Stewart F. Glendinning
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Tyson Foods
Thank you, Donnie. Let me turn first to summary of our total Company financial results. Sales were up approximately 25% in the third quarter. Volumes were up 9.7%, primarily due to strength in retail and the ongoing foodservice recovery. Average sales price was also up about 17%, largely due to strong results in our Beef segment, the mix benefit from retail volume and the partial recovery of raw material inflation in net sales price. Operating income was up 81% in the third quarter due to continued strong performance in our Beef business. Chicken and Prepared Foods also improved their respective segment earnings, while Pork earnings were down versus the comparable period a year ago. Year-to-date, operating income for the total Company improved by 49%.
Earnings per share grew 93% in the third quarter due largely to strength in operating income, specifically within our Beef segment. EPS was up 61% on a year-to-date basis. We performed well despite a challenging operating environment that span tough labor availability, significant inflationary pressures on raw material costs, global supply chain challenges and an evolving demand backdrop.
Slide 11 bridges our total Company sales on a year-to-date basis. We delivered growth in the retail channel along all reporting segments, which in aggregate accounted for more than $1 billion in sales improvement over the year-to-date period and more than $300 million in the third quarter versus the respective comparable periods.
Moving to foodservice, sales improved by approximately $1.3 billion in the third quarter, leading to a year-to-date improvement for the channel of nearly $1 billion compared to the same period last year. Exports were up over 18% versus the comparable period, led by Beef, where sales improved by more than $350 million on a year-to-date basis. Asia has been a key driver of Beef export strength. We've also seen some strength in industrial, particularly in Beef and Pork.
And finally, year-to-date sales grew $79 million or approximately 6% in our international business. This business is a growth priority for Tyson and we continue to invest to develop further capacities and capabilities in new markets to meet growing global consumer demand for protein products. Current capacity expansions across seven international locations are expected to dramatically increase our fully cooked production capabilities. These investments are fully aligned to our strategic growth priorities and when complete, will enhance our international processing capacity by close to 30% versus fiscal 2020. Overall, we're pleased with the Company's top line growth year-to-date. We are carefully managing the current inflationary pressures through pricing actions, as well as commercial and operational excellence, with emphasis on productivity and cost. We know that our price recovery efforts relative to inflation must be matched by equal aggressiveness on productivity.
Slide 12 bridges year-to-date operating income. Production inefficiencies and low labor availability resulted in total Company volumes roughly flat to the comparable period a year ago. However, we are encouraged by the volume improvement we are seeing across our segments in the third quarter. Price mix benefited substantially in the year-to-date period from price recovery of raw material cost inflation, improved mix, strong Beef segment performance and continued retail strength across segments. Operating income was partially offset by $2.2 billion and increased cost of goods sold for the period, reflecting meaningful inflation in raw material and supply chain costs. Feed ingredients, labor, packaging and freight are all key components of this COGS increase, which we're working to mitigate.
On a comparative basis, SG&A benefited from the $56 million loss in the year-to-date fiscal 2020 period as compared to a $55 million gain in the first quarter of fiscal 2021 associated with the cattle supplier incident. This was in addition to certain reductions in trade spend and travel costs.
Moving into the Chicken segments' results. Sales were $3.5 billion for the third quarter, up 12%. Volumes were also up in the quarter due to continued strength in retail, improving demand through foodservice and segment-wide operational improvements. These were partially offset by COVID-related production inefficiencies. Average sales price was up 15% in the quarter due to favorable mix, sustained retail volume and strong supply and demand fundamentals.
Our reported price improvement also reflects actions we took to cover the inflationary pressure seen from higher grain, labor and freight costs. Our conversations with customers on widespread inflationary pressures have been productive. And we'll continue to partner with customers to ensure we receive a fair return on our products while working to deliver service levels and fill rates that meet or exceed their expectations.
Operating income was $27 million in the third quarter and $137 million on a fiscal year-to-date basis, both stronger than comparable periods a year ago. This represents an operating margin of 1.3% year-to-date. Fiscal year-to-date operating income was negatively impacted by $410 million of higher feed ingredient costs, as well as $210 million of increased grow-out expenses and outside meat purchases.
For the third quarter, feed ingredients were $270 million higher, while grow-out expenses and outside meat purchases were $110 million higher. Segment performance also reflects net derivative gains during the third quarter of $125 million and $235 million on a year-to-date basis, both versus the respective comparable periods. These results are associated with realized gains, as well as open positions.
Moving now to Prepared Foods. Sales were $2.3 billion for the quarter, up 14% relative to the same period last year. Total volume was up 4.5% in the quarter with strength in the retail channel and continued recovery in foodservice. Sales growth outpaced volume growth, driven by the pass-through of raw material costs, lower commercial spending and better sales mix.
