be adapt to that because there's clearly going to be changed in the second half of the year.

我認為你的第二個問題非常簡短，邁克爾。但對我們來說，這是關於保持靈活性。我們相信我們建立的模型能夠適應並為我們的客戶創造價值。我們給出了方向性數字，只是因為我認為後進先出計算對通貨膨脹有幫助。但我們的期望是，我們的目標將是繼續為客戶提供更多價值，隨著時間的推移增加我們的份額，顯然確保我們在客戶所在的地方與他們會面，我們預計今年下半年會有一些 - 絕對是一些事情我們不知道如何完美地計劃。我們需要確保我們靈活敏捷地適應這種情況，因為下半年顯然會發生變化。

And we feel good about our overall model being able to adapt in any situation in any market because we give a great value for the customer regardless. Thanks for the question, Michael.

我們對我們的整體模型能夠適應任何市場的任何情況感到滿意，因為無論如何我們都為客戶提供了巨大的價值。謝謝你的問題，邁克爾。

Our next question comes from Kenneth Goldman of JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的肯尼斯戈德曼。

You mentioned that one of the reasons why working capital was higher than usual in the fourth quarter is that you were buying a little bit ahead to protect margins, I assume as inflation rises. Two underlying questions here. First, was this mainly in the grocery department. You talked about grocery being particularly tough in terms of inflation. And then maybe more importantly, I'm just curious, is there going to be an offset to this in the first quarter, maybe as you run through that higher-than-usual inventory, I guess I'm really just trying to ascertain if you're going to buy less than usual from some of your grocery vendors next quarter or this quarter.

你提到第四季度營運資金高於往常的原因之一是你提前購買了一點以保護利潤率，我認為隨著通脹上升。這裡有兩個基本問題。首先，這主要是在雜貨部門。你談到雜貨店在通貨膨脹方面特別艱難。然後也許更重要的是，我只是好奇，第一季度是否會對此產生抵消，也許當你運行高於平時的庫存時，我想我真的只是想確定是否下個季度或本季度，您從一些雜貨供應商那裡購買的商品會比平時少。

Yes. Thanks for the question, Ken. From our perspective, the main forward buying would be in pharmacy and some in grocery, that will be the 2 key areas that we looked at and felt there was a good opportunity to protect margins, as I mentioned in the prepared comments. From our perspective on working capital, certainly, some of the year-over-year variance would be things that we would expect to maintain because we are seeing continued higher inflation on inventory. And as we called out, we're expecting as we improve in-stock levels as we have that some of that will be sticky.

是的。謝謝你的問題，肯。從我們的角度來看，主要的遠期購買將在藥房和一些雜貨店，這將是我們關注的兩個關鍵領域，並認為這是保護利潤率的好機會，正如我在準備好的評論中提到的那樣。從我們對營運資金的角度來看，當然，我們預計會維持一些同比差異，因為我們看到庫存通脹持續走高。正如我們所呼籲的那樣，我們期望隨著庫存水平的提高，因為我們擁有的一些庫存會很粘。

We would look at some of the payables and receivables timing impact and would expect that to be coming back. In fact, if we look at our cash at the end of the first period, the first month of the new year, it was actually up by $1 billion and back in line with the prior year, which obviously wasn't the case at the year-end. So we do think some of it was timing and will flow through. But obviously, we have strong plans for the year in terms of continuing to grow with our partners. And I would focus more on -- from our perspective, how we make sure we're continuing to drive free cash flow, and we feel good about our ability to do that.

我們會研究一些應付賬款和應收賬款的時間影響，並希望它會回來。事實上，如果我們在第一期末，也就是新年的第一個月看一下我們的現金，它實際上增加了 10 億美元，與去年同期持平，但顯然情況並非如此年底。所以我們確實認為其中一些是時機，並且會順利通過。但很明顯，我們今年在繼續與合作夥伴一起成長方面製定了強有力的計劃。而且我會更多地關注 - 從我們的角度來看，我們如何確保我們繼續推動自由現金流，我們對我們這樣做的能力感到滿意。

And the forward buying is really driven by the economics at any given day in terms of what's available in the marketplace. If it's a good return, we'll invest the money there. If the return is not good, then you'll see the flow of benefiting working capital.

