Lamb Weston Q3 2023 Earnings Results & Report

Lamb Weston EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.43
• Consensus EPS: $0.98
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.45
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A
• EPS Beat Rate: 8 of last 8 quarters

Lamb Weston Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.25 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.18 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$75.72 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Lamb Weston (NYSE:LW) Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:LW) is a global producer and distributor of frozen potato products. The company supplies French fries, potato wedges, hash browns, tater tots, mashed potatoes, sweet potato products and other potato-based offerings to foodservice operators, restaurants, retailers and institutional customers.

Lamb Weston serves customers in North America and international markets through a portfolio of branded, licensed and customer-specific products. Its offerings are used by restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels and other foodservice establishments, as well as sold through retail and grocery channels. The company also provides potato processing and product solutions designed for commercial foodservice and retail applications.

The business traces its roots to the development of frozen potato products in the 1950s and became an independent publicly traded company in 2016 following its separation from Conagra Brands. Lamb Weston is headquartered in Eagle, Idaho, and is led by President and Chief Executive Officer Michael J. Smith.

Lamb Weston Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Lamb Weston delivered 31% sales growth in Q3 with gross margins expanding across all core segments, driving strong EBITDA and EPS improvements.
• Completed the acquisition of the remaining interest in Lamb Weston EMEA, adding six factories and £2 000 000 000 of production capacity, with integration efforts now underway.
• Revenue growth management actions enabled the company to offset input cost inflation through strategic pricing and mix improvements, resulting in margin recovery above pre-pandemic levels.
• Contracted potato prices in North America and Europe rose approximately 20%, reflecting continued input cost inflation that will pressure margins absent further pricing actions.
• The company raised its full-year 2023 guidance to net sales of $5.25–5.35 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $1.18–1.21 billion and EPS of $4.35–4.50, up notably from previous targets.

Presentation

[Operator]

Please stand by. We're about to begin. Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Lamb Weston third quarter earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Dexter Congbalay. Please go ahead.

[Dexter Congbalay, VP of Investor Relations at Lamb Weston]

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Lamb Weston's third quarter 2023 earnings call. This morning, we issued our earnings press release, which is available on our website, lambweston.com. Please note that during our remarks, we'll make some forward-looking statements about the company's expected performance that are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in our SEC filings for more details on our forward-looking statements. Some of today's remarks include non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with our GAAP results. You can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations in our earnings release. With me today are Tom Werner, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bernadette Madarieta, our Chief Financial Officer.

[Dexter Congbalay, VP of Investor Relations at Lamb Weston]

Tom will provide an overview of the current operating environment, while Bernadette will provide details on our third quarter results and our updated fiscal 2023 outlook. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tom.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Thank you, Dexter. Good morning. Thank you for joining our call today. We delivered strong results in our physical third quarter as we continued to build good operating momentum. Specifically, sales grew 31%, while gross margin expanded in each of our core business segments. This, in turn, drove strong EBITDA and earnings per share growth. I want to thank the entire Lamb Weston team for their dedication and focus on serving our customers so that together, we delivered another great quarter and positioned us for a strong finish to the year. This thank you is also to our more than 1,500 colleagues in Europe who are now officially members of the global Lamb Weston team after we recently completed the purchase of the remaining interest in Lamb Weston / Meijer.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Lamb Weston Europe, Middle East, and Africa, or Lamb Weston EMEA, adds six factories and about 2 billion pounds of production capacity to our global manufacturing footprint. It strengthens our ability to serve customers in key markets around the world. It enhances a world-class management, operating, and commercial team with deep knowledge of the frozen potato industry. We've kicked off the process to integrate Lamb Weston EMEA's operations and are excited to see what we can deliver together both now and over the long term. Before turning the call over to Bernadette, let me first provide some quick updates on the current operating environment. While the macro environment remains highly challenging, overall French fry demand remains healthy. Total restaurant traffic improved versus the prior year quarter, when traffic was negatively affected by the Omicron variant.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

