泰森食品 (TSN) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the Tyson Foods First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

早安，歡迎參加泰森食品 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）

Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sean Cornett, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

請注意，此事件正在被記錄。我現在想將會議交給投資者關係副總裁 Sean Cornett。請繼續。

Good morning, and welcome to Tyson Foods' Fiscal First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. On today's call, Tyson's President and Chief Executive Officer, Donnie King; and Chief Financial Officer, John R. Tyson, will provide some prepared remarks followed by Q&A. Additionally, joining us today are Brady Stewart, Group President, Beef and Pork, and Chief Supply Chain Officer; Melanie Boulden, Group President, Prepared Foods and Chief Growth Officer; Wes Morris, Group President, Poultry; and Amy Tu, President, International.

早安，歡迎參加泰森食品 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。在今天的電話會議上，泰森食品總裁兼執行長唐尼金 (Donnie King) 表示：首席財務官約翰·R·泰森 (John R. Tyson) 將提供一些準備好的發言，然後進行問答。此外，今天加入我們的還有牛肉和豬肉集團總裁兼首席供應鏈長 Brady Stewart； Melanie Boulden，預製食品集團總裁兼首席成長長； Wes Morris，家禽業務集團總裁；以及國際總裁 Amy Tu。

We have also provided a supplemental presentation, which may be referenced on today's call and is available on Tyson's Investor Relations website and via the link in our webcast. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding our expectations for the future. These forward-looking statements made during this call are provided pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include all comments reflecting our expectations, assumptions or beliefs about future events or performance that do not relate solely to historical periods.

我們還提供了補充演示文稿，可在今天的電話會議中引用，也可以在泰森食品的投資者關係網站上以及透過我們的網路廣播中的連結取得。在今天的電話會議中，我們將就我們對未來的期望發表前瞻性聲明。本次電話會議期間所做的這些前瞻性陳述是根據1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》的安全港條款提供的。前瞻性陳述包括反映我們對未來事件或業績的預期、假設或信念的所有評論，這些評論與我們無關僅限於歷史時期。

These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which may cause actual results to differ materially from our current projections. Please refer to our forward-looking statements disclaimer on Slide 2 as well as our SEC filings for additional information concerning risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our projections. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Please note that references to earnings per share, operating income and operating margin in our remarks are on an adjusted basis unless otherwise noted. For reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to their corresponding GAAP measures, please refer to our earnings press release. Now I'll turn the call over to Donnie.

這些前瞻性陳述受到風險、不確定性和假設的影響，可能導致實際結果與我們目前的預測有重大差異。請參閱投影片 2 上的前瞻性聲明免責聲明以及我們向 SEC 提交的文件，以了解有關可能導致我們的實際結果與我們的預測有重大差異的風險因素的更多資​​訊。我們不承擔更新任何前瞻性陳述的義務。請注意，除非另有說明，否則我們的評論中提及的每股收益、營業收入和營業利潤率均經過調整。有關這些非公認會計準則衡量標準與其相應公認會計準則衡量標準的調節表，請參閱我們的收益新聞稿。現在我將把電話轉給唐尼。

Thanks, Sean, and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. As you may have seen in our press release this morning, fiscal 2024 is off to a good start with solid performance in Q1, giving us confidence in our full year outlook. The momentum we established in the back half of last year continued in Q1, highlighted by $175 million improvement in adjusted operating income. 130 basis points of AOI margin expansion and near doubling of adjusted EPS, all on a sequential basis.

謝謝肖恩，也謝謝大家今天早上加入我們。正如您可能在今天早上的新聞稿中看到的那樣，2024 財年有了良好的開端，第一季的業績表現穩健，讓我們對全年前景充滿信心。我們去年下半年建立的勢頭在第一季得到延續，其中調整後營業收入增加了 1.75 億美元。 AOI 利潤率擴大 130 個基點，調整後每股盈餘幾乎翻倍，所有這些都以環比計算。

As we begin fiscal '24, we're witnessing the benefits of our core multi-protein portfolio. Chicken and pork are offsetting beef headwinds while Prepared Foods continues to generate strong profit dollars and margins. While we can't control the macro environment, our focus on what we can control has been evident in Q1. Our performance reflects a commitment to operational excellence. We are more agile, collaborative and disciplined business than a year ago, and we have a long runway of opportunities in front of us. I'm proud of our team members' continued efforts to enhance operational performance and want to thank all of them for their high level of engagement and their part in delivering our results in this quarter. We're controlling what we can to drive cash flow as well. Our disciplined approach to CapEx and working capital helped generate strong cash flow in the quarter.

隨著 24 財年的開始，我們正在見證我們核心多蛋白產品組合的優勢。雞肉和豬肉正在抵消牛肉的不利因素，而預製食品繼續產生強勁的利潤和利潤。雖然我們無法控制宏觀環境，但我們對我們可以控制的事情的關注在第一季已經很明顯了。我們的業績體現了對卓越營運的承諾。與一年前相比，我們的業務更加敏捷、協作和紀律嚴明，而且我們面前還有很長的機會。我為我們的團隊成員為提高營運績效所做的持續努力感到自豪，並感謝他們所有人的高度參與以及他們為實現本季度業績所做的貢獻。我們也在盡一切努力推動現金流。我們嚴格的資本支出和營運資金方法有助於在本季度產生強勁的現金流。

Prudent cash deployment as part of our strategy to build financial strength and will position us well when market dynamics turn in our favor. You've seen us take bold actions to improve performance, and everything remains on the table to drive operational excellence and address inefficiencies. Our plan is working, and we're seeing tangible benefits of our efforts as evidenced by improvements in chicken and pork. While I'm pleased by the performance in Q1, we still have more work ahead of us and we're cautiously optimistic and laser-focused on achieving what we set out to do this year. Our brands resonate with consumers, and we're maintaining strong market share despite comparing to our record position last year and some overall category consumption softness in Q1. We will continue to support our brands through innovation, marketing and strong customer partnerships while meeting consumers where they are. I remain highly confident in our long-term strategy based on a broad portfolio of core proteins and strong brands and I'm optimistic about our future.

審慎的現金配置是我們增強財務實力策略的一部分，當市場動態轉向對我們有利時，這將使我們處於有利地位。您已經看到我們採取了大膽的行動來提高績效，並且一切都在討論中，以推動卓越運營並解決效率低下的問題。我們的計劃正在發揮作用，我們的努力正在帶來切實的好處，雞肉和豬肉的改善證明了這一點。雖然我對第一季的表現感到滿意，但我們仍然有更多的工作要做，我們持謹慎樂觀的態度，並專注於實現今年的目標。我們的品牌與消費者產生共鳴，儘管與去年創紀錄的地位相比以及第一季整體品類消費疲軟，但我們仍保持著強勁的市場份額。我們將繼續透過創新、行銷和強大的客戶合作夥伴關係來支持我們的品牌，同時滿足消費者的需求。我對我們基於廣泛的核心蛋白組合和強大品牌的長期策略仍然充滿信心，我對我們的未來感到樂觀。

We're leaving no stone unturned to drive long-term value for our shareholders. Now let's delve into an update on share position of our branded portfolio. Our Q1 Pound share in our core business lines, which include product lines from our iconic brands, Tyson, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, State Fair, Aidells and Ball Park, remains at historically high levels despite a modest decline compared to record share in Q1 last year. In fact, our core business lines have grown Pound share by more than 400 basis points since Q1 of 2019. While inflation is easy, consumers are still facing high prices compared to 2 years ago. However, they are still willing to purchase brands they know and trust, and this is reflected in our share. We're also focused on customer elasticity and balancing with our own costs. We believe our approach is working. The value proposition of our iconic brands resonate strongly with consumers.

我們將不遺餘力地為股東創造長期價值。現在讓我們深入研究一下我們品牌投資組合的股票狀況的最新情況。我們的核心業務線（包括我們的標誌性品牌Tyson、Jimmy Dean、Hillshire Farm、State Fair、Aidells 和Ball Park 的產品線）在第一季的英鎊份額仍處於歷史高位，儘管與第一季創紀錄的份額相比略有下降去年。事實上，自 2019 年第一季以來，我們的核心業務線的英鎊份額已增長了 400 多個基點。雖然通膨很容易，但與兩年前相比，消費者仍然面臨著高物價。然而，他們仍然願意購買他們了解和信任的品牌，這反映在我們的份額上。我們也關注客戶的彈性以及與我們自己的成本的平衡。我們相信我們的方法是有效的。我們標誌性品牌的價值主張與消費者產生強烈共鳴。

Over the past year, nearly 3 out of 4 U.S. households purchased a Tyson Core business line product, and this penetration rate is growing. What gets me even more excited is that our product line with the highest penetration rate is only in about 1/3 of households, leaving us plenty of room for continued growth over the long run.

過去一年，近四分之三的美國家庭購買了 Tyson Core 業務線產品，而且這項滲透率還在持續成長。更讓我興奮的是，我們滲透率最高的產品線只進入了大約1/3的家庭，從長遠來看，我們還有很大的持續成長空間。

Moving on to segment performance, starting with Prepared Foods. Our Food Service volumes continue gaining traction as we strive to grow this business with a focus on customer diversification and margin-accretive channels. Operational efficiencies and lower raw material costs drove strong adjusted operating profits and margins. Our branded foods business remains a strategic growth pillar, and we are committed to supporting and growing our brands through innovation, price pack architecture, high ROI marketing support and strong customer partnerships. This is critically important in an economic environment where consumers remain more discerning with their purchasing decisions.

繼續細分績效，從預製食品開始。隨著我們努力發展這項業務，並專注於客戶多元化和利潤成長管道，我們的食品服務銷售繼續受到關注。營運效率和原材料成本降低推動了調整後營運利潤和利潤率的強勁成長。我們的品牌食品業務仍然是策略性成長支柱，我們致力於透過創新、價格包架構、高投資回報率行銷支援和強大的客戶合作夥伴關係來支持和發展我們的品牌。這在消費者對購買決策更挑剔的經濟環境中至關重要。

In chicken, the momentum established in the second half of fiscal '23 continued in Q1 with a third consecutive quarter of over $100 million in sequential AOI increase. Operational improvements, including the bold actions we've taken, along with improvements in live operations, yield, labor efficiency and customer service, as well as improving market conditions were the primary drivers in Q1. In beef, limited cattle supply led to spread compression as we expected. Roughly half the loss in Q1 was related to an inventory valuation adjustment, which was primarily driven by highly volatile cattle futures. While spreads are expected to remain tight, our goal remains to be best-in-class operators so that we can manage the business as efficiently as possible. We have identified incremental opportunities to improve our execution and help offset some of the challenges from the current cattle cycle.