就市場上可用的產品而言，遠期購買實際上是由任何特定日期的經濟驅動的。如果回報不錯，我們會把錢投資在那裡。如果回報不好，那麼您將看到有益的營運資金流。

We didn't give exact numbers. I would also say, Ken, the forward buying would be a smaller part of the number, the timing of payments would be a bigger part of that than the actual forward buying.

我們沒有給出確切的數字。我還要說，肯，遠期購買將佔數量的一小部分，付款時間將比實際遠期購買佔更大的部分。

Got it. And then a quick follow-up. Implied operating cash flow. It's one of the questions I'm getting from investors. You gave a CapEx number, so we can back into it, obviously. Just curious why given the strong EBIT growth this year, given some of the working capital reversals, why would it not be a little bit better than what guidance is suggesting. I know you talked a little bit about this. I just wanted to get a little bit more detail on some of the underlying factors there if possible.

知道了。然後快速跟進。隱含經營現金流量。這是我從投資者那裡得到的問題之一。你給了一個資本支出數字，所以我們可以回到它，顯然。只是好奇為什麼考慮到今年強勁的息稅前利潤增長，考慮到一些營運資本逆轉，為什麼它不會比指導建議的好一點。我知道你談過一點這個。如果可能的話，我只是想更詳細地了解一些潛在因素。

Yes. I think I would say we try to guide to what we think is a more normalized year in 2023, Ken. Part of it, I would say we probably are being a little bit conservative because of -- we want to see how this unwind of COVID exactly plays out. A couple of examples would be if inflation does remain at high levels, obviously, that could impact inventory but also as we kind of unwind accruals on things like incentive payments, assuming we're more going to be more like an on-target incentive payment than significantly higher than on-target payout, those things can create some 1-year adjustments, too.

是的。肯，我想我會說我們試圖引導我們認為 2023 年是更加正常化的一年。其中一部分，我想說我們可能有點保守，因為——我們想看看 COVID 的這種放鬆到底是如何發揮作用的。舉幾個例子，如果通貨膨脹確實保持在高水平，顯然，這可能會影響庫存，但也會隨著我們在激勵支付等方面減少應計費用，假設我們更像是按目標激勵支付遠高於目標支出，這些東西也可以產生一些 1 年的調整。

So there's a few areas that just kind of create a few wrinkles. And candidly, we're trying to be conservative to make sure we can see the flow-through of the catch-up from 2022 as well. So we feel we tried -- what we tried to do is take a conservative view of a normalized environment, but there is still some, I would say, unwinding that we wanted to make sure we understood as we reported out in 2023.

所以有一些區域會產生一些皺紋。坦率地說，我們正在努力保持保守，以確保我們也能看到從 2022 年開始追趕的流量。因此，我們覺得我們已經嘗試過——我們嘗試做的是對正常化環境採取保守的觀點，但我想說的是，仍有一些放鬆，我們希望確保我們在 2023 年報告時能夠理解。

And our incentive plan is designed -- our long-term incentive plan is designed such that we are incentivized to do better than the guidance we've given.

我們的激勵計劃經過精心設計——我們的長期激勵計劃旨在激勵我們做得比我們給出的指導更好。

Yes, I think it'd be fair to say our internal goal would be higher than what we shared because we do believe it's one opportunity, but we thought it was appropriate to be conservative in the circumstances.

是的，我認為可以公平地說我們的內部目標會高於我們的共同目標，因為我們確實相信這是一個機會，但我們認為在這種情況下保持保守是合適的。

Our next question comes from Rupesh Parikh from Oppenheimer.

我們的下一個問題來自奧本海默的 Rupesh Parikh。

Also congrats on a great quarter. So I just want to touch on market share. Just curious if you look at Kroger's performance in Q4, I'm not even sure if you have the full year data, just curious how your market share is performing versus your expectations? Because if I recall last quarter, you were starting to see improvement in the market share.