QSR has essentially accounted for the entire growth in traffic, including strong growth across burger and chicken restaurant chains, which are significant contributors to driving fry demand. In contrast, traffic at casual dining and full-service restaurants fell versus the prior year. This has a more pronounced effect on our food service segment and contributed in part to a decline in that segment's volume. The fry attachment rate, which is the rate at which consumers order fries when visiting a restaurant or other food service outlets, remains solid. As we previously noted, we're encouraged by how the category is currently performing in away from home channels, but continue to expect restaurant traffic and demand trends will be volatile through fiscal 2023 and into fiscal 2024 as consumers continue to deal with a challenging macro environment. Demand for fries and food at home channels remain solid.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Shipments by our retail segment grew in the third quarter, led by strong performance in products sold under licensed restaurant brands. We expect demand in this channel will remain solid into fiscal 2024. With overall category demand holding up relatively well and as industry supply expected to be constrained for at least the next couple of years, we believe the environment for pricing actions to counter input cost inflation may remain generally favorable. In addition, we've been building our revenue growth management and execution capabilities. We've made good progress, as shown by our ability to offset input cost inflation to drive the recovery in our gross margins over the past year in each of our core business segments.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Nonetheless, we're continuing to work on maximizing revenue and margin by further evaluating markets and sales channels by using a broader set of variables and leveraging data-backed insights on our customers and consumers. Pricing in the quarter in our global segment was in line with our expectation as we continued to incorporate new pricing structures for customer contract renewals, inflation-driven price escalators, and benefits from pulling forward pricing actions for contracts up for renewal in the coming years. Despite lapping some of the pricing actions we took in fiscal 2022, price/mix in both the foodservice and retail segments in the quarter was better than we anticipated as we continued efforts to rationalize pricing structures and strategically improve customer and product mix across the respective portfolios.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

During the remainder of fiscal 2023, in our global segment, we don't expect any additional notable pricing actions to take effect. In foodservice, we expect the year-over-year growth rate and price/mix will decelerate as we continue to lap more of the fiscal 2022 pricing and mix improvement actions. In retail, we expect the year-over-year growth rate and price/mix will also decelerate as we continue to lap last year's pricing actions, although this will be tempered by a recent price increase that took effect towards the end of the third quarter. With respect to the potato crop in North America, we believe we have secured enough open market potatoes to meet our production forecast until the early potato varieties are harvested in July.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

We purchased open potatoes from growers in the Columbia Basin and Idaho, but also secured supply from as far away as the East Coast. This adds up to our potato costs through the first half of fiscal 2024. With respect to the upcoming potato crop, as previously discussed, we've agreed to a nearly 20% increase in the contract prices for potatoes grown in the Columbia Basin and have locked in the targeted contracted acres to be planted in that region. We're in the process of securing most of the acres in our other growing regions in North America and expect to have this process completed shortly, with contract prices largely in line with the 20% increase in the Basin. In Europe, we have secured the acres in our key growing regions and expect to complete the contracting process shortly.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Like North America, contract prices are up significantly to reflect input cost inflation for growers. In summary, we delivered another strong quarter of sales and earnings growth, which has enabled us to raise our financial targets for the year and continue to build good operating momentum across each of our core segments. We're excited about more than 1,500 new Lamb Weston EMEA colleagues that have joined the global team and believe that leveraging EMEA's capabilities will help us better serve customers around the world. Finally, category demand remains healthy, and we believe that industry supply should remain constrained for at least the next couple of years. Let me now turn the call over to Bernadette Madarieta to review the details of our third quarter results and our updated financial fiscal 2023 outlook.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone. I want to also thank the Lamb Weston team for delivering another quarter of strong results and continuing to build good operating momentum across the company. This momentum has enabled us to raise our financial targets for the remainder of the year. I also want to add a warm welcome to the Lamb Weston EMEA team. Let's begin with our third quarter results. Sales in the third quarter were up 31% to $1.25 billion. Price/mix was up 31% as we continued to benefit from pricing actions across each of our core business segments to counter input and manufacturing cost inflation. The increase reflects the carryover impact of product pricing actions that we initiated in fiscal 2022, as well as pricing actions that we began implementing during this fiscal year. Our overall sales volumes were flat.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

