Church & Dwight Q1 2023 Earnings Results & Report

Church & Dwight EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.85
• Consensus EPS: $0.76
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.09
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.83
• EPS Beat Rate: 6 of last 8 quarters

Church & Dwight Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.43 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.35 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$78.54 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +10.20%

Church & Dwight (NYSE:CHD) Co., Inc. is a consumer packaged goods company that develops, manufactures and markets household, personal care and specialty products. Its portfolio is anchored by the ARM & HAMMER brand, which is used across products such as baking soda, laundry detergent, cat litter, household cleaners, oral care products and personal care items.

The company also markets a broad range of branded products, including OxiClean laundry and cleaning products, Trojan sexual wellness products, Waterpik oral health devices, First Response pregnancy and fertility tests, Nair hair-removal products, Orajel oral pain relief, TheraBreath oral care products, and vitamins and supplements sold under the Vitafusion and L’il Critters brands. Church & Dwight also produces specialty chemicals and other products for industrial and commercial customers.

Founded in 1846, Church & Dwight has expanded from its original baking soda business through brand development and acquisitions. The company sells its products in the United States and internationally through retailers, e-commerce channels, distributors and other commercial outlets. Its corporate headquarters are located in Ewing, New Jersey.

Church & Dwight Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Organic sales grew 5.7% (reported revenue +10.2%) and adjusted EPS of $0.85 beat the $0.75 outlook, led by strength in ARM & HAMMER Laundry, Therabreath, Waterpik and international markets.
• Q1 volume was flat after six quarters of declines, with U.S. case fill rates now above 93%, and the company expects positive volume growth for the full year.
• Gross margin expanded 90 bps to 43.5% in Q1, driven by pricing, productivity improvements and the Hero acquisition, and is set to widen further through 2023.
• Full-year 2023 guidance was raised to 6–7% reported sales growth, 3–4% organic growth and 2–4% EPS growth, while marketing spend is planned to increase to 10.5% of sales.
• The Specialty Products segment saw organic sales decline 5.9% in Q1 due to lower dairy volumes as low-cost imports returned to the U.S. market.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Church & Dwight first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Before we begin, I have been asked to remind you that on this call, the company's management may make forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, the company's financial objectives and forecasts. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors that are described in detail in the company's SEC filings. I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mr. Matt Farrell, President and Chief Executive Officer of Church & Dwight. Please go ahead, sir.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I'll begin with a review of the Q1 results, and then I'll turn the call over to Rick Dierker, our CFO. When Rick is wrapped up, we'll open the call for questions. Q1 was a solid quarter. Reported revenue was 10.2%. Organic sales grew 5.7% and exceeded our 1% Q1 outlook. Now, the 10.2% reported sales growth beat our outlook of 4%, thanks to stronger results from several brands, including Hero, TheraBreath, Arm & Hammer Laundry, and Arm & Hammer Litter, and exceptionally strong sales growth in our international business. The other good news is that the vitamin business and the Waterpik business hit their Q1 sales plan, and we're right on expectations.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Finally, it's also fair to say that we had a degree of conservatism in our original Q1 outlook, both top line and bottom line. Our Q1 top line growth re-reflects the strength of our brands, both premium and value, and also our focus on execution. The combination of consumer demand and improved case fill, which is now over 93% in the US, is resulting in strong revenue growth. Something else that is noteworthy, we had flat volume growth in Q1, which is an encouraging sign after declining volumes in the last six quarters. We now expect volume growth in our full year net sales outlook. Adjusted EPS was $0.85, which was $0.10 higher than our $0.75 EPS outlook. That was driven by higher than expected sales in the U.S. Especially in our international business, which posted 11.6% organic growth.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

In Q1, global online sales as a percentage of total sales was over 16%. We continue to expect online sales for the full year to be above 16%. Private label shares remain consistent with historical weighted averages, both domestic and internationally. Private label is stable in our categories. Now I'm gonna comment on each business. First up is the U.S. The U.S. consumer business had 5.5% organic sales growth. Eight of our 14 power brands held or gained market share in the quarter. I wanna look at a few of the important categories in the U.S., and I wanna start with laundry. If we look at the big picture, value laundry detergent grew 9%, while premium detergent declined 3%. The trade down to value detergent continues into 2023.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

During Q1, the liquid laundry category grew 3.6%, while Arm & Hammer grew 9.3%. Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent grew share by 80 basis points in the quarter to 14.3%. With more consumers migrating to Arm & Hammer laundry detergent, we have the potential for a long-term benefit to the Arm & Hammer brand, similar to the last recession. Over in litter, the category grew 12.7%, while Arm & Hammer Litter grew 13.5%. We gained market share in the quarter. We did see a trade down from our premium Arm & Hammer cat litter to our Arm & Hammer value litter, which is in the orange box. Consumers are staying in the Arm & Hammer franchise.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Our Give It The Hammer advertising campaign, which halos met the many categories that Arm & Hammer competes in, is resonating with consumers. In dry shampoo, the dry shampoo category was up 11.8% in Q1, driven by Batiste consumption, which was up 20%. We now enjoy a 46.2% market share in dry shampoo. In the condom category, the condom category was up 4.1% in Q1, while Trojan consumption was up 5.3%. Here again, we gained 80 basis points of market share, thanks to our new Trojan Bareskin Raw condom and the success of more targeted marketing. Our most recent acquisitions, TheraBreath Mouthwash and Hero, are performing extremely well. TheraBreath, which we acquired in December of 2021, had just a great quarter with 70% consumption growth. TheraBreath grew share 6.8 points to 22.5% of the alcohol-free mouthwash.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