在雞肉方面，23 財年下半年建立的勢頭在第一季延續，連續第三季 AOI 增幅超過 1 億美元。營運改進，包括我們採取的大膽行動，以及現場營運、產量、勞動效率和客戶服務的改善，以及市場狀況的改善，是第一季的主要驅動力。在牛肉方面，正如我們預期的那樣，有限的牛肉供應導致價差壓縮。第一季大約一半的虧損與庫存估值調整有關，這主要是由高度波動的牛期貨推動的。雖然價差預計將保持緊張，但我們的目標仍然是成為一流的營運商，以便我們能夠盡可能有效地管理業務。我們已經確定了提高執行力的增量機會，並幫助抵消當前養牛週期帶來的一些挑戰。

Turning to pork. Better supply drove lower hog costs, leading to improving spreads. Our team's focus on operational execution allowed us to capture the benefit of these favorable market dynamics which resulted in improved profits both on a year-over-year and sequential basis. Before I hand it over to John for a financial review, let's reiterate our priorities for the year. First, we're committed to improving our financial strength and driving cash flow to support our dividend, as demonstrated in Q1. Over the past year, we announced the closure of 6 of our older, less efficient plants in chicken and 2 of our smaller beef, case-ready value-added facilities. We are already seeing the benefits of these actions, and we'll continue to evaluate opportunities to drive efficiency across our segments.

轉向豬肉。更好的供應推動了生豬成本下降，從而改善了價差。我們團隊對營運執行的關注使我們能夠從這些有利的市場動態中獲益，從而實現利潤同比和環比的成長。在我將其交給約翰進行財務審查之前，讓我們重申一下今年的優先事項。首先，我們致力於提高我們的財務實力並推動現金流以支持我們的股息，正如第一季所證明的那樣。去年，我們宣布關閉 6 家老舊、效率較低的雞肉工廠和 2 家規模較小的整箱牛肉加值工廠。我們已經看到了這些行動的好處，我們將繼續評估提高各部門效率的機會。

In chicken, our focus on enhancing our competitiveness continues. In Prepared Foods, we want to build growth momentum behind capacity additions coming online, increase our brand household penetration and diversify and grow our foodservice business. In beef, we acknowledge the challenges and will be prepared for multiple outcomes during the current cattle cycle. In pork, we're gaining momentum in operational execution and are excited for continued improvements. With that, I'll turn the call over to John to discuss our financial results and outlook.

在雞肉方面，我們繼續致力於提高競爭力。在預製食品領域，我們希望在產能增加的同時建立成長動力，提高我們的品牌家庭滲透率，並使我們的餐飲服務業務多元化並發展。在牛肉方面，我們承認面臨的挑戰，並將為當前養牛週期內的多種結果做好準備。在豬肉方面，我們在營運執行方面正在取得動力，並對持續改進感到興奮。接下來，我會將電話轉給約翰，討論我們的財務表現和前景。

Thanks, Donnie. I'll start with an overview of our total company results before moving on to our individual segments. Sales in Q1 grew slightly year-over-year as an increase in beef revenue was nearly offset by a decrease in chicken. The decline in adjusted operating profit was driven by lower profitability in beef, which was partially offset by growth in chicken and pork. It's important to note that AOI improved significantly on a sequential basis despite the modest decline versus last year. Adjusted EPS nearly doubled compared to last quarter, highlighting the ongoing improvement in our operational performance.

謝謝，唐尼。我將首先概述我們公司的整體業績，然後再討論我們的各個部門。第一季的銷售額較去年同期略有成長，因為牛肉收入的成長幾乎被雞肉的下降所抵消。調整後營業利潤下降的原因是牛肉獲利能力下降，但部分被雞肉和豬肉成長所抵消。值得注意的是，儘管與去年相比略有下降，但 AOI 仍較上季顯著改善。調整後每股盈餘與上季相比幾乎翻倍，凸顯了我們營運績效的持續改善。

Now let's review our segment results, starting with Prepared Foods. In Prepared Foods, Q1 revenue was flat year-over-year. Volume growth was led by benefits from the Williams acquisition and continued recovery in our Foodservice business. Lower pricing primarily reflects the mix impact of the lower contribution from retail. AOI in Q1 was also in line with last year. Lower raw material cost and operational efficiencies were offset by increased brand support expenses, start-up costs associated with new capacity additions and mix. AOI dollars and margin both increased significantly on a sequential basis due to strong operational performance and great seasonal execution by the team.

現在讓我們回顧一下我們的細分市場結果，從預製食品開始。在預製食品領域，第一季營收較去年同期持平。銷售成長得益於威廉斯收購帶來的收益以及我們餐飲服務業務的持續復甦。較低的定價主要反映了零售貢獻較低的綜合影響。第一季的 AOI 也與去年持平。較低的原材料成本和營運效率被品牌支援費用的增加以及與新產能增加和組合相關的啟動成本所抵消。由於團隊強勁的營運績效和出色的季節性執行力，AOI 美元和利潤率均較上季大幅成長。

Moving on to chicken. Sales in Q1 declined 5.4% year-over-year, primarily driven by the impact of lower commodity protein prices. Volume declined 1.5% due to lower production, which was partially offset by continued sell-through of finished goods inventory. Despite the decline in sales versus last year, AOI more than doubled in Q1, primarily driven by the benefits of our strategic actions and other operational efficiencies. These include lower plant spend, improved yield and better live performance.

繼續說雞肉。第一季銷售額較去年同期下降 5.4%，主要是受到商品蛋白價格下跌的影響。由於產量下降，銷量下降了 1.5%，但成品庫存的持續銷售部分抵消了這一影響。儘管銷售額與去年相比有所下降，但 AOI 在第一季成長了一倍多，這主要是由於我們的策略行動和其他營運效率的好處。這些包括降低工廠支出、提高產量和更好的現場性能。

While input costs were clear tailwind, these were largely offset by the impact of lower pricing. As Donnie mentioned, this is the third consecutive quarter of more than $100 million of AOI improvement as we were able to pull forward the benefits of closures of inefficient plants and improvements in our live operations.

雖然投入成本是明顯的順風車，但這些成本在很大程度上被較低定價的影響所抵消。正如 Donnie 所提到的，這是連續第三個季度 AOI 改善超過 1 億美元，因為我們能夠推動關閉低效率工廠和改善現場營運的好處。

Now moving to beef. In beef, revenue increased 6.4% year-over-year in Q1 with lower head throughput more than offset by higher prices per pound. While revenue increased, AOI decreased versus last year, primarily reflecting compressed spreads as was expected. As Donnie mentioned, in Q1, nearly half of the operating loss was driven by an unfavorable inventory valuation adjustment, which was primarily due to the rapid and significant decline in cattle futures. Moving to pork. Q1 revenue was down modestly as volume growth was offset by lower pricing. However, AOI increased year-over-year, benefiting primarily from improved spreads driven by lower hog costs as well as better execution. And finally, a brief comment on our international business. AOI improved as we begin to lap some of the start-up costs of our newer facilities and continue to focus on improving execution despite a decline in sales driven by macroeconomic challenges.

現在轉向牛肉。在牛肉方面，第一季營收年增 6.4%，每磅價格上漲抵消了牛肉產量下降的影響。雖然收入增加，但 AOI 與去年相比有所下降，主要反映瞭如預期的價差壓縮。正如Donnie所提到的，第一季度，近一半的經營虧損是由不利的庫存估值調整造成的，這主要是由於牛期貨的快速大幅下跌。轉向豬肉。第一季營收小幅下降，因為銷售成長被較低的價格所抵消。然而，AOI 年成長，主要受益於生豬成本下降和執行力的提高所帶來的利差改善。最後，對我們的國際業務進行簡短的評論。儘管宏觀經濟挑戰導致銷售額下降，但隨著我們開始承擔新設施的部分啟動成本，並繼續專注於提高執行力，AOI 有所改善。

Shifting to our financial position and capital allocation. Our commitment to building financial strength, investing in our business and returning cash to shareholders primarily via our dividend remains unwavering. While market conditions remain challenging, we are laser-focused on disciplined management and deployment of our capital resources to drive cash flow. Q1 showcased a robust operating cash flow of $1.3 billion, above our expectations, and working capital was a solid source of cash as we continue to manage inventory levels. We were also disciplined with CapEx, which came in at just over $350 million in the quarter, below last year's exit rate. During the quarter, we returned $171 million to shareholders via dividends. Our net leverage declined sequentially, coming below 4x, driven by our improved profitability and strong cash generation. We ended Q1 with more than $3.7 billion of liquidity. Our balance sheet management approach remains unchanged. We are committed to building financial strength and maintaining our investment-grade credit rating and returning net leverage to at or below 2x net debt to EBITDA.

轉向我們的財務狀況和資本配置。我們對增強財務實力、投資業務以及主要透過股息向股東返還現金的承諾依然堅定不移。儘管市場狀況仍然充滿挑戰，但我們專注於嚴格的管理和資本資源的部署，以推動現金流。第一季的營運現金流強勁，達到 13 億美元，超出了我們的預期，隨著我們繼續管理庫存水平，營運資金是可靠的現金來源。我們也受到資本支出的約束，該季度的資本支出略高於 3.5 億美元，低於去年的退出率。本季度，我們透過股息向股東返還 1.71 億美元。由於獲利能力提高和現金產生能力強勁，我們的淨槓桿率持續下降，降至 4 倍以下。第一季結束時，我們的流動性超過 37 億美元。我們的資產負債表管理方法維持不變。我們致力於增強財務實力，維持投資等級信用評級，並將淨槓桿率恢復至 EBITDA 淨債務的 2 倍或以下。

We remain committed to maintaining a disciplined yet opportunistic capital allocation strategy, ensuring that we deploy resources to maximize long-term shareholder value. Now let's take a look at our updated outlook for fiscal 2024. Given the solid results in Q1, we have confidence that our financial performance in 2024 will improve versus last year. However, as it's still early in the new fiscal year and uncertainties remain, especially in our Beef segment, we have made only modest changes to our outlook. Our focus for fiscal 2024 remains to manage the business for profit and cash dollar generation, reflected in our guidance presented in dollar terms rather than margin percentages. With that in mind, we are reiterating our overall sales guidance to be roughly flat year-over-year.