While we increased shipments to our large QSR chain customers and to retail customers in North America, which generally reflects demand and restaurant traffic trends that Tom described earlier, our growth in volume was offset by a couple of factors. First, we continued efforts to strategically improve our product and customer mix by exiting certain lower price, lower margin business. Second, and to a lesser extent, softer casual dining and full-service restaurant traffic also affected volumes in the quarter, which is largely reflected in our food service shipments. It's worth noting that in the quarter, we also continued to make progress in stabilizing our supply chain with better availability of production team members and key ingredients, as well as improved production forecasting. As a result, the impact on production in the quarter was relatively modest, which helped drive improvements in our customer fill rates versus our first and second quarters.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

This improvement is more apparent in our retail and foodservice segments, as we have largely maintained high fill rates in our global segment since the start of the pandemic. We expect changes in product mix and consumer demand will continue to pressure our near-term production and therefore shipments of high demand products, including retail fries, premium fries, and batter-coated products. We expect this volume pressure and our ability to meet growing consumer demand will continue until our capacity investments in China, Idaho, Argentina, and the Netherlands become available over the next couple of years. Gross profit in the quarter increased $177 million to nearly $400 million as a result of our sales growth and growth margins expanding 860 basis points versus the prior year quarter to 31.7%.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Our strong gross margin performance reflects the cumulative benefit of executing pricing actions in each of our business segments to counter input and manufacturing cost inflation, as well as leveraging efforts to improve customer and product mix and supply chain productivity. On the cost side in the quarter, we again realized a double-digit increase in input and manufacturing cost per pound. This was largely driven by about a 20% increase in contracted prices for potatoes in North America, significantly higher prices for open market potato purchases due to poor yields from the calendar year 2022 crop, and continued increases in the cost of edible oils, ingredients for batter coatings, labor, and energy. In contrast, our transportation costs fell in the quarter as industry rates for rail, trucking, and ocean freight services continued their steady decline over the past couple of quarters.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

We're continuing to reduce our freight charges to customers to match the decline in costs, which will steadily reduce the tailwind from transport prices in our sales line. The impact on our gross profit over time will be largely neutral. Moving on from gross profit. Our SG&A, excluding items impacting comparability, increased $49 million-$136 million, primarily reflecting higher compensation and benefit expenses due to improved operating performance, as well as actions to maintain competitive pay levels across our organization. We also had higher expenses related to improving our IT infrastructure, including designing and building a new ERP system and a $6 million increase in advertising and promotion expenses, largely behind support of our branded products in our retail segment.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Equity method earnings from our unconsolidated joint ventures increased $12 million, excluding items impacting comparability and mark-to-market adjustments associated with currency and commodity hedging contracts. Favorable price/mix, largely reflecting pricing actions in Europe drove the increase. Moving to our segments. Sales in our global segment were up 33% in the quarter. Price/mix was up 33%, reflecting the revenue growth management initiatives and pricing actions to counter inflation that Tom described earlier. Global's volume was flat. Solid growth of shipments to large QSR chain customers in North America was offset by the impact of exiting certain lower price and lower margin business in international and domestic markets as we actively manage our customer mix.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Global's product contribution margin increased to $168 million from a relatively weak prior year quarter, which at the time reflected significant input in manufacturing cost increases and only a modest benefit from product pricing actions. Global segment's product contribution margin percentage in the quarter was 25.8%, which is back to its seasonal pre-pandemic level and was also a bit better than expected as we realized more benefits from pulling forward pricing actions for some customers than we originally anticipated. Sales in our foodservice segment grew 22%, driven by a 25% increase in price/mix as we continue to realize the carryover benefit of product pricing actions that we announced throughout fiscal 2022, as well as the actions taken in fiscal 2023 to counter inflation.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Sales volumes were down about 3%, primarily reflecting exiting of some lower price, lower margin business to manage our customer and product mix, as well as softer traffic in casual dining and full service restaurants. Food services product contribution margin increased to $143 million or up 34% as the cumulative benefit from pricing actions more than offset higher manufacturing cost per pound and the impact of lower volumes. Our retail segment delivered another strong quarter with sales up 50%. Price/mix increased 44%, reflecting pricing actions across our branded and private label portfolios to counter inflation. This was aided in part by limited trade support given the strong category demand and constrained supply environment. Volume in the segment was up 6% behind better customer fill rates for our branded products.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Private label volume was also up as we lapped the incremental losses of certain lower priced and lower margin products over the past couple of years. Retail's product contribution margin increased to $83 million, and its margin percentage topped 38% as the cumulative benefit from pricing actions more than offset higher manufacturing cost per pound. We're very pleased with how our retail team has strengthened our market share, profitability, and portfolio mix over the past couple of years, and we remain confident in our ability to remain the overall category leader. Moving to our liquidity position and our cash flow. Our balance sheet remains solid with strong liquidity and a low leverage ratio. We ended the quarter with about $675 million of cash and a $1 billion undrawn revolver.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Our cash balance was inflated as we did take on a new $450 million term loan at the end of January to fund most of the cash consideration for the EMEA transaction, which closed a couple of days into our fiscal fourth quarter. Our net debt was more than $2.5 billion at the end of the third quarter, resulting in a 2.3 times leverage ratio on a trailing twelve-month basis. After accounting for the EMEA transaction, the estimated net debt at the beginning of our fiscal fourth quarter would be about $3.3 billion, resulting in a 2.6 times leverage ratio using our updated fiscal 2023 earnings target and an annualized contribution from our EMEA operations. Our capital allocation priorities remain the same.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