As promised, when we bought the brand, distribution of TheraBreath has doubled since we acquired it in December of 2021. TheraBreath is now the number two non-alcohol mouthwash brand and the clear number four in total mouthwash. Zicam, this is a December 2020 acquisition, also delivered strong results this quarter. Zicam is the number 1 brand in the cold shortening segment with a 78% share. Now to our latest acquisition, Hero, which grew year-over-year consumption by 43.5% and gained 1.6 share points to achieve a 9.1 market share in the total acne treatments category. Distribution has expanded by 50% since the October acquisition date. As we said in the release, there continues to be a great deal of excitement around here about the Hero brand and especially the Hero team.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

From our oldest brand to our recent acquisitions, our brands are driving category growth. I'm gonna give you a few examples. Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent, which has a 14% share of the liquid laundry category, drove 35% of the category growth. In the dry shampoo category, Batiste has a category leading 46 share, contributed 75% of the category growth. In the mouthwash category, TheraBreath makes up 11% of the total category, but delivered over 50% of the growth in mouthwash. Next up is international. Our international business delivered organic growth of 11.6% in Q1, driven by strong growth in the subsidiaries and double-digit sales growth from our Global Markets Group, and that was quite balanced across all of our global regions. The growth was headlined by Batiste, Vitamins, Femfresh, Waterpik, and Gravol.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

As far as the consumer goes, similar to the United States, unemployment remains low in our international countries where we have subsidiaries. However, in many of these markets, particularly in Europe, the consumer is facing inflation in energy and food. So far, consumption has remained strong.In China, while it is a relatively small market for us, we are experiencing stronger growth in Q1 and remain optimistic about the full year opportunity. Finally, specialty products. Specialty products organic sales decreased 5.9%, primarily due to lower volume in the dairy business as low price imports returned to the U.S. market. I'm gonna wrap up my remarks right now by saying consumption is strong, our value offerings are performing well, as are our premium offerings.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Acquisitions are on track. We're ramping up our marketing this year in support of our brands and new product launches, and we expect to have the opportunity to invest even more behind our brands in future quarters. Now I'm gonna turn it over to Rick to give you some more color on Q1.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everybody. We'll start with EPS. First quarter adjusted EPS was $0.85, up 2.4% prior year. The $0.85 was better than our $0.75 outlook, primarily due to continued strong consumer demand for many of our products and higher than expected gross margins. Reported revenue was up 10.2%. Organic sales were up 5.7%. About half of the reported revenue growth year-over-year was Hero. Organic sales were once again driven by pricing in Q1. As Matt mentioned, the fact that volume was flat was encouraging and gives us confidence that we will return to volume growth later this year. Matt covered the segments, I'll go right into gross margin.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Our first quarter gross margin was 43.5%, a 90 basis point increase from a year ago, primarily due to improved pricing, productivity, and the impact of the Hero acquisition, net of the impact of higher manufacturing costs. Let me walk you through the Q1 bridge. Gross margin was made up of the following: positive 160 basis points impact from price volume mix, positive 120 basis points from acquisitions, a positive 160 basis points from productivity, and 10 basis points from currency, partially offset by a drag of a 360 basis point impact due to higher manufacturing costs, including inventory charges related to discretionary brands, primarily Flawless. For the balance of the year, we still expect sequential improvement in gross margin year-over-year expansion throughout the year. Moving to marketing.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Marketing was up $20 million year-over-year. Marketing expense as a percentage of net sales was 8.6%, or 70 basis points higher than Q1 of last year. For SG&A, Q1 adjusted SG&A increased 90 basis points year-over-year. Other expense all-in was $23 million, an $8.6 million increase due to higher interest rates. Our expectations for interest rates for the remainder of the year remain unchanged from our prior guidance. We do not have any looming long-term debt refinancings. August of 2027 is the timing of our next maturity. For income tax, our effective rate for the quarter was 24.4% compared to 23.2% in 2022, an increase of 120 basis points. We continue to expect the full year rate to be approximately 23%. Now to cash.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

For the first three months of 2023, cash from operating activities increased to $273 million due to higher cash earnings and improvements in working capital. We now expect full year cash flow from operations to be approximately $950 million. Previously, we expected $925 million. The $25 million increase is driven by higher cash earnings and an improvement in working capital. Our full year CapEx plan continues to be approximately $250 million as we continue to make capacity investments, and we expect to return to historical levels by 2025. Now for the full year outlook. Given the strength of our Q1 results and our confidence for the remainder of the year, we are raising our outlook for sales, EPS, gross margin, and cash flow.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