我們仍然致力於維持紀律嚴明但機會主義的資本配置策略，確保我們部署資源以實現長期股東價值最大化。現在讓我們來看看我們對 2024 財年的最新展望。鑑於第一季的穩健業績，我們有信心 2024 年的財務業績將比去年有所改善。然而，由於新財年仍處於初期，不確定性仍然存在，特別是在我們的牛肉領域，我們僅對我們的前景做出了適度的改變。我們 2024 財年的重點仍然是管理業務以實現利潤和現金生成，這反映在我們以美元計算而不是利潤率提供的指導中。考慮到這一點，我們重申我們的整體銷售指引與去年同期大致持平。

Moving to each of the segments. Prepared Foods had a solid start and a seasonally strong period. For the remainder of the year, we expect strong volume results as we continue our momentum in Foodservice and see the benefits of our capacity additions. We remain focused on operational efficiencies while we support our brands and anticipate continued start-up costs. Taking all this into account, we're maintaining our AOI guidance to be in the range of $800 million to $1 billion. In chicken, our operational turnaround is progressing as anticipated. For the remainder of the year, we expect to return to normal seasonality where Q2 is typically a weaker quarter. Given the strong start in Q1 and that we believe that there are more tailwinds than headwinds, we are tightening our AOI guidance range to be between $500 million and $700 million.

移動到每個部分。預製食品業務開局良好，季節性強勁。在今年剩餘時間裡，我們預計將保持強勁的銷售業績，因為我們將繼續保持餐飲服務領域的勢頭，並看到產能增加的好處。我們仍然專注於營運效率，同時支持我們的品牌並預期持續的啟動成本。考慮到所有這些因素，我們將 AOI 指引維持在 8 億至 10 億美元的範圍內。在雞肉方面，我們的營運週轉正在按預期進行。在今年剩餘時間裡，我們預計將恢復正常季節性，第二季通常是較弱的季度。鑑於第一季的強勁開局，並且我們認為順風多於逆風，我們將 AOI 指引範圍收緊至 5 億至 7 億美元之間。

In beef, spreads are compressing as expected. However, uncertainty remains around how the cattle cycle will progress. Therefore, we are maintaining our full year guidance at a loss of $400 million to breakeven. In pork, on the back of our strong Q1 results, we're now raising our guidance to be between breakeven and $100 million. For the total company AOI, we're maintaining our guidance of between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, reflecting the portfolio nature of our segments. To round out the key P&L items, we anticipate interest expense to be roughly $400 million and a tax rate to now be between 23% and 24%.

在牛肉方面，價差正在按預期縮小。然而，養牛週期將如何進展仍存在不確定性。因此，我們維持全年指引不變，虧損 4 億美元以達到損益兩平。在豬肉方面，由於第一季業績強勁，我們現在將獲利指引提高到損益兩平至 1 億美元之間。對於整個公司 AOI，我們維持 10 億至 15 億美元之間的指導，反映了我們細分市場的投資組合性質。為了完善關鍵損益項目，我們預期利息支出約為 4 億美元，稅率目前介於 23% 至 24% 之間。

Turning to CapEx. We're maintaining tight controls on spending in line with profitability and cash flow and we expect CapEx to remain between $1 billion and $1.5 billion this year. Finally, on free cash flow, we're committed to managing working capital and CapEx, and we're even more confident now than we were last quarter that we will generate positive free cash flow for the year. To further help model the shape of the rest of the year, we anticipate more typical seasonality across our business. As a reminder, Q2 is seasonally our weakest quarter for AOI and cash flow driven by beef and chicken. And as you may be aware, this January has already been impacted by severe winter weather disrupting operations. And again, we expect start-up costs in Prepared Foods to impact Q2 as well.

轉向資本支出。我們根據獲利能力和現金流對支出保持嚴格控制，預計今年資本支出將保持在 10 億美元至 15 億美元之間。最後，在自由現金流方面，我們致力於管理營運資本和資本支出，而我們現在比上季更有信心，我們將在今年產生正的自由現金流。為了進一步幫助模擬今年剩餘時間的情況，我們預計整個業務將出現更典型的季節性。提醒一下，第二季度是我們 AOI 和由牛肉和雞肉驅動的現金流最弱的季度。正如您可能知道的，今年一月已經受到嚴冬天氣的影響，導致營運中斷。同樣，我們預計預製食品的啟動成本也會影響第二季。

So in summary, 2024 is off to a promising start, and we're cautiously optimistic on our prospects for the remainder of the year as well as for the long term. Tyson is a leader in the global protein industry. We have strong brands, a broad portfolio of products and a great team, all of which uniquely position us to win in the market. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Sean for Q&A instructions.

總而言之，2024 年是一個充滿希望的開局，我們對今年剩餘時間以及長期的前景持謹慎樂觀態度。泰森食品是全球蛋白質產業的領導者。我們擁有強大的品牌、廣泛的產品組合和優秀的團隊，所有這些都使我們能夠在市場上獲勝。這樣，我會將電話轉回 Sean 以獲取問答說明。

Thanks, John. We will now move on to your questions. Please recall that our cautions on forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures apply both to our prepared remarks and the following Q&A. Operator, please provide the Q&A instructions.

謝謝，約翰。我們現在將繼續回答您的問題。請記住，我們對前瞻性陳述和非公認會計準則措施的警告適用於我們準備好的評論和以下問答。運營商，請提供問答說明。

(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from Peter Galbo with Bank of America.

（操作員說明）第一個問題來自美國銀行的 Peter Galbo。

Donnie, I was just wondering if you could give kind of maybe a brief state of the union. I know you gave some in your prepared remarks but across the segments. And then maybe specifically, if you could start on prepared foods where unlike a lot of CPG peers, you're showing actual volume growth, some of that may be acquired. But just some of the dynamics around food service there seem to be a pretty important driver. So if you can unpack that for us would be great.

唐尼，我只是想知道你是否可以簡單介紹國情。我知道您在準備好的發言中給了一些內容，但跨越了各個部分。然後，也許具體來說，如果你可以從預製食品開始，與許多 CPG 同行不同，你顯示出實際的銷售成長，其中一些可能是收購的。但圍繞食品服務的一些動態似乎是一個非常重要的驅動因素。因此，如果您能為我們解壓，那就太好了。

Sure. Thanks, Peter. I'll start off and then maybe I'll have others to weigh in. Let me start off just kind of the state of the union. We had a solid first quarter and we continue to build on the momentum with back half of 2023. We are seeing the benefits of our portfolio for chicken and pork, improvements are offsetting challenges in beef and where our Prepared Foods continues to deliver strong results. We continue to restore performance in our Chicken business. As I said earlier, this was our third consecutive quarter of $100 million of AOI improvement and this -- our chicken business remains a top priority of mine.

當然。謝謝，彼得。我先開始，然後也許我會有其他人參與。讓我先談談國情咨文。我們第一季業績表現強勁，並在 2023 年下半年繼續保持這一勢頭。我們看到了雞肉和豬肉產品組合的好處，改進正在抵消牛肉方面的挑戰，而且我們的預製食品繼續取得強勁業績。我們繼續恢復雞肉業務的表現。正如我之前所說，這是我們連續第三個季度 AOI 改善 1 億美元，而且我們的雞肉業務仍然是我的首要任務。

We're managing beef through the volatility and spread tightening of the cycle. We're making great progress in driving out the inefficiency all across the supply chain in pork. Prepared Food is performing to plan. While we have seen softness in the retail channel, our brands have performed well. Core branch share remains near record levels, and we're regaining share in our Foodservice business. and I'll talk more about that in a moment.

我們正在透過週期的波動和利差收緊來管理牛肉。我們在消除整個豬肉供應鏈的低效率方面取得了巨大進展。預製食品正按計劃進行。雖然我們看到零售通路疲軟，但我們的品牌表現良好。核心分支機構的份額仍接近歷史最高水平，我們正在重新奪回餐飲服務業務的份額。我稍後會詳細討論這一點。

We're cautiously optimistic about FY '24. We have considered our better-than-expected results in this quarter. We've considered our initiatives to improve performance while also still accounting for the ongoing macro uncertainty. As John said in his opening statements, Q2 is seasonally weaker and our Q2 started off with -- has started off with several significant weather events. But having said all of that, taken together, it's still early in the year, and we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We have lots of work ahead of us, and we're leaving no stone unturned.

我們對 24 財年持謹慎樂觀態度。我們已經考慮了本季優於預期的業績。我們考慮了提高績效的舉措，同時仍考慮到持續的宏觀不確定性。正如約翰在開場白中所說，第二季季節性疲軟，我們的第二季以幾起重大天氣事件開始。但話雖如此，總的來說，現在還為時過早，我們不想操之過急。我們還有很多工作要做，我們將不遺餘力。

We're focused on CapEx and working capital to drive cash flow and support our dividend. We are controlling the controllables and taking necessary actions, including rightsizing and modernizing our footprint and network design to drive efficiencies. We are pleased with the quarter and believe we're taking the right steps. We are excited about our future and are focused on creating value for our shareholders. Specifically or a little bit more specifically in terms of prepared foods to your question, Peter. we had in the quarter, we had strong top and bottom line performance in the quarter with meaningful sequential improvement versus Q4 '23. If you look at the makeup of the volume, it was driven by a balanced portfolio between retail and Foodservice. We're regaining some share loss in the middle of the pandemic that we couldn't support, and we also had the acquisition from a volume standpoint of Williams sausage.

我們專注於資本支出和營運資金，以推動現金流並支持我們的股利。我們正在控制可控因素並採取必要的行動，包括調整和現代化我們的足跡和網路設計，以提高效率。我們對本季感到滿意，並相信我們正在採取正確的步驟。我們對未來感到興奮，並致力於為股東創造價值。具體來說，或者更具體一點，就你的問題的預製食品而言，彼得。我們在本季的營收和利潤表現強勁，與 23 年第 4 季相比，我們取得了顯著的連續改善。如果你看一下銷售量的組成，你會發現它是由零售和餐飲服務之間的平衡投資組合所推動的。我們正在恢復一些在大流行期間失去的份額，這是我們無法支撐的，而且從威廉斯香腸的銷售角度來看，我們也進行了收購。

Our branded core business line remained a key focus and we have a competitive advantage with volume share near record levels and 400 basis points above Q1 '19. Let me stop with that. Melanie, anything you would add to what I've said.

