United Natural Foods Inc (UNFI) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Rob, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the UNFI Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. Steve Bloomquist, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

早安.我叫羅布，今天我將擔任你們的會議操作員。此時此刻，我歡迎大家參加 UNFI 2023 財年第四季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）謝謝。史蒂夫‧布魯姆奎斯特 (Steve Bloomquist)，投資者關係副總裁。您可以開始您的會議了。

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on UNFI's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Conference Call. By now you should have received a copy of the earnings release issued earlier this morning. The press release and earnings presentation, which management will speak to, are available under the Investors section of the company's website. We've also included a supplemental disclosure file in Microsoft Excel with key financial information.

大家早安，感謝您參加 UNFI 2023 財年第四季財報電話會議。到目前為止，您應該已經收到了今天早上早些時候發布的收益報告的副本。管理層將發表講話的新聞稿和收益報告可在公司網站的投資者部分查看。我們還在 Microsoft Excel 中提供了包含關鍵財務資訊的補充揭露文件。

Joining me for today's call are Sandy Douglas, our Chief Executive Officer; and John Howard, our Chief Financial Officer. Sandy and John will provide a strategy and business update, after which we will take your questions.

與我一起參加今天電話會議的是我們的執行長桑迪·道格拉斯 (Sandy Douglas)；以及我們的財務長約翰·霍華德。桑迪和約翰將提供策略和業務更新，之後我們將回答您的問題。

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that comments made by management during today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include plans, expectations, estimates and projections that might involve significant risks and uncertainties. These risks are discussed in the company's earnings release and SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in these forward-looking statements.

在開始之前，我想提醒大家，管理階層在今天的電話會議中發表的評論可能包含前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述包括可能涉及重大風險和不確定性的計劃、預期、估計和預測。這些風險在公司的收益報告和美國證券交易委員會的文件中進行了討論。實際結果可能與這些前瞻性陳述中討論的結果有重大差異。

And lastly, I'd like to point out that during today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions and reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our press release and the end of our earnings presentation.

最後，我想指出，在今天的電話會議中，管理階層將參考某些非公認會計準則財務指標。我們的新聞稿和收益報告的結尾包含了最具可比性的公認會計準則財務指標的定義和調節。

I'd like to now ask you to turn to Slide 6 of our presentation as I turn the call over to Sandy.

現在，當我將電話轉給桑迪時，我想請您翻看我們簡報的第 6 張投影片。

Thanks, Steve. We appreciate everyone joining us for our fourth quarter call. In my remarks this morning, I'll provide a brief overview of our results, the operating environment and then provide an update on the actions that we are taking to continue to reset and restore our profitability and improve the value we create for our customers, suppliers and in parallel, our shareholders.

謝謝，史蒂夫。我們感謝大家參加我們的第四季電話會議。在今天早上的演講中，我將簡要概述我們的業績和營運環境，然後介紹我們為繼續重置和恢復盈利能力並提高我們為客戶創造的價值而採取的行動的最新情況，供應商，同時還有我們的股東。

As you saw in our release, our fourth quarter results for sales and capital expenditures were in line with the updated outlook we provided in June. While adjusted EPS and adjusted EBITDA finished towards the high end of their respective ranges. UNFI has not been immune to the post-COVID, post-inflation challenges that the entire food industry is facing. Despite these challenges, we remain confident in our multiyear value creation opportunity and our plan to create and capture it. We are seeking to build upon our strengthening foundation and market leadership position by investing in the necessary capabilities to create a differentiated technology-enabled food retail services company that generate sustainable growth, profitability and shareholder value.

正如您在我們的新聞稿中看到的，我們第四季度的銷售和資本支出結果與我們 6 月提供的最新展望一致。調整後每股盈餘和調整後息稅折舊攤銷前利潤均接近各自範圍的高端。 UNFI 也未能倖免於整個食品業面臨的新冠疫情後、通貨膨脹後的挑戰。儘管面臨這些挑戰，我們仍然對我們多年的價值創造機會以及我們創造和抓住它的計劃充滿信心。我們正在尋求透過投資必要的能力來鞏固我們不斷加強的基礎和市場領導地位，以創建一家差異化的技術支持的食品零售服務公司，從而產生可持續的增長、盈利能力和股東價值。

To this end, this morning, we also announced a refreshment of our Board, adding 3 new members with deep food industry, business transformation and investment stewardship experience, who we believe will be highly valuable in guiding our customer and supplier focused multiyear transformation plan in a disciplined manner that generates compelling shareholder returns.

為此，今天早上，我們還宣布了董事會的更新，增加了3 名具有深度食品行業、業務轉型和投資管理經驗的新成員，我們相信他們對於指導我們以客戶和供應商為中心的多年轉型計劃非常有價值。以嚴謹的方式產生引人注目的股東回報。

UNFI has a strong industry leadership position with an expansive supply chain as the largest wholesale grocery distribution and value-added food retail services provider in North America, with nearly 11,000 suppliers and manufacturers serving over 30,000 retail outlets. And the long-term growth opportunity and pipeline we see in our core business remains significant within a $140 billion total addressable market for our core wholesale business. However, considerable progress remains to be made modernizing and unifying our technology and network platforms as previous plans have taken longer than expected as the company faced the onset of the COVID pandemic, unprecedented inflation and supply chain disruptions over the past few years. These events and their enduring consequences have brought cost increases across our total customer service system as we serve our large, diverse and growing customer base.

UNFI 擁有強大的行業領導地位，擁有廣泛的供應鏈，是北美最大的雜貨批發分銷和增值食品零售服務提供商，擁有近 11,000 家供應商和製造商，為 30,000 多個零售店提供服務。我們在核心業務中看到的長期成長機會和管道在我們核心批發業務總規模達 1,400 億美元的潛在市場中仍然很重要。然而，我們的技術和網路平台的現代化和統一仍有相當大的進展，因為過去幾年該公司面臨著新冠疫情大流行、前所未有的通貨膨脹和供應鏈中斷，之前的計劃花費的時間比預期要長。這些事件及其持久後果導致我們整個客戶服務系統的成本增加，因為我們為龐大、多樣化且不斷增長的客戶群提供服務。

In previous quarters, we've outlined a 4-part plan to transform and realize the full value of our platform including details on how we plan to strengthen our supply chain for our retailers and suppliers through a distribution network automation and optimization, introducing smarter technology systems and investing in operational excellence and efficiency. We believe that we will further differentiate UNFI from our peers by complementing our profitable growth strategy with our operational transformation. And specifically, we expect to execute our transformation in a manner that restores and grows our profitability to sustainably improve shareholder value creation.

在前幾季中，我們概述了一個由4 部分組成的計劃，旨在轉型並實現我們平台的全部價值，包括我們計劃如何透過分銷網路自動化和優化、引入更智慧的技術來加強零售商和供應商的供應鏈的詳細資訊系統並投資於卓越營運和效率。我們相信，透過營運轉型補充我們的獲利成長策略，我們將進一步使 UNFI 從同業中脫穎而出。具體來說，我們希望以恢復和提高獲利能力的方式執行轉型，從而持續改善股東價值創造。

We see significant sales and profit growth opportunities, so significant that we are unwilling to be incremental in our approach as we drive change and investment. Our transformation agenda is challenging, and it will take time. In the meantime, our management team is focused on working through the near-term environmental challenges, resetting the business and taking action to turn profitability around while simultaneously investing in the business to sustain and significantly accelerate profitable growth over time. While we laid the groundwork for our transformation, the management team is also taking decisive action to revamp and lower our sustaining cost structure in the near term.

我們看到了巨大的銷售和利潤成長機會，如此重要以至於我們不願意在推動變革和投資時採取漸進的方法。我們的轉型議程充滿挑戰，而且需要時間。同時，我們的管理團隊專注於應對近期的環境挑戰，重新調整業務並採取行動扭轉盈利能力，同時投資業務以維持並隨著時間的推移顯著加速盈利增長。在我們為轉型奠定基礎的同時，管理團隊也採取果斷行動，在短期內改造和降低我們的持續成本結構。

The benefits from these more easily executable profitability drivers that I outlined on our last call will largely go towards offsetting higher operating costs that include additional labor and supply chain costs and the acceleration of work on our transformation initiatives. We also believe this transformation, including our planned investments to modernize and optimize our infrastructure will help us to create a more nimble, streamlined and responsive company. Let me briefly report on the near-term actions I previously outlined.

我在上次電話會議中概述的這些更容易執行的獲利驅動因素的好處將在很大程度上抵消更高的營運成本，包括額外的勞動力和供應鏈成本以及加速我們的轉型計劃工作。我們也相信，這項轉型，包括我們計劃進行的投資以實現基礎設施現代化和優化，將幫助我們創建一家更靈活、精簡和響應迅速的公司。讓我簡要報告我之前概述的近期行動。

Since our third quarter call, we've captured nearly $100 million of benefits on a run rate basis from work around our organizational structure, SG&A spending and wholesale efficiency initiatives. Having completed a deeper dive, we now believe a greater opportunity exists than we previously thought to continue to improve and become more efficient. As such, we're increasing the near-term value creation benefit from $100 million called out in June to nearly $150 million. These amounts do not include the potential opportunity from improving our shrink rate, which, as I mentioned on our last call, is meaningfully higher than the pre-pandemic run rate and which we expect to improve over the course of the year as we operationalize process improvements.

自第三季電話會議以來，我們透過圍繞組織結構、SG&A 支出和批發效率計劃的工作，按運行率獲得了近 1 億美元的收益。完成更深入的研究後，我們現在相信存在比我們之前想像的更大的機會來繼續改進並提高效率。因此，我們將近期價值創造效益從 6 月的 1 億美元增加到近 1.5 億美元。這些金額不包括提高我們的收縮率的潛在機會，正如我在上次電話會議中提到的那樣，該收縮率明顯高於大流行前的運行率，並且隨著我們實施流程，我們預計在今年內會有所改善改進。

These value-creation initiatives are expected to benefit fiscal 2024, which will be an important year for UNFI as we take action to reset and begin to accelerate and expand our transformation program, including critical investments to our supply chain and technology infrastructure. Let me provide some more details on our transformation program progress and our plan going forward.

