General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) Barclays 2023 Global Consumer Staples Conference September 6, 2023 1:30 PM ET
Company Participants
Kofi Bruce – Chief Financial Officer
Jon Nudi – President, North America Retail Segment
Conference Call Participants
Andrew Lazar – Barclays
Andrew Lazar
Welcome back, everybody, to our next fireside chat with General Mills. So with me today are CFO, Kofi Bruce; and President of North America Retail segment, Jon Nudi. Let me hand it over to Kofi just for a little bit of a summary of General Mills’ views this morning, and then we’ll get into some of the Q&A, that’s as always. Over to you Kofi.
Kofi Bruce
Hi. Thanks for having us and welcome, everybody. I’ll take just a few minutes to recap some of the things that were covered in our press release. Starting with a reminder that I’ll make a few forward-looking statements, which obviously are subject to change of the data and act differently. So just as you think about the structure of press release, the core things to takeaway, we’re affirming the full year guidance, 3% to 4% organic sales growth, 4% to 6% adjusted diluted earnings per share and constant currency operating profit growth along with 95% free cash flow conversion. That’s the headline.
And then I think as you click below that, I think a couple of things to takeaway, we’re seeing a lot of the same shifts that you’ve probably been hearing about in the operating environment, the moderating levels of inflation. I think there’s supply chain stability really returning to the space and a consumer that remains resilient, but obviously a little bit more cautious in this environment. So we’re seeing all of those things play out in our business as well. And our priorities remain unchanged from what we shared at the end of our fiscal year we reported, by competing effectively, driving supply chain efficiency and maintaining discipline in our capital allocation priority. So, let me just go through a couple of those.
First, as we think about competing effectively, right? Let me start with our North America Retail business, a few launches versus the — what had unfold. We’re seeing consumer value-seeking behaviors. We’re seeing some — obviously some pressure that you can see in the movement. But again, in line with what we would broadly have expected. So our Q1 net sales we would expect to outpace the retail sales as we see some of the growth in non-measured channels outpace the measured channels in particular and a modest correction in inventory. We saw that move the other way at the end of our last fiscal year.
So if we look at our Pet business, we’re seeing some of the same things, a shift to value and a change in pet parent behaviors. Specifically, we’re seeing some of the value brands benefit from stabilization — continued stabilization of supply chains. But we’re also seeing more pet parents away from the household. And so a lot less of the mixing and feeding behavior that had been driving business as well as a shift in the mix of the types of foods that are being fed to pets. So, we expect our organic net sales on Pet to be roughly flat with a margin around 19% as a result.
That said, our North America Foodservice and International businesses, which comprise about 25% of our portfolio are off to a good start.
So then as we think about supply chain environment, we continue to see our service levels improve. We expect them to range from a low 90% to a mid-90 percentage point range for the year. And with that, stability comes and I think the environment that’s conducive to us, producing the normalized levels of HMM cost productivity that we would historically have delivered 4% or greater. So that becomes an important theme as we think about our expectations for the balance of the year.
And then importantly, if we think about our capital allocation and capital priorities, we continue to invest in the business behind key growth platforms. As we think about our CapEx, we expect that to range close to 4% of sales. We are also prioritizing returns to shareholders. 9% increase in dividends and with that, also a lot of 2% reduction in shares as we have share repurchase back in for this year’s expectations. And even with that, ample flexibility in the balance sheet with leverage at its lowest levels since before the Blue Buffalo acquisition should have portfolio shaping opportunities.
So as we think about where we are, the environment is dynamic, we’ve been saying that, I’ve been saying that pretty much in my tenure as CFO. But the job for us and the challenge for us remains to be able to read the environment and to pivot as necessary, to adapt to environment as it evolves. I don’t think that has changed even as the operating environment goes through yet another shift.
So with that, I’ll turn it back to you, Andrew.