也祝賀一個偉大的季度。所以我只想談談市場份額。只是好奇你是否看過克羅格在第四季度的表現，我什至不確定你是否有全年數據，只是好奇你的市場份額與你的預期相比如何？因為如果我記得上個季度，你會開始看到市場份額的改善。

Yes. We're continuing to see improvement and if you look at internally, if you were at one of our meetings, you'd hear us continually focus on how to even continue to improve. Our objective and expectations of ourselves is to grow market share. And if you look at the higher-income shopper, in those customer segments, we did a great job gaining share in Fresh. We're doing a good job of gaining share. And I would say we're pleased with the progress, but we still are not satisfied.

是的。我們繼續看到改進，如果你在內部看，如果你參加我們的一次會議，你會聽到我們不斷關注如何繼續改進。我們的目標和對自己的期望是擴大市場份額。如果你看看高收入的購物者，在這些客戶群中，我們在 Fresh 中取得了很好的份額。我們在獲得份額方面做得很好。我想說我們對進展感到滿意，但我們仍然不滿意。

Okay. Great. And then maybe just one quick follow-up question. Just quarter-to-date. Any color you can provide in terms of what you're seeing just throughout the quarter?

好的。偉大的。然後也許只是一個快速的後續問題。只是季度至今。就整個季度所看到的情況而言，您可以提供任何顏色嗎？

Yes. As you know, we always get it. We always provide some insight. If you look so far, we're consistent with our expectations and Gary outlined a little bit about what we would expect quarterly between quarters to be. If you look at the first period, the first 4 weeks of the year, it's trending a little bit better than (inaudible) but both of those were lower than the fourth quarter actual. And I want to remind you that ESI -- Express Scripts, I should say, is about 1.5%. And then I always hate to talk about weather, but weather was more friendly to us a year ago than it is this year and I don't ever want to use weather as an excuse, but it is an insight if you look at the current trends, but the key point is we are trending where we expect it to be.

是的。如您所知，我們總是明白。我們總是提供一些見解。如果你看到目前為止，我們與我們的預期一致，Gary 概述了我們對季度之間的季度預期。如果你看第一期，今年的前 4 週，它的趨勢比（聽不清）好一點，但兩者都低於第四季度的實際情況。我想提醒您，我應該說，ESI——Express Scripts 大約是 1.5%。然後我總是討厭談論天氣，但一年前的天氣對我們來說比今年更友好，我不想用天氣作為藉口，但如果你看看現在的情況，這是一種洞察力趨勢，但關鍵是我們的趨勢是我們預期的趨勢。

Our next question comes from Spencer Hanus from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

我們的下一個問題來自 Wolfe Research 的 Spencer Hanus。請繼續。

On Our Brands, you saw that outperform the overall comp again this quarter. Are you seeing CPGs get more willing to offer trade spend just given the share losses that they're seeing? And do you think the trade down that we've seen over the last few quarters accelerate as we move through '23?

在我們的品牌上，您看到本季度再次優於整體品牌。鑑於他們所看到的份額損失，您是否看到 CPG 更願意提供貿易支出？你認為我們在過去幾個季度看到的交易下降會隨著我們進入 23 年代而加速嗎？

Yes. If you look at a 5-year trend or a 10-year trend, Our Brands has picked up share on almost every year. And the only exception to that was a little bit of time during COVID where people had much more money in their pocket. If you look, I would say, all short statements and economics are wrong, but we still have several CPGs that are passed or trying to pass through costs more than probably their inflation. We would still see that they're more focused on profit and tonnage. And when that is true, that's when Our Brand continues to gain share. And that's the reason why Our Brand is performing so strongly. And if you look at historical cycles, eventually, that what you outlined will happen, but it hasn't started happening yet.