這些價值創造措施預計將使2024 財年受益，這對UNFI 來說將是重要的一年，因為我們將採取行動重置並開始加速和擴大我們的轉型計劃，包括對我們的供應鏈和技術基礎設施的關鍵投資。讓我提供有關我們轉型計劃進展和未來計劃的更多詳細資訊。

Let me point you to Slide 6, which includes a summary of our transformation plan to truly leverage the power of our competitive advantages through what we are calling ONE UNFI. We're working to modernize and unify our technologies, infrastructure and processes to drive better service for our customers and suppliers as well as improve our internal analytical capabilities to guide the company and help us be as dynamic and responsive as possible.

讓我向您介紹幻燈片 6，其中包括我們轉型計劃的摘要，該計劃旨在透過我們所說的 ONE UNFI 真正發揮我們的競爭優勢。我們正在努力實現技術、基礎設施和流程的現代化和統一，以便為我們的客戶和供應商提供更好的服務，並提高我們的內部分析能力，以指導公司並幫助我們盡可能保持活力和響應能力。

Slide 7 shows a broad roadmap of the key work streams we're pursuing over the next few years under the 4 transformation pillars that we previously identified. First is the work we're doing around our supply chain, what we've called network automation and optimization. We formally announced that Centralia, Washington will be the first location where Symbotic's automation technology will be installed. On our last call, we also stated that we've begun the design phases for the next two installs and expect to be running up to four of these projects simultaneously as we further expand the automation levels in our distribution system. We'll take learnings from Centralia to fine-tune the implementation of ensuing projects prior to completion and expect to accelerate the pace of installs as we gain confidence in our processes and the intricacies of the system.

投影片 7 顯示了我們在先前確定的 4 個轉型支柱下未來幾年將追求的關鍵工作流程的廣泛路線圖。首先是我們圍繞供應鏈所做的工作，我們稱之為網路自動化和最佳化。我們正式宣布，華盛頓森特勒利亞將成為 Symbotic 自動化技術的第一個安裝地點。在上次電話會議上，我們還表示，我們已經開始了接下來兩個安裝的設計階段，並預計隨著我們進一步擴大配電系統的自動化水平，將同時運行多達四個項目。我們將借鑒 Centralia 的經驗，在完成之前對後續專案的實施進行微調，並期望隨著我們對流程和系統複雜性的信心增強，加快安裝速度。

Collectively, when we complete, these projects are designed to increase our capacity, improve our service levels, enhance the customer experience, make for a safer workplace and importantly, create meaningful operating efficiencies. We're also continuing our evaluation of fast and slow moving facilities and regional DCs and how best to migrate our network in a way that will further enhance our capacity, lower our cost structure and optimize DC footprints and working capital levels.

總的來說，當我們完成後，這些項目旨在提高我們的能力，提高我們的服務水平，增強客戶體驗，打造更安全的工作場所，更重要的是，創造有意義的營運效率。我們也正在繼續評估快速和慢速移動的設施和區域資料中心，以及如何最好地遷移我們的網絡，以進一步增強我們的容量，降低我們的成本結構並優化資料中心的足跡和營運資本水準。

Next is our work around commercial value creation, which aims to enable us to generate more profitable and scalable growth for UNFI and a more streamlined experience for our customers and suppliers. We see significant potential to increase the visibility of profitable growth opportunities and data-driven real-time insights across our ecosystem. Said simply, our suppliers want to see our customers and their Shoppers better so they can make productive investments in sales, merchandising and marketing opportunities across the 30,000-plus retail locations that make up our customer base.

接下來是我們圍繞商業價值創造的工作，旨在使我們能夠為 UNFI 創造更多利潤和可擴展的成長，並為我們的客戶和供應商提供更精簡的體驗。我們看到了在整個生態系統中提高獲利成長機會和數據驅動的即時洞察的可見性的巨大潛力。簡而言之，我們的供應商希望更了解我們的客戶及其購物者，以便他們能夠在構成我們客戶群的 30,000 多個零售點的銷售、推銷和行銷機會方面進行富有成效的投資。

Our customers want them to do so and UNFI's opportunity is to build the capabilities necessary for this to happen seamlessly. We're also focused on building related capabilities and streamlining legacy processes to help customers and suppliers grow faster and more profitably together, and to ensure that UNFI is rewarded appropriately for the value created. Over time, our goal is to evolve our go-to-market programs to reduce complexity and drive accelerated supplier brand growth with and for UNFI customers.

我們的客戶希望他們這樣做，UNFI 的機會是建立實現這一目標所需的能力。我們也專注於建立相關能力並簡化遺留流程，以幫助客戶和供應商共同更快地發展、獲得更多的利潤，並確保 UNFI 因創造的價值而獲得適當的獎勵。隨著時間的推移，我們的目標是不斷發展我們的上市計劃，以降低複雜性並推動供應商品牌與 UNFI 客戶一起加速發展。

The third area of our transformation focus is enhancing our digital offering, which is another way that we can more effectively connect our customers and suppliers to grow their businesses collectively and profitably. Digital transformation is the key enabler to fully activate the commercial opportunities in our ecosystem, opportunities that many of the large retail chains are activating now. While we will be providing more specifics as we progress in digital, let me give you a quick example of early progress in this area to help illustrate how important elements of this plan are coming to life.

我們轉型重點的第三個領域是增強我們的數位化產品，這是我們能夠更有效地連接客戶和供應商以共同發展他們的業務並實現盈利的另一種方式。數位轉型是充分激活我們生態系統中商業機會的關鍵推動因素，許多大型零售連鎖店現在正在激活這些機會。雖然隨著數位化的進展，我們將提供更多細節，但讓我給您一個該領域早期進展的快速範例，以幫助說明該計劃的重要元素正在變得多麼重要。

Our newest value-added supplier program, UNFI Insights powered by Crisp provides suppliers with a granular understanding of sell-through data across natural and conventional channels directly through the myunfi.com supplier portal. The UNFI Insights team is dedicated to uncovering the latest data and actionable intelligence. So suppliers and customers can see each other and their Shoppers and drive mutual benefits. We have seen solid early adoption and positive initial feedback from suppliers of this early-stage program.

我們最新的增值供應商計劃 UNFI Insights 由 Crisp 提供支持，可直接透過 myunfi.com 供應商門戶，讓供應商對自然通路和傳統通路的銷售數據有更深入的了解。 UNFI 洞察團隊致力於發現最新數據和可操作的情報。因此，供應商和客戶可以看到彼此及其購物者並實現互惠互利。我們已經看到該早期計劃的早期採用和供應商的積極初步回饋。

And finally, our fourth transformation program is the work of technology infrastructure unification and modernization, where we plan to reduce the number of systems used to run the business across areas such as finance, warehouse management, procurement, promotions and data management. We're planning for our first go-live implementation of a common warehouse management system accompanied by what we're calling hyper support to ensure success, which will serve as the pilot for the continued rollout of a single solution.

最後，我們的第四個轉型計劃是技術基礎設施統一和現代化工作，我們計劃減少用於跨領域運行業務的系統數量，例如財務、倉庫管理、採購、促銷和資料管理。我們正在計劃首次上線實施通用倉庫管理系統，並提供我們所謂的超級支援以確保成功，這將作為持續推出單一解決方案的試點。

As we've talked about before, this is consistent with our goal to simplify the business model to lower our cost structure and improve the customer experience. Common platforms are expected to lead to enhanced efficiencies, more uniform data sets and improved business management. Similar work streams are moving forward in other parts of the business guided by executive leaders and cross-functional teams. While we expect our transformation program to be a multiyear endeavor, we're already making progress adding incremental growth in profit accretive drivers to our business while also making long-term structural improvements to our efficiency, processes and cost base.

正如我們之前談到的，這與我們簡化業務模型以降低成本結構並改善客戶體驗的目標是一致的。通用平台預計將提高效率、更統一的資料集和改進的業務管理。在執行領導和跨職能團隊的指導下，類似的工作流程正在業務的其他部分向前推進。雖然我們預計我們的轉型計劃將是一項多年的努力，但我們已經取得了進展，為我們的業務增加了利潤增長驅動因素的增量增長，同時也對我們的效率、流程和成本基礎進行了長期結構性改善。

So in summary, I want to make sure that I leave you with three things. First, fiscal 2024 is an important year as we emerge from 3 years of unprecedented volatility and look to reset our profitability in the near term while investing in critical foundational skills, infrastructure and capabilities that we believe will accelerate growth in sales and profitability for UNFI, our customers and our suppliers.

總而言之，我想確保我留給你們三件事。首先，2024 財年是重要的一年，因為我們擺脫了3 年前所未有的波動，並希望在短期內重置我們的盈利能力，同時投資關鍵的基礎技能、基礎設施和能力，我們相信這些將加速UNFI 的銷售和獲利能力成長，我們的客戶和我們的供應商。

Second, there have been and continue to be challenges that impact the entire food industry but we're taking decisive action to strengthen the business and drive improved performance. We run a complex business and know the path forward will take time, tenacity and discipline and that will need to be adaptable along the way. But we also know the way to fully realize our vision and maximize shareholder value creation is through a proactive combination of near-term action and the multiyear transformation path that I've outlined.

其次，影響整個食品產業的挑戰已經並將繼續存在，但我們正在採取果斷行動來加強業務並提高績效。我們經營著一家複雜的企業，並且知道前進的道路需要時間、堅韌和紀律，並且需要一路適應。但我們也知道，充分實現我們的願景並最大限度地創造股東價值的方法是透過積極地將近期行動與我概述的多年轉型路徑相結合。

And finally, with the steps we are taking to continue to strengthen both our leadership team and our Board, we are positioning our company to capture the significant profitable growth opportunities that lay ahead. We look forward to updating you on our progress along the way. And let me now turn the call over to John for his insights on our financials.

最後，透過我們正在採取的措施繼續加強我們的領導團隊和董事會，我們正在定位我們的公司，以抓住未來的重大獲利成長機會。我們期待向您通報我們一路走來的最新進展。現在讓我把電話轉給約翰，聽聽他對我們財務狀況的見解。

Thank you, Sandy, good morning, everyone. As Sandy noted, we finished the year towards the upper half of the outlook provided on our third quarter call and our focus continues to be on driving improved capabilities, operational efficiencies and near-term profitability. Today, I will provide commentary on fourth quarter results, our balance sheet and capital structure and our outlook for fiscal 2024. With that, let's review our Q4 results.