We continue to prioritize investing in the business to drive long-term growth, as well as delivering dividend growth for our shareholders and share repurchases to offset management dilution. In the first three quarters of the year, we generated about $335 million of cash from operations. That's about $160 million more than the first three quarters of last year. This is largely due to the higher earnings, partially offset by increased working capital. Capital expenditures were nearly $500 million, which is up about $270 million from the first three quarters of last year. This increase is largely related to construction costs as we continue to expand processing capacity in Idaho, China, and Argentina.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

In the first three quarters, we returned nearly $146 million of cash to shareholders, including $106 million in dividends and about $41 million in share repurchases. Let's turn to our 2023 outlook. Our updated targets include the financial consolidation of Lamb Weston EMEA beginning in our fiscal 4th quarter. For the year, we've increased our sales target to $5.25 billion-$5.35 billion, up from our previous target of $4.8 billion-$4.9 billion. About $300 million-$325 million of the increase reflects the consolidation of Lamb Weston EMEA. The additional $100 million-$150 million increase reflects our strong results in our fiscal 3rd quarter and our expected continued momentum in the 4th quarter.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Excluding the contribution from EMEA, we expect our net sales growth in the fourth quarter to be driven by price/mix, as volumes will continue to be affected by exiting certain lower price and lower margin volume business to strategically manage customer and product mix and the potential for a slowdown in restaurant traffic and consumer demand. For earnings, we're targeting adjusted diluted earnings per share of $4.35-$4.50. That's up from our previous target of $3.75-$4.00. Adjusted EBITDA, including unconsolidated joint ventures of $1.18 billion-$1.21 billion, up from our previous estimate of $1.05 billion-$1.1 billion.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Of the $110 million-$130 million increase in our adjusted EBITDA target, we estimate that EMEA will contribute an incremental $10 million-$15 million of that amount. That implies that EMEA's total EBITDA contribution of $20 million-$30 million in the fourth quarter, which is in line with the normalized full year pre-pandemic EBITDA of about EUR 100 million. The additional $100 million-$115 million increase in our full year EBITDA target reflects our strong results in our fiscal third quarter and our expected strong sales and earnings growth in the fourth quarter. Including the consolidation of EMEA, we're targeting a full year growth margin of 27%-27.5%, implying a fourth quarter growth margin of 23%-24.5%.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Excluding EMEA, we've raised our full year growth margin target to 28%-28.5%, up from our previous target of 27%-28%. This implies a fourth quarter growth margin target, excluding EMEA, of 25%-27%. While this would be a healthy growth margin expansion versus the prior year quarter, it also implies a notable step down from our fiscal third quarter growth margin of 31.7%. We believe this estimate is prudent, reflecting typical seasonal patterns in our cost structure, significantly higher cost open market potatoes, continued inflation for key inputs, and the impact of volume declines as a result of inflationary pressures on consumers. With respect to SG&A, we expect expenses excluding items impacting comparability of $550 million-$570 million.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