我們的品牌核心業務線仍然是重點，我們擁有競爭優勢，銷售份額接近創紀錄水平，比 19 年第一季高出 400 個基點。讓我就此打住。梅蘭妮，你對我所說的內容有什麼補充嗎？

Yes, Donnie, I think you did a great job hitting the highlights. The only thing I'll add for you, Peter, is, as Donnie said, our Foodservice performance was strong, and I believe you asked about this question. Our growth this quarter was up 3%, and that was due to customer expansion. Look, as this channel is rebounding, it continues to be an important part of our portfolio that we are focused on because we want to be where our consumers are at and so we're diversifying our customer base. We're building digital capabilities to drive demand, and we are focused on profitable growth.

是的，唐尼，我認為你在亮點方面做得很好。彼得，我要為您補充的唯一一件事是，正如唐尼所說，我們的餐飲服務表現非常出色，我相信您也問過這個問題。本季我們的成長成長了 3%，這是由於客戶擴張。看，隨著這個管道正在反彈，它仍然是我們關注的產品組合的重要組成部分，因為我們希望成為消費者所在的地方，因此我們正在使我們的客戶群多樣化。我們正在建立數位能力來推動需求，並且我們專注於獲利成長。

Great. And then just maybe quickly as a follow-up on beef. Donnie, look, the cattle inventory report out last week, it seems like maybe we're nearing a bottom or seeing potentially some improvement. But just what's the conversation like with ranchers at this point? Like what's it going to take to get them to actually start heifer retention process? Because I think that remains kind of the biggest linchpin in the whole chain, and it doesn't seem like we have a lot of clarity there yet.

偉大的。然後也許很快就會成為牛肉的後續行動。唐尼，看，上週的牛庫存報告，看起來我們可能已經接近底部或看到潛在的一些改善。但目前與牧場主人的對話是什麼樣的呢？例如需要什麼才能讓他們真正開始保留小母牛的過程？因為我認為這仍然是整個鏈條中最大的關鍵，而且我們似乎還沒有弄清楚這一點。

Sure. I mean, I'll tell you, we look at the same information that I'm sure you've seen, and we saw the cattle and feed report that you referenced. Unfortunately, Peter, the data doesn't indicate that heifer retention is taking place. And that's obviously one of the signposts we're looking for. In the quarter, we continue to see volatility in spread tightening -- we expected that. As we think about our outlook, we continue to project high cattle supplies for the balance of '24 and even beyond. And let me pause, Brady, do you want to add anything to that?

當然。我的意思是，我會告訴您，我們查看的資訊與您所看到的資訊相同，並且我們看到了您引用的牛和飼料報告。不幸的是，彼得，數據並沒有顯示小母牛的保留正在發生。這顯然是我們正在尋找的路標之一。在本季度，我們繼續看到利差收緊帶來的波動——這是我們預料到的。當我們思考我們的前景時，我們繼續預測 24 年甚至更久的時間裡牛的供應量會很高。讓我暫停一下，布雷迪，你想補充什麼嗎？

Thanks, Donnie. And Peter, that's a great question and one that we continually are studying. And I think when you unpack that cattle and feed report, there's a few comments that obviously are lending itself to the numbers that we're seeing. And part of it's relative to some slower turnover that we've seen. We've seen placements for cattle and feed from some of the drought areas as well from a geographical perspective. And as you indicated, which is the spotlight of the conversation is -- we have not seen significant heifer retention to date and continue to see those heifers move into the cattle and feed report. So continuing to focus on a few factors relative to heifer retention.

謝謝，唐尼。彼得，這是一個很好的問題，我們一直在研究這個問題。我認為當你打開牛和飼料報告時，有一些評論顯然適合我們所看到的數字。部分原因與我們所看到的一些較慢的周轉率有關。我們也從地理角度看到了一些乾旱地區的牛和飼料的安置情況。正如您所指出的，談話的焦點是——迄今為止，我們還沒有看到大量的小母牛保留，並且繼續看到這些小母牛進入牛群和飼料報告。因此，繼續關注與小母牛保留相關的幾個因素。

Obviously, how these interest rates that we see today relative to the difference or the delta today versus some of the cycles in the past is a highlight for us to continue to watch. And then we'll continue to evaluate and understand how weather conditions are changed and lend themselves into a more favorable heifer retention strategy for these branches.

顯然，我們今天看到的這些利率相對於今天的差異或德爾塔與過去的一些週期的差異是我們繼續關注的亮點。然後我們將繼續評估和了解天氣條件如何變化，並為這些分支制定更有利的小母牛保留策略。

The next question comes from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的亞當·薩繆爾森。

Maybe coming back to chicken, and John, you gave some color in your prepared remarks, but hoping to expand on a little bit on just the profit drivers in the business in the quarter, there was $170 million feed of tailwind year-on-year, some offset with price. But can you maybe walk through the year-on-year profit bridge and chicken a little bit more closely. And I guess, apart from seasonality in the fiscal first quarter, -- our fiscal second quarter, excuse me -- the first quarter would imply kind of tracking to at or above the high end of the segment profit guidance for the year. So I just want to make sure we're understanding kind of some of the moving pieces you're looking at for the balance of fiscal '24.

也許回到雞，約翰，你在準備好的講話中給出了一些色彩，但希望僅在本季度業務的利潤驅動因素上進行一些擴展，與去年同期相比，順風的貢獻為 1.7 億美元，一些與價格抵消。但你能否更仔細地了解同比利潤橋和雞。我想，除了第一財季的季節性因素之外——對不起，我們的第二財季——第一季將意味著追蹤或高於今年該部門利潤指引的高端。因此，我只是想確保我們了解您正在考慮的 24 財年餘額中的一些動態因素。

Yes, Adam, thanks for the question. And maybe let me give a few points that will help you shape our '24 outlook compared to '23. I think the first thing to point out is we talked about the network moves, operational performance improvement. We started to realize that and the adjustment in our guidance range of taking the bottom end up by $100 million, roughly equivalent in line with where we were ahead of expectations for the balance of the year -- where we were compared to expectations. Then when I move through the balance of the year, I know one question is sometimes on investors' mind is, hey, where is your return on sales guidance, how does that peaking or not peaking, we've heard some questions about that. We're not going to return on sales guidance, but there's reasons to believe that our quarter 3 and quarter 4 could be around where we delivered the result in Q1. But frankly, it's probably premature to make any strong assertions around that.

是的，亞當，謝謝你的提問。也許讓我給出幾點意見，以幫助您塑造與 23 世紀相比我們 24 世紀的前景。我認為首先要指出的是我們談論了網路遷移、營運績效改進。我們開始意識到這一點，並調整了我們的指導範圍，將底數提高了 1 億美元，大致相當於我們超出今年剩餘時間的預期——我們與預期進行了比較。然後，當我回顧今年的剩餘時間時，我知道投資者有時會想到一個問題，嘿，您的銷售回報指導在哪裡，如何達到峰值或未達到峰值，我們聽到了一些有關此的問題。我們不會返回銷售指導，但有理由相信我們的第三季和第四季可能與我們在第一季交付的結果差不多。但坦白說，對此做出任何強有力的斷言可能還為時過早。

And then again Q2, we had weather impacts across all of our segments. Chicken was not immune to that. And so that's kind of the overall picture that we can give today based on the shape of the year. A couple of other things we're saying. We did talk about a couple of hundred million dollars in improvements on some previous earnings calls, thinking about the benefits we've realized from the network moves. We believe that we have achieved that. We have one facility still going core in Indiana. And when we close out that process, then we'll be nearly finished there. And then there are some tailwinds from a market standpoint. I think last quarter, Donnie was the one who said more tailwinds and headwinds, I think that sentiment prevails. But as you know, it's not just grain prices, but it's kind of the interplay between that and what chicken markets are doing and what's going on from a supply-demand standpoint to influence things.

第二季度，我們的所有細分市場都受到了天氣的影響。雞也不能倖免。這就是我們今天可以根據今年的情況給出的總體情況。我們還要說一些其他的事情。我們確實在之前的一些財報電話會議上談到了數億美元的改進，考慮了我們從網路遷移中實現的好處。我們相信我們已經實現了這一點。我們在印第安納州仍有一處核心設施。當我們結束這個過程時，我們就差不多完成了。從市場的角度來看，還有一些有利因素。我認為上個季度，唐尼是那個說了更多順風和逆風的人，我認為這種情緒佔了上風。但如您所知，這不僅僅是穀物價格的問題，而且是穀物價格與雞肉市場的行為以及從供需角度來看正在發生的事情之間的相互作用，從而影響事物。

So I think overall, the $500 million to $700 million range for a lot of those reasons is our best estimate today of where we think the year will be. And yes, hopefully, that gives you a little extra color. Wes, maybe you got something to add in there for Adam.

因此，我認為總體而言，出於多種原因，5 億至 7 億美元的範圍是我們今天對今年的最佳估計。是的，希望這能給你一點額外的色彩。韋斯，也許你要為亞當添加一些東西。

Yes. I'll add a couple of comments, Adam. We expect to realize our strategic change funding throughout the year. And specifically to your question on year-over-year, both grains and markets were both lower. So we stayed focused on improving our fundamentals year-over-year, did have a little tailwind, but it's mostly the material change we made in our fundamentals. We improved our live performance, specifically hatch and livability. We have a very disciplined S&OP process that got really tight in Q1 and our sales are not only sold out position, but our forecast accuracy has allowed us to do a better job filling orders with material less working capital.

是的。我要添加一些評論，亞當。我們期望全年實現策略變革融資。特別是對於你關於同比的問題，穀物和市場都較低。因此，我們仍然專注於逐年改善我們的基本面，確實有一點順風，但這主要是我們在基本面方面做出的實質改變。我們改善了現場表現，特別是孵化和宜居性。我們有一個非常嚴格的 S&OP 流程，在第一季非常緊張，我們的銷售不僅已售罄，而且我們的預測準確性使我們能夠更好地用更少的營運資金來完成訂單。

That's very helpful color. And then just as a follow-up, especially in Chicken and Prepared Foods. Just wondering if you have any views on changes in consumer behavior and how consumer demand elasticity has been evolving as you kind of enter as the calendar flipped and how you're thinking about the state of the U.S. consumer over the balance of calendar '24.