謝謝桑迪，大家早安。正如桑迪所指出的那樣，我們今年的業績接近第三季電話會議上提供的展望的上半部分，我們的重點仍然是推動能力、營運效率和近期獲利能力的提高。今天，我將對第四季度業績、我們的資產負債表和資本結構以及 2024 財年的前景進行評論。接下來，讓我們回顧一下我們的第四季度業績。

Turning to Slide 9. Fourth quarter net sales grew by 2% and totaled more than $7.4 billion primarily reflecting inflation and new business wins, which more than offset a decline in unit volume. Sales from our three primary wholesale channels grew by nearly 3%, including the impact of inflation of nearly 6% and with supernatural growing the fastest at over 9%. This includes incremental volume from new customers added over the last year, additional categories and new store openings in supernatural and increased item and category penetration with existing customers.

轉向投影片 9。第四季淨銷售額成長 2%，總額超過 74 億美元，主要反映了通貨膨脹和新業務的成長，這足以抵消單位銷售的下降。我們三大主要批發通路的銷售額成長了近3%，其中通貨膨脹的影響接近6%，超自然成長最快，超過9%。這包括去年增加的新客戶的增量、超自然的額外類別和新店開業以及現有客戶的商品和類別滲透率的增加。

Unit volumes remained negative but improved sequentially by about 100 basis points from Q3 and were slightly better than Nielsen's total U.S. food volume changes which is representative of performance for the grocery industry as a whole. Retail sales declined 2% compared to last year's fourth quarter, primarily driven by lower unit volumes, partly offset by higher average unit retail prices. We've continued to experience pressure across our retail footprint, primarily located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, due in large part to tightening consumer demand, reductions in government support programs and more intense competition on price.

單位銷售仍為負值，但較第三季度連續改善約 100 個基點，略好於尼爾森的美國食品總量變化，該變化代表了整個食品雜貨行業的表現。與去年第四季相比，零售額下降了 2%，主要是由於單位銷售下降，但平均單位零售價格上漲部分抵消了這一影響。我們的零售業務（主要位於明尼阿波利斯-聖路易斯）繼續面臨壓力。保羅行情的上漲，很大程度上是由於消費需求趨緊、政府支持計畫的減少、價格競爭更加激烈。

Flipping to Slide 10. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter totaled $93 million, which was at the top half of the implied range we provided in June. This compares to $213 million in the year ago fourth quarter. As we indicated would be the case with our updated outlook, the biggest driver for the decline in Q4 year-over-year profitability was lower levels of procurement gain opportunities resulting from decelerating inflation. This resulted in a reduction in our gross profit rate prior to the LIFO charge in both years of approximately 175 basis points or more than $100 million. We also experienced higher levels of shrink compared to last year's fourth quarter, which we are actively addressing.

翻到投影片 10。第四季調整後 EBITDA 總額為 9,300 萬美元，位於我們 6 月提供的隱含範圍的上半部。相比之下，去年第四季的銷售額為 2.13 億美元。正如我們在最新展望中指出的那樣，第四季度獲利能力年減的最大驅動因素是通膨放緩導致採購收益機會水準較低。這導致我們在後進先出費用之前的毛利率在兩年內下降了約 175 個基點或超過 1 億美元。與去年第四季相比，我們也經歷了更高水平的收縮，我們正在積極解決這個問題。

Our fourth quarter operating costs as a percent of sales were flat to last year. However, last year included approximately $14 million in higher performance-based incentive compensation expense compared to this year. Excluding this performance-based incentive compensation expense, our operating expense rate increased by about 25 basis points. A good portion of this came from higher health benefit costs driven by a higher level of claims representing a more normalized run rate as associates return to more pre-pandemic medical visits.

我們第四季的營運成本佔銷售額的百分比與去年持平。然而，與今年相比，去年包含了約 1,400 萬美元的基於績效的激勵薪酬費用。剔除這項以績效為基礎的激勵性薪酬費用，我們的營運費用率增加了約25個基點。其中很大一部分原因是隨著員工更多地返回到疫情前的醫療就診，更高的索賠水準推動了更高的健康福利成本，這代表著更正常化的運作率。

Within our retail segment, adjusted EBITDA decreased to $4 million, primarily due to margin investments intended to drive traffic and basket size improvements as well as higher-than-normal costs associated with recently opened stores. During the quarter, we opened one new store, bringing total stores opened during fiscal 2023 to 6 stores. Our GAAP EPS for Q4 was a loss of $1.15 and which included $0.90 in after-tax costs and expenses composed primarily of LIFO, restructuring and business transformation. Our adjusted EPS totaled a loss of $0.25 compared to $1.27 of income in last year's fourth quarter. This decline is primarily attributable to the lower adjusted EBITDA compared to last year as well as lower noncash pension income and higher D&A, which was driven by elevated levels of investment, which is expected to continue.

在我們的零售部門，調整後的 EBITDA 下降至 400 萬美元，主要是由於旨在推動客流量和購物籃規模改善的保證金投資，以及與最近開業的商店相關的高於正常的成本。本季度，我們開設了 1 家新店，使 2023 財年新開店總數達到 6 家。我們第四季的 GAAP 每股盈餘為虧損 1.15 美元，其中包括 0.90 美元的稅後成本和費用，主要由 LIFO、重組和業務轉型組成。我們調整後的每股盈餘總計虧損 0.25 美元，而去年第四季的營收為 1.27 美元。這一下降主要是由於與去年相比調整後的 EBITDA 較低，以及非現金退休金收入較低和 D&A 較高，這是由投資水平提高推動的，預計這種情況將持續下去。

Moving to Slide 11. We finished the quarter with total outstanding net debt of just under $1.95 billion, a $70 million decrease compared to last quarter. This is our lowest net debt balance since the October 2018 closing of our SUPERVALU acquisition, reflecting our strong efforts to prioritize debt reduction over the past several years. Our net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio finished fiscal 2023 at 3.0x.

轉到投影片 11。本季末，我們的未償淨債務總額略低於 19.5 億美元，比上季減少了 7,000 萬美元。這是自 2018 年 10 月完成 SUPERVALU 收購以來我們的最低淨債務餘額，反映了我們在過去幾年中優先考慮債務削減的大力努力。 2023 財政年度結束時，我們的淨負債與調整後 EBITDA 槓桿率為 3.0 倍。

Turning to Slide 12. Let's move to our outlook for fiscal 2024, which will be a 53-week year. From a reporting perspective, our fourth quarter will have one additional week, making it a 14-week quarter. We expect fiscal 2024 full year net sales to grow approximately 3% or $900 million at the midpoint of the $30.9 billion to $31.5 billion range we've provided. This includes an approximate $600 million or 2% benefit from the 53rd week. Our growth will include the addition of new business from customers added in fiscal 2023, we have yet to cycle the continued growth of selling more products to existing customers, new customer wins and anticipated strong growth within services. We expect full year inflation to continue to moderate and be in the low to mid-single digits, which is a decline compared to the over 9% reflected in our fiscal 2023 results.

轉向幻燈片 12。讓我們展望 2024 財年，該財年為期 53 週。從報告的角度來看，我們的第四季度將額外增加一周，使其成為為期 14 週的季度。我們預計 2024 財年全年淨銷售額將成長約 3%，即 9 億美元，處於我們提供的 309 億美元至 315 億美元區間的中位數。這包括第 53 週的約 6 億美元或 2% 的收益。我們的成長將包括 2023 財年新增客戶的新業務的增加，但我們尚未循環向現有客戶銷售更多產品、贏得新客戶以及預計服務領域的強勁成長的持續成長。我們預計全年通膨將繼續放緩，並處於低至中個位數，這與我們 2023 財年業績中反映的超過 9% 的通膨率相比有所下降。

We're also expecting ongoing near-term volume headwinds as consumers continue to adapt to higher costs across their household budgets. We expect fiscal 2024 full year adjusted EBITDA to be in $450 million to $550 million range. This decline primarily reflects approximately $125 million in lower anticipated procurement gains, primarily in last year's first and second quarters resulting from the continued decline in the number of supplier price increases compared to the first half of fiscal 2023. It also includes normalized performance-based incentive compensation accrual of approximately $62 million. This compares to fiscal 2023 when no material performance-based incentive compensation was paid to eligible associates.

我們也預計，隨著消費者繼續適應家庭預算中更高的成本，近期銷售將持續面臨阻力。我們預計 2024 財年全年調整後 EBITDA 將介於 4.5 億至 5.5 億美元之間。這一下降主要反映了約1.25 億美元的預期採購收益較低，這主要是由於去年第一季和第二季度供應商提價數量與2023 財年上半年相比持續下降所致。還包括基於績效的標準化激勵應計補償約為 6,200 萬美元。相較之下，2023 財年並未向符合資格的員工支付基於績效的實質激勵薪酬。

Partly offsetting these items is the estimated contribution of $9 million from the 53rd week as well as the near-term profitability drivers, Sandy discussed earlier, with nearly half of the actions addressing profitability from cost savings, including our recent regional reorganization and other SG&A and operating expense rationalization, and the remainder being driven by SKU rationalization and contract review benefits. Additionally, as Sandy mentioned, we expect there could be some upside from shrink improvement as we operationalize and scale process improvements during fiscal 2024.

桑迪之前討論過，第 53 週的預計 900 萬美元貢獻以及近期盈利驅動因素部分抵消了這些項目，其中近一半的行動是通過節省成本來解決盈利問題，包括我們最近的區域重組以及其他 SG&A 和營運費用合理化，其餘部分由SKU 合理化和合約審查收益驅動。此外，正如桑迪所提到的，我們預計，隨著我們在 2024 財政年度實施和擴展流程改進，收縮改進可能會帶來一些好處。

From a cadence perspective, we would expect our first quarter to be the lowest of the year in absolute adjusted EBITDA dollar terms and likely to be similar to the adjusted EBITDA level we generated during Q4 2023. Our first quarter is expected to have the largest percentage decline compared to last year as we cycled last year's elevated level of procurement gains and further build the benefits of our near-term profitability initiatives.