That's up from our previous target of $525 million-$550 million. The increase largely reflects the consolidation of Lamb Weston EMEA. In addition, we increased our estimate for capital expenditures to between $700 million-$725 million, up from our previous estimate of $475 million-$525 million. This increase reflects accelerated spending behind capital expansion investments as well as capital spending associated with the consolidation of EMEA. We also made adjustments to other financial targets, which you can find in our earnings release. With that, let me turn the call back over to Tom for some closing comments.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Thanks, Bernadette. Let me sum it up by saying we are executing in this challenging operating environment and are confident in our increased financial targets for the year. We also continue to feel good about growth trends in the category and believe that the investments we're making in our people, new production capacity, and infrastructure will have us well positioned to support sustainable, profitable growth over the long term. Thank you for joining us today, and we're now ready to take your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are joining us today using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, that is star key followed by the digit one. At this time, we'll pause for a moment. We'll take your first question from Andrew Lazar from Barclays. Please go ahead, sir.

[Andrew Lazar, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Great. Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Good morning, Andrew.

[Andrew Lazar, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Yeah. To start off, you know, I know that Lamb Weston did not necessarily see pre-pandemic gross margins as a ceiling. With margins now, you know, above pre-pandemic levels, excluding the recent transaction, of course, I guess, what are the key factors that provide, you know, visibility to further margin expansion moving forward to the extent that that's how you see it? I've just got a follow-up. Thanks.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. Good morning, Andrew. This is Bernadette. You know, as we look at our margins, I think the key piece that we're focused on now is our revenue growth management and our execution capabilities that Tom mentioned. We're focused on, you know, continuing to work on maximizing revenue as well as margin, and we'll continue to do that as we look across our markets and our sales channel to make sure that we're managing those.

[Andrew Lazar, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

I think you said in the fourth quarter, we shouldn't expect any incremental pricing actions. With grower costs expected to be up, as you mentioned, another 20% for the current coming crop, should we expect some incremental pricing going forward as, I guess, as we roll into the fiscal 2024, or have you implemented all that you need for the coming year? With capacity constraints starting to ease, I guess, what I'm getting at is could we have a scenario in the coming fiscal year where you have both some incremental pricing and some positive volume growth as well, given constraints have been one of the main reasons for volume being flattish to down the last couple of quarters? Thank you.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Andrew, this is Tom. A couple things. you know, as we noted, we have taken some pricing actions here at the end of the third quarter. We're gonna continue to evaluate, as we roll up our plan for fiscal 2024, which starts in June, kind of what the overall inflation number is going to be. We are not at all in a deflationary period. Our crop cost is gonna be up 20%. you know, as we start evaluating the overall input cost complex, as we do every year, we're gonna determine, you know, the pricing actions we may have to take. The, the team and the marching orders, we've done a very good job to offset inflation. We're gonna continue to do that.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

You know, as we noted in the prepared remarks, we've had to, over the last 12-15 months, do a lot of catch-up pricing just based on the nature of what our contract constraints were. I feel good about where we're at in terms of really getting back to more normalized margin levels before the pandemic. We're gonna continue to execute and evaluate what's going on in the inflationary input environment going forward. That's first part. Second part, in terms of, you know, the overall volume, I feel good about where the category is. It's, you know, it's as we noted, QSRs are performing tremendously well in terms of traffic.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Our food service, so the casual dining segment, we're seeing some softness as we do when you have some economic things happening like is going on today, so people are trading down. We have rationalized our customer and product mix over the last 12 to 15 months, which is part of our re-revenue growth management initiative. As we continue to evaluate opportunities in the marketplace, Andrew, I think, and get our operations running back to, you know, a higher throughput level, that's gonna give us opportunities to take on business or going forward. You know, the other thing to remember is, you know, we've got a lot of capacity coming on. Our first capacity turn on is gonna be this fall in China.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

We're evaluating how that's gonna look in terms of production shifts from North America to China. Shortly after that, you know, we'll have American Falls, Argentina and Kruiningen over the next, you know, directionally 18 to 24 months. We're getting prepared as we turn that capacity on to evaluate opportunities around the globe.