We now expect the full year 2023 reported sales growth to be approximately 6%-7% and organic sales growth to be approximately 3%-4%. We now expect full year EPS in the range of 2%-4% growth. Given the strength of the business, we see opportunities to make incremental investments in our brands and capabilities in future quarters. We now expect full year reported gross margin to expand approximately 120 basis points, and as we expect pricing and productivity to more than offset inflation. Our full year inflation expectations remain unchanged from our previous outlook. Gross margins is expected to benefit from pricing, pack size changes, laundry concentration, and the full year impact of the higher margin Hero business.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

As you read in the release, two items of note that are aiding our margin recovery are new litter pricing that went into effect in 1 February and the latest round of concentration for laundry. We intend to increase marketing as a percent of net sales to 10.5%. We continue to expect SG&A both in dollars and as a percent of net sales to increase compared to 2022 as the company's incentive compensation plan returns to normal levels in 2023. As a reminder, our EPS guidance includes a step-up in our level of marketing investment as well as higher SG&A. For Q2, we have a strong outlook and expect reported sales growth of approximately 7%, organic sales growth of approximately 3% and gross margin expansion and higher marketing spending.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

The math would show a sequential decline in sales growth, but it's easy to explain. First, distribution pipeline sales for Hero and TheraBreath accounted for 1% of growth in Q1. That will not repeat in Q2. The other is around quarterly comps and how that impacts the current year. For the domestic business, there was a large improvement in case fill from Q1 to Q2 last year, which leads to a tougher comp in Q2 of this year compared to Q1 last year. As an example, our international business in Q1 in 2022, organic growth was 0, and in Q2 was 6.5% in 2022. As a result, adjusted EPS is expected to be $0.78 per share, a 2.6% increase from last year's adjusted Q2 EPS.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

With that, Matt and I would be happy to take questions.

[Operator]

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. For our first question, it comes from the line of Chris Carey from Wells Fargo. Chris, please go ahead.

[Chris Carey, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Hi, good morning.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Hey, Chris.

[Chris Carey, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

I just wanted to ask about.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Chris, you're breaking up. Operator, why don't we go to the next question and Chris can get back in the queue.

[Operator]

Right. Sure. No worries. One moment please for our next question.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

We're not hearing anything from the.

[Operator]

All right, for our next question, it comes from the line of Kevin Grundy from Jefferies. Kevin, your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Kevin Grundy, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Can you guys hear me okay?

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yes.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yep.

[Kevin Grundy, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Great. So I wanted to start on the gross margin outlook, some of the key drivers there, maybe how you're seeing that a little bit differently given the strong start to the year and some of the moderation in commodities, and sort of tie that in with how you're thinking about potential reinvestment. You know, the outlook now up 120 basis points on gross margin year-over-year. The prior outlook was up 100 to 120, so modestly better. Rick, maybe just comment on how you're seeing the contribution from pricing, commodities and productivity, sort of the key levers. Then Matt, maybe you'd wanna chime in on just how you're thinking about restoring advertising and marketing levels. It was kind of a stair-step function, at least that was sort of the thinking coming into the year.

[Kevin Grundy, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Is there any thought to maybe accelerating that? You know, sort of within the context of advertising, marketing had been 12% of sales, get down to 10% this year. The thinking is 10.5%. How should we be thinking about the potential reinvestment if gross margin exceeds expectations? I have a follow-up. Thanks.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. Thanks, Kevin. I'll go first. I think, you know, gross margin, we said in the release and in my script that really we expect gross margin to expand. The expansion continues to improve throughout the year. We did do better than we expected in Q1, that's why we raised the full year. From a pricing perspective, as we go through the year, there will likely be less pricing overall. There will be less inflation overall, and productivity kinda ramps up as we go through the year as well. All those things we think are will be a tailwind. To the extent that we over-deliver on gross margin, that's why we put the investment commentary in the release as well. Matt?

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. He asked a good question with respect to marketing. Everybody knows last year in 2022, our marketing as a percentage of sales was 10%. It was a kind of a low point for us, and what contributed to that was all our difficulties with the fill rate, et cetera. We said, "Hey, we're gonna build that back. We wanna get back to 11%," which we go halfway there in 2023. You can see from you know, we had a really good first quarter. We let some of that flow through to EPS on a full year basis, so we took up our estimate from $0 to $4 to $2 to $4. You know, we always take a long-term view with the company.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah, to the extent that we have even better performance in future quarters, it's gonna give us an opportunity to go higher than 10.5% as a percent of the sales. We know whenever we're in a position like this, and it's been a few years since we've been flush, but, you know, there's three destinations. You know, first there's gonna be growth, so we'll be looking to pay for marketing. Can we go higher than 10.5%? For international, we have a lot of runway there. One thing we could do there with respect to regulatory, we get third-party help to help us knock out product registrations that might have been scheduled for next year or the year after. There's always R&D projects as well that we can allocate to.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Then from an efficiency standpoint, you know, we're like most companies, we're trying to automate this place, and there are discrete projects we can accelerate to automate some repetitive transaction processing in the company. Also, there's always IT investments. Finally, with respect to the environment, you know, we're real focused on our sustainability. There are projects with respect to sustainability, like alternative packaging that we could fast-forward as well. It gives us the degrees of freedom, and so we're in a good spot here looking forward for the rest of the year, Kevin.