Question-and-Answer Session
Q – Andrew Lazar
Great. Thank you for that. So maybe we flesh out — the biggest driver of the change in the release this morning was clearly based on Pet as you talked about. So maybe we flesh that out a little bit more. I guess first off to start, you actually guided more pet sales in fiscal 1Q. There was no commentary around any change in expectations or not around profitability for overall General Mills in 1Q as a result. I don’t know what you can or prepared to talk about around margins and sort of EPS broken 1Q? Or if there was some flexibility built in the P&L elsewhere that’s helping offset some of the sales shortfall impact?
Kofi Bruce
Yes, sure. And I think it’s important to note, I referenced our North America Foodservice, International businesses, which are off to really strong starts and will deliver probably stronger than expected results in the quarter. I don’t want to get too much further ahead. We’re just a couple weeks out from our earnings release, so we’ll say more about Q1 profit at that point. But as we talk about the pet environment, we felt it was important to acknowledge some of the trends we’re seeing and put them in context. And obviously it’s very clear we’re going through an environment where pet households and pet parents are seeking value both everything from pack sizes to where they shop for pet food.
Our job in this environment is just to — it gets down to the fundamentals of staying focused on what are the — what’s the unique brand proposition of Blue Buffalo, around clean ingredients, and wholesome natural ingredients for that pet child in the household. And ensuring that we’re talking about that value benefit, which it carries the premium trade to be sure that we’re playing in the channels where consumers want to shop right now. So if they’re going to value channels, we need to ensure we’re showing up activity being relevant in those channels.
And then lastly to pay attention to the tools of our SRM toolkit, to ensure that we have the right price points that are relevant to consumers in this environment, as we think about our price pack architecture in particular on this business.
Andrew Lazar
You had enough confidence to reaffirm sort of the full year, right, on both the top line and the bottom line. Is that more that you are now expecting a greater rebounding growth in, let’s say, the back half of the fiscal year versus previous? Or maybe is now the full year more anchored, we should be towards maybe the lower end of those ranges? Trying to get a sense of what — I guess what’s driving that confidence in reaffirming the full year…?
Kofi Bruce
So I think it’s in part we see puts and takes. I’d also concede that we went into the year giving guidance that we expected would — was built around the expectation that most things would go right, but not everything would go right. So I think we feel comfortable we’re still within the range of the guidance we provided. I’m not prepared to shade it any further than what we’ve given, other than that we have confidence that we will land within that range on sales and within the range on profit.
Andrew Lazar
Maybe just also — and then sort of an expectation setting exercise. You mentioned in the release that Pet could be under pressure for a period of time as we go through this fiscal year. I guess what should our expectations be for how quickly or not we could see a pivot, right, in growth in Pet as we move through this year? Is it that, we’ve got a big inflection coming in the back half or is it more hey, more slow and steady as we go through the year would be a more reasonable expectation?
Kofi Bruce
Well, as best as we can read the present environment, we’re certainly not — our guidance isn’t built on a huge hockey stick change in the Pet operating environment. That said, we’re — as I mentioned earlier, we’re not accepting that there aren’t things that we can do to improve the trends and the performance on our premium pet food business in this environment, specifically around the unique brand proposition on Blue Buffalo, talking about that more to consumers around getting at the right channels, and then in particular addressing some of the absolute price points through getting the right pack sizes. So, the price is relevant for the consumer as they shop our brand.
Andrew Lazar
And maybe just getting a little bit of a better understanding. I know that premium pet food has been discussed often maybe in the past as sort of being one of those more bulletproof or sort of impenetrable sort of categories where, once shoppers are feeding their pet, premium, more — better than their families, that kind of thing, that’s one of the last things they would shift. And it’s harder to shift pet food when it’s working for your pet. Has that changed or what’s leading to that change in what we’re seeing versus what we might’ve thought before?
Kofi Bruce
Well, I think first it’s important to acknowledge where we’ve been, right? We’re coming out of a period of supply disruption, which in part sort of forced some conditions for consumers and pet parents unfortunately to draw and try new brands. So that was a challenge, that’s become unstuck. But the unprecedented levels of inflation accumulated over the past couple of years are also a factor, I think. But as I step back and think about the Pet segment over the long-term, the underlying trend has been towards humanization, which has been driving the premiumization of the segment, that is still likely the — and we believe the dominant driver of growth in the Pet segment, even if, right now there is a shift in the short-term towards value, and it may be a readjustment to consumer shelves into maybe a cautious state.