這是非常有用的顏色。然後作為後續行動，尤其是雞肉和預製食品。只是想知道您對消費者行為的變化有何看法，以及當您進入日曆翻轉時，消費者需求彈性如何演變，以及您如何看待日曆「24」餘下的美國消費者狀況。

Thanks, Adam. So I'll start first to talk about how we're looking at it from a Prepared Foods perspective and our branded portfolio. So generally, we're seeing elasticities returning to pre-COVID levels. And as you know, we seek to balance both price and volume growth to maximize the value of our branded portfolio. But at the end of the day, we do understand the financial uncertainty that our consumers are faced with as inflation remains elevated, which is why we continue to leverage our strong revenue growth management capabilities in support of our brands, and we're prioritizing their health and their profitability when determining our pricing strategy. And additionally, across the board for any of our branded business, we remain focused on understanding our category dynamics, assessing our competition and, of course, meeting our consumer needs when making pricing decisions.

謝謝，亞當。因此，我將首先談談我們如何從預製食品的角度和我們的品牌產品組合來看待它。總的來說，我們看到彈性回到了新冠疫情前的水平。如您所知，我們尋求平衡價格和銷售成長，以最大限度地提高我們品牌產品組合的價值。但歸根結底，我們確實了解隨著通膨持續走高，我們的消費者面臨著財務不確定性，這就是為什麼我們繼續利用我們強大的收入增長管理能力來支持我們的品牌，並且我們優先考慮他們的品牌在在確定我們的定價策略時，他們的健康狀況和盈利能力。此外，對於我們的任何品牌業務來說，我們仍然專注於了解我們的品類動態、評估我們的競爭，當然還有在做出定價決策時滿足消費者的需求。

Yes, Adam, I'd just add that we're seeing really good dark meat demand. We've seen the emergence of our win demand and we're seeing a slight shift towards Foodservice.

是的，亞當，我想補充一點，我們看到黑肉的需求非常好。我們已經看到了勝利需求的出現，並且我們看到了向餐飲服務的輕微轉變。

The next question comes from Ken Goldman with JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的肯‧戈德曼。

I wanted to ask a little bit about competition on the prepared food side. Are there any of your more important categories that you're starting to feel maybe a little incremental pressure in terms of competition, whether it's on the pricing side or however you want to frame it? And I guess how comfortable are you with your price gaps versus these competitors today just in a general sense.

我想問一些有關預製食品方面的競爭的問題。是否有任何更重要的類別讓您開始感受到競爭方面的一點增量壓力，無論是在定價方面還是您想要的框架？我想，總體而言，您對與這些競爭對手相比的價格差距感到滿意嗎？

So in terms of competition, I mean, regardless of the business, I mean there's -- we have some very strong competitors in every space that we play. And so I'll leave that there. But I'll give Melanie the opportunity to talk about more specifics in categories. For example, I would just simply say that we saw a strong performance in breakfast sausage and cocktails, and we had some headwinds in our lunch meat and our frozen protein breakfast area. Melanie, do you want to add to that?

因此，就競爭而言，我的意思是，無論業務如何，我們在每個領域都有一些非常強大的競爭對手。所以我就把它留在那裡。但我會給梅蘭妮機會談論更多類別細節。例如，我只想簡單地說，我們在早餐香腸和雞尾酒方面看到了強勁的表現，而我們在午餐肉和冷凍蛋白早餐領域遇到了一些阻力。梅蘭妮，你想補充嗎？

Yes. I would just say, Ken, at the end of the day, this is a challenging consumer environment and boy, competition is stepping up. We're not only seeing competition step up from branded players, but also private label is a factor. And I think overall, we're doing very well and holding our position. But at the end of the day, we are just focused on our own retail business, in particular, and making sure that we're doing what we have to drive consumption, to address any price scraps and make sure that we are maintaining our leadership position in, which, as you know, in 8 of our 10 categories.

是的。我只想說，肯，歸根結底，這是一個充滿挑戰的消費環境，而且競爭正在加劇。我們不僅看到品牌廠商的競爭加劇，自有品牌也是一個因素。我認為總體而言，我們做得很好並保持我們的地位。但歸根結底，我們只是專注於我們自己的零售業務，並確保我們正在做我們必須做的事情來推動消費，解決任何價格問題並確保我們保持領先地位如您所知，在我們10 個類別中的8個類別中。

So right now, we are focused on making sure that we grow through high ROI merchandising with a strong feature and display at shelf. We're increasing our map investment to continue to grow our household penetration. We've got strong innovation on shelf now and also coming, which is going to offer strong engagement with consumers. And very importantly, to address pricing. We're making sure that we're enhancing our price pack architecture offering so we can ensure that we are maximizing our distribution footprint. And we think all these steps together, we're starting to see actions in the marketplace and are confident in our full year outlook.

因此，現在，我們的重點是確保透過具有強大功能和貨架展示的高投資回報率銷售來實現成長。我們正在增加地圖投資，以繼續提高我們的家庭滲透率。我們現在已經推出了強大的創新產品，並且即將推出，這將與消費者產生強大的互動。非常重要的是，解決定價問題。我們確保我們正在增強我們的價格包架構產品，以便我們可以確保我們最大化我們的分銷足跡。我們認為所有這些步驟結合在一起，我們開始看到市場上的行動，並對我們的全年前景充滿信心。

And then a follow-up is on chicken. As we look at some of the export data, and I realize some of the monthly data is a couple of months in arrears usually. But the export data in general in terms of pounds for chicken, they've been a little bit weaker as 2023 anyway, progressed. And yet as we start into 2024, at least according to Urner Barry, leg quarter prices have done pretty well, which might be not what one might expect at first glance is seeing the trade number. So just curious for a little bit of your thoughts on how to think about like demand for leg quarters, export demand in general? Any color there would be helpful.

接下來是雞肉。當我們查看一些出口數據時，我意識到一些月度數據通常會拖欠幾個月。但總體而言，以雞肉磅數計算的出口數據，無論如何，隨著 2023 年的進展，它們已經有點疲軟了。然而，隨著我們進入 2024 年，至少根據烏納·巴里 (Urner Barry) 的說法，腿部季度價格表現相當不錯，這可能不是人們第一眼看到交易數字時所預期的那樣。所以只是想知道您對如何考慮腿部需求和整體出口需求的想法？任何顏色都會有幫助。

Yes, I'll take that, Ken. Thanks. We've seen a lot of disruption in the (inaudible) export side. Specific to leg quarters, freezer stocks are at a really low level and demand seems to be robust enough to clear it at very attractive prices.

是的，我會接受的，肯。謝謝。我們在（聽不清楚）出口方面看到了很多幹擾。具體到腿部季度，冷凍機庫存處於非常低的水平，需求似乎足夠強勁，可以以非常有吸引力的價格清除。

The next question comes from Ben Bienvenu with Stephens Inc.

下一個問題來自 Stephens Inc. 的 Ben Bienvenu。

I want to ask -- I know chicken has gotten a lot of focus, congrats on the quarterly results. John, I wanted to drill down on the 2Q commentary that you provided, recognizing there -- it sounds like there's some operational headwinds and disruptions from weather early in the year. What I'm curious on is if fundamental -- commodity fundamentals continue to improve and grain prices stay low, supply/demand comes into better balance, is that enough positive to offset the temporal operational dynamics that we saw in the second quarter?

我想問——我知道雞肉受到了很多關注，並祝賀季度業績。約翰，我想深入研究您提供的第二季度評論，並認識到那裡 - 聽起來今年年初存在一些營運阻力和天氣幹擾。我好奇的是，如果基本面——大宗商品基本面繼續改善，糧食價格保持在低位，供需達到更好的平衡，這是否足以抵消我們在第二季度看到的暫時的運營動態？

I think there are reasons to believe why some of that could offset it. But I think it would be -- I think, to quantify exactly what that offset yet is, we're not really ready to do that. But let's zoom out and talk about the broader year because I think I just want to hone in on some factors that are at play about why we remain cautious on the chicken outlook. And it has to do with what's going on in the total protein markets. Beef continues to be volatile. I think we've had predictions about where beef prices and beef markets we're going to go that have some is fell-through and some is not. There is projections for more pork to be on the market this year. We've already talked about the consumer today. So I just want to make sure that we ran the message today while they're -- we're cautiously optimistic about chicken, there remains a lot of uncertainty and a lot of time left in the year. So then I think I addressed at least parts of your question. Hopefully, that's helpful.

我認為有理由相信其中一些可以抵消它。但我認為，為了準確量化抵銷額，我們還沒有真正準備好這樣做。但讓我們把目光放遠，討論更廣闊的一年，因為我想我只是想深入探討一些因素，這些因素導致我們對雞肉前景保持謹慎。這與總蛋白質市場的情況有關。牛肉繼續波動。我認為我們已經對牛肉價格和牛肉市場的走向進行了預測，其中有些預測失敗了，有些則沒有。預計今年市場上將有更多豬肉上市。我們今天已經討論過消費者。因此，我只是想確保我們今天傳達了這一信息，而我們對雞肉持謹慎樂觀態度，今年仍然存在很多不確定性，而且還有很多時間。那我想我至少解決了你問題的一部分。希望有幫助。

If I could add one thing or a couple of things to that as it relates to chicken. Those operational improvements that all of us have talked about in chicken those continue. And those fundamentals, while we are improved, there's still a lot of work left to do there. And we got a really good team working against those things. But keep that in mind as you are looking at Q2 and the balance of the year as well.

如果我可以添加一件事或幾件事，因為它與雞肉有關。我們所有人都在雞肉中談論過的那些運營改進仍在繼續。儘管我們已經改進了這些基礎知識，但仍有許多工作要做。我們有一支非常優秀的團隊來解決這些問題。但當您關注第二季度和今年的剩餘時間時，請記住這一點。

Okay. Very good. Thinking about the cash flow statement, John Randal, you guys came into fiscal '24, bringing down your CapEx budget materially. You've sustained the range again this quarter. Is there yet still room to tighten that budget as we move through the year? Or do you think that number is more set in stone with potentially improvements coming into 2025?

