Darden Restaurants Q2 2021 [Q&A] Earnings Call Transcript

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August 3, 2021

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to The Kraft Heinz Company Second Quarter 2021 Business Update Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Chris Jakubik, Head of Investor Relations.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and hello, everyone. This is Chris Jakubik, Head of Global Investor Relations at The Kraft Heinz Company, And welcome to our Q and A session for our Q2 2021 business update. During our remarks today, we will make some forward looking statements that are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ due to risks and uncertainties, and these are discussed in our earnings release and our filings with the SEC. We will also discuss some non GAAP financial measures today during the call and these non GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with GAAP results.

Speaker 1

And you can find the GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release and the supplemental materials posted at ir. Kraftheinscompany.com. Before we begin, I'm going to hand it over to our CEO, Miguel Patricio, for a few quick opening comments. Miguel?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Chris, and thank you, everyone. I'd just like to add I'll summarize and tell you that we are very optimistic about how we are progressing In our transformation at Kraft Heinz, we've been taking advantage of the scale that we have, And we've been building the agility that we need to build a better business for the future. We posted sustainable top line and bottom line gains versus 2019, And we are encouraged because the strongest growth comes from priority platforms and markets, what we call the growth platforms, taste elevation and in emerging markets. And we continue seeing retail very strong, And we are coming back with food service. It's recovering and recovering fast.

Speaker 2

Transforming Kraft Heinz It is what we all have in mind and we want to do that maintaining the industry leading profitability. We are investing more in our brands and better as well, building a much more creative company. We are also on track to deliver the $400,000,000 of gross efficiencies in 2021 and effectively managing inflation. At the same time, we continue strengthening our portfolio and improving financial flexibility. We are adding capacity to our products to drive growth and energized platforms and in the emerging markets.

Speaker 2

We, as you know, closed the Nuts divestiture, and we expect to close The cheese divestiture in the second half of this year. Recently, we acquired Assam Foods in Turkey. It's a very small operation, but it's a very important step into our strategy because accelerates the acceleration and is in emerging markets. And we continue to pay down debt and improve our net leverage. We continue to expect to have a very good 2021, actually, to deliver a stronger 2021 than we projected when we provided our initial outlook in February, And that speaks to the strength and potential of our ongoing business.

Speaker 2

Thank you. We are We're now waiting for your questions.

Operator

Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Growe from Stifel. You may begin.

Speaker 3

Hi, good morning. I just had a quick question for you, if I could please, in relation to pricing. And I was just curious if you could maybe give a little more color around the price realization and how you expect it to kind of build through the second half of the year. And just as a backdrop, as I look across your categories, some of in some cases, Crafts pricing is above your category, some a little below. But all in all, like the IRI data in the U.

Speaker 3

S. Would say, you're pricing a little slower rate than what the categories are overall. So I'm just curious If that's strategic and helping drive your share gains or if that's just timing and there's more pricing coming in the second half of the year? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you for your question. Let me start and then maybe Carlos and Paolo can give you more color on that. As I mentioned on the call, we believe that inflation in our business remains manageable. And even with inflation, we expect to deliver, as I said, a stronger 2021 than we projected before.

Speaker 2

We continue to invest in our brands at the anticipated levels To drive our transformation and we will continue to monitor things and take further action if of course it's necessary. But Carlos, maybe you can give more color on it and maybe Paolo as well.

Speaker 4

Sure, Miguel. Thanks for the question. First, I think I would say is, in the U. S, what we have said in the past is that we are proactively managing against the incremental inflation we see. And actually, we feel good about our ability to implement those actions when and where we see the need.

Speaker 4

So if you look at the inflation we saw in Q2, it's mainly coming from ingredients, things like soybeans, edible oils, packaging and some transportation as well. And it's very similar to what we saw in the Q1. And most recently, we also saw some increases too, but driven by resin costs and some higher transportation rates. Now from a pricing perspective, as I mentioned on the call, we are restoring key activations to drive the business versus the pandemic induced pullbacks that we had in 2020. Now As we have mentioned earlier in the year, our goal continues to be to connect with consumers that now have discovered or rediscovered our brands and drive the repeat rate among those hassles.

Speaker 4

So in that context and versus inflation, again, we feel good about our ability To achieve the net pricing, we need to offset inflation and maintain strong household and repeat rate. Given that we are Renovating our portfolio to drive better value for consumers, improving the creative content of our marketing and strengthening and diversifying our media impressions. What I will also add is that we're doing this primarily through 4 key revenue management initiatives. First, we're optimizing the frequency and depth of our promotion while we restore retail activation levels that I discussed in the call. 2nd, we are doing broad based pricing actions, which we have announced across our portfolio.