Andrew Lazar
Your Pet segment has also, obviously not just dog food, you have Life Protection Formula, Wilderness wet treats, and I know they’re not all performing similarly. Maybe you can just break it down a little bit more and give a sense of sort of what’s working in a sense of Life Protection Formula or dry dog food is actually responding a little bit better to some of the capacity additions and it’s really the other areas maybe where you’re seeing more of the weakness. Is that fair?
Kofi Bruce
Yes, I think that’s a fair way to characterize it. We’ve seen — and we were focused on improving Life Protection Formula first. That’s sort of the core of our brand. And we are seeing improvement in the trends there. We’ve seen more challenge on Wilderness, which is a super-premium offering and obviously treating. It has been — and what food have been impacted by that pet parent consumer behavior, pet parents being out of the household, being less willing to leave out, wet food, in this environment. And certainly not being home to provide treating, which is a arguably more discretionary part of the category. But again, it’s a $44 billion category. So not lose side of that. And it’s supported by long-term pet population growth expectations in the low single digit. And in a continued trend that we’ve seen in multiple markets, where pet adoption drives a certain set of behaviors around humanization. So I think those things are still there structurally over the long-term for the category, even if maybe it’s a little harder to see them right now.
Andrew Lazar
Would your expectation therefore maybe again over time, given it sounds like more of this you’re seeing is more transitory still be for Blue Buffalo to generate, call it, that high single digit type of sales growth on average?
Kofi Bruce
We would expect that. Our job for sure is to make sure that we get the marketing right, but that we should be positioned to lead premium growth over the long-term and follow that humanization trend that drives the premium end of that category which over the long-term, I would expect to be kind of in that range of the high and the mid-single digits to — of the mid-single digit growth range. Yes.
Andrew Lazar
And then, capacity has been a big challenge, right, within Blue Buffalo. With some of the weakness we’re seeing more recently in that business, is capacity now becoming less of an issue? And I know it’s not necessarily the way you want to solve, right, the capacity constraints by weaker sales versus incremental capacity. But where are we now on capacity? And more importantly, maybe do current trends change the way you’re thinking about how quickly you bring on or your plans to bring on a lot of incremental capacity that’s planned in the next year or so?
Kofi Bruce
Well, I think it might be still a little early to read, but I would say, it certainly the acute pressure on capacity has abated somewhat. I would expect that the capacity we are bringing online, we made expansion plans in our internal dry capacity, will allow us at a minimum to address the mix of internal versus external manufacturing. We don’t expect to see much of benefit from that in this fiscal year, but I think over the long-term, that also will help us with margin and margin structure improvement on the businesses as we step in the future years.
Andrew Lazar
Last one on Pet for the moment, and then we’ll switch gears a little bit. But, you talked about the margin opportunity as some of this incremental in-house capacity comes online. With the growth that pet food category has seen over the last couple of years, I realize that differential in what you’re paying in Total and create a co-packer versus producing this in-house, I think it’s has expanded pretty dramatically? Maybe you can give us a sense of whatever areas of magnitude of that differential to give the audience a sense of just how much that helps profitability once that in-house capacity comes online?
Kofi Bruce
Yes — and I would say in this environment, a good portion of our margin pressure that is unrelated to deleverage would be specifically driven by the other costs that we’ve taken on and a lot — a large chunk of that showing up in a gross margin for Total. So as we think about the potential for what this looks like in the future, there’s probably a couple of hundred basis points potentially.
Andrew Lazar
So I know we’ve been talking about sort of the very short-term here for a minute. But maybe just to take a step back a bit and maybe talk a little bit about your longer term goals. You mentioned in the past you believe holding share across your current mix of categories and geographies will generate organic net sales growth that’s squarely in the middle of your 2% to 3% long-term target. I guess what gives you the confidence in your ability to grow in line with that top-line growth algorithm? And maybe how’s that confidence maybe different today than where it might’ve been a few years ago or even sort of pre-pandemic?