是的。如果您查看 5 年趨勢或 10 年趨勢，我們的品牌幾乎每年都在增加份額。唯一的例外是在 COVID 期間有一小段時間，人們口袋裡有更多的錢。如果你看的話，我會說，所有的短期陳述和經濟學都是錯誤的，但我們仍然有幾個 CPG 已經通過或試圖通過成本而不是通貨膨脹。我們仍然會看到他們更關注利潤和噸位。如果這是真的，那就是我們的品牌繼續獲得份額的時候。這就是我們的品牌表現如此強勁的原因。如果你看看歷史週期，最終，你概述的事情將會發生，但它還沒有開始發生。

Got it. That's helpful. And then on fuel margins, you called out $0.51 during the prepared remarks, which is up more than 50% versus what it was in 2019. So just curious how you're thinking about the sustainability of fuel margins and where those will ultimately be baseline as it just becomes a bigger part of your overall operating profit today?

知道了。這很有幫助。然後關於燃料利潤率，您在準備好的發言中提到了 0.51 美元，與 2019 年相比增長了 50% 以上。所以很好奇您如何考慮燃料利潤率的可持續性以及這些最終將成為基線的地方因為它在您今天的整體營業利潤中所佔的比重更大？

Yes. Thanks, Spencer. So I think as we mentioned in our prepared comments, we do believe that fuel margins will be sustained at a higher level than the historical averages. We think there's been some structural changes in that industry as you look at the last 5 years that would cause us to think that margins will be maintained at a higher level than historical levels. All that being said though, we do think -- I think I mentioned it in one of the questions earlier that we would think that fuel profitability somewhere between $200 million to $250 million headwind in 2023, largely not because we don't think that there's a continued sort of sustainability in fuel margins. But if you remember last year, when the war in Ukraine was announced, there were some real volatility in prices. And we think some of those shocks that happened around those times generally don't get repeated and cycle. So it's really allowing some of those sort of onetime unusual spikes in pricing or changes in pricing. But fundamentally, we believe fuel will be sustained at high levels.

是的。謝謝，斯賓塞。因此，我認為正如我們在準備好的評論中提到的那樣，我們確實相信燃料利潤率將維持在高於歷史平均水平的水平。回顧過去 5 年，我們認為該行業發生了一些結構性變化，這會讓我們認為利潤率將保持在高於歷史水平的水平。儘管如此，我們確實認為——我想我在之前的一個問題中提到過，我們認為 2023 年的燃料盈利能力將在 2 億至 2.5 億美元之間，這主要不是因為我們認為沒有燃料利潤率的持續可持續性。但如果你還記得去年，當烏克蘭宣布開戰時，價格確實出現了一些波動。而且我們認為，在那個時期發生的一些衝擊通常不會重複和循環。因此，它確實允許了一些曾經不尋常的價格飆升或價格變化。但從根本上說，我們相信燃料將維持在高水平。

The other thing just to add to Gary's point. When retail fuel prices are high, customers engage in our fuel rewards a lot more and we provide significant discounts to customers through our fuel rewards. If prices come down, usually our reward costs will go down there as well. So you have to look at all the pieces together.

另一件事只是為了補充 Gary 的觀點。當零售燃油價格高時，客戶會更多地參與我們的燃油獎勵，我們通過燃油獎勵為客戶提供大幅折扣。如果價格下降，通常我們的獎勵成本也會下降。所以你必須把所有的部分放在一起看。

Our next question comes from Kate McShane of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的 Kate McShane。請繼續。

This is Leah Jordan. You called out sourcing again as a tailwind this quarter. How are you managing that differently today? How much of an opportunity do you still see there? And is there anything assumed within the cost savings guidance as well?

這是利亞喬丹。本季度您再次呼籲採購作為順風。您今天的管理方式有何不同？你在那裡看到了多少機會？成本節約指南中是否也有任何假設？

I'll let Gary get into the details. But in sourcing, it's an area where several years ago, we really didn't have a separate department and didn't have professionals that manage that organization. And a couple of leaders and now reports to Gary, they've done a great job of finding talent that understands how to source product, understands the cost of the ingredients and all the pieces. And it's really turned it into a professional organization, and it's under the leadership of Mike Donnelly and Erin Sharp and a few people that have retired and now it's under Gary's leadership. And I just think that team has done a great job of bringing professionalism to the area. In terms of the specifics, now I'll let Gary get into the details.