Segment operating income was $150 million for the quarter, up over 3% versus the prior year. Year-to-date operating income was $633 million, up 23% versus the prior year period. Operating margins for the segment was 6.5% for the third quarter, a decline of 60 basis points versus the comparable year-ago period. The slowdown in segment operating margins versus the same quarter last year were driven by significant increases in raw material input costs. However, on a year-to-date basis, our operating margin of 9.6% was up 170 basis points versus last year, driven by favorable pricing and lower commercial spend.
Demand for the balance of the year is expected to remain elevated at retail, with volumes continuing to exceed pre-COVID levels and foodservice continuing to recover. During the third quarter, core business lines experienced volume share growth of 90 basis points, while dollar share grew 70 basis points. We continue to believe that the ongoing inflationary environment will create a meaningful headwind for Prepared Foods in the upcoming quarter. Raw material cost, logistics, ingredients, packaging and labor are all challenging our cost of production. To offset inflationary pressure, we're focused on pricing, revenue management, and commercial spend optimization, while ensuring the continued build of brand equity through marketing and trade support.
Moving to the Beef segment. Segment sales were over $4.9 billion for the quarter, up 36% versus the same period last year. Key sales drivers included strong domestic and export demand for Beef products with average sales price up 12% for the quarter. We had ample livestock available in the quarter, driven by strong front-end supplies. Mounting drought conditions in the Western United States cattle growing region, as well as elevated cost for grain also drove some cattle supply liquidation. We have good visibility into cattle availability through fiscal 2022 and currently believe it will also be sufficient to support our customer needs. Sales volume for the quarter was up year-over-year due to continued strong demand in contrast to a soft comparable period a year ago, driven by lower production volumes.
We delivered segment operating income of $1.1 billion for the quarter. This improvement was driven by strong global demand for beef products and a higher cut-out, which were partially offset by higher operating costs. Operating margins for the segment improved 520 basis points to 22.6% for the third quarter. While our Beef segment experienced tremendous results on a year-to-date basis, we're still not at optimal levels of capacity throughput within our beef plants due to labor challenges. Meanwhile, drought conditions and elevated grain prices are creating incremental costs and risks for cattle producers. Until these conditions stabilize and within the constraints I had mentioned, we will work to maximize our beef processing capacity to provide a reliable outlook for our livestock farmers and adequate product supply for customers and consumers.
Now, let's move on to the Pork segment on Slide 16. Third quarter results reflect higher hog costs and operating expenses that weren't fully offset through Pork cut-out. Segment sales were $1.7 billion for the quarter, up 54% versus the same period last year. Key sales drivers for the segment included higher average sales price due to strong demand, partially offset by a challenging labor environment. Average sales price increased more than 39% while volumes were also up relative to the same period last year.
Segment operating income was $67 million for the quarter, down 37% versus the comparable period. Overall, operating margins for the segment declined by 570 basis points to 3.9% for the quarter. The operating income decline was driven by higher hog costs and increased labor and freight costs. At the end of this calendar year, lower projected 2021 Pork production and strong consumer demand are expected to support hog prices well above 2020 levels.
Slide 17 captures our financial outlook for fiscal 2021. Given the continued strength in our Beef segment and ongoing inflationary pressures that are partially being recovered through price, we are raising our sales guidance for the full-year. We now expect to deliver annual revenues in the range of $46 billion to $47 billion. At the segment level, we expect our directional annual guidance to hold. Key risks to this guidance include freight rates, labor cost and availability, grain costs in the Chicken segment, raw material costs for each of our businesses and continued export market strength along with price volatility in commodity meats.
We're slightly revising our outlook on effective tax rate to approximately 22.5%. We'll continue to monitor the potential implications of new legislation, but we do not currently expect to see impacts to our adjusted rate this fiscal year. While our expectations related to liquidity are also unchanged, liquidity during the third quarter improved substantially to $3.4 billion and has since benefited from $1.2 billion of pre-tax proceeds from the divestiture of our Pet Treats business in early July.
Finally, we expect our COVID-related costs, which totaled $55 million in the quarter to be approximately $325 million for the year. As a reminder, some of the costs that were previously described as COVID-related, have evolved to become structural.
Turning to Slide 18, in pursuit of our priority to build financial strength and flexibility, we have substantially delevered our business over the past 12 months, reducing leverage to 1.7 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA. Investing organically in our business will continue to be an important priority and will help Tyson increase production capacity and market capabilities. Each of these levers individually and in aggregate will support strong return generation for our shareholders. We will also continue to explore costs to optimize our portfolio through M&A through the lens of value creation and shareholder return.
Finally, we are committed to return cash to shareholders through both dividends and share buybacks. In short, we view the cash generation capabilities of this business as both strong and diverse, and we expect our capital allocation framework to deliver solid returns for our shareholders in the future.
And with that, I'll turn the call back to Donnie.