Kofi Bruce
So, why don’t I start and then we’ll get Jon in here so he can get some work done too. So I think, a couple of things as we think about the past couple of years. We’ve really made some great progress, first in terms of competing effectively, right? If we look at the last handful of years, we’ve grown our held share in over 50% of our top categories. So we’ve certainly become a lot more competitive and driven that growth through into really profitable bottom-line growth as well.
I think as we think about the portfolio, we’ve turned over almost 20% of the portfolio in terms of sales. All of which has also helped improve the underlying growth exposure of the portfolio and that helps us to get comfortable with that 2% to 3%. So I think we’re kind of coming out of this period I think stronger than certainly we went in and we continued to make investments in the capabilities that will lead to drive growth in a more stabilized, I hate to use the word normalized just given what we’ve been through. It’s hard to argue, we know what normal looks like, but certainly in a more stabilized environment.
So I think those are the things that I would point to at the macro level. Probably useful for Jon to maybe weigh in with some perspective in that.
Jon Nudi
So one of the things I think is underappreciated is the reorganization that we undertook a couple of years ago. So for most of my 30 years with General Mills, we were a matrix function based organization, really led by businesses, but really informed by functions and we operated that way. So two years ago we flipped this on and got us on its head and really went to a business-led function-enabled data field model. And it’s really been a game changer for us.
We have — went from five operating units in the U.S. to three at scale. Each of them was about $4 billion in sales. Each of them was led by an OU president, has a cross-functional team that reports directly to them. In the past, sales didn’t report to them directly. Supply chain didn’t to them directly. So they work together as one team. We also forward deployed many more resources to these operate units and it’s really been invaluable as we’ve gone through the last couple of years with supply chain disruptions and unprecedented inflation.
One good example is when it comes to pricing. So a few years ago, we would’ve never been able to take the number of rounds of pricing that we took over the last 18 months with the functions set up the way they were. Sales was a separate function. It actually reported to me, not to the businesses. So the team had to negotiate internally first and then go negotiate with our customers. That used to take sometimes weeks or months. Today teams get in the room, they make decisions and they go and sell in rounds of pricing. Supply chain is the same thing. Over the last few years, obviously all the supply chain disruptions have been unprecedented and us working together as one team enables us to really navigate better than ever before.
So again, we don’t talk a lot about it. What I can tell you is we are operating much more efficiently, much more agilely than we ever have before. And that gives me a lot of confidence that we’ll be able to compete effectively like we have over the last five years as we move forward.
Andrew Lazar
It’s probably always naive to think that as the industry sort of moves towards a more normal operating environment or a more stable operating environment, the timing would align perfectly, right, between the industry lapping pricing, and seeing sort of a commensurate volume recovery so that we stay in sort of positive territory around organic sales growth. And I think we’re seeing some of the bumps in the road for the industry that come with this shift in operating environment. But I’m curious, it still seems like a bit of a puzzle, I think to a lot of investors on where sort of the volume is going and how to explain what we’re seeing in some of the scanner data, not just for you, but broadly. We’re not seeing mass trade down to private label, we’re not seeing mass shift to away from home meeting, doesn’t appear that consumers are eating less calories. Yes, there’s been some summer travel and we’ve heard some companies talking about guarding against waste and hunkering down here and there, but I’m curious to what your thesis is on this. If you’ve got one, maybe it’s a mix of things? But — and I ask because obviously we’re all sort of waiting with bated breath for things to start moving in the right direction on the volume side of the equation. I know it’s a — we’re probably overly focused on that at the moment, but sort of get why?