Speaker 4

3rd, we're continuing to manage key commodity pricing. And lastly, we're using other revenue management levers, including price pack architecture and managing our category price ladders. So if you look at our revenue management initiatives, they are guiding our smart trade investments so we can optimize returns on those investments and Managed through the current inflationary environment. Now in the near term, the timing of cost inflation versus price realization may lead to some degree of margin pressure, This is reflected in an outlook and we see net pricing and cost coming into balance as we exit the year. And with that, let me pass it over to Paolo.

Speaker 4

Any other comments you want to add Paolo?

Speaker 5

Sure, Carlos. I think if you want to like frame Inflation and pricing from a total company perspective. To break it down first on inflation, we're going to recall that in April, We said that we're expecting inflation in the mid single digit range as a percent of COGS, but at the lower end of that range. Since April, our costs have continued to move higher. Now we're expecting inflation still in the mid single digit range for the full year, but now it's likely above the midpoint of the mid single digit range.

Speaker 5

Regarding pricing, As we are mentioning and Carlos has just said, we are using multiple revenue management levers including lease price actions to manage the inflation, but I think it's important for us to keep in mind that we're going to be facing an unusually difficult pricing comparison In the second half last year, just to remind, just for context, last year second half, our price was more than 4% higher than the prior year, whereas we pulled back on promotion to better protect customer service. In terms of the timing and the pricing realization, Why we expect the timing of the cost inflation versus price realization to soften, our margin percentage To lower than the run rate levels in the short term, I think it's important to note that all of those impacts Are already considering the outlook that we have for the year, okay? And again, as we mentioned in the beginning, we are still expecting or now expecting even stronger EBITDA dollars than we anticipated before.

Speaker 3

Thank you for the color.

Operator

Our next question comes from Alexia Howard from Bernstein. You may begin.

Speaker 6

Good morning, everyone.

Operator

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Speaker 6

Can I ask yes, thank you? Can I ask about the gross margin? I know that it doesn't really Here, anywhere except in the formal numbers in the press release. But it looks as though it's down about 150 basis points year on year. I imagine that some of that might not be adjusted gross margin, but in a situation of such intense Commodity cost pressures as we're going through now, I'm just wondering how you're expecting that to shape out in the back half of the year, possibly out into 2022?

Speaker 6

Any commentary would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Alex, I can start here this answer. I think, yes, there are some adjustments to make in the gross margin. But when you think about year over year, I think we need to remember that we're going to be lapping. We were lapping Q2 a Peak quarter last year with the all pantry loading that happened in the quarter. So our overall margins of the business are very healthy in this Q2.

Speaker 5

So I think in the second quarter, we were able to price and we had enough pricing to offset Pricing plus our efficiencies were more than enough to offset our the inflation that we had, But we were compared to a very heavy mix that we had in the last quarter.

Speaker 6

Great. And going forward, how do you expect it to change in the back half?

Speaker 5

Going forward, what is exactly, I think, the key components that we are going to see in the back half is that we're going to start to have and that's already embedded in our Luc, okay. We're going to start to having the restoration of some promotions that Carlos mentioned. Also, the mix impact that we're going to see when with the as the year goes on. And also this timing between pricing and pricing realization and inflation We will impact our gross profit. All those impacts are already inside the outlook that we disclosed.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar from Barclays. You may begin.

Speaker 7

Great. Good morning and thanks for the question. I guess, obviously, it's way too early to talk specifics around 2022, as we know, much can still change. But I wanted to go back to the slide presented at the Investor Day in September of last year. And from that presentation, on the base business, so excluding divestiture impacts, it looks like EBITDA was expected to be Roughly flattish in 2022 versus 2021.

Speaker 7

And I guess I'm just trying to get a sense of at this stage, would that still be the expectation such that we just have to strip out divestitures to get a sense of it? Or maybe has the inflation environment and longer tail to at home eating benefits sort of shifted this thinking at all? Thanks so much.

Speaker 2

Let me And then maybe Paolo, you can bring more precise numbers to Andrew. We are expecting 2022 to be better than the strategic plan that we presented to you. And why is that? I think our transformation is ahead of our plan. We've been Beating our plans and our budgets, and we are optimistic and continue investing toward the future.

Speaker 2

It is still too early to talk for us to be talking or to give you guidance about 2022. With all the volatility in the market, I think it's It's prudent not to go further on that.