好的。非常好。考慮一下現金流量表，John Randal，你們進入了 24 財年，大幅降低了資本支出預算。本季您再次維持了這一區間。隨著今年的進展，預算還有收緊的空間嗎？或者您認為這個數字更加固定，並且到 2025 年可能會有所改善？

That's a great question. I think there's probably room to tighten it a little bit, but let me kind of talk about the total picture. When we gave guidance in the first quarter, we talked about striving to be free cash flow positive that we would pay attention to our ability to manage the business and working capital as well as our operational results, and that would influence our thinking in terms of the total spend. If you just extrapolate where we are in Q1, that would take you towards a higher end of that 1.5% range. But that's really just a product of lot of good projects in flight that we have, our efforts to slow down from the spin that was projected in north of $2 billion in recent years.

這是一個很好的問題。我認為可能還有收緊一點的空間，但讓我談談整體情況。當我們在第一季度給予指導時，我們談到努力使自由現金流為正，我們將關注我們管理業務和營運資本的能力以及我們的營運業績，這將影響我們對以下方面的思考：總支出。如果您只是推斷我們在第一季的情況，這將帶您走向 1.5% 範圍的較高端。但這實際上只是我們正在實施的許多優秀項目的產物，我們努力減緩近年來預計超過 20 億美元的旋轉速度。

And I would just say we're not trending to that higher end because, hey, we've made some adjustment in our opening up the capital floodgates again. We remain very committed to getting that spend down to the midpoint of our range or below as we move through the balance of this year and next year. So that's what I want you to take away from a CapEx guidance standpoint.

我只想說，我們並沒有走向更高的目標，因為，嘿，我們在再次打開資本閘門方面做了一些調整。隨著今年和明年的剩餘時間的推移，我們仍然非常致力於將支出降至我們範圍的中點或以下。這就是我希望您從資本支出指導角度得出的結論。

The next question comes from Andrew Strelzik with BMO.

下一個問題來自 BMO 的 Andrew Strelzik。

My first one is actually on the Pork segment and the outlook there. If I look at the performance in the quarter, and it seems like some solid performance is probably continuing into the second quarter. It doesn't seem like there's much baked into the back part of the year. So I guess, how are you thinking about pork margins from here evolving through the year and kind of the puts and takes as we get into the back part of the year?

我的第一個實際上是關於豬肉領域及其前景。如果我看看本季的表現，看起來一些穩健的表現可能會持續到第二季​​。今年下半年似乎沒有太多進展。所以我想，您如何看待今年以來豬肉利潤的變化以及進入今年下半年時的看跌期權和賣出期權類型？

Let me start off, and then I will flip it to Brady to talk about pork. Hog supply drove lower hog costs, leading to improved spreads. We're seeing a number of benefits of better execution in pork, and we have assembled a really, really strong theme in our pork business led by Kyle and Aaron. He and his team have really picking out inefficiencies from procurement all the way to the customer, consumer and very proud of that work. But I would also tell you there's still room for more. And you will probably continue to hear that from us is there's -- every time we turn over rock, we find something else, but our mode is one of continual improvement. And Brady, any big nuggets that I have not touched on.

讓我開始吧，然後我會轉向布雷迪談論豬肉。生豬供應推動生豬成本下降，進而改善價差。我們看到了豬肉更好執行的許多好處，並且我們在凱爾和亞倫領導的豬肉業務中形成了一個非常非常強烈的主題。他和他的團隊確實發現了從採購一直到客戶、消費者的低效率問題，並對這項工作感到非常自豪。但我還要告訴你，還有更多的空間。你可能會繼續從我們那裡聽到這樣的話——每次我們翻開岩石，我們都會發現其他東西，但我們的模式是持續改進的模式之一。還有布雷迪，我沒有提到過的任何大塊頭。

Thanks, Donnie. And Q1, obviously, is seasonally the strongest quarter of the year. And we'd expect to see some typical seasonality as we move through specifically the latter part of this year as well. The team understands it's their responsibility to control the controllables. And as Donnie indicated, done a really good job of being able to take advantage of some of the spreads we have seen in Q1 and certainly expect those improvements to continue through the course of the year as well. Really seeing some increased operational efficiencies, and the team has done a great job increasing the true business performance through the data and analytics platforms that they've stood up that allow us for better decision-making and really adaptation of some of these market trends in the current conditions.

謝謝，唐尼。顯然，第一季是一年中季節性最強的季度。當我們進入今年下半年時，我們預計也會看到一些典型的季節性。團隊明白控制可控因素是他們的責任。正如唐尼所指出的那樣，我們做得非常好，能夠利用我們在第一季看到的一些利差，並且當然希望這些改善在今年也能持續下去。確實看到營運效率有所提高，並且團隊透過他們建立的數據和分析平台在提高真正的業務績效方面做得非常出色，這些平台使我們能夠更好地制定決策並真正適應其中的一些市場趨勢目前的情況。

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then on the beef side, I guess, when I look at the typical seasonality and I look at kind of the performance in the first quarter and then the commentary on the second quarter, it seems like you would need to have pretty solid improvement in the back part of the year, not to be kind of towards the lower end of that range. I know there's seasonality involved there as well. I guess I'm just curious, can you talk about maybe what would get you to the high and low end of that range? I understand certainly that there's a lot of uncertainty as we move through the year.

好的。偉大的。這很有幫助。然後在牛肉方面，我想，當我看看典型的季節性，我看看第一季度的表現，然後是第二季度的評論時，似乎你需要在以下方面有相當紮實的改進：今年下半年，不會是該範圍的下限。我知道這也涉及季節性。我想我只是好奇，你能談談什麼能讓你達到這個範圍的高端和低端嗎？我當然理解，今年我們會面臨許多不確定性。

And then maybe can you clarify also when we think about the second quarter, are you thinking about sequentially lower off the number that you reported adjusted operating income in the first quarter? Or is that kind of once you back out the inventory adjustment?

然後，也許您可以澄清一下，當我們考慮第二季時，您是否正在考慮連續降低第一季報告的調整後營業收入的數字？還是一旦取消庫存調整就屬於這種情況？

Well, thanks for the question. And as you pointed out there, I think it's really important to emphasize what both John and Donnie indicated in the opening remarks, which was in Q1, we saw that rapid decline in cattle futures and that was the driver for that inventory valuation adjustment that was roughly $56 million in the first quarter. And really, as we look at the first quarter, obviously, we saw some headwinds relative to some decreased value in the drop. We saw the spread compression. And obviously, with lower supply, not only in Q1, but as we move through the rest of the year, we see that lower opportunity for cost dilution of our overhead structure relative to these volumes. But let me be really clear, we see a path to improvement as well.

嗯，謝謝你的提問。正如您所指出的那樣，我認為強調約翰和唐尼在第一季的開場白中指出的內容非常重要，我們看到牛期貨的快速下跌，這是庫存估值調整的驅動因素第一季約為5600 萬美元。事實上，當我們觀察第一季時，顯然我們看到了一些與價值下降相關的阻力。我們看到了傳播壓縮。顯然，由於供應量減少，不僅在第一季度，而且隨著今年剩餘時間的推移，我們發現相對於這些數量，我們的管理費用結構的成本攤薄機會較小。但讓我明確一點，我們也看到了改進的道路。

And from an operational excellence perspective, how we manage the business today versus the past and a different economic cycle is very important. Focus on efficiency, yield and really balancing supply and demand, not only by a cut by cut basis and through our grinds complex. But also in terms of yield and efficiency is going to be paramount and important to the team, and they're dialed in on that as well. We've made changes that certainly provide us opportunity in the future as well as we mentioned last quarter. We've rightsized our beef value-added business really to match our customer needs and what we're seeing from a supply perspective as we move through this. And again, as I've mentioned before, we have a well-capitalized asset base, and believe we're really able to manage through a variety of headwinds and market conditions that we expect to see as we move through this cattle cycle.

從卓越營運的角度來看，我們如何管理今天的業務與過去和不同的經濟週期非常重要。專注於效率、產量以及真正平衡供需，而不僅僅是透過逐次切割和通過我們的研磨綜合體。但就產量和效率而言，對團隊來說也是至關重要的，他們也對此有所關注。正如我們上季度提到的那樣，我們所做的改變肯定會為我們未來提供機會。我們已經調整了牛肉增值業務的規模，真正滿足了我們的客戶需求以及我們在這個過程中從供應角度看到的情況。再次，正如我之前提到的，我們擁有資本充足的資產基礎，並相信我們確實能夠應對在我們經歷這個養牛週期時預計會看到的各種逆風和市場狀況。

The next question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Ben Theurer。

So just wanted to kind of understand a little bit some of the dynamics as it relates to the export business because if I remember right, that used to be some sort of a headwind also in beef. So if we look into the details on sales into the international channels, particularly beef, which kind of contrary to the rest of it was actually even down in the sales. Could you elaborate a little bit on the dynamics in the export markets as it relates to beef in particular, but also if you could just mention briefly what you're seeing on exports for chicken and pork. That would be my first question.

所以只是想了解一些與出口業務相關的動態，因為如果我沒記錯的話，這曾經也是牛肉的某種逆風。因此，如果我們研究國際通路的銷售細節，特別是牛肉，與其他部分相反，銷售實際上甚至下降了。您能否詳細說明一下出口市場的動態，特別是與牛肉相關的動態，以及您是否可以簡要提及您所看到的雞肉和豬肉出口情況。這是我的第一個問題。

Sure. Well, thank you for the question. And I think it's really important to understand, we've really been working within historically high rates from a beef product or cut out perspective. And when we talk about the arbitrage opportunity between a domestic sale and an export sale really puts the domestic beef business and industry at a disadvantage right now. We're seeing large supplies from some of our competing countries that are in the southern hemisphere. And they're really on the opposite side of the cycle from we are -- from where we are. And so that's really led to increased opportunity for some of those competing countries and a decreased opportunity for us here in the U.S. However, we have seen strong domestic beef demand has led the -- held these cut-out values at a historically high level as well.

當然。嗯，謝謝你的提問。我認為了解這一點非常重要，從牛肉產品或切分的角度來看，我們確實一直在歷史高水準下工作。當我們談論國內銷售和出口銷售之間的套利機會時，確實使國內牛肉企業和行業目前處於不利地位。我們看到來自南半球一些競爭國家的大量供應。他們確實與我們處於週期的對立面——與我們所處的位置相反。因此，這確實導致一些競爭國家的機會增加，而我們在美國的機會減少。然而，我們看到強勁的國內牛肉需求導致——將這些分切價值保持在歷史高位，因為出色地。

Yes. And Ben, this is Wes. I'll touch briefly on chicken. As I said earlier, (inaudible) have been interrupted due to (inaudible). And on leg quarters, we're seeing frozen inventory in the U.S. at almost record lows. Our inventory continues to be in check, and the pricing has been very good going forward.