[Kevin Grundy, Managing Director at Jefferies]

I appreciate the comments. If I could just get in one more, Matt, just on, and for Rick as well. Hero seems to be performing much better, I think maybe than folks had modeled. How is it coming in relative to your own expectations? Presumably better, I would think. Why is that? Has the distribution ramped more quickly? Has the velocity been better? Is it both? Sort of why? Maybe just updated thoughts on your outlook for the brand, and I'll pass it on. Thank you.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

I'll give you a couple comments, Kevin. It's Rick. I think both is the answer. Velocities are even better than we expected, and I think, you know, distribution gains and TDPs are even better than we expected, faster than we expected. I think Maybe in Matt script, he commented about TDPs for Hero and we're 50% higher since we bought the business already.

[Operator]

One moment for your next question. For our next question, it comes from the line of Chris Carey from Wells Fargo. Chris, your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Chris Carey, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Hi, good morning, and sorry about the technical difficulties there on the last question. I just wanted to ask about, you know, personal care business. Clearly we're continuing to see a little bit of sequential improvement. I guess, can you just comment on, you know, your visibility on this business relative to even, you know, a few months ago? Also just what you're seeing from a kinda gap between what we can see in the consumption data, which remains stronger relative to what you're actually delivering from an organic sales standpoint. Just any visibility on when you think, you know, your organic sales will start to look a little bit more than like what we see in the consumption data, which is a little bit better. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Yes, I can hear you. By the way, we lost Chris's line at this time. Should we move on to the next caller? No, we're still live and your line is still open. All right. I'll just go ahead and check here. Yes. By the way, I'm still trying with the audio. Yes, sure. I'll just try to stop the stream for now, let's see if that would refresh the connection. Okay, stopping the stream for now. All right. Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Apologies for the technical difficulties. We're gonna be resuming with the Q&A. Once again, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one one again. For your next question, it comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman.

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Hello? Okay. I have to, like, reorient myself to the fact that we're live again. Okay. Hi. Let me just. Okay, go back to my questions. I guess consumer domestic was, like, let's call it 500 basis. It was much stronger than what we saw in Nielsen. I was just kinda curious what drove that. You know, kind of anything you can talk to us about untracked channels. You know, is there any rebuilding of retailer inventory? I know, Rick, you called out the 1 point on Hero and TheraBreath. I'm just curious if anything else just helpful to know about untracked. Thanks. Am I on? Hello? Oh, my God.

[Operator]

Hi, Lauren. Just wanna check if you can hear me. This is the operator.

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

I can hear you.

[Operator]

Okay. It [crosstalk].

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Oh, now I'm being told. Okay, some people are messaging me that they can hear me, but not hear the company.

[Operator]

Okay. For Mr. Farrell and Mr. Dierker, please try to redial. Please try to dial back in. Okay, sounds good. Lauren, please stand by. I'm really sorry about the technical difficulty at this time.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Hello? Hello?

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Hey.

[Operator]

Hi, Gus, this is Kyle. I can hear you.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

This is our cell phone now we're on this way. Can you patch us into the call?

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Hey, Rick, it's Lauren. I can hear you.

[Operator]

Gus, you're connected to the call now.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

All right. Well, hey, take three. Here we go.

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Hi. Okay. Did you catch my question or no? 'Cause I can repeat it if you need me to.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. Nope, I got it, and I think everybody else heard you.

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Okay, cool.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

The question was really, you know, how does consumption match up with organic for domestic?

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Yeah. Just particularly untracked, right? Just curious about untracked channels.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

We don't think there's a huge disconnect actually. We IRI consumption is 7%. That included some of the Hero consumption, that got if you back that out, that's around 6%. 6% is what IRI would say is our organic consumption. We were at 5.5, and the drag is, as you would say, it's from untracked channels like Waterpik, for example, online or other businesses. We think the disconnect is a little bit closer.

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Okay. There was just the, you'd called out there was the 1 point benefit to total company from pipeline on Hero and TheraBreath. Which is small, but when you look at the second half of the year, I know you've talked about improving volume and volume now being up to total company for the full year. I was just curious on any updated thoughts on what you've deemed the more kinda discretionary categories and how you're thinking about shipments for Waterpik, vitamins, you know, as we go through the year?

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. I partially thought I was answering that when I answered Chris's question. I probably got cut off. In 2022, those three businesses, we said in the release at the end of 2022, they were about a 4% drag for those three businesses. In Q1, they were closer to a 3% drag. I said, We expect, you know, personal care organic to inflect positively in the back half. A big reason is because those businesses are not a drag. Furthermore, Matt said it in his script, but it was very encouraging that Waterpik and vitamins hit their internal plan numbers.