Jon Nudi
For sure. I’ll take a crack at it and Kofi can jump in on the calories. So Andrew, I remember we were together in Chicago in the spring and you asked the same question and asked was it linear in terms of the volume recovery. And clearly it hasn’t been. And as we look at things, we think there’s three macro factors really impacting our business. There’s a couple of things impacting General Mills, particularly in our business in the first quarter as well, which I’ll touch on from macro standpoint. Again, you mentioned mobility and clearly this was the first summer that consumers are back to full mobility since the beginning of the pandemic. I read that 110 million Americans traveled last week, and that’s 1/3 of the country. So obviously if you’re traveling, you’re not eating at home. And obviously that impacts our business.
We have seen non-commercial foodservice channels grow, so things like hospitality, sporting venues, things like that. So that’s part of it, for sure is mobility. At the same time, we know that consumers are challenged and again, they are resilient, but certainly are taking some behaviors or exhibiting some behaviors that we’ve seen in the past and during economic challenges. So trading across channels. So shopping more value channels, trading down to private label in some cases, certainly moving to smaller pack sizes as well. We think there’s some destocking of pantries going on as well. So we think that’s part of it.
And then the other thing is in the U.S. the track channels or some of the fastest growing channels aren’t tracked. So, in untracked channels, we’re seeing quite a bit of growth right now. So as you read our volumes, again, it’s probably not fully recapturing all of our sales.
In terms of General Mills and particularly in our business, we’re essentially — and Kofi said this where we thought we’d be after the first quarter. We knew that Q1 would be our most challenging quarter from a comp standpoint, certainly from a share standpoint. We grew share in aggregate, Q1 fiscal ’23, and we grew share in north of 70% in all of our categories in Q1. And primarily that was because we price first in many places across almost every category we compete in. So we got the rate benefit last year. As we look at this year, we’re not getting that rate benefit as we’ve locked our pricing faster. Our competition has that rate benefit, which is hurting us from a Q1 standpoint. And the other thing that’s definitely a factor for us is on-shelf availability. On-shelf availability was good last year. It continues to improve. What’s different is that our competitors seek even bigger improvement, particularly private label. A year ago, some of our private label competitors were 10 points south of where they are today from an on-shelf growth standpoint. So as they get back healthier and on the shelf, that’s had an impact in our Q1.
So with all that being said, again, we’re generally where we thought would be, clearly we see volume accelerate through the back half of the year. We believe that as we lap pricing, elasticities will help us swing back to that. And as consumers get back to their routines and back to school, we think that will drive volume as well.
Andrew Lazar
In the release this morning, you also mentioned, it wasn’t the primary reason for sales growth in North America, retail being above scanner, but part of it was inventory rebuild. Obviously you were coming off of period in your fourth quarter where you had that unexpected sort of inventory destock. Did retailers go too far to the point where they were getting hit with out of stocks or/and they’ve kind of learned the lesson a little bit, the pendulum sometimes we know in this case, between retailers, manufacturers can swing a little bit too far in one direction versus the other. Is that kind of what happened or what’s leading to some of the restock that you’re seeing?
Jon Nudi
We know over the last couple of years, the trend has been for retailers to pull volume down as they focus on working capital and getting their inventories in line. And as supply disruptions have normalized, they don’t need to carry as much inventory. So in fact, six of the last eight quarters for NAR, we’ve seen our RNS trial with movement in the market because of that phenomena. Obviously Q4 was a bit different. Q1 as we mentioned in the press release, we’ll see our RNS a bit ahead of movement.
What I would tell you is over the course of a year, we don’t think it’s going to be material. We’ll think it’ll relatively be flat. Retailers don’t care where our quarter ends are and again, there’s normal ordering thing that you see. And as a result, there might be a quarter where we see a little bit more versus a little bit less. But overall, again, we don’t expect inventory to be a story for us as we move forward.
Andrew Lazar
Maybe moving back to Pet for a minute, we’ve heard from a number of other CPG companies that are big in the pet space and they have all talked about around the edges, some trading down, and they’re seeing some of that behavior as well. It just doesn’t seem that maybe their respective pet businesses are getting impacted quite as severely as what we’re seeing with Blue. What would be your perspective on that? But obviously your portfolio is much more skewed toward the premium end. You don’t have as much of the laddering, if you will, across mainstream and whatnot, but just trying to get a sense of what your thoughts would be on that?