Speaker 5

So Andrew, just to complement here, I think As the year progresses, as Miguel mentioned, more than later in the year, we will be providing more clarity about how we're seeing the 2022. We are not discussing this today, but we can say that we see inflation as a consistent theme for us and for the industry Ahead of 2022 and all those initiatives and actions that we are doing in terms of revenue management initiatives To manage the inflation, we are seeing based on expectation that the inflation will continue into the next year. I think those initiatives, Together with our savings program of a $2,000,000,000 savings program, and we will be sufficient Together with the investments that we're making to improve the relevance of our brands. So again, we are very confident around Our ability to manage the inflation and support the investments behind our turnaround as we are exiting 'twenty one and entering 'twenty and entering 'twenty two.

Speaker 7

Thanks everyone.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Spillane from Bank of America. You may begin.

Speaker 8

Hi. Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. So I've got a question, I guess, for both Carlos and for Rafa, If you could both comment on this. In the quarter or even year to date, currently we're seeing Basically, all channels are up, right?

Speaker 8

I think it was I think that's been sort of one of the surprises, as we've moved through 2021 is that As away from home and foodservice channels have improved, the at home consumption has also stayed relatively elevated. So I I guess my question for both of you is just simply, how long do you expect this to continue? And I guess as things normalize, would you expect the foodservice piece of it to really begin to accelerate more and somewhat offset the at home consumption. So just trying to get a sense of how you're thinking about those two channels, especially since Right now, they're both up.

Speaker 4

Listen, First of all, thanks for the question. I think it's very fair. Let me start and then I'll have Rafa kind of give a perspective on international. I think from in the U. S.

Speaker 4

From an industry perspective, you're right, channel trends are still normalizing. But I have to also say it's too early to tell how the share of So, Mike, between away from home and at home, ultimately, it's going to kind of all net out. Now recently, it does seem like All channels are growing, but that's probably not likely to remain the case, and that's not building into our expectations. Now In terms of our business, what we see is we're optimistic about our plans that we can actually drive sustainable growth in both the retail and the foodservice. And I think it's fair to say that we also have big ambition from our away from home business.

Speaker 4

We believe full service is actually It's both a generation of insights and innovation that can actually help in the retail side of the business. And it's also capable of driving outside growth because we have actually put a renewed focus on culinary distribution and channel expansion. Some of those channel trends, while still normalizing, it's still a little bit early to say predicting exactly what it's all going to happen. Now what I do say is that I do believe we're going to be stronger versus what we saw pre pandemic and essentially for two key reasons. First, because Our foodservice mix favored the QSR and actually that stands to recover and we are seeing that already faster than the rest of the food service channel, and we also see that be more resilient post pandemic.

Speaker 4

And Frankly, early in the pandemic, we also made a strategic bet to support that growth in QSR and that bet is paying off. We now have 30% more capacity in our small packet of ketchup and sauces. So that actually has been seen to be working. And secondly, we see a more durable step up in home consumption that comes at the expense of other categories and brands Without Nerazzali sacrificing foodservice recovery and growth. And then lastly, let me just give you a little more color on the way from home.

Speaker 4

I mentioned that We gained a point of market share, foodservice recovery begins, and much of that actually was fueled by the actions we took in 3 areas that I mentioned, Culinary, distribution and new channels. So in Q2, we actually executed 9 co branded culinary limited time offers with QSR partners. Just one of those was actually so successful because when it became part of a permanent menu item And that was going to be in 2022. And if you think about that context of the fact that we've been able to drive those kind of limited time offers with QSR, In 2019, we had none of those. So we are certainly driving a different level of execution with QSR.

Speaker 4

Now the second part of that, which is distribution, we actually grew key accounts by 20% over the 5th quarter. And then finally, as consumers continue to evolve how they cook and they eat and including the use of meal delivery kits, We're actually inserting our Kraft Heinz brands into that equation. So we are working with 1 popular direct to consumer company To develop things like a recipe specifically for a Philadelphia cream cheese as a main ingredient of their products. And that actual one product was ordered over 200,000 times with by consumers, really an all time record for that sales partner. So when you look at it holistically, again, I feel very optimistic about our away from home business and that it actually is going to be a Springboard for us to continue to drive retail growth.

Speaker 4

Now that's a perspective in the U. S. And Rafael, if you want to add something in terms of the international business, how you see it?

Speaker 9

Yes. Thank you, Carlos, and hi, Brian. Look, on balance, our developed markets are experiencing very similar trends to retail and food Service in U. S. And Canada.