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Okay. You set them to those businesses in particular for volumes to be up in the second half or not calling that yet and don't need to?

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

I wouldn't call it that yet. I would just say we don't expect them to be a drag in the back half.

[Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays]

Okay, got you. I will pass it on to anyone that's dialed in and we can hear. Thanks.

[Operator]

Please stand by for your next question. For your next question, it comes from the line of Rupesh Parikh from Oppenheimer. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Rupesh Parikh, Managing Director at Oppenheimer]

Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Can you also hear me right now?

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

We can hear you.

[Rupesh Parikh, Managing Director at Oppenheimer]

Okay, great. I guess just continuing on with just vitamins. Just curious what you're seeing right now in the category? I believe your fill rates have now improved in vitamins. Curious if you're starting to see progress on the share front?

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah, the vitamin fill rate is improving sequentially month-over-month. If you take November, December, January, February, March, which is a really good thing. As far as the category goes, if you look at the last few categories for gummies, you may remember in the third quarter last year, it took a big decline, so gummies were down 8%. Q4 was down 10% and Q1 down, yeah, 2.3%. I would say it's really stabilized, which is a good thing for us. Now, we did lose share in the first quarter, again, due to our fill rate difficulties. We've anticipated some of that. We probably benefited a bit because the category was stronger than we expected.The vitamin business wasn't a drag on our outlook.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

You know, they hit their plan for the first quarter, and we think things should improve from here for the rest of the year.

[Rupesh Parikh, Managing Director at Oppenheimer]

Great. Maybe just one follow-up question? I know at the end I'll say your team gave expectations for organic growth expectations by segment. It appears at least consumer domestic, you know, is stronger, international stronger, maybe specialty products was weaker. Just curious if you have updated views on expectations by segment for the year?

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah, sure, Rupesh. It's Rick. Domestically, we're now calling 3%-4%. International, between 5% and 7%. SPD is actually slightly negative. That gets us to the total company organically at 3%-4%.

[Rupesh Parikh, Managing Director at Oppenheimer]

Okay, great. Thank you. I'll pass this along.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Okay.

[Operator]

Please stand by for your next question. For our next question, it comes from the line of Olivia Tong from Raymond James. Olivia, your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Olivia Tong, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Great, thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to get a little bit of an update on your view on the U.S. consumer, particularly, any early reads on the incremental pricing you took, impact of compaction, and the extent that you've seen any change in promotional levels. Thank you.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Okay, that's a broad question, Olivia. I'll talk about the U.S. consumer. Look, we're all reading the same data. Right? The U.S. unemployment remains low, although it's clear that job growth is slowing. Stats will suggest that the growth, the year-over-year growth of household income is also decelerating. I guess the other thing we have coming up ahead is student loan payments resume late summer. Now you might think that may not be a big deal, but, you know, 40% of millennials and 25% of Gen X consumers have student loan debt. Yeah, I think the combination of all that is contributing to consumers being still feeling pinched and trade down from premium to value. What was your second question, Olivia, your second part?

[Olivia Tong, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Sorry. It was around compaction, the pricing, any early reads on those and.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. The elasticity is the one. Yeah, we've been taking price for the past couple of years. In some cases, we've taken it two or three times, depending on the category, like a Litter or laundry detergent. you know, the gaps, the price gaps between brands are actually largely similar to they were pre-COVID. I would say that there's no story there right now.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah, it's kind of early to call any impact from concentration that just rolled out late Q1, but we expect that will be positive.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Olivia Tong, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Great. Thank you.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Okay.

[Operator]

All right. Thank you. For your next question, it comes from the line of Dara Mohsenian from Morgan Stanley. Dara, your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Dara Mohsenian, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, guys. Good morning.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Dara.

[Dara Mohsenian, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Clearly a strong Q1 that was better than you expected. The guidance for Q2 looked favorable relative to consensus also. Just trying to understand if you look at org sales and EPS, you didn't necessarily fully flow through the upside in the quarter to the full year. Obviously a full-year raise, but more modest. Just help us understand that. There are some specific limiting factors there, or is it more just the reinvestment you talked about earlier, conservatism in a volatile environment? Particularly on org sales, the question's on org sales and earnings. Org sales, you're not assuming a sequential acceleration in the back half despite easier comps. Just wanted to understand that relative to the first half expectations. Thanks.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. I think you answered the question for me, Lauren Lieberman. You know, we follow a lot of companies, so we're not alone in having a kind of a good first quarter, but not necessarily following it all through just because there's always a certainty with respect to the economy. That hasn't stopped us. We do have the freedom now to take the long view and increase our marketing from 10.5% higher. We have all of the places where we can put money, which I went through with Kevin Grundy. Growth, efficiency or sustainability projects, they're all available to us. Yeah, we feel like we got a lot of flexibility going forward for the rest of the year.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

It's very rare that, if you look back at our history, that we've ever raised after one quarter. You know, typically, we talk about that in the second quarter. This is a bit of a, you know, positive.