Kofi Bruce
I think that’s a fair read. Our portfolio is almost exclusively on the premium end. Therefore, I think the level of exposure to particularly value-seeking behaviors that pet parents are showing right now, maybe more acute during this adjustment period. I think the other trends that we talked about around is the shift of how they’re feeding the pets less wet food, that’s a place where you’ve actually seen pounds come out of the category. So picking up on the last question, the treating, which we’ve talked about as being discretionary, also a place where you’re going to see pounds come out, all of those on the premium then come with more dollars. And so the impact on us probably is a little bit more acute during this…
Andrew Lazar
Part of it also is Blue did such an amazing job when you bought that business. Moving mainstream consumers right up to more premium. And maybe they’re more apt to move up and down depending on sort of economic environments?
Kofi Bruce
Well, perhaps. So, I mean, in the five years we’ve owned it, we’ve doubled the sales in the business and doubled the household penetration and quadrupled the distribution. So I think that’s a fair observation.
Andrew Lazar
Yes. Is that all? So maybe, a lot of the structural changes that you’ve made, right, with the intention of simplifying the portfolio. And now that we’re maybe nearing a more stable operating environment, I guess, should we expect the company to pivot a little bit more towards, let’s say a more acquisitive approach? You’ve divested some of the less core businesses. And I guess if so, are there any specific areas you find maybe more intriguing than others?
I noticed in the release this morning, I don’t know there’s necessarily a difference, but it was pretty prominent, right, the thinking around, hey, we’re thinking about both organic and inorganic sort of growth opportunities. And that was — FFO was pretty prominent in the release. So I’m just trying to get a sense if that’s a different — trying to communicate something different there or more just saying, hey, we’re in a different environment now and this is what we do?
Kofi Bruce
No, I think since we’ve embarked on our Accelerate strategy, which we launched at the 2020 CAGNY. We have sort of proceeded with an always on mindset on portfolio shaping, right? So the irrespective of the environment. And in fact, we’ve made progress even in this environment getting into the treats. TNT acquisition, divesting our European dough and yogurt businesses. So, as, if you think about it, we’ve actually been acting on this even in this period of disruption. So I don’t know anything’s changed. We see this as an always on capability, which means we need to be looking objectively both for what we add to our portfolio and potentially what we exit and finding value and growth accretion as we do so.
I think that the beauty of this environment is we’ve been able to keep going and build that flexibility so that we have room to act regardless of what’s going on.
Andrew Lazar
You’ve had a phenomenal run in your very large profitable core ready-to-eat cereal business, many, many years of increasing share in a category that’s gone through its spurts of growth and more maturity and what have you. Any reason to think that, that looks different going forward in any way, just by the nature of the shift in the competitive structure of the category? You’ve got a competitor that will be in theory more focused right, single-minded around ready-to-eat cereal, and that can be a good thing because you’ve been carrying the load for a bunch of years around growing the category. So maybe that helps. I’m trying to get a sense of — and if you’ve seen anything — it’s a little early, but if you’ve seen anything one way or the other that would change your thinking there?
Kofi Bruce
Yes, so we really, like our cereal business where it exists today. So, as you mentioned, we’ve been competitive for many years in a row. Five years in a row of growing share. Last year, obviously we didn’t, as we were up against one of our major competitors comp from the year before they were off the shelf on a two year basis. We grew share in certainly last year. And it’s really about playing our game and we’ll continue to do that. So it’s making sure that we’ve got strongest brands in the category and we continue to invest and build those brands. We have four of the top five brands in the category. We’re really proud of that. Innovation is critically important and for the really the last four years we’ve had the bulk of the innovation in the category. North of 50% of all category innovation has come from General Mills. And it’s remained sticky. So we really like what we’re doing there, and we just executed at the high-level as well, making sure we’re getting the right merchandising, the right displays, the right shelf placement. So we’ll continue to play that game.