Speaker 9

Emerging markets, on the other hand, food service has actually rebounded stronger Then in developed markets, right? And most countries either had shorter or even stricter lockdowns, But kept their economies open during the pandemic overall. So I mean, the consumption obviously differs country by country In home and out of home, the path of the pandemic lockdown approach, vaccine availability changes a lot. And given the Delta variant now, it's a bit early to tell how the channels where the channels will stabilize, right, in the second half. All that said, I mean, we are seeing a lot of improvements on the retail channels, especially in taste elevation And giving us like a lot of confidence that will come out of the pandemic well positioned right after the pandemic.

Speaker 9

On the foodservice side, our mix is even more weighted towards QSR than the U. S. Is. So the format and this format is recovering very quickly. So with distribution gains in emerging markets and the potential of the foodservice that we still have across our overall international, I'm still quite optimistic that after the pandemic ends, the net will be quite positive.

Speaker 8

Okay. Thanks, Rafa. Thanks, Carlos.

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Ken Goldman from JPMorgan. You may begin.

Speaker 10

Hi, thanks. Would you ever reconsider your policy of not guiding to annual sales and EBITDA? I realize it's been company policy for a long time, except in rare cases not to give much. But I imagine you could avoid some confusion about what's a, I guess, quote, good or not quite as good print if outsiders had a basic bar And I guess in that way we could give you more credit when you do come in ahead of expectations. Just curious if that's a possibility and I guess if nothing else it would probably make Chris' life slightly easier too.

Speaker 10

Thanks for

Speaker 5

the comment, Ken. We will discuss this internally, and we'll let you know.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jason English from Goldman Sachs. You may begin.

Speaker 11

Hey, good morning folks. Thanks for slotting me in. Couple of quick questions. So you guys mentioned that you've implemented pricing actions, begun to raise those prices. Can you give us Can you give us some quantification there?

Speaker 11

Overall, on average, what is the price increase that you're pushing through? And how does it vary across different products?

Speaker 4

Well, let me just say, Jason, that Let me I guess, let me give you a little bit more context, which is if you think about our portfolio, we're really more diverse than most of the peers That we compete with. So our approach to pricing is no unique in terms of just having one solution. So we are We have to be more precise in certain categories and really broad strokes across entire portfolio. So what I can say is We have taken in pricing, covered the majority of the portfolio and that actually has quite a bit of wide range of percent Increases, so it's hard to kind of give you a specific answer. Now, Dave, what I will tell you is that We have taken actions to mitigate those incremental inflation that we're seeing, that we feel comfortable at approach, That we feel very good about how we are managing and that we're going to continue to monitor things and take further action if necessary.

Speaker 4

Thanks for the question, Jason.

Speaker 11

Thanks. But you don't know what your weighted average price increase is across your portfolio?

Speaker 4

Listen, I mean, I think it is something that for us, it's not something that we're going to be discussing and but happy Continue to have the conversations about how we are responding in this moment and how we are feeling that it's very much a manageable solution from us.

Speaker 11

Okay. And one more then just on the inflation. Can you give us the quantification of what the rate was in the quarter And what you expect in the back half? I see the total for the year going from low end and mid singles to high end. I'll just zoom in a little bit on

Speaker 10

the near term. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Listen, it's pretty much in that range, Jason, you need to remember also that in the Q2, we had part of this that we have a higher pressure on the meat Commodity, especially in bacon. But I can tell you that in the first half of the year, our inflation rate Was in the low be already low end of the mid single digit range, including this big four component. And that's the range that we saw for the quarter too. Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 5

I'll pass it on.

Operator

Welcome. Our next question is coming from the line of Carla Casella from JPMorgan. You may begin.

Speaker 12

Hi. You mentioned that you're maintaining your leverage target below 4 times and you're currently At 3, would you ever think of changing that target to lower it? Or are you leaving that flexibility Just given your outlook for either the business or other potential either M and A or shareholder friendly activity.

Speaker 5

We are thanks for the question. We are keeping, we are not changing that target Of leverage to be below 4 times in a consistent way. Let's remember also that This 3.1 times that we closed, there is that would go to 3.4 times if we adjust by the EBITDA that we lost That you're going to lose, right, a pro form a adjusted EBITDA of nuts that was the of that we divested. But yes, our idea is to Keep the same policy and to give us more flexibility to accelerate our strategy. And again, we are going to operate with this flexibility going forward.

Speaker 12

Okay, great. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Maybe just one more question.

Operator

And our last question will come from the line of Robert Moskow from Credit Suisse. You may begin.

Speaker 10

Hi, thanks for the question. Maybe a 2 parter. One is, do you think that you will increase media again in 2022? And then the second question is regarding what's changed versus plan, it would seem like the biggest change has been the categories. Your category growth or at least resilience has been much stronger in 2021 than expected.