是的。本，這是韋斯。我將簡要介紹一下雞肉。正如我之前所說，（聽不清楚）由於（聽不清楚）而中斷。在季度中，我們看到美國的凍結庫存幾乎處於歷史最低水準。我們的庫存繼續受到控制，並且未來的定價非常好。

Okay. Perfect. And then just quickly following up as it relates to the Prepared Foods business. Can you quantify what the Williams sausage volume contribution was because I didn't find that. I know it was positive, but if you could quantify that, that would be helpful.

好的。完美的。然後快速跟進與預製食品業務相關的情況。你能量化威廉斯香腸體積的貢獻嗎，因為我找不到。我知道這是正面的，但如果你能量化這一點，那就會有所幫助。

Yes. We haven't broken that out, but it's -- we haven't broken that out specifically, Ben.

是的。我們還沒有詳細說明這一點，但我們還沒有具體說明這一點，本。

The next question comes from Tom Palmer with Citi. Please go ahead.

下一個問題來自花旗銀行的湯姆·帕爾默。請繼續。

Thanks for the question. Maybe I could ask on feed costs. Just how locked in is your exposure this year, and then when you look at the downward moves over the past few months, does this benefit your current fiscal year? Or if it continues, is this more of a 2025 flow through? Because it does seem like there's some incremental favorability.

謝謝你的提問。也許我可以問一下飼料成本。今年您的風險敞口鎖定程度如何，然後當您查看過去幾個月的下降趨勢時，這是否有利於您當前的財政年度？或者如果繼續下去，這更像是 2025 年的流程嗎？因為看起來確實有一些增量的好感度。

Yes, Tom, this is Wes. I'll touch on that. We have a very diverse commodity risk management group. We also have different pricing mechanisms with customers in which some of the grains flow through, through pricing. I would tell you it's moderate and in the back half of the year.

是的，湯姆，這是韋斯。我會談到這一點。我們擁有非常多元化的商品風險管理團隊。我們也與客戶有不同的定價機制，其中一些穀物透過定價流過。我會告訴你，這是溫和的，而且是在今年下半年。

Okay. And then I wanted to follow up on the prepared food side. Maybe going back to Peter Galbo's question. Just on on the new customer wins, are there particular products that you're seeing these wins, greatest in or particular channels within Foodservice?

好的。然後我想跟進準備好的食物方面。也許回到彼得·加爾博的問題。就新客戶的贏得而言，您是否看到這些勝利的特定產品，餐飲服務中最好的產品或特定管道？

So Tom, your question was -- I just want to make sure I'm clear. Are we -- are there particular products where you are seeing more success? Can you just repeat your question for me?

湯姆，你的問題是──我只是想確保我說清楚了。您是否在某些特定產品上取得了更大的成功？你能幫我重複你的問題嗎？

Yes. Sorry. Exactly. Just you've noted some -- your growth was driven by some new customer wins. And I was just curious what products were really driving that for you right now within Prepared Foods?

是的。對不起。確切地。正如您所注意到的—您的成長是由一些新客戶的贏得所推動的。我只是好奇現在預製食品中哪些產品真正為您帶來了推動力？

Yes. So I'd say that when I was talking about the customer expansion, we are making great strides in that area on the food service side of the business. And then I would say on the retail side of the business, we're seeing strong growth in distribution with our existing customers behind our core business lines, but we're also seeing excitement behind some of our -- a lot of our new innovation. And in particular, I want to highlight our Jimmy Dean Maple Griddle Cakes that we launched last year to success, and we are planning in a couple of months to launch an extension of that product item. Does that help, Tom?

是的。因此，我想說，當我談論客戶擴展時，我們在食品服務業務方面正在該領域取得了長足進步。然後我想說，在業務的零售方面，我們看到我們的核心業務線背後的現有客戶的分銷強勁增長，但我們也看到我們的一些新創新背後的興奮。我特別想強調我們去年推出的吉米迪恩楓木煎鍋蛋糕，取得了成功，我們計劃在幾個月內推出該產品的擴展。這樣有幫助嗎，湯姆？

Tom, let me -- let me add a little more color as it relates to food service there. As a reminder to everyone, in the middle of the pandemic, we had some operational issues being able to produce enough product for our customers, and we essentially had to give up some business and we've been since the pandemic trying to go and regain that. But we have a nice diversification between what were the traditionally quick service restaurants and as well as broad line distribution.

湯姆，讓我——讓我添加一些與那裡的食品服務相關的色彩。提醒大家，在大流行期間，我們遇到了一些營運問題，無法為客戶生產足夠的產品，我們基本上不得不放棄一些業務，自大流行以來我們一直在努力恢復業務那。但我們在傳統的快餐店和廣泛的產品線分佈之間實現了很好的多元化。

Next question comes from Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler.

下一個問題來自 Michael Lavery 和 Piper Sandler。

I want to come back to chicken and just trying to understand, obviously, the lift in the quarter was cost and margin driven. But when you point to the strategic actions and those benefits, can you help us understand maybe how to think of them kind of longer term? And would this put you at the higher end or above kind of a 5% to 7% margin range? I know you're not wanting to think about margins as how you guide for the year. You gave a little bit of breadcrumbs for the second half. That's all real helpful. But -- maybe just looking a little further out, is business structurally different enough that under normalized conditions, you would rethink what it's capable of, what its earnings power is longer term?

我想回到雞，只是想了解，顯然，本季的成長是成本和利潤驅動的。但是，當您指出策略行動和這些好處時，您能否幫助我們理解如何從長遠角度思考它們？這會讓您處於較高端或更高的 5% 至 7% 利潤範圍嗎？我知道您不想將利潤率作為今年的指導方針。你為下半場提供了一些麵包屑。這一切都非常有幫助。但是——也許只是看得更遠一些，業務結構是否足夠不同，以至於在正常化條件下，你會重新考慮它的能力，它的長期盈利能力是什麼？

So let me start -- this is Donnie. Let me start with a couple of points, and then I think John probably has a couple to add. But in terms of being prepared to give guidance, we're not prepared to do that today and talk about that. But what I can tell you is what we're doing as a company. We talked about the third consecutive quarter of over $100 million of AOI improvement. In the midst of that, what I can also tell you is market (inaudible) that's for grain or the meat side, those were largely offsetting one another. So the improvements are coming from operational improvements, operational excellence both in plants and in live production and really driving out waste from the business.

讓我開始——這是唐尼。讓我先談幾點，然後我認為約翰可能還需要補充幾點。但就準備提供指導而言，我們今天不准備這樣做並談論這一點。但我可以告訴你的是我們作為一家公司正在做的事情。我們談到連續第三個季度 AOI 改進超過 1 億美元。在此期間，我還可以告訴您的是穀物或肉類市場（聽不清楚），這些在很大程度上相互抵消。因此，這些改進來自於營運改善、工廠和現場生產的卓越運營，以及真正消除企業浪費。

But we also, as we said earlier, we're realizing the benefits from plant closures that in terms of modernizing and rightsizing our footprint. So we're seeing all of those. But this plan doesn't really is -- I mean, we've modeled the markets as they are today for the balance of the year, but this is all about operational excellence. And being more competitive and being better at what we do at the same time driving up raw material to a more value-added and branded within the Chicken segment. John?

但正如我們之前所說，我們也意識到關閉工廠對我們的足跡的現代化和規模化所帶來的好處。所以我們看到了所有這些。但這個計劃實際上並不是——我的意思是，我們已經為今年餘下的時間對市場進行了建模，但這一切都與卓越營運有關。更具競爭力，做得更好，同時推動原料在雞肉領域實現更高的附加價值和品牌化。約翰？

Yes, Donnie. It's a nice summary. I think, again, without touching on what the long-term outlook is like, the things I would point out about how the strategic moves we made have a sustaining impact in our business is a couple of things. First, we're just taking cost out of the system while still keeping the same amount of volume with our customers. Over the long run, that means not putting capital into older and more tired assets, rather investing in those assets where we think we could achieve our targeted ROIC number. And then I think the other thing, too, is we have really, in the last year, refocused our growth to be demand backed and to be in those subcategory within the Chicken segment, where we see favorable trends from a growth and margin standpoint. So I think with that over the long run, we project to be competing and performing as a best-in-class chicken company from a margin standpoint, and that's how we realize that.

是的，唐尼。這是一個很好的總結。我想，在不涉及長期前景的情況下，我想指出的是，我們採取的策略舉措如何對我們的業務產生持續影響，有幾件事。首先，我們只是降低了系統成本，同時仍與客戶保持相同的數量。從長遠來看，這意味著不要將資金投入較舊和較陳舊的資產，而是投資於我們認為可以實現目標投資資本回報率的資產。然後我認為另一件事是，去年我們確實重新調整了成長重點，以需求為支撐，並進入雞肉細分市場的子類別，從成長和利潤率的角度來看，我們看到了有利的趨勢。因此，我認為從長遠來看，我們計劃從利潤的角度作為一流的雞肉公司進行競爭和表現，這就是我們實現這一點的方式。

I think the other big move that we made, we've seen it in our live performance results this year is the switch from NAE to NAIHM and that provides us for a lot more consistency in order to meet customer demand and expectations from a life standpoint.

我認為我們在今年的現場表演結果中看到的另一個重大舉措是從 NAE 轉向 NAIHM，這為我們提供了更多的一致性，以便從生活的角度滿足客戶的需求和期望。

Okay. That's helpful. Great. And just a follow-up on Prepared Foods. I understand it's obviously always competitive, and you touched on some of those dynamics. But can you give a sense on promotional levels. Would you say they're normalized again? Do you see increasing activity there? You called out some of the mix headwinds what was priced otherwise flat? Or I guess maybe could you dissect the price and mix pieces of that? And -- just a sense of how the environment looks from a promotional perspective? Is it getting more intense? Or does it seem to have stabilized? What's your sense of how that looks?