[Andrew Lazar, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Great. Thank you so much.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Yep.

[Operator]

We'll hear next from Tom Palmer from JPMorgan.

[Tom Palmer, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Good morning, thanks for the question.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Good morning, Tom.

[Tom Palmer, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Maybe I could just start off clarifying expectations for the Europe business. You noted normal EBITDA of about EUR 100 million, and then the fourth quarter guidance is pretty consistent with that. I think the business has been doing a bit better than this over the past couple of quarters, at least. Are there reasons such as certain costs that are not excluded from adjusted earnings or other cost headwinds or seasonality that might make this figure a bit lower in the fourth quarter? When we look at results this year, would the general assumption be that next year, EBITDA grows year-over-year on top of that?

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Good morning, Tom. As we take a look at our 4th quarter guidance that we provided, you know, excluding EMEA, you will typically see a step down in our gross margins as you move from 3rd quarter to 4th quarter just based on seasonality. Then we're also going to be lapping prior year price increases, so we're gonna see a deceleration of effects of that as we continue to move forward. Again, we also mentioned that we did see some pricing pull forward as well. So there's some effect of that that you're noting in 3rd quarter that we wouldn't see in 4th quarter. As we always do, we take a step back and take a prudent approach as we guide to, you know, where we think we're gonna end at the end of the 4th quarter.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Those are the main triggers that are gonna affect what you're seeing in guidance for the fourth quarter.

[Tom Palmer, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Understood. Thank you. Then just maybe on the gross margin, I know you noted kind of a more normal seasonal decline in the fourth quarter. I think a quarter ago, you were talking about maybe less than a normal quarterly decline in the fourth quarter. I know Bernadette, you made mention of being prudent in your prepared remarks. Is there anything to consider that has shifted that expected cadence beyond that? I mean, for instance, was 3Q much better than you expected and therefore you're expecting more of the normalization or any, you know, thing with the timing of pricing? It would seem like you're getting a bit of help, at least on the retail side, given the late quarter pricing action.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

I think there was a couple of things. You know, there was a little bit more pull forward and benefit in the prior quarter. Also we are seeing more open market purchases that we ended up bringing in at much higher prices, just given the way that the crop ended up this year from a yield perspective. Those are the two items that I would say are impacting that the greatest.

[Tom Palmer, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Adam Samuelson from Goldman Sachs, your line is open.

[Adam Samuelson, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Morning, Adam.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Morning.

[Adam Samuelson, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Morning. The first question is on Europe, as you kind of roll that now into the consolidated business. Bernadette, you alluded to the fourth quarter guidance for the business kind of reflecting kind of earnings consistent with that pre-pandemic EUR 100 million EBITDA run rate. Do you have the actual trailing 12 months or what the fiscal 2023 EBITDA would be for the JV kind of on a 100% basis, just as a point of reference? As we think about moving into fiscal 2024, that would seem like fiscal 2023 is above that pre-pandemic run rate, kind of reasons why kind of profitability could be lower year-on-year or higher.

[Adam Samuelson, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Just help us think about kind of some of the key moving pieces here when you're thinking about the European business over the next 12 months.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. No, thanks for the question, Adam. You know, a couple of responses to that. I would say first, as we look at, you know, the fourth quarter guidance, that's what I would take to look at the normalized amount for this year in terms of being that EUR 100 million on a run rate basis. You know, certainly there's gonna be a number of things as we bring EMEA into our operations that we're looking forward to, having that one face to the customer, introducing our revenue growth management capabilities and bringing in our supply chain common methodologies and ways of working that, you know, we're looking to work on over time as we integrate this business with ours to bring in more upside as we continue to progress. It's not gonna happen overnight.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

It's gonna happen over time. Those are some of the opportunities that we see to be able to continue to grow this business.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. I'll just add, Adam, you know, we have a tremendous management team running that business, and, you know, they've managed it through a tremendous amount of volatility over the last 15 months, with all the things that are going on. You know, I'm more confident now with the trajectory of EMEA and that business and the foundation that the management team has put in place and, you know, the overall global reach we now have to serve our customers in all the international markets. We have a lot to do to get that business integrated into one global team. Over time, I'm super confident where the capabilities, this is gonna allow us to really serve our customers in a different manner than we ever have.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

It's a tremendous accomplishment what the team has done with that business. I can't emphasize that enough. We got a great leadership team over there, and I'm excited and looking forward to what we're gonna do as we integrate that business going forward.