[Dara Mohsenian, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Okay, that's very helpful. Then can you just give us a little more detail on some of the problem areas recently, Waterpik, Flawless, vitamins, just sequential performance in Q1 relative to recent trend? I know you mentioned in a couple of them you were on plan, but just wanted to get a little more detail on sort of the year-over-year performance, both in terms of consumer demand as well as retailer inventory levels, if you can just give us a little more insight there. Thanks.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

I'll give some insight on Waterpik. As I said, we're happy with the progress of Waterpik. They hit their internal number, not a drag on our outlook. The economy is affecting consumer behavior. Consumers are either not buying or are trading down to lower cost flossers. On the push side, you know, our lunch and learns are back to normal with high volume of dental offices. Of course, that's very important to recommendations for first purchases of water flossers. I would say we went into the year saying it's gonna be a little choppy the first six months, and I think that the comps will get easier in the second half.Vitamins, on the vitamin side as well, the category performed better than expected.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

It was only down 2% in the 1st quarter. As I said, our fill rates have improved monthly, so that now we're getting into the high 80s. That's one of the drags on our total company fill rate. As that progresses, we're gonna be in better position to win back share.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. Those two are stabilizing and meeting expectations. The third one's Flawless. Retail inventories are moving slower than we expected. That's partly have an impact on our inventory reserves for slow-moving inventory on our end, but we think we've appropriately captured that from here, and we're moving forward.

[Dara Mohsenian, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

For your next question, it comes from the line of Anna Lizzul from Bank of America. Anna, your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Anna Lizzul, VP of Equity Research at Bank of America]

Great. Good morning. Thank you so much for the question. I'm curious around volumes. Volumes were flat in the quarter. You're now expecting volumes to be positive overall for Q2 in the full year. You've commented previously on economization on volume expected in certain categories, such as laundry, litter and toothpaste. I was wondering if you're seeing a reversal in that from consumers who maybe are more accepting of price increases or just more benefit from trade down versus economization.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

I'll start and Matt probably has a point or two to add, too. What we said on volumes, and just to be super clear, was we were flat in Q1, and we expect to inflect positively in the second half and for the full year. You can infer that that means we think they're gonna be negative in Q2. Originally, our outlook was down in Q1, down in Q2, and inflect positively in the back half. We're encouraged by what happened in Q1. That was largely because, you know, that was our largest year-over-year delta in case fill. You know, a year ago, Q1 case fill was 72%. Q2 was 89%, we just have less volume to make up there.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah, I would probably say, volumes continue to impact, inflect positively in the back half. We're now calling volume to be positive for the year, that's kind of the short story.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. The only thing I would add to that is that we were out of the gate early in some of our categories with respect to pricing. Consequently with the passage of time, pricing is gonna have a less of an impact on us and volume greater. We think that the flat volume is a great story for the company. Expecting positive volumes for the year, again, is typically what investors expect from us.

[Anna Lizzul, VP of Equity Research at Bank of America]

Great. Just in terms of pricing and margins, you know, just curious, how would you attribute the benefit to outright pricing versus the package size changes?

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. You know, we haven't. It all gets bundled into that price volume mix on the gross margin bridge. Our outlook in February was 180 basis point tailwind. It still is that in April, 180 basis point tailwind from price volume mix. That would have, for example, the litter list price increase, but it would also have pack size changes that are happening. It would have, at times, it would have, you know, the laundry concentration benefit in there. It's a mix. We don't break them out any more independently than that.

[Anna Lizzul, VP of Equity Research at Bank of America]

Okay. Thanks very much.

[Operator]

All right. Thank you. For our next question, it comes from the line of Bill Chappell from Truist. Bill, your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Bill Chappell, Managing Director at Truist]

Thanks. Good morning.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Hey, Bill.

[Bill Chappell, Managing Director at Truist]

Hey, Matt just a little bit more on kind of your commentary about consumer trade down, and I'm just trying to understand how you feel like why you think it's consumer trade down is you're benefiting versus just the power of the Arm & Hammer brand. Especially in laundry detergent, I mean, for years you've been taking share from kind of the smaller, old Unilever, Sun, whoever owns them now brands. You look in a lot of the stores and a lot of those brands have lost some or all of their shelf space, and you've gained shelf space. I'm trying to understand, like, what you're seeing that where you think it's trade down benefit versus just power of the brand benefit that isn't sustainable regardless of what the, you know, the economy does.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. Well, look, it's a, it's a combination of both. Yeah, the Arm & Hammer brand is a very powerful brand, and we got $5.4 billion in sales. The $2 billion of it is Arm & Hammer. We're able to advertise Arm & Hammer across lots of different categories. When we look at the macro numbers, just look at, you know, value laundry detergent grew 9%, while premium laundry detergent declined 3%. That's in the category. We got all brands premium, all brands value. It's clearly happening. That's our biggest category. We look at litter, we see the same thing. We have a black box, which is our premium cat litter, and we got a yellow box, which is our value cat litter.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

We see this, and consumers have traded down within the category from the black box to the yellow box. That's where you have the power of the brand, where people stick with Arm & Hammer as opposed to move over to a different brand. I'd say it's probably a combination of both, Bill.