好的。這很有幫助。偉大的。這只是預製食品的後續行動。我知道這顯然總是充滿競爭，你也談到了其中的一些動態。但能否介紹一下促銷水平。你說他們又正常化了嗎？您看到那裡的活動增加嗎？您指出了一些混合阻力，否則價格持平嗎？或者我想你可以剖析一下價格並將其混合嗎？而且——只是從促銷角度來了解環境如何？是不是越來越激烈了？或者說似乎已經穩定下來了？你覺得它看起來怎麼樣？

Yes. So this is Melanie, I would say that promotional activity is continuing -- we are continuing to see intense promotional activity. In terms of how we are operating, we have our highest performing, our highest ROI merchandising initiatives in place to drive our feature and display and choice at shelf, and we are seeing it working. But to your point, competitive activity in this area is strong and we're just focused on controlling our controllables. And in addition to our promotional activity, we're focused on, as I said before, increasing our map investment to engage consumers. Again, we've got strong innovation in place, and we're enhancing -- when you asked about price, we're making sure that we enhance our price pack architecture structure to address competitive pricing as well.

是的。這是梅蘭妮，我想說促銷活動仍在繼續——我們將繼續看到激烈的促銷活動。就我們的營運方式而言，我們制定了最高績效、最高投資回報率的行銷計劃來推動我們的功能、展示和貨架選擇，並且我們看到它正在發揮作用。但就你而言，這一領域的競爭活動很激烈，我們只是專注於控制我們的可控因素。正如我之前所說，除了促銷活動之外，我們還專注於增加地圖投資以吸引消費者。同樣，我們已經有了強大的創新，我們正在增強——當您詢問價格時，我們將確保增強我們的價格包架構結構，以解決有競爭力的定價問題。

The next question comes from Alexia Howard with Bernstein.

下一個問題來自亞歷克西婭·霍華德和伯恩斯坦。

Okay. So 2 ones. Firstly, on the financial side. Your leverage has obviously come down, but it sounds as though whether there'll be more sequential improvement in operating income next quarter's EBD given the weather issues. Do you expect leverage to continue to come down from here? Or could next week -- next quarter the other high point?

好的。所以2個。首先，在財務方面。你們的槓桿率明顯下降了，但考慮到天氣問題，下個季度的 EBD 營業收入似乎會出現更多的連續改善。您預期槓桿率會繼續下降嗎？或者下週、下個季度會是另一個高點嗎？

Yes. Thanks, Alexia. So I think 2 questions in there. The first off is just independent of weather, I want to make sure we're tracking independent of weather, we expect our Q2 to typically be one of the softer quarters from an operating income standpoint. And so then that's exacerbated by weather a little bit. In the long run, we are projecting for leverage to continue to come down. That's driven by a couple of things. One, we're getting more efficient with working capital. We've talked about an inventory clearing in our -- around our segments.

是的。謝謝，亞歷克西婭。所以我認為其中有兩個問題。首先與天氣無關，我想確保我們的追蹤與天氣無關，我們預計從營業收入的角度來看，第二季通常是較疲軟的季度之一。天氣會稍微加劇這種情況。從長遠來看，我們預計槓桿率將繼續下降。這是由幾件事驅動的。第一，我們的營運資金效率越來越高。我們已經討論了圍繞我們的部門進行庫存清理。

Exactly kind of where things happen in the first half of the year, we can say that we would expect to end our fiscal 2024 in a better net leverage position from a ratio standpoint than last year. That's evident also in our pull down on CapEx and what we projected, which is to be a better year from an operating income and EBITDA standpoint than '23. So that's -- we're trending in the right direction aggressively pursuing that at or around 2x net leverage ratio. And we would project that. We'll get to do that, continue to invest in our business and also support our dividend from a capital allocation standpoint.

正如今年上半年發生的情況一樣，我們可以說，從比率的角度來看，我們預計 2024 財年結束時的淨槓桿狀況會比去年更好。這在我們對資本支出的拉低和我們的預測中也很明顯，從營業收入和 EBITDA 的角度來看，今年將是比 23 年更好的一年。所以，我們正在朝著正確的方向積極追求 2 倍或左右的淨槓桿率。我們會預測這一點。我們將做到這一點，繼續投資我們的業務，並從資本配置的角度支持我們的股利。

And then just as a follow-up, sticking with Prepared Foods, it sounds as though this mix shift into food service is obviously a good thing overall, but it is pushing the pricing down and potentially there might be a negative mix shift with margins. Are you able to clarify whether that price pressure will continue in future quarters? And are you able to talk about the margin differential between branded retail and food service and private label, which I assume is lower.

然後，作為後續行動，堅持預製食品，聽起來好像這種向食品服務的混合轉變總體上顯然是一件好事，但它正在壓低價格，並且可能會對利潤產生負面的混合轉變。您能否澄清這種價格壓力是否會在未來幾季持續存在？您能否談談品牌零售和食品服務與自有品牌之間的利潤差異，我認為後者較低。

Okay. Alexia, this is Don. There are a lot of questions in there. Here's what I can tell you relative to food service and and keep this in mind. We've talked about it today because you have seen some volume improvement relative to Food Service. I would remind you that we had given up some business in the middle of pandemic and the nature of those contracts can be quite lengthy. And we're starting to get back in when those open up and get some volume.

好的。亞歷克西婭，這是唐。裡面有很多問題。以下是我可以告訴您的有關餐飲服務的內容，並請記住這一點。我們今天討論這個問題是因為您已經看到相對於餐飲服務的數量有所改善。我想提醒您，我們在大流行期間放棄了一些業務，這些合約的性質可能相當漫長。當這些市場開放並獲得一定成交量時，我們就會開始回歸。

We have maintained in Prepared Foods and the capacity, which produces those products. So if you think about it from that perspective, this overhead in these assets have been a drag on our business to some degree. We've gotten new volume to put into those assets. So that's one piece of it. We're probably not going to talk about the differential in the margin structure between Food Service and Retail. But it's important that we regain that volume in Food Service. But our Retail -- our iconic brands in Retail, continuing to support those and grow those and innovate and do merchandising like Melanie has talked about before, those are all still critical -- mission critical for us.

我們保持了預製食品和生產這些產品的能力。因此，如果您從這個角度考慮，這些資產的開銷在某種程度上拖累了我們的業務。我們已經為這些資產投入了新的資金。這就是其中的一部分。我們可能不會討論食品服務和零售之間的利潤結構差異。但重要的是我們在餐飲服務領域重新獲得了這樣的銷售量。但我們的零售業——我們零售業的標誌性品牌，繼續支持這些品牌，發展這些品牌，創新並進行銷售，就像梅蘭妮之前談到的那樣，這些仍然至關重要——對我們來說至關重要。

Yes. And the only thing, Alexia, I would like to add, because I think Donnie did a nice job of highlighting more of the top line, but also as we think about our business and our performance, one of the reasons that we were able to deliver a solid quarter and what we plan on continuing to do is focus on our controllables. The things we can control, especially from an operational efficiency standpoint. So we're really focused on improving our service levels, we're maximizing our asset utilization by driving down our overhead and increasing our yield and labor efficiencies. And importantly, we're driving automation to improve our supply chain execution. So from a top line perspective, yes, your question was about mix, but I just wanted to reiterate that we're also working all levers of the P&L to ensure that we drive strong bottom line as well.

是的。唯一一件事，Alexia，我想補充一點，因為我認為Donnie 做得很好，突出了更多的營收，而且當我們考慮我們的業務和績效時，這也是我們能夠做到這一點的原因之一。交付一個穩定的季度，我們計劃繼續做的是專注於我們的可控因素。我們可以控制的事情，特別是從營運效率的角度來看。因此，我們真正專注於提高服務水平，透過降低管理費用、提高產量和勞動效率來最大限度地提高資產利用率。重要的是，我們正在推動自動化來改善我們的供應鏈執行。因此，從營收角度來看，是的，你的問題是關於組合的，但我只是想重申，我們也在利用損益表的所有槓桿來確保我們也能實現強勁的盈利。

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Donnie King for any closing remarks.

我們的問答環節到此結束。我想將會議轉回給唐尼金（Donnie King）發表閉幕詞。

Before Donnie wraps us up, I just want to make sure we land 1 final point related to our outlook for 2024. And we've had a lot of great discussion this morning about our various segments. We obviously moved the range on chicken and on pork, but I just want to highlight our reaffirmation of the total company guidance from $1 billion to $1.5 billion based on a lot of various macro factors and the interplay between all of our segments. I think we have reasons to believe while we could achieve a range of outcomes in that window, the midpoint plus or minus, we designed it that way for a reason, and it feels like a way to think about the total look.

在 Donnie 結束我們的發言之前，我只想確保我們達成了與 2024 年展望相關的最後一點。今天早上我們就各個細分市場進行了很多精彩的討論。顯然，我們改變了雞肉和豬肉的範圍，但我只想強調，我們根據多種宏觀因素以及我們所有細分市場之間的相互作用，重申了公司總體指導從 10 億美元到 15 億美元。我認為我們有理由相信，雖然我們可以在該視窗中實現一系列結果，即中點正負，但我們這樣設計是有原因的，而且這感覺像是一種考慮整體外觀的方式。

And then obviously, as we move through Q2 and through the balance of the year, we'll give any revisions as necessary. But cautiously optimistic, promising start to the year, but still a lot of factors at play around total protein availability, consumer sentiment and the other unpredictable factors that would get us to where we are. So Donnie, I think with that, I hand it over to you.

顯然，當我們進入第二季和今年剩餘時間時，我們將根據需要進行任何修改。但謹慎樂觀，今年的開局充滿希望，但圍繞總蛋白質供應量、消費者情緒和其他不可預測的因素仍然有很多因素在起作用，這些因素將使我們達到目前的水平。所以唐尼，我想，我把它交給你了。

Okay. I want to say -- once again, say thank you to all 139,000 of our team members. We're here today and have a good story to tell because of those 139,000 team members who contribute to us each and every day. Their efforts are what makes and what drives this business forward. Our strategy is working. We have the right leadership team in place to deliver and we're poised to drive long-term opportunity and shareholder value. We've taken some steps in the right direction, but we have a lot of work to do. Thanks for your continued interest in Tyson Foods, and we look forward to speaking with you again soon.

好的。我想說——再次向我們所有 139,000 名團隊成員表示感謝。我們今天能站在這裡，有一個好故事要講，因為有 139,000 名團隊成員每天為我們做出貢獻。他們的努力成就並推動了這個業務的發展。我們的策略正在發揮作用。我們擁有合適的領導團隊來交付成果，我們準備好推動長期機會和股東價值。我們已經朝著正確的方向採取了一些步驟，但我們還有很多工作要做。感謝您對泰森食品的持續關注，我們期待很快再次與您交談。

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講。您現在可以斷開連線。