We actually believe that having all the major players in the category, compete and compete well is good for the category. In fact, if you look back through history, when ourselves and the other major competitor are both supporting the category, supporting the brands, the category tends to grow at a differential rate. So we’re going to continue to play our game as we look forward. We think perhaps a more focused competitor might not be a bad thing for us.
Andrew Lazar
Speaking of North America Retail, and just speaking about all things kind of retailer relationships, promotional activity broadly speaking, as supply chain effectiveness improves across the board, what are you seeing right now? Obviously it’s no surprise we’re seeing promotional activity be higher year-over-year from a very low base for the industry that we’d expect. Not a bad thing, right? Most of commercial spending has very high return. But what are you seeing kind of in your categories? Would you expect it to return to sort of ’19 levels? Do you think we could settle in as an industry somewhere below that and have better effectiveness than we did before? I don’t know if the last whatever, month or two has changed that thinking at all?
Kofi Bruce
Yes, I don’t think it has the short answer. And I would say our relationships with retailers are very collaborative today. I’d say more collaborative than before the pandemic. I think everything that we’ve gone through the last few years have brought us closer together. I think some of the structural chains I mentioned earlier are helping us with retailers as well. So as we look at the promotional environment, yes, frequency is up a bit, with single digits versus a year ago, but still down 10% versus pre-pandemic. Importantly, price points are up dramatically. If you look at total food and beverage, price points are up 35% since pre-pandemic; our categories are up even more, 40%.
So I think all of — both ourselves and our competition is investing in strategic revenue management tools. Frankly, there are retailers investing in those tools as well. So we’re much better at modeling impacts we can make. And certainly you can drop price and move a little bit of volume, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it grows the category or grows our profit or the retailer.
So I do believe, we’re in a rational period now. I think, again, it’s going to get more competitive for sure, as retailers get back to historical levels of frequency. But I don’t see a race to the bottom. And again, I don’t see competitors doing that and I don’t see retailers pushing us to do that either.
Andrew Lazar
I know there’s been a lot of focus, obviously on the industry volume, but maybe taking a step back for a minute. Prior to this sort of inflation super cycle, if you were asked, hey, we’re going to be taking a collective 35% pricing across North America Retail, let’s say over the next two years or so, and our volumes going to be down, whatever it is, a couple of percent, would you have thought I was crazy a like positing that? Because I do think we lose perspective sometimes. I get the focus on volume recovery, but I would’ve expected it on to be down much more dramatically than what we’ve seen across the industry.
Kofi Bruce
No doubt, I think broadly that the elasticities have proven, I think to defy model, but I think the whole challenge of this environment is that it’s been a historic, both in terms of the level of inflation, the challenges put on the consumer, the challenges put on supply chains, which is I think has made some of the tools that we use a little bit harder in terms of predicting what’s going to come out on the other side, elasticity being one of those. So yes, I probably would’ve thought you were crazy just for the record.
Andrew Lazar
For many reasons.
Jon Nudi
Obviously, I think we’d all think you were crazy, but at the same time, our business is much more — much larger, much more profitable than it was pre-pandemic. The other interesting thing is if you look at pound share, we’ve actually grown pound share versus four years ago on the vast majority of categories. So our volume is down, we feel like we’re competing effectively. And again, we like the way where our business sits today. We like the way the P&L sits as well.
Andrew Lazar
So to wrap it up. As we track various metrics as we move through the back part of this calendar year, for you and the industry, maybe they’re the same, maybe they’re somewhat different, what would the key sort of one or two metrics be that we really ought to be focusing on that we can determine from the outside?
Kofi Bruce
Yes. I would say, we do expect with the pricing counts to change that we will see some improvement in volume trends, right? So as we think about the balance of the year, we are expecting that. We expect continued improvement and stable — stability in the supply chain environment. And I think with that, the ability and the confidence to be able to drive both the in-store merchandising activity and to execute and get leverage out of our market. So that’s what we’re focused on as we think about the balance of the year.
Andrew Lazar
All right. I think that’s a great place to finish it up. Please join us over in the breakout and thank you Kofi and Jon for being here.
Kofi Bruce
Thank you, Andrew.