從節奏的角度來看，我們預計第一季以絕對調整後EBITDA 美元計算將是今年最低的，並且可能與我們在2023 年第四季度產生的調整後EBITDA 水平相似。我們第一季預計將擁有最大的百分比與去年相比有所下降，因為我們循環利用了去年採購收益的高水平，並進一步增強了我們近期盈利計劃的效益。

Finally, we expect fiscal 2024 full year adjusted EPS to be in the range of $0.88 loss to $0.38 of adjusted net income. This primarily reflects lower adjusted EBITDA as well as lower noncash pension income and higher D&A. It also includes about $21 million of higher net interest expense primarily resulting from higher expected interest rates and ABL balances during the year and an additional week of interest expense.

最後，我們預計 2024 財年全年調整後每股收益將在 0.88 美元損失至 0.38 美元調整後淨利潤之間。這主要反映了調整後 EBITDA 的降低以及非現金退休金收入的降低和 D&A 的提高。它還包括約 2,100 萬美元的較高淨利息費用，主要是由於年內預期利率和 ABL 餘額較高以及額外一周的利息費用造成的。

More than 65% of our debt is currently fixed rate, taking into account our approximately $800 million of hedges in place as well as our senior notes. We expect to invest approximately $400 million in the business in fiscal 2024 with the primary driver of the increase compared to fiscal 2023 being investments in our transformation agenda with the largest component going towards network optimization and automation. This also includes investments to improve critical infrastructure as well as drive higher profitability and growth in the future.

考慮到我們已實施的約 8 億美元的對沖以及我們的優先票據，目前我們超過 65% 的債務為固定利率。我們預計在 2024 財年對該業務投資約 4 億美元，與 2023 財年相比，成長的主要驅動力是對我們轉型議程的投資，其中最大的組成部分將用於網路優化和自動化。這也包括改善關鍵基礎設施以及推動未來更高的獲利能力和成長的投資。

Turning to the summary on Slide 13, we expect fiscal 2024 will be a pivotal year for our transformation into a more modernized technology-enabled partner for our customers and suppliers. While we expect this will be a multiyear endeavor, we are committed to making progress as quickly as possible and look forward to updating our shareholders on this path. We are confident we're taking the appropriate actions to best position UNFI for improved efficiency and profitability enhanced growth and long-term success. We strongly believe that combining a more dynamic and nimble UNFI with our industry-leading position will enable us to drive meaningful and sustainable shareholder value creation.

轉向投影片 13 的摘要，我們預計 2024 財年將是我們轉型為客戶和供應商更現代化的技術支援合作夥伴的關鍵一年。雖然我們預計這將是一項多年的努力，但我們致力於盡快取得進展，並期待向股東通報最新情況。我們相信，我們正在採取適當的行動，使 UNFI 處於最佳位置，以提高效率和盈利能力，促進成長和長期成功。我們堅信，將更具活力和靈活性的 UNFI 與我們的行業領先地位相結合，將使我們能夠推動有意義和可持續的股東價值創造。

With that, operator, please open the lines for questions.

那麼，接線員，請打開提問線路。

(Operator Instructions) And your first question today comes from the line of Mark Carden from UBS.

（操作員說明）今天您的第一個問題來自瑞銀集團的馬克卡登（Mark Carden）。

So looking to 2024, you're lapping a few quarters of lower inventory gains beginning in Q2. Your cost savings, sounds like that they're falling nicely into place. Still, your guidance is assuming a meaningful step-down in profitability. So what's changed the most relative to where your expectations may have been 3 months ago? How much of its macro driven? And to what extent are you building in some conservatism just given all the initiatives that you have in place?

因此，展望 2024 年，您將經歷從第二季開始的幾個季度的較低庫存成長。您節省的成本聽起來似乎已經到位。儘管如此，您的指引還是假設獲利能力大幅下降。那麼，與 3 個月前您的預期相比，變化最大的是什麼？其宏觀驅動有多大？考慮到您已經採取的所有舉措，您在多大程度上建立了某種保守主義？

Yes, Mark, this is Sandy. Thanks for your question. I guess we're looking at several factors. If you look at the fourth quarter and consider the momentum of the business, the addition back of performance incentives for executives, you get to a fairly low run rate. You add back then the actions that we've taken, most of which we've already captured, and you get sort of in the range of our midpoint. The external environment continues to be pretty soft. So I think we're going to manage our way this year, and we're taking a number of initiatives to try to optimize the results. But the net of all those factors gave us the range that we provided today.

是的，馬克，這是桑迪。謝謝你的提問。我想我們正在考慮幾個因素。如果你看看第四季並考慮業務的發展勢頭，以及對高階主管的績效激勵，你會發現運作率相當低。然後添加我們已經採取的操作（其中大部分我們已經捕獲），然後您就可以得到中點範圍內的結果。外部環境依然相當疲軟。因此，我認為今年我們將按照自己的方式進行管理，我們正在採取一些措施來嘗試優化結果。但綜合所有這些因素，我們得出了今天提供的範圍。

Got it. That's helpful. And then what are you seeing from your independent grocer base? Would you expect the pace of customer migration to mass to pick up in 2024 and further pressure the channel? And if so, how does that typically impact demand for value-added services and private label?

知道了。這很有幫助。那麼您從獨立雜貨店基地看到了什麼？您是否預期 2024 年客戶大規模遷移的速度會加快，進而進一步對通路造成壓力？如果是這樣，這通常會如何影響增值服務和自有品牌的需求？

Yes. I mean you can't really generalize about independence. There's some incredibly strong and vibrant ones and then some that are struggling. This community is the focus of our whole product service makeup. I mean, it's our job to help them succeed. I think broadly compared to independents and syndicated data where our customers are outperforming the market by a small margin. But we've got a lot of programs, and you mentioned two of them, brands and services that are designed to provide independents with a great owned brand program at multiple price points and then services that help them save money and compete better. In the end, their success is the most important priority we have.

是的。我的意思是你不能真正概括獨立性。有一些非常強大和充滿活力，但也有一些正在掙扎。這個社區是我們整個產品服務組成的重點。我的意思是，幫助他們成功是我們的工作。我認為，與獨立數據和聯合數據相比，我們的客戶的表現略勝於市場。但我們有很多計劃，你提到了其中兩個，品牌和服務，旨在為獨立人士提供多個價位的優秀自有品牌計劃，然後提供幫助他們省錢和更好競爭的服務。最後，他們的成功是我們最重要的優先事項。

Your next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel from Guggenheim Securities.

您的下一個問題來自古根漢證券公司的約翰·海因博克爾。

Sandy, maybe talk to what procurement gains were pre-COVID in a normal environment right? It looks like, I don't know, maybe they got up to $250 million or $300 million at the peak. Was that all just gains on stuff that was in your inventory? Or was there a lot of forward buy, that went along with that. And when you think about that, does that then, what you had earned right over the past couple of years, sort of an EBITDA margin in the upper 2s, is that no longer retainable anytime, or over a very long period of time because those inventory gains are just going to be very de minimis in the next couple of years.

桑迪，也許可以談談在正常環境下，新冠疫情之前的採購收益是多少，對吧？我不知道，看起來他們在巔峰時期的收入可能達到了 2.5 億美元或 3 億美元。這只是你庫存中物品的收益嗎？或者是否有大量的遠期購買，隨之而來。當你想到這一點時，你在過去幾年中所賺取的收入，即 EBITDA 利潤率，在上 2 秒內，是否不再可以在任何時候或在很長一段時間內保留，因為這些未來幾年庫存成長將非常微不足道。

John, it's Sandy. Let me come at this a couple of ways, and then I'll ask John Howard to add to my comments. Definitely, we saw an out-of-pattern increase in procurement gains beginning in January of '22. And that last year before the year-over-year disinflation started and that generated numbers in line with your estimates. And that was the out-of-pattern part.

約翰，這是桑迪。讓我從幾個方面來談談這個問題，然後我會請約翰霍華德添加我的評論。當然，我們看到從 2022 年 1 月開始採購收益出現了異常成長。去年，在逐年通貨緊縮開始之前，產生的數字符合您的估計。這就是不合常規的部分。

You've got really two things going on there. You've got actual price increase events, both the frequency and depth and then you have promotions. And we saw a decline in promotions while prices were going way up. What we expect to happen is that as price increase events decline, we expect promotions to come back, although they've done so very slowly. But as we look forward and we see units continuing to be soft, the consumer to be stressed and inflation now returning to lower levels. We definitely expect consumer products companies to start promoting more. They'll need to in order to drive sales.

你那裡確實發生了兩件事。你有實際的價格上漲活動，無論是頻率還是深度，然後你還有促銷活動。我們看到促銷活動減少，但價格卻大幅上漲。我們預計，隨著漲價事件的減少，我們預計促銷活動將會捲土重來，儘管促銷活動進展得非常緩慢。但展望未來，我們看到單位持續疲軟，消費者面臨壓力，通膨現在回到較低水準。我們當然期望消費品公司開始進行更多促銷。他們需要這樣做才能推動銷售。

And so we'll see a positive there the out-of-pattern high number of price events have kind of returned back to more normal levels. We're still cycling the higher ones, as John mentioned in his comments, but net-net-net, from a run rate perspective, we'd expect it to be slightly positive as promotions come back. John, do you want to add anything?

因此，我們將看到積極的一面，即異常的大量價格事件已恢復到更正常的水平。正如約翰在評論中提到的那樣，我們仍在循環使用更高的價格，但從運行率的角度來看，我們預計隨著促銷的回歸，它會略有積極。約翰，你想補充什麼嗎？

No, I think that's spot on. The only thing just to put some numbers around that '23 to '24 impact. It's going to be about $125 million that we've, of course, factored into our guidance. And most of that is going to be in the first 2 quarters of FY '24 as we cycle those gains that were still happening in the first half of FY '23.

不，我認為這是正確的。唯一能提供一些關於 23 至 24 年影響的數字。當然，我們已將其納入我們的指導中，約為 1.25 億美元。其中大部分將發生在 24 財年的前兩個季度，因為我們循環了 23 財年上半年仍在發生的收益。

Great. And then maybe second thing, right? So leverage is going to go from 3 to 4x returns this year. You'd say that's temporary I think there was some commentary with the Board changes of strengthening the balance sheet. So do you feel a need to do that urgently? And then what do you do? I know you securitized receivables before. I don't know if you want to do that? I don't know if you want to sell retail right at a low level? I don't know what the options are, right, to strengthen the balance sheet in short term?