[Bill Chappell, Managing Director at Truist]

I guess just to follow up on that, are you seeing outsize or accelerating growth for the XTRA brand or for that deep value or more shelf space for the being given by retailers for the deep value?

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. You know, we said eight out of 14 brands gained share in the quarter. We were almost at nine. We just missed it by a hair with XTRA. I would say in recent weeks, XTRA has shown a lot of strength. We think that that one could turn positive for us as a share grower in future quarters.

[Bill Chappell, Managing Director at Truist]

Great. Thanks so much.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

That's more evidence of trade down, right? XTRA catching fire.

[Bill Chappell, Managing Director at Truist]

Yeah. Absolutely.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah.

[Operator]

For our next question, it comes from the line of Peter Grom from UBS. Peter, your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Peter Grom, Executive Director of Equity Research at UBS]

Thanks, operator, and good morning, everyone. I was hoping to get some perspective on what you're seeing from an input cost perspective, kind of building on Kevin's earlier question. Can you maybe just help us understand where you're seeing costs moderate, where you're seeing costs be stickier? Rick, I know you previously mentioned that you're less hedged on commodities than you typically would be heading into this year. You know, to the extent that commodities continue to moderate, how quickly could we see that benefit flowing through? Thanks.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Peter, for the question. You know, in the release, we said that largely for us and our inflation expectations were unchanged. There's puts and takes on the commodity side, and the transportation costs are down. You know, our resins, the outlook is slightly higher. Soda ash is higher. Sugar is higher. Some resins are down. Ethylene is down. It's a mixed bag, but it kinda nets to kinda neutral from our original outlook. You're right, we did say in the beginning of the year that we were less hedged this year than we have in many years, just thinking that commodities would come down over time as the recession was potentially looming.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

It just takes a few months for cost to actually be down and stay down before you start seeing those commodities trickle into material pricing and trickle into, I mean you know, you have to buy them, they go on the balance sheet, they get expensed to the P&L when you sell it. I don't know. If you see something down now, it has to be down for a few months, and then probably within six months, it would flow through the P&L.

[Peter Grom, Executive Director of Equity Research at UBS]

That's super helpful. Thank you so much. I'll pass it on.

[Operator]

All right. Thank you. For our next question, it comes from the line of Andrea Teixeira from JPMorgan. Andrea, your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Andrea Teixeira, Managing Director at JPMorgan]

Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to just one is a clarification, the other one is a real question. One on the whole pricing and mix dynamics and volume. Understandably, you have these dynamics in the second quarter, you got a help in the first quarter. The second half, sorry, as you implied, the new guide, and you still have some pricing to come through. I understand you lap as everybody else the pricing that you put in, but you put in some pricing even towards the end of last year and beginning of this year. I was just trying to reconcile what should we expect in the second half implied in price mix in your new guide.

[Andrea Teixeira, Managing Director at JPMorgan]

Then, The real question is on the Arm & Hammer share gains, which obviously have been remarkable. Just wondering on liquid, your biggest competitor also reduced some price points that were I think more sticker shock to some, to some consumers. Have you seen that change these dynamics as you exit the quarter, or you continue to gain share in Arm & Hammer all channels? Thank you.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

I'll take the just the first half, second half dynamics of pricing. Matt's comment is true. You know, a lot of, a lot of, you know, pricing does roll over. The first half average, we think is in the 160s, and the second half we think is 180, 190, so the full year is 180. We do think there's a little bit, and that's really because of our litter price increase in February is the and the concentration impact that kind of flows through there as well. Those are the two things that help in the back half a little bit.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. With respect to pricing, you know, we obviously we do watch what happens what our competitors do in all of our categories. With respect to any recent price increases, not just in laundry, but elsewhere, it would be too early to tell. We need a quarter or two before we can comment on that. What I will add, though, is that, and I think Olivia might ask this question earlier, around sold on deal. If you look at liquid laundry detergent and look at it a year ago, the sold on deal was 31%. If you look at where it is today, the Q1 2023, it's 31.7%. Not a big change year over year in promotions. Even sequentially, Q4 was 32%, and Q1, 31.7%.

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Things are pretty stable in the liquid laundry detergent. It's a different story in cat litter. Cat litter a year ago, sold on deal was 10.7%. First quarter of this year was 14.9%. It's been kind of a stairstep up, quarter by quarter over the last five quarters. In fact, Q4 was 13.9%, so it's up another 100 basis points. Historically, and we've talked about this on previous calls, that the litter sold on deal is typically much higher than, you know, the high teens, 18%, 19%, 20%. I guess the other promotional category would be vitamins. Last year was 38.9% sold on deal Q1. This year, 38.5%. I think that gives you a little bit more color on what's going on with respect to pricing and promotions.