我會讓加里了解細節。但在採購方面，這是幾年前的一個領域，我們真的沒有一個單獨的部門，也沒有管理該組織的專業人員。幾位領導現在向加里匯報，他們在尋找了解如何採購產品、了解原料成本和所有部件成本的人才方面做得很好。它真的把它變成了一個專業組織，在 Mike Donnelly 和 Erin Sharp 以及一些已經退休的人的領導下，現在它在 Gary 的領導下。我只是認為該團隊在為該地區帶來專業精神方面做得很好。就具體細節而言，現在我將讓 Gary 深入了解細節。

Sure. Thanks, Rodney. Thanks for the question, [Kate]. Yes, we certainly believe that we -- it's a bit like our overall approach to taking cost out of the business. We started out saying, how do we make sure we're as efficient as we can be and then really become, I think, part of the culture and part of the capability in the organization and the team is working together, I'd say it's across merchandising, operations, supply chain and sourcing, all kind of collaborating on how do we design for value.

當然。謝謝，羅德尼。謝謝你的問題，[凱特]。是的，我們當然相信我們——這有點像我們從業務中降低成本的整體方法。我們開始說，我們如何確保我們盡可能高效，然後真正成為，我認為，組織中文化和能力的一部分，團隊正在一起工作，我會說它跨越商品銷售、運營、供應鍊和採購，所有類型的合作都在我們如何設計價值上。

So whether that be, as Rodney mentioned, continuing to make sure we understand the cost that makes the product and build the product and get the product to our stores in a way that we're able to make sure we're being dynamic in negotiating and managing those costs effectively where they change, but it's also about optimizing product design. It's looking at product end-to-end and improving, whether it's packaging or product design and optimizing with customer demand alongside how we can then really match the customer expectations with how we're actually designing the products to really drive the maximum value. And I'd say a bit like the productivity savings, one of those things where every year, we see a road map to additional savings, additional opportunities. And I think that will continue to be the case based on our experience so far.

因此，是否像羅德尼提到的那樣，繼續確保我們了解製造產品和製造產品的成本，並以我們能夠確保我們在談判中保持活力的方式將產品送到我們的商店並在成本發生變化時有效地管理這些成本，但這也與優化產品設計有關。它正在端到端地看待產品並進行改進，無論是包裝還是產品設計，並根據客戶需求進行優化，然後我們才能真正將客戶期望與我們實際設計產品的方式相匹配，以真正推動最大價值。我想說的有點像生產力節省，其中之一是每年我們都會看到額外節省和更多機會的路線圖。根據我們迄今為止的經驗，我認為情況將繼續如此。

Great. And I have one quick follow-up on SNAP. Just giving any -- the potential changes there. How did you think about that with your guidance. And also, given you have such a diverse footprint, is there any color you could provide on the stores where states they've already had that extra allotment roll off?

偉大的。我有一個關於 SNAP 的快速跟進。只是給出任何 - 那裡的潛在變化。在您的指導下，您是如何考慮的。而且，鑑於您擁有如此多樣化的足跡，您是否可以在商店中提供任何顏色，在這些商店中，他們已經擁有額外分配的州？

If you look at SNAP, we've assumed that it's a meaningful headwind for the balance of the year. We're hopeful that everybody will work together to continue or find additional money because, as you know, because of inflation, there's a lot of people whose budget is under strain, but we have assumed that, that was a meaningful headwind both in the quarter and for the balance of the year.

如果你看一下 SNAP，我們假設它對今年餘下的時間來說是一個有意義的逆風。我們希望每個人都能共同努力繼續或尋找額外的資金，因為正如你所知，由於通貨膨脹，很多人的預算都處於緊張狀態，但我們假設，這對季度和年度餘額。

I don't know, Gary, anything you want to add?