偉大的。然後也許是第二件事，對吧？因此，今年槓桿回報率將從 3 倍升至 4 倍。你可能會說這是暫時的，我認為董事會對加強資產負債表的變化有一些評論。那麼您覺得有必要緊急這樣做嗎？然後你該怎麼辦？我知道您之前曾將應收帳款證券化。不知道你是否願意這樣做？不知道您是否想低價出售零售權？我不知道短期內加強資產負債表的選擇是什麼，對嗎？

John, I'll answer that strategically, and then I'll let John pick apart the DCs. The refreshment of our Board from our point of view is going to strengthen our offense. We have a transformation plan and the strategy that we're investing in and that we are excited about and confident that it's going to make a significant difference. Now we're in the investment phase. So it's obviously out there in the future that the benefits will come. But I think as a Board, new members and all members alike, we are aligned on the importance of that.

約翰，我會策略性地回答這個問題，然後我會讓約翰來分解 DC。從我們的角度來看，董事會的更新將加強我們的進攻。我們有一個轉型計劃和我們正在投資的策略，我們對此感到興奮並相信它將產生重大影響。現在我們正處於投資階段。因此，很明顯，未來將會帶來好處。但我認為，作為董事會、新成員和所有成員，我們對此的重要性是一致的。

What the financial review with the new board and the new skill sets is just going to help us make sure that we're sweating every decision we make in the most detailed way to ensure that not only are we driving the transformation strategy, but we're also maximizing returns to shareholders on a strong basis. We have strong liquidity. We have the resources we need to invest in the plan, but we want to make sure that every stakeholder of ours customers, suppliers and shareholders are getting the best possible return. John?

新董事會和新技能組合的財務審查將幫助我們確保我們以最詳細的方式做出每一個決定，以確保我們不僅推動轉型策略，而且我們還在堅實的基礎上最大化股東的回報。我們有很強的流動性。我們擁有投資該計劃所需的資源，但我們希望確保我們的客戶、供應商和股東的每個利害關係人都能獲得最佳回報。約翰？

No, I think that's right. I think the way we think about that leverage, just a little more granular, John, is -- we are going to end up taking a little higher than where we were in '23. But I don't want to lose sight of the focus that we have had over the past few years on reducing debt since the acquisition. We've paid down $1.4 billion worth of debt since the acquisition, getting that total debt down to that below $2 billion. So we are continuing to focus on that as part of our overall capital strategy.

不，我認為這是對的。約翰，我認為我們考慮槓桿的方式，更具體一點，是——我們最終會比 23 年的水平更高一些。但我不想忽視過去幾年自收購以來我們一直致力於減少債務的重點。自收購以來，我們已經償還了價值 14 億美元的債務，使債務總額降至 20 億美元以下。因此，我們將繼續關注這一點，將其作為我們整體資本策略的一部分。

Your next question comes from the line of Leah Jordan from Goldman Sachs.

你的下一個問題來自高盛的 Leah Jordan。

I first had a couple of questions on cost savings. Just wanted to touch on the contract review part of the original $100 million. Is it fair to say that you're fully done reviewing your -- all of your contracts at this point and that they're fully consistent? Just any update on that. And then the second piece is around the incremental $50 million that you've found since last quarter. Just what specifically are you seeing there? And then how should we think about timing? Have you -- is that fully incorporated within your guidance for next year?

我首先有幾個關於節省成本的問題。只是想談談最初 1 億美元的合約審查部分。可以公平地說，您現在已經完全審查了您的所有合約並且它們完全一致嗎？只是任何更新。第二部分是自上季以來您發現的增量 5000 萬美元。您具體看到了什麼？那我們該如何考慮時機呢？您是否已將其完全納入您明年的指導中？

Sure. Leah, it's Sandy here. The specific answer to contracts is that a significant amount of that work has been done to assess them there, I would bucket the opportunities into immediate action. Contractual improvement opportunities that obviously take time and then projects in particular categories, for example, where we may be experiencing unsatisfactory economics where we need to work with the supplier to change how we go to market. And so a significant amount of the quick wins have been captured. The longer-term contractual ones are obviously being done in partnership with our customers or suppliers depending on where the contract sits. And the projects are obviously more ongoing.

當然。莉亞，我是桑迪。對合約的具體答案是，已經完成了大量工作來評估合同，我會將這些機會立即付諸行動。合約改進機會顯然需要時間，然後針對特定類別進行項目，例如，我們可能會遇到不令人滿意的經濟效益，我們需要與供應商合作來改變我們進入市場的方式。因此，大量的快速勝利已經被捕捉。長期合約顯然是與我們的客戶或供應商合作完成的，這取決於合約的所在地。這些項目顯然正在進行中。

In terms of increasing our outlook, I would say that area has been an area that's been helpful. And remember that a lot of that is necessary to offset increases in operating expenses, and that makes sense to both suppliers and retailers. But we're going to make sure that every single one of our agreements is fair, it's modern, it's consistent and that it's thoughtful relative to the unique characteristics of a given situation. And so that's where a lot of the plus side has come.

就提高我們的前景而言，我想說這個領域是一個很有幫助的領域。請記住，其中很大一部分是抵消營運費用增加所必需的，這對供應商和零售商都有意義。但我們將確保我們的每項協議都是公平的、現代的、一致的，並且相對於特定情況的獨特特徵是經過深思熟慮的。這就是很多優點的來源。

The rest of the program is, as we've described, SKU optimization, zero-based budgeting, flattening the organization to be more agile and more effective in all of those programs are on schedule.

正如我們所描述的，該計劃的其餘部分是 SKU 優化、零基預算、組織扁平化，使其更加敏捷、更加有效，所有這些計劃都按計劃進行。

Okay. Great. And then my follow-up is just a little bit longer term. I understand next year, you're still executing on your transformation efforts. But how should we think about margins in a normalized environment? Is it possible to get there in '25? Or how are you thinking about timing? And what is the key unlock you're looking to beyond whatever is happening in the inflation backdrop?

好的。偉大的。然後我的後續行動只是更長一些。據我所知，明年您仍在執行轉型工作。但我們該如何考慮正常化環境下的利潤率呢？ 25年有可能到達嗎？或者你如何考慮時機？除了通膨背景下發生的一切之外，您希望解開的鑰匙是什麼？

Sure. I think obviously, we haven't given an outlook for years past fiscal '24 and we intend to continue to refine our assumptions. And as we get the implementation plans laid down specifically, we'll have a more specific outlook for those years. But from my point of view, the opportunity, as I said in my script, that we see in the transformation agenda to make this company more profitable and to allow it to grow faster and create more value for customers and suppliers is significant. And beyond that, we haven't really provided public information. But it's -- we view the opportunity as significant is the simplest way to put it.

當然。我認為顯然，我們還沒有給出 24 財年過去幾年的前景，我們打算繼續完善我們的假設。當我們具體制定實施計劃時，我們將對這些年有更具體的展望。但從我的角度來看，正如我在腳本中所說，我們在轉型議程中看到的機會非常重要，可以使這家公司獲得更多利潤，並使其發展更快，為客戶和供應商創造更多價值。除此之外，我們還沒有真正提供公開資訊。但最簡單的說法是，我們認為這個機會非常重要。

And your next question comes from the line of Scott Mushkin from R5 Capital.

您的下一個問題來自 R5 Capital 的 Scott Mushkin。

I got a couple kind of short ones and then maybe more strategic. So when you mentioned market share and you're kind of just a little bit above IRI, Nielsen, are you referring to the total market or just the supermarkets?

我有一些簡短的，然後可能更具戰略性。因此，當您提到市場份額並且您的市場份額略高於 IRI 時，尼爾森，您指的是整個市場還是只是超市？

In that particular line, I believe we were talking about the total market.

在這一行中，我相信我們談論的是整個市場。

Perfect. And then I don't know if you had said it, maybe I missed it. Did you talk about service levels in the quarter?

完美的。然後我不知道你是否說過，也許我錯過了。您是否談論了本季的服務水準？

Service levels, I don't know that we mentioned it, but we are seeing service levels improve sequentially. I think we mentioned last quarter that they were up about 10 percentage points versus 12 months before. And they're remaining at that level.

服務水平，我不知道我們是否提到過，但我們看到服務水平不斷提高。我想我們在上個季度提到過，與 12 個月前相比，成長了約 10 個百分點。他們仍然保持在這個水平。

And then final little housekeeping going on here. The inflation, you guys said low to mid-single digits. I mean we're tracking it kind of flattish right now over the last 6 months. So that seems somewhat aggressive. And I was just wondering maybe you could get into why you think it's going to be at that level?

然後最後的小家事工作就在這裡進行。你們說通貨膨脹率是低至中個位數。我的意思是，我們在過去 6 個月的追蹤情況有些平淡。所以這看起來有點咄咄逼人。我只是想知道也許你可以解釋為什麼你認為它會達到那個水平？

Yes, I'm happy to take that one. The -- we exited Q4 with just under 6% inflation for our business. And so the way we're thinking about that is it's going to continue to decelerate as we move through '24, ending somewhere in that very low single digits, but the average for the year will be something in the low single digits, 2% to 3%.

是的，我很高興接受這個。 - 我們第四季的業務通膨率略低於 6%。因此，我們考慮的方式是，隨著我們進入 24 年，它會繼續減速，以非常低的個位數結束，但今年的平均值將是低個位數的某個地方，2%至3% 。

Okay. That's great. And then my final one is a little bit more strategic. When you look at automating these facilities, everyone is kind of on that path a little bit given the activities from Walmart. How should we look at that from a time line perspective? When would you have the bulk of the facilities automated? Is this a 5-year process? Just a little kind of thoughts on timing here?

好的。那太棒了。然後我的最後一個更具戰略意義。當你考慮將這些設施自動化時，考慮到沃爾瑪的活動，每個人都有點走上這條道路。從時間軸的角度我們該如何看待？什麼時候能讓大部分設施自動化？這是一個5年的過程嗎？只是對時間安排有一點想法嗎？

Scott, I'm going to answer that with the information that we provided, unfortunately, which won't give you all the answer to that because there's some competitive sensitivity there. But before I do, let me make sure, in your first question, you asked a question about market share, and I want to make sure we're connecting exactly on what the universe is. The universe that we're outperforming is just the supermarket channel. It's basically like-for-like. It's not inclusive of discounters and club stores. So if you're comparing it to customers that are like our customers, we're performing slightly better than the broader market.