[Andrea Teixeira, Managing Director at JPMorgan]

Do you expect promo to continue to accelerate as we go? I appreciate it's backward-looking, but forward-looking, you're embedding that obviously cat litter will be one and perhaps vitamins, or you think that this is gonna be a similar dynamic?

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. No, Andrea, we would never telegraph our plans, but typically we're gonna be, you know, react to a competition when it comes to, trade.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah, I would just say laundry for Q1 looked a lot like Q4 from a promotional perspective, like Matt was going through.

[Andrea Teixeira, Managing Director at JPMorgan]

No, sorry, just a clarification. The 180, 190 is the that you mentioned on the pricing front. That's on top of, that's what the incremental pricing would come from these two, from these two price increases that you mentioned, right?

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Well, that's for the full year, so there's also, you know, partial pricing finishing from last year when we took it mid-year. That would be a benefit and a tailwind as well. That's price volume mix is that line. We don't break out the three. That's also, you know, volume growth of higher margin brands as an example year-over-year. There's a lot in that number, but I guess the answer for you, Andrea, is it's a tailwind and the tailwind gets a little bit better in the second half.

[Andrea Teixeira, Managing Director at JPMorgan]

Mm-hmm. You should say like all said and done, I mean, if I, my math is right, you're gonna have a second half with pricing of about 2% two-ish. That's what comes out with your guide, if that's, if that makes sense.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that 180 basis points is also volume and mix. That is not just price by itself. Okay?

[Andrea Teixeira, Managing Director at JPMorgan]

Okay, perfect. All right. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. For the next question, it comes from the line of Javier Escalante from Evercore. Javier, your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Javier Escalante, Equity Research Analyst at Evercore]

Good morning, everyone, hopefully you can hear me. I would like to double-click on the overall and the greater degree of conservatism built in guidance and what we're going to see in track channels. One is you have positive volumes in the second half despite of compaction in detergents. Is it, you know, are we going to see a gap between track channels and what you report because you correct for wash loads? On Hero doing very well, do upsize trigger impact, higher impact of restricted stock? Thirdly, on the marketing investment, have you built any sales lift in the second half or just basically investment for the longer term? Thank you.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah. I'll take the first two, and then maybe Matt has the third one. I mean, I'll even take your second one first. You threw in RSUs for Hero. You know, our adjusted EPS excludes any impact of amortization related to RSU. That's kind of not a factor in our outlook or in our adjusted EPS. That's apples to apples. Number one, you know, we don't expect to see much of a gap between shipments and consumption at all. When you see tracked versus our, you know, Nielsen or consumption versus our organic growth in the back half, it should be really close, is the short answer.

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

In Q2, you may see a little bit of a disconnect again because some of those brands like Waterpik, as they continue to stabilize and go backwards a little bit, that's largely in untracked channels. You know, some of Hero growth from a reported perspective is also in untracked channels, whether it's online or, a few specialty retailers. I would say overall, we've kinda talked about, or we had a great quarter. We're raising the full year on reported organic EPS across the board. We've made the comment that we're gonna make investments, if we continue to outperform on revenue and profits. Matt?

[Matt Farrell, President and CEO at Church & Dwight]

Yeah, as far as marketing goes, yeah, no, what we have in our forecast is we're modeling 10.5%. If you look at what happened in the first quarter, first quarter, we're up 70 basis points, and we said for the full year we'd be up 50. Our track record so far is as we get into a quarter, and to the extent we have the same experience we've had in Q1 and Q2, then we have the opportunity to take it up again more than 50 basis points. It's, it's gonna be, you know, pay as you go.

[Javier Escalante, Equity Research Analyst at Evercore]

If I can follow up, on the detergent side, because perhaps I didn't explain myself, is that when you compact, don't you have a negative impact on volume, or does your reporting basically adjust for wash loads, something that we cannot see in IRI track channels?

[Rick Dierker, CFO at Church & Dwight]

These compaction levels are not to the extent that happened, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago, when we were doing 100% compaction. They are a lot more marginal. Round one happened a year ago. You know, this is round two for us, and they just we don't anticipate them throwing volumes or price off in a major way.

[Javier Escalante, Equity Research Analyst at Evercore]

Thank you very much.

Participants

Executives

• Matt Farrell, President and CEO
• Rick Dierker, CFO

Analysts

• Andrea Teixeira, Managing Director at JPMorgan
• Anna Lizzul, VP of Equity Research at Bank of America
• Bill Chappell, Managing Director at Truist
• Chris Carey, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Dara Mohsenian, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
• Javier Escalante, Equity Research Analyst at Evercore
• Kevin Grundy, Managing Director at Jefferies
• Lauren Lieberman, Managing Director at Barclays
• Olivia Tong, Managing Director at Raymond James
• Peter Grom, Executive Director of Equity Research at UBS
• Rupesh Parikh, Managing Director at Oppenheimer