我不知道，加里，你有什麼要補充的嗎？

No, I think it ties to the point about there is still uncertainty, so we're making sure that we're allowing for that in our guidance for the year. I would say historically, and you probably or say this before that it's actually very difficult to find a correlation between SNAP in the market and spend on food at home because typically, it tends to impact more discretionary spend. But I think our view was that we've never really had a point in time where we've had so much SNAP dollars in the market. So we believe most of the models that we've looked at for the last 30 years are kind of difficult to say, well, they hold true in this environment. So we felt it was important to be conservative given that we are in a unique time.

不，我認為這與仍然存在不確定性這一點有關，因此我們確保在今年的指導中考慮到這一點。我會說，從歷史上看，你可能或之前說過，實際上很難找到市場上的 SNAP 與家庭食品支出之間的相關性，因為通常情況下，它往往會影響更多的可自由支配支出。但我認為我們的觀點是，我們從來沒有真正擁有過市場上擁有如此多 SNAP 美元的時間點。所以我們相信，我們在過去 30 年中研究過的大多數模型都很難說，好吧，它們在這種環境下是正確的。因此，鑑於我們處在一個獨特的時代，我們認為保持保守很重要。

Our final question for today comes from Kelly Bania from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

我們今天的最後一個問題來自 BMO Capital Markets 的 Kelly Bania。請繼續。

Rodney and Gary. I wanted to ask just about what your guidance assumes regarding the broader promotional environment. And I guess particularly thinking about the back half when maybe inflation is at a little bit of a lower level, do you expect competition and promotional activity to heat up? This seems to be one of the key investor concerns as we head into next year.

羅德尼和加里。我想問一下您的指南對更廣泛的促銷環境有何假設。而且我想特別是考慮到後半部分，當通貨膨脹率可能處於較低水平時，您是否預計競爭和促銷活動會升溫？這似乎是我們進入明年時投資者關注的主要問題之一。

Yes. Thanks for the question, Kelly. I think from our perspective, we feel that we have to be agile, and we're certainly shooting in our guidance that we'll be continuing to invest in value for the customer. I think one of the things that we believe has changed somewhat during the COVID environment is the situation of how the customer shops and engages with you is different. And what I mean by that is many more customers are engaged digitally, which gives us the ability to truly be able to personalize and bring together all the different pieces. So it's less about just what you see when you enter the store, it's about the fuel rewards that we can target for that customer. It's the personalized digital coupons.

是的。謝謝你的問題，凱利。我認為從我們的角度來看，我們覺得我們必須保持敏捷，而且我們肯定會按照我們的指導方針進行射擊，即我們將繼續為客戶投資價值。我認為我們認為在 COVID 環境中發生了一些變化的一件事是客戶購物和與您互動的方式有所不同。我的意思是，越來越多的客戶以數字方式參與其中，這使我們能夠真正實現個性化並將所有不同的部分組合在一起。因此，重要的不是您進入商店時看到的東西，而是我們可以為該客戶提供的燃料獎勵。這是個性化的數字優惠券。

It's the Our Brands offers that, as Rodney mentioned earlier, can save the customer 10% on an equivalent basket if they decide to shift to some of those products. So we believe we've learned a lot through the pandemic of how do you really channel those dollars in the most effective way, and that's what gives us the confidence that as we think about the rest of the year. We'll continue to invest in value for the customer, but that we can do that even more effectively than the past to make sure that we stretch those dollars further to deliver value for our customers.

正如羅德尼之前提到的，這是我們的品牌提供的，如果他們決定轉向其中一些產品，可以為同等購物籃的客戶節省 10%。因此，我們相信我們已經通過大流行學到了很多關於如何以最有效的方式真正引導這些美元的知識，這讓我們在考慮今年剩餘時間時充滿信心。我們將繼續為客戶投資價值，但我們可以比過去更有效地做到這一點，以確保我們進一步利用這些資金為客戶創造價值。

And one of the things that I think is always important to make sure a lot customers also decide where to shop based on how the freshness of product and the friendliness of associates, and that's part of the overall value equation. So when you look at how we go to market, we have personalized offers, we have promotions, we have fuel rewards. And the customer will engage in those to manage their budget and then they win by having incredibly fresh product and incredibly friendly associates. And that's how somebody decides where to shop. So I really think it's important for you to look at all those together.