斯科特，不幸的是，我將用我們提供的資訊來回答這個問題，這不會給你所有的答案，因為那裡存在一些競爭敏感性。但在我這樣做之前，讓我確定一下，在你的第一個問題中，你問了一個關於市場份額的問題，我想確保我們在宇宙是什麼上準確地聯繫在一起。我們表現出色的領域只是超市通路。基本上都是同類的。它不包括折扣店和俱樂部商店。因此，如果您將其與類似我們客戶的客戶進行比較，我們的表現略優於更廣泛的市場。

On the question around automation, as I mentioned in my script, we are going live in our first one. We have several other projects started, our pace will be directly related to the capability and confidence we get in our ability to run those projects effectively and how many of them we can do at a given time. They have a wide range of benefits. The probably -- a very important one of those is the economic value they create and as we get full confidence and visibility into that, that will then dictate exactly what the end footprint looks like.

關於自動化的問題，正如我在腳本中提到的，我們將在第一個中上線。我們還啟動了其他幾個項目，我們的進度將直接關係到我們有效運行這些項目的能力和信心，以及我們在給定時間可以完成多少項目。它們具有廣泛的好處。其中一個非常重要的可能是它們創造的經濟價值，當我們對此有充分的信心和可見性時，這將準確地決定最終足跡的樣子。

Right now, we're going to the most obviously productive sites, and that was what we announced in our first agreement with Symbotic. We also have some each pick automation that we're doing in parallel. It's more tactical. But in the end, we will automate our distribution system in a very disciplined and economic way and the speed will directly relate to our capability to do it well.

現在，我們將前往最明顯的生產力站點，這就是我們在與 Symbotic 的第一份協議中宣布的內容。我們也同時進行了一些自動挑選操作。這更具戰術性。但最終，我們將以一種非常有紀律和經濟的方式自動化我們的分銷系統，速度將直接關係到我們做好這件事的能力。

Your next question comes from the line of Kelly Bania from BMO Capital Markets.

您的下一個問題來自 BMO 資本市場的 Kelly Bania。

I just wanted to ask again about the procurement gains. I think the -- one of the challenges with that has been just the visibility into how that has impacted the P&L. So I guess at this point, have you been able to go back and do some more analysis that gives you confidence in the magnitude of procurement gain headwinds that you have forecasted in fiscal '24? And then I have a couple more follow-ups.

我只是想再問一下採購收益的事。我認為，挑戰之一就是了解這對損益表的影響。所以我想在這一點上，您是否能夠回去進行更多分析，讓您對您在 24 財年預測的採購增益逆風的程度充滿信心？然後我還有一些後續行動。

I think principally, Kelly, we do because we have now experienced Q3 and Q4 of last year. And we have the ability now with all of that data to triangulate in on the data sources that we have and project it forward for Q1 and Q2 and the numbers John described in the script are how that's weighing on the P&L for fiscal '24. I would go further to say that we have learned from that a lot about how our margin operates through our distribution systems, and that's helping us create value, not just forecast.

凱利，我認為我們這樣做主要是因為我們現在已經經歷了去年的第三和第四季。我們現在有能力利用所有這些數據對我們擁有的數據來源進行三角測量，並將其預測到第一季和第二季度，而腳本中約翰描述的數字是對 24 財年損益表的影響。我想進一步說，我們從中學到了很多關於我們的利潤如何透過我們的分銷系統運作的知識，這幫助我們創造價值，而不僅僅是預測。

Okay. And can you give us any color on the specific dollar amount and pacing of the return of promotions and what is baked into your guidance and how that compares to historical levels of margin that you generate from promotional activity?

好的。您能否告訴我們促銷回報的具體金額和節奏，以及您的指導中包含哪些內容，以及與您從促銷活動中獲得的歷史利潤水平相比如何？

Sure, Kelly. This answer is going to frustrate you, but you may have some more information than I do on this. What we're seeing is we're seeing suppliers talk about accelerating promotions. Their actions are slightly behind their words, but because of the fact that inflation is coming down and unit velocity is not matching it on a one-to-one basis, it's logical to us that we will see supplier promotions improve. And that's what we believe they're saying. It's what they're telling us, but it looks to be gradual and it may be a function of fiscal years and how next year, which most of the suppliers are calendar fiscal will begin.

當然，凱利。這個答案會讓你感到沮喪，但你可能比我有更多的資訊。我們看到供應商談論加速促銷。他們的行動稍微落後於他們的言論，但由於通貨膨脹正在下降，而單位流通速度並沒有一對一地匹配，因此對我們來說，我們將看到供應商促銷活動的改善是合乎邏輯的。我們相信他們就是這麼說的。這是他們告訴我們的，但它看起來是漸進的，它可能是財政年度的函數，以及大多數供應商的日曆財政明年將如何開始。

But from a supplier perspective, we're seeing it slowly increase, but it's still below pre-pandemic levels. From a retailer perspective, we're seeing promotions accelerate as retailers look to drive their price positioning, and particularly those that are price positioned. But as suppliers get more promotional, we are eager to help them get a return and to invest more.

但從供應商的角度來看，我們看到它在緩慢增加，但仍低於疫情前的水平。從零售商的角度來看，我們看到促銷活動正在加速，因為零售商希望推動其價格定位，尤其是那些價格定位的產品。但隨著供應商獲得更多促銷，我們渴望幫助他們獲得回報並進行更多投資。

Okay. That's helpful. And maybe just within your guidance, can you talk a little bit more about the retail profitability that took a pretty big leg down here? And maybe can you talk about the factors. Is that your own retail stepping up their own promotions? And I guess, in a similar vein, what does your guidance assume in terms of customer mix shift pressures?

好的。這很有幫助。也許就在您的指導範圍內，您能多談談零售獲利能力大幅下降的情況嗎？也許你可以談談這些因素。是你們自己的零售店也在加強自己的促銷活動嗎？我想，同樣，您的指導意見在客戶組合轉變壓力方面有何假設？

Well, listen, when you look at our retail business, which is I think about 10% of our business, we have an extraordinary brand franchise in Cub, which is the market leader in the Twin Cities area. Twin Cities is a typical U.S. market, and it's prone to all the challenges that we see across the country, reducing federal assistance, student loans coming back. There's plenty of pressure on the consumer. There's also a significant amount of price competition in the market, and we're seeing that. It's a big market for home market for one discounter. It's a big market for another, and we're seeing all kinds of competitive activity.

好吧，聽著，當你看看我們的零售業務時，我認為這大約占我們業務的 10%，我們在 Cub 擁有非凡的品牌特許經營權，它是雙城地區的市場領導者。雙城是一個典型的美國市場，它很容易面臨我們在全國各地看到的所有挑戰，包括聯邦援助減少、學生貸款回歸。消費者壓力很大。市場上還存在大量的價格競爭，我們也看到了這一點。對於一家折扣店來說，這是一個很大的國內市場。對於另一個人來說，這是一個巨大的市場，我們看到了各種各樣的競爭活動。

So our team has doubled down on that and they're investing in promotions to try to retain and grow their customer count. And then they're also experiencing higher than pattern labor expenses. So that's impacted their profitability. From a more broad standpoint and our outlook for our retail business is incorporated in our guidance. So -- but that brand, the Cub brand is a strong brand, and we expect it to succeed going forward.

因此，我們的團隊加倍努力，他們正在促銷活動上進行投資，以試圖保留和增加客戶數量。而且他們的勞動成本也高於正常水準。這影響了他們的獲利能力。從更廣泛的角度來看，我們對零售業務的展望已納入我們的指導中。所以，但是這個品牌，Cub 品牌是一個強大的品牌，我們希望它能夠繼續取得成功。

As it relates to kind of market shifts, there's clearly pressure in the market coming from discounters. They're investing and they're taking share, and that's evident in the syndicated data. What our job is to try to make sure that our independents and our customers in general are equipped with the best cost, the best promotional investments and programs to help them compete effectively and to outperform their peer set first and to gain share in the market. And many of them are, many of them are doing very well. I would say, sales, in general, are soft at this stage, and we're going to continue to work to try to outperform the market. But our guidance incorporates that kind of an outlook.

由於它與市場變化有關，市場顯然面臨來自折扣店的壓力。他們正在投資並獲得份額，這在聯合數據中顯而易見。我們的工作是努力確保我們的獨立人士和我們的客戶總體上擁有最好的成本、最好的促銷投資和計劃，以幫助他們有效競爭並首先超越同行並獲得市場份額。他們中的許多人，許多人做得很好。我想說，現階段銷售整體疲軟，我們將繼續努力超越市場。但我們的指導意見包含了這種觀點。

And Kelly, just one reminder. The FY '23 retail incurred -- it reflects the expenses to open those 6 stores that I mentioned in my script that we would not expect to repeat in FY '24.

凱利，只是提醒一下。 23 財年的零售支出——它反映了我在腳本中提到的開設這 6 家商店的費用，我們預計不會在 24 財年重複這些費用。

Could you share a number on that, John?

約翰，可以分享一下這方面的數字嗎？

I don't think we've disclosed that number externally. But it will be -- for all 6 stores, it will be a few million dollars.

我認為我們沒有對外透露這個數字。但對於所有 6 家商店來說，這將是數百萬美元。

Okay. And maybe I'd just squeeze in one more here on CapEx. And if you are willing to comment at all on how that might play out over the next several years as you work towards this automation and optimization process. We've had CapEx go here from $250 million to $320 million and now planned at $400 million. So should that continue to creep up in the out years?

好的。也許我會在資本支出上再加一點。如果您願意對未來幾年在您致力於自動化和優化流程時可能會如何發揮作用發表評論。我們的資本支出從 2.5 億美元增加到 3.2 億美元，現在計劃為 4 億美元。那麼，這種情況在未來幾年該繼續蔓延嗎？

Yes. Kelly, this is Sandy. What I would say is, a, we haven't given out year guidance or really any specific strategic planning information largely because we're in the first year of really starting to roll out our transformation. But if you look at the $400 million in our capital budget, the majority of it is focused on transformation, a minority being kind of the maintenance capital that keeps our system going. So we pivoted to investing in changing the profile of the company and accelerating profitable growth.