Speaker 10

I think you entered the year expecting market shares to grow. So Maybe you could decompose those two things as to which of those really drove the outperformance in 2021? And then also for your back half guidance, 2nd quarter categories have been pretty resilient. Are you expecting a drop off And category performance in 3rd and 4th as people go back to work and consumers go back to school, specifically North America retail.

Speaker 2

Let me answer the first part regarding marketing and media, And let's I will pass the second one to Carlos to talk more specifically about categories in U. S. Let me say that, first, we are excited about the changes that we have been making in our marketing programs and capabilities. We've been investing not only in our brands, but also in our people. This is an area that I'm very passionate about and Given the importance that it has to drive our growth, we are driving improvements actually in A couple of ways.

Speaker 2

The first one is more marketing dollars, right, that we put we have $100,000,000 more in marketing than we had in 2019. And we said that we want to increase marketing moving forward. So it's our intention. However, I think it's not only about increasing marketing, it's really about efficiencies. We are today achieving 30% more of our consumers with the same spend By doing better marketing, not only better marketing, but also better media.

Speaker 2

And 3rd, I think they're very excited about stepping up on creativity in our company today. We started an internal agency in digital media in Canada And in May last year and today, we have 12 of these internal hubs In different places covering more than 30 markets around the world, and that is critical for Marketing efficiency because it's faster, better and much more creative. And we can really have marketing linked To the culture, we need to be very fast on that. So overall, that would be my question for answer for marketing. Carlos, you may answer the second one.

Speaker 4

Sure. I can just build on your point, Miguel. Specific to market share and our performance, I would say, we We're off to a very solid start to the year. And you saw in the presentation, we are seeing household penetration and repeat rate growth rates Much higher than pre pandemic levels. And we are gaining share in actually 58% of the business, and it's an improvement from last quarter We're and certainly from what we saw in 2019 pre pandemic.

Speaker 4

And I think that when you take a step back and you look at Overall performance, I think what we are proving is that our consumer platform approach, our focus on renovation, innovation and marketing Our resale activations, they're all working. Now going forward, we will continue this agenda. We're going to increase support around key holidays while using price, promotional optimization and as I mentioned earlier, all the revenue management tools to manage the inflation. Now for our total business, and I think to your point about asking about the future, there are several factors impacting the category performance. But I would say the most important is that we believe we're in a strong position to balance share with profitability to continue to deliver strong returns.

Speaker 4

So thanks for the question.

Speaker 5

Just one comment on that, just to build on what you're saying and what in the question here on the outlook. I think it's also relevant to say that while our outlook implies a lower EBITDA margin in the short term For the second half in the Q3. And we expect to we don't think that, that EBITDA margin is representative of the run rate, as I said, and we expect that to improve back to normal levels as we enter into 2022 and when our price realization start to catch up in our results.

Speaker 10

I'm sorry, I just I want to press a little bit more. This is really a question about your categories. Like do you expect your categories to Face pressure in Q3 and Q4 compared to the first half because of people going more to work and because of students going back to school?

Speaker 4

Yes, let me just give a perspective, I guess, in the At least in the U. S. Piece, I mentioned that there were several factors that is kind of Take into consideration how the categories are behaving. And I think that there are 3 things in particular that we are looking at. That There are certain things around the fact that they are hybrid working schedules we see in the home purchases and And a new consumer preference that are actually likely to keep people at home the higher level of home consumptions that we have seen in the past.

Speaker 4

We've also now seen the delta variant and the rising case counts across the U. S. And those are factors that we're also closely monitoring and And in particularly because they're important in terms of thinking about how families are preparing for the upcoming school year. I think that all things that are that make it very difficult for us to say at this point is exactly how this is going to all going to shape out. What I can tell you is That we are focused on those things we can control.

Speaker 4

So we are focused on making sure we improve our agility and execution, as Miguel said, That we continue to invest behind our brands to build relevance and compete for those occasions through our consumer platform based approach Regardless of how we see this happening and unfolding. And so far, we are pleased with how we are showing up. So we believe we can continue to see And the fact that we are able to drive the household penetration with peak rates. And I mentioned earlier in the call, Right now, you see all channels growing, but realistically, that is not right now our expectations as we go through the second half.

Speaker 10

Okay. Thank you for indulging me. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1

Great. Well, thanks everyone for joining us today. If you have any follow-up questions, Investor Relations and the media teams will be available for your follow ups. But thanks everyone for joining us today.

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