我認為其中一件事始終很重要，以確保許多客戶也根據產品的新鮮度和員工的友善程度來決定去哪裡購物，這是整體價值方程式的一部分。所以當你看看我們如何進入市場時，我們有個性化的優惠，我們有促銷活動，我們有燃料獎勵。客戶將參與其中以管理他們的預算，然後他們通過擁有令人難以置信的新鮮產品和令人難以置信的友好員工而獲勝。這就是人們決定去哪裡購物的方式。所以我真的認為把所有這些放在一起看對你來說很重要。

Okay. Great. And just to follow up on the discussion of units and inflation. I think as we look at this year comps, 5% to 6% range with inflation, I believe, in the double-digit range. So maybe would imply units or tonnage down high single digit. And for next year, 2.5% to 3.5% maybe seems to assume a pretty meaningful acceleration in units. So just maybe correct me where I'm wrong on that math? Or just help us understand what would maybe drive a better unit or tonnage backdrop for Kroger in '23?

好的。偉大的。並且只是跟進單位和通貨膨脹的討論。我認為當我們看今年的 comps 時，5% 到 6% 的通貨膨脹範圍，我相信，在兩位數的範圍內。因此可能意味著單位或噸位下降到高個位數。而對於明年，2.5% 到 3.5% 似乎假設單位數量將出現相當有意義的加速。那麼也許可以糾正我在數學上錯的地方？或者只是幫助我們了解什麼可能會在 23 年為 Kroger 帶來更好的單位或噸位背景？

The unit change wouldn't be as much as you said because remember also, people are switching to Our Brands and other things, where the ring per item is less, but we sell more units. So when you look at overall, and if you look overall, we also look at share and if when you look at units in total, they're declining as well. So we would expect to continue to make progress in improving our share and the flow-through of units would come from that. I don't know, Gary, anything...

單位變化不會像你說的那麼多，因為還請記住，人們正在轉向我們的品牌和其他東西，每件商品的環數較少，但我們銷售的單位更多。所以當你看整體時，如果你看整體，我們也會看份額，如果你看整體單位，它們也在下降。因此，我們希望繼續在提高我們的份額方面取得進展，而單位的流通量將來自於此。我不知道，加里，什麼...

No...

不...

Thanks, Kelly, for the question. With that, obviously, thanks to everyone for all your questions. And as always, before we close, I'd like to share a few comments directly with our associates listening in. We invite our associates to come to Kroger for a job and discover a career. And I can't think of a better example of this than an associate at our Cincinnati, Dayton division, (inaudible) came to the United States from Togo. After a few weeks as a bagger, his store manager, Brian asked him if he'd be interested in leading the dairy department in his store. Because of the dedication, determination and great job that he's done, (inaudible) is now the center store specialist, and I can't wait to see what's next for this amazing young man.

謝謝，凱利，提出這個問題。顯然，感謝大家提出的所有問題。和往常一樣，在我們結束之前，我想直接與我們的同事分享一些評論。我們邀請我們的同事來克羅格工作並發現職業。我想不出比我們辛辛那提代頓分部的一名同事（聽不清）從多哥來到美國更好的例子了。在擔任裝袋工幾週後，他的商店經理布賴恩 (Brian) 問他是否有興趣領導他商店的乳製品部門。由於他的奉獻精神、決心和出色的工作，（聽不清）現在是中心商店的專家，我迫不及待地想看看這個了不起的年輕人的下一步。

I'm inspired every day by the amazing work each of you do and could not be more humbled to be part of this world-class team as we enter the next year. Thank you for making Kroger the incredible place that it is. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. That concludes today's call.

我每天都被你們每個人所做的出色工作所鼓舞，並且在我們進入明年之際成為這個世界級團隊的一員感到無比謙卑。感謝您讓克羅格成為令人難以置信的地方。謝謝大家加入我們。今天的電話會議到此結束。

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.

感謝您參加今天的電話會議。您現在可以斷開線路。