是的。凱利，這是桑迪。我想說的是，我們還沒有給出年度指導或任何具體的戰略規劃訊息，很大程度上是因為我們正處於真正開始實施轉型的第一年。但如果你看看我們的 4 億美元資本預算，其中大部分都集中在轉型上，一小部分是維持我們系統運作的維護資本。因此，我們轉向投資改變公司形象並加速獲利成長。

Our plans going forward will be with our newly constituted Board and the financial review will be to rigorously go through all expenditures and make sure that every investment we make in this coming year and forward delivers not only maximum transformation benefits, but also outsized shareholder returns. And so we wouldn't be able to give out your guidance on this, but the process by which we will set that will be rigorous and will be designed to drive the transformation and deliver shareholder returns.

我們未來的計畫將由新組成的董事會制定，財務審查將嚴格審查所有支出，確保我們在來年和未來的每項投資不僅能帶來最大的轉型效益，還能帶來超額的股東回報。因此，我們無法就此提供您的指導，但我們將制定嚴格的流程，並將旨在推動轉型並提供股東回報。

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Saleh from BTIG.

您的下一個問題來自 BTIG 的 Peter Saleh。

Great. I just want to come back to the conversation around shrink. Can you guys give us a sense of what you have modeled into your 2024 guidance at this point for shrink? And are you seeing any changes there? Or is it kind of pretty consistent levels of shrink across product types and customers? Just trying to understand the dynamics going on at that level right now.

偉大的。我只想回到關於收縮的談話。你們能否讓我們了解一下你們目前在 2024 年縮減指導中所建模的內容？您看到那裡有什麼變化嗎？或者說，不同產品類型和不同客戶的縮減程度是否相當一致？只是想了解目前該層級正在發生的動態。

Sure. Thanks, Peter. Shrink is an important opportunity for us. As we mentioned last year, the shrink levels in our business have increased significantly over the past few years. They're driven by four main categories: procurement, inventory gains or losses, damages and spoilage. And all four of those have different root causes. And we've stood up a team to look at each of them and to manage them rigorously. We've identified root causes. We're rolling out new processes and training across our system and the entire management system is producing some early results. We haven't disclosed the specific component of shrink improvement that's in our guidance, but we see the opportunity as being significant and multiyear starting with this fiscal year.

當然。謝謝，彼得。收縮對我們來說是一個重要的機會。正如我們去年提到的，過去幾年我們業務的收縮水平顯著增加。它們由四個主要類別驅動：採購、庫存損益、損壞和損壞。這四個都有不同的根本原因。我們已經成立了一個團隊來審視每一個問題並對其進行嚴格管理。我們已經確定了根本原因。我們正在整個系統中推出新的流程和培訓，整個管理系統正在產生一些早期成果。我們尚未披露我們的指導中的收縮改善的具體組成部分，但我們認為從本財年開始，這個機會是重大的、持續多年的。

Understood. And then just lastly, Sandy, last we spoke on that shrink, the net inventory piece, I think, was kind of the piece we discussed in more detail. Should that piece really start to improve as your employees become more experienced and more tenured. Are you already seeing that? Or is that yet to come?

明白了。最後，桑迪，最後我們談到了收縮，淨庫存部分，我認為，是我們更詳細討論的部分。隨著您的員工變得更有經驗、任期更長，這部分是否真的開始改善？你已經看到了嗎？還是那還沒到來？

Yes. That's a knowledgeable question. The answer to that is yes, that helps. Overall operations improves as turnover goes down, and that's a core part of our people strategy in our system. And that's not just shrink. Its in all aspects of customer service and efficiency. But in addition to folks being more experienced, there are also process and system improvements that are rolling out to try to take the variability out and we've identified where the root causes are, and we're in the process of rolling out the improvements. And I expect this number to get better as we go forward.

是的。這是一個有知識的問題。答案是肯定的，這有幫助。隨著營業額下降，整體營運情況會有所改善，這是我們系統中人員策略的核心部分。這不僅僅是收縮。它體現在客戶服務和效率的各個方面。但除了人們更有經驗之外，還推出了流程和系統改進，試圖消除可變性，我們已經確定了根本原因在哪裡，我們正在推出改進。我預計隨著我們的前進，這個數字會變得更好。

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Wolf from CL King.

您的下一個問題來自 CL King 的 Andrew Wolf。

Sandy, I wanted to also ask the CapEx from executive and maybe Board view. Like could you just give investors and us just some sense of how you guys are formulating and planning return on investment or ultimate earnings power? I know some of it, you said, is contingent on how the implementation goes and the returns that come from that. But CapEx has gone up quite a lot. So could you just give us a sense of how you're thinking about that? And I guess one of the ways I'd like you to frame it, and you can frame it other ways, is how much of this is margin recapturing the margin that has been diminished recently? And how much of this is, I think you've alluded to a robust pipeline? How much of this is really more top line driven?

桑迪，我還想從高階主管甚至董事會的角度詢問資本支出。您能否讓投資人和我們了解你們是如何制定和規劃投資回報或最終獲利能力的？你說，我知道其中一些取決於實施的進展以及由此產生的回報。但資本支出已經上升很多了。那麼您能告訴我們您是如何看待這個問題的嗎？我想我希望你以其他方式建構它的方式之一是，其中有多少是利潤重新奪回最近減少的利潤？我想你已經提到了一個強大的管道，其中有多少？其中有多少是真正由營收驅動的？

Sure. So let me start by saying that every dollar of capital that we allocate is scrutinized through several different angles. Maintenance capital is by definition, maintenance capital. But what we have done is we've taken the transformation agenda and the capital that's embedded in it, and I think I mentioned in the previous question that it's about 2/3 of the total capital. That's not all incremental. We've actually sweated through the maintenance capital and kind of zero-based to try to source some of it. So the increase is not equal to the total of the transformation.

當然。首先我要說的是，我們分配的每一美元資本都經過幾個不同角度的審查。維護資本顧名思義就是維護資本。但我們所做的是，我們已經採取了轉型議程和其中嵌入的資本，我想我在上一個問題中提到過，它大約佔總資本的 2/3。這還不是全部增量。實際上，我們已經花費了維護資金和零基礎的資金來嘗試獲取其中的一些資金。所以增加的量不等於變換的總和。

And I would say the biggest load of the capital right now is operational. Its automation and network related, which is focused on -- I mean there are top line benefits because customer service and customer experience gets better. But the big payoff is actually in efficiencies in the supply chain and then the ability to get more efficient growth out of the buildings that exist. Automated building can actually produce a whole lot more sales than one that's not. And that gives you return on capital, it gives you working capital benefits, et cetera.

我想說，目前最大的資本負荷是可操作的。它的自動化和網路相關，重點是——我的意思是，因為客戶服務和客戶體驗變得更好，所以有頂線好處。但最大的回報實際上在於供應鏈的效率，以及從現有建築物中獲得更有效成長的能力。實際上，自動化建築比非自動化建築能產生更多的銷售。這會為你帶來資本回報，為你帶來營運資本收益，等等。

So our transformation agenda certainly is focused on creating a great customer experience and enabling UNFI to serve the maximum number of customers and categories profitably. But in doing that, we want to have a system that works very efficiently. And then through the sort of the noncapital side of our transformation, which is more about how we work with suppliers and how we make the commercial system work is how do we fully activate that using data to create growth and to earn profitability as we generate growth for some of the bigger profit pools in the system, which come out of our suppliers. So it's a very general answer, but if you want to follow up, Andy, I'm happy to answer.

因此，我們的轉型議程當然專注於創造出色的客戶體驗，並使 UNFI 能夠為最大數量的客戶和類別提供服務並實現盈利。但在這樣做的過程中，我們希望擁有一個運作非常有效率的系統。然後，透過我們轉型的非資本方面，更多的是我們如何與供應商合作以及我們如何使商業系統發揮作用，我們如何充分激活它，利用數據創造增長並在我們產生增長時賺取盈利系統中一些更大的利潤池來自我們的供應商。所以這是一個非常籠統的答案，但如果你想跟進，安迪，我很樂意回答。

And that's okay. I just had one clarification follow-up is, you mentioned, I think that -- I think, first, you said it's mainly operational network, which to me means margins. But then you said an automated system also has better throughput. So I just want to, again, back to the -- how you're justifying how the Board is voting on this and justifying the investment. Is it justified at all through margin? And then if the better capacity that you get through automation allows more customers? Is that sort of even a better return than you've -- has already been agreed upon? Or is it both?

沒關係。我剛剛得到一個澄清的後續行動是，你提到，我認為 - 我認為，首先，你說它主要是運營網絡，這對我來說意味著利潤。但你又說自動化系統也有更好的吞吐量。因此，我只想再次回到——您如何證明董事會對此進行投票並證明投資的合理性。通過保證金是否合理？那麼，透過自動化獲得的更好的產能是否可以帶來更多的客戶呢？這是否比您已經商定的回報更好？或兩者兼而有之？

Yes. I mean, it's sort of which side of it, do you look at it. There's definitely operating margin improvement, check. But there's returns on capital improvement to the extent that you can move more sales through a building and not have to build a new building. Now is that sales or is that just getting better asset productivity and driving returns up? Well, it's both. But the -- I think we talked about in previous calls, there's a -- this is a low-margin business. So sales drives a low gross margin. To the extent that it can be done in a capital-efficient way, that's going to create returns immediately for shareholders. To the extent that we have more customers. Besides the gross margin, it also increases attractiveness to our suppliers who will then invest to try to grow with the customer base that we have. That's one of our biggest assets and one of our biggest opportunities.

是的。我的意思是，這有點像它的哪一面，你看它嗎？檢查一下，營業利潤率肯定有所提高。但資本改善的回報是，你可以透過一棟大樓帶動更多的銷售，而不必建造一座新大樓。現在是銷售還是只是提高資產生產力並提高回報？嗯，兩者都是。但是，我想我們在之前的電話中談到過，這是一項低利潤業務。因此，銷售導致毛利率較低。如果能夠以資本效率高的方式完成，這將立即為股東創造回報。只要我們有更多的客戶。除了毛利率之外，它還增加了對我們供應商的吸引力，供應商隨後將投資以嘗試與我們擁有的客戶群一起發展。這是我們最大的資產之一，也是我們最大的機會之一。

So very few of these investments have just one stream of value that's a part of the investment. But certainly, the operating margin benefits are significant in the supply chain investments, but they have sales and supplier margin benefits that come off them as well.