[Adam Samuelson, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

All right. No, that's helpful color. Then, just on the CapEx, which with one quarter left in the year, was a pretty sizable kind of increase in the outlook, even inclusive of the Gronigen CapEx of the JV that you're now kind of consolidating. Does this change any of the timing around, the Argentine, Idaho or Chinese capacity, or the things you're doing in the rest of the network or capabilities around, coatings or battering that kind of you're pulling forward? Just help us think about kind of magnitude that CapEx step up, how it impacts timing of new capacity, and what should we think about as a range for the consolidated CapEx, for next year, even if at a rough high level?

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. No. As we take a look at our capital spending, you know, there were a number of items where we had long lead times, just given the supply chain dynamics that are out there. We've been able to accelerate some of those things in terms of equipment and other pieces to come in, which is being reflected in our overall capital spending for this year. Really happy with that, but that's not gonna bring on the capacity any sooner as we continue to, you know, build those factories. We just wanted to make sure that we had the items when needed to make sure that we would bring these up on time. No change when we're gonna bring that capacity online.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

As we look to next year, you know, certainly as we do every year-end when we give our fourth quarter guidance, we'll update with our capital spending at that time. We'll have another year of significant capital expenditures given we're bringing on over 1 billion pounds in the next 18-24 months with all of the capacity expansions that we referred to.

[Adam Samuelson, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

All right. That's all. That's all really helpful. I'll pass it on, thanks.

[Dexter Congbalay, VP of Investor Relations at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. Hey, Adam, it's Dexter. Let me just kind of for everybody, just kind of here's the timing of the capacity coming online. China is gonna be sometime fall of 2023. American Falls, Idaho, is gonna be spring of 2024. What am I missing? Oh, Argentina is fall of 2024, right? Then in Kruiningen, in the Netherlands, initial thoughts right now are gonna be early calendar 2025. It's kind of-

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Early calendar 2025.

[Dexter Congbalay, VP of Investor Relations at Lamb Weston]

Yeah, early to mid. That one's a little bit more in flux, but that's kind of where the timing is right now.

[Adam Samuelson, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Thank you.

[Operator]

As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, it is the star key followed by the digit one. We'll hear next from Peter Galbo from Bank of America.

[Peter Galbo, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Good morning, Peter.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Good morning, Peter.

[Peter Galbo, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Tom, I think in your comments you mentioned, you know, the incremental pricing in retail that you took kind of towards the end of 3Q. You know, in global, it seemed like there was no more incremental that was at least expected to come this year. Maybe you can opine a little bit just on food service. That was maybe the one area where we didn't hear about, if there's any incremental pricing actions. Then, in addition to that, just would love any kind of first thoughts as plantings have gone into the ground here in early April.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. In terms of the food service segment, you know, we've done a really good job over the past year or two, you know, kind of catch up to our inflation, and so I feel comfortable where we're at on that. As I said earlier, we're evaluating as we look to our physical 2024, our input cost inflation and how that's gonna materialize. As we do every year, then we'll, you know, get together and think about what we need to do to offset inflation. You know, I can't say this enough, you know, we're still in an inflationary environment in our business. As we have in the past and will continue to do, we're gonna evaluate our pricing actions in all segments to offset inflation.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

That's, you know, that's kind of what we're gonna do so,

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. With the foodservice increase, there'll just be a small impact in the fourth quarter given the timing of that announcement. The only other thing is, you know, as it relates to the crop, we are currently in the process of planting there, the Columbia Basin in Idaho, so we'll provide more of an update on our next call.