因此，這些投資中很少只有一種價值流是投資的一部分。但可以肯定的是，營運利潤率收益在供應鏈投資中非常重要，但它們也帶來銷售和供應商利潤率收益。

Okay. That's clarifying. And just one last question is more probably for John. On the $94 million variance in the wholesale gross profit, could you maybe give us a sense of -- I know most of it is inventory gain, but you did say shrink as well. Just kind of proportionalize that, perhaps. And then if we were -- if you were just to adjust all that out, what is going on with the underlying gross margin at the customer level? And kind of with supernatural growing much faster, at least in the past, it's been kind of take it down the gross profit rate a bit. So could you just discuss how the underlying gross profit is doing?

好的。這很清楚。最後一個問題更可能適合約翰。關於批發毛利 9,400 萬美元的差異，您能否給我們一種感覺——我知道其中大部分是庫存收益，但您確實也提到了收縮。也許只是按比例調整。然後，如果我們 - 如果你只是調整所有這些，那麼客戶層面的基本毛利率會發生什麼？至少在過去，超自然的成長速度要快得多，這有點降低了毛利率。那您能討論一下基本毛利的表現嗎？

Yes. I'm going to take this one, too. The answer is that customer mix can affect our underlying gross profit and sometimes the larger customers will generate a gross margin decline. They are also tend to be very efficient customers. So when you get it to the bottom line, sometimes that's muted. We don't share specific information about customers and as I mentioned earlier in the question on independents, we see outsized growth from all over our customer base. It's more correlated with the success of their brand and their concept than their size.

是的。我也要去拿這個。答案是，客戶組合會影響我們的基本毛利，有時較大的客戶會導致毛利率下降。他們也往往是非常有效率的客戶。因此，當你達到底線時，有時會很安靜。我們不分享有關客戶的具體信息，正如我之前在有關獨立人士的問題中提到的，我們看到我們的所有客戶群都出現了巨大的增長。它與他們的品牌和概念的成功比他們的規模更相關。

So when you see real strong growth coming from a very large customer, you probably got it right that it's going to be a little bit negative in the gross profit, but that will benefit, every customer relationship and we have really strong partnerships with our large customers, and we mutually look for ways to create more value for each other in the partnership, and that's part of the process of account management.

因此，當您看到來自非常大的客戶的真正強勁增長時，您可能會認為毛利會有點負，但這將使每個客戶關係受益，而且我們與我們的大客戶擁有非常牢固的合作夥伴關係客戶，我們共同尋找在合作關係中為彼此創造更多價值的方法，這是客戶管理流程的一部分。

And your final question comes from the line of Bill Kirk from ROTH Capital Partners.

你的最後一個問題來自羅斯資本合夥公司的比爾柯克。

Sandy, you just kind of hinted at something, you provide such vital access to market for so many brands, right? It's harder for them especially the smaller ones to get the shelves really any other way. So I guess the question is, is there an ability or an appetite to increase the slotting fees to be in your warehouses, especially as you're making improvements to those warehouses?

桑迪，你只是暗示了一些事情，你為這麼多品牌提供瞭如此重要的市場准入，對吧？對他們來說，尤其是較小的公司，要以其他方式獲得貨架確實更困難。所以我想問題是，是否有能力或有興趣增加您倉庫的進場費，特別是當您正在對這些倉庫進行改進時？

Well, Bill, you just asked a super strategic question that I'm not going to answer directly, but let me see if I can frame the answer in a way that would give you what -- I think you would be the question behind the question.

好吧，比爾，你剛剛問了一個超級戰略問題，我不會直接回答，但讓我看看我是否可以以一種能給你什麼的方式構建答案——我認為你將是這個問題背後的問題。問題。

We see a significant opportunity to be a value-added resource to help suppliers and our 32,000 customers see each other exchange data and for the high-margin suppliers who are very growth-driven, to be able to invest to deliver brand execution and growth, consistent with their commercial strategies and ultimately, their brand strategies. The very, very largest retailers have built tools that help them do that. We see an opportunity for UNFI to get in that business and ultimately create growth opportunities in the most relevant brand-building channels that a brand can have to execute it.

我們看到了成為增值資源的重要機會，可以幫助供應商和我們的 32,000 名客戶互相交換數據，並且對於增長驅動型的高利潤供應商來說，能夠進行投資以實現品牌執行和增長，與他們的商業策略以及最終的品牌策略保持一致。非常非常大的零售商已經開發了可以幫助他們做到這一點的工具。我們看到 UNFI 有機會進入該業務，並最終在品牌可以執行的最相關的品牌建立管道中創造成長機會。

So the question you asked is the specific type of fee. The way I might frame it is to flip it over and say, well, maybe there's a subscription fee for a different kind of partnership that's all about moving the agenda faster and helping our customers be more competitive and more successful with brands and more investable. And that's something we're working on. It's not something we have completely figured out, but it's something that's work in progress.

所以你問的問題是具體的費用類型。我可能會翻轉它並說，好吧，也許有一種不同類型的合作夥伴關係需要訂閱費，這種合作夥伴關係的全部目的是更快地推動議程並幫助我們的客戶在品牌方面更具競爭力和更成功以及更具投資性。這就是我們正在努力的事情。這不是我們已經完全弄清楚的事情，但它正在進行中。

Okay. And if I could go back to John's question or one of John's questions in the beginning, the JCP team highlighted UNFI's substantial assets. And it's hard not to think back to, I guess, it was 2018 when SUPERVALU, I mean, right, their assets we're looking at either divesting retail and/or sale leasebacks of some of the owned real estate behind the distribution centers. Is that what is implied by highlighting the substantial assets like is just hard not to think back to that? So I guess, is there an implication there or an inference to be made from highlighting the substantial assets in that way?

好的。如果我可以回到約翰的問題或約翰一開始的問題之一，JCP 團隊強調了 UNFI 的大量資產。我想，很難不回想起 2018 年，當時 SUPERVALU，我的意思是，我們正在考慮剝離零售和/或出售配送中心後面的一些自有房地產的資產。這是否就是強調大量資產所暗示的，就像很難不去回想那樣？所以我想，以這種方式突出大量資產是否有暗示或推斷？

Yes, this is Sandy. What I would say there is in my conversations with James, I think he's excited about the potential of what UNFI can do. And so I think he uses the word asset broadly beyond just financial assets, but more market position, opportunity mission. But part of what we're going to be doing with the Board over the next few quarters is doing a really thorough financial review. Think of that as strategy with a fair amount of rigor to ensure that every dollar we use is maximizing its impact for our strategy and for shareholders. And so to the extent that we look at financial assets in that process, which we, of course, that will happen. But it will all be tied to the context of what we're trying to accomplish to build a company that's extremely profitable and grows profitably for years to come.

是的，這是桑迪。我想說的是，在我與 James 的談話中，我認為他對 UNFI 的潛力感到興奮。因此，我認為他使用資產這個詞的範圍不僅限於金融資產，還包括市場地位、機會使命。但在接下來的幾個季度中，我們將與董事會一起做的部分工作是進行真正徹底的財務審查。將此視為具有相當嚴格性的策略，以確保我們使用的每一美元都能最大限度地發揮對我們的策略和股東的影響。因此，就我們在這個過程中審視金融資產而言，我們當然會發生這種情況。但這一切都與我們努力實現的目標息息相關，即建立一家利潤極高並在未來幾年實現盈利增長的公司。

And we have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to UNFI's CEO, Sandy Douglas, for some closing remarks.

我們的問答環節已經結束。現在，我將把電話轉回給 UNFI 執行長桑迪道格拉斯 (Sandy Douglas)，讓其總結發言。

Thanks, operator, and thanks to everybody for joining us this morning. Fiscal 2023 was a challenging and difficult year, and we expect fiscal 2024 will continue to present macro challenges and other hurdles as we accelerate and expand our transformation journey. However, our team is energized to lead UNFI into the future.

謝謝接線生，也謝謝大家今天早上加入我們。 2023 財年是充滿挑戰和困難的一年，我們預計 2024 財年在我們加速和擴大轉型之旅的過程中將繼續面臨宏觀挑戰和其他障礙。然而，我們的團隊充滿活力，帶領 UNFI 走向未來。

I've spoken before about the competitive advantages we have, which we believe position us well to succeed as we work to improve key capabilities and bring new value to customers, suppliers and shareholders. This will be a multiyear improvement journey where patience and persistence will be necessary, but we are confident we're on the right path to reset the business to turn around our profitability and to accelerate sales and profit growth going forward. We expect to have additional proof points of our transformation strategy during the year, and we'll provide updates as we execute.

我之前曾談到我們擁有的競爭優勢，我們相信這些優勢使我們在努力提高關鍵能力並為客戶、供應商和股東帶來新價值時取得成功。這將是一個多年的改進之旅，需要耐心和堅持，但我們相信，我們正走在正確的道路上，重新調整業務，扭轉我們的盈利能力，並加速未來的銷售和利潤增長。我們希望在這一年中獲得我們轉型策略的更多證據，並且我們將在執行時提供更新。

For our customers and suppliers, we thank you for your continued partnership and the business we do together. For the UNFI associates listening today, are thanks to each of you for everything that you do for our business, our customers, our communities and each other. And for our shareholders, we know these are challenging times, and we thank you for the trust you continue to place in us. Earning your continued trust is our highest priority. We look forward to updating all of you on our progress again in December after our first quarter.

對於我們的客戶和供應商，我們感謝您持續的合作夥伴關係以及我們共同開展的業務。今天聆聽的 UNFI 員工感謝你們每一個人為我們的業務、我們的客戶、我們的社區以及彼此所做的一切。對於我們的股東來說，我們知道這是一個充滿挑戰的時期，我們感謝你們繼續對我們的信任。贏得您的持續信任是我們的首要任務。我們期待在第一季結束後 12 月再次向大家通報我們的進展。

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。