[Peter Galbo, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. No, that's helpful. Then maybe just to follow up on Adam's question on CapEx. You know, obviously kind of from a position of strength, you guys are accelerating some of the spend. Bernadette, it didn't sound like you were kind of pulling forward any spend from next year, but maybe just wanted to clarify that. Then just in a broader context on kind of capital allocation, you know, with the CapEx spend being as high as it is, and maybe you're gonna move past, you know, through a lot of that. You know, the debt's termed out pretty far at this point. You started to buy back a little bit of stock in the quarter. The dividend yield is pretty low relative to peers.

[Peter Galbo, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Just maybe you can kind of comment on how you're seeing this set up for some of the other, you know, pillars within capital allocation. Thanks very much.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. If I take the latter question first, you know, as Tom mentioned, we're still really confident in the strength of this category, and we're gonna continue to invest for the long term. As it relates to our cash position and our overall, you know, low debt to equity ratio, we wanna maintain flexibility for the long term should certain things happen or open up for us from, you know, an M&A or other perspective. We feel good about where we're at. Our capital allocation hasn't changed, and we're gonna continue to, you know, take into consideration share buybacks as we have in the past to offset management dilution. As we've also shown, we will opportunistically buy back when it makes sense.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Just to confirm your first question on the capital spending, we haven't necessarily pulled, you know, much forward in terms of total capital spending. We've got a lot of large projects happening over the next 18-24 months, and some of that was just on some long lead time equipment.

[Peter Galbo, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Thanks very much, guys.

[Operator]

Rob Dickerson from Jefferies, your line is open.

[Rob Dickerson, Managing Director of Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies]

Great. Thanks so much. Maybe just my first question, more mechanical to you, Bernadette.

[Rob Dickerson, Managing Director of Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies]

It looks like the interest expense expectation for the year hasn't changed. Clearly, you're taking on the term loan and then maybe some assumed pre-existing debt, I would think from Meijer. Maybe just kind of quickly explain. Yeah, maybe I just missed it in the prepared remarks, kind of how that interest expense doesn't change with the assumption of debt.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah, no, that's a great question. What we're finding is that we're having more capitalized interest related to some of these heavy capital projects, which is putting more of that, which is offsetting some of that interest expense overall. That's all that you're seeing there.

[Rob Dickerson, Managing Director of Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies]

Got it. That would probably be more of like a Q4 event. We would still assume that, even though you're not guiding that, you know, there would be incremental debt and interest given the deal. Just thinking about, you know, the mechanics of the actual acquisition.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

Yep, you're exactly right. You're thinking about it right.

[Rob Dickerson, Managing Director of Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies]

Okay, super. Maybe just, Tom Werner and Bernadette, just, you know, kind of we're talking about or a lot of commentary around that $100 million, on the, on the Meijer JV, and kind of what the, you know, potential run rate could be. Maybe just another kind of, way to ask it is just, you know, that's the number we've been, we've all been talking about, you know, vis-a-vis kind of pre-pandemic. Also there are, you know, all these synergies or some synergies that should come through. I'm just curious, like, you know, over the past few months, you've actually closed the transaction.

[Rob Dickerson, Managing Director of Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies]

You know, do you feel like you have better line of sight on kind of synergy potential without having to quantify them, over the next two to three years?

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Again, the business is on a much better trajectory than it has been over the last 12 months, and that's a testament to a terrific management team we have that have implemented a number of different strategies to get that business back on track. I fully expect over the next 12 months that we will improve our run rate that we've indicated prior. You know, I'm not gonna give a specific number, but I'm more confident now than ever that where that business is going and the trajectory that the team has got that business on and the synergies and the integration that we're going to do over the next 12 months is gonna well position EMEA better than it ever has.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

You know, we're not gonna give specific numbers, but I will tell you, I'm confident that we will move that business in a direction that, you know, that is that I believe, is much better than what we've indicated.

[Rob Dickerson, Managing Director of Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies]

Got it. Super. Just quickly, maybe a little bit more fun to talk about, you know, I saw your, let's say your, your ability to enter Domino's with product, I guess that is not fried. It seems like it's, it's more baked. Maybe if you just spend a minute kind of speaking kind of to the technology that maybe you have on a proprietary basis that allows you to do that. You know, is that something that I would assume you would clearly try to attack with other customers that, let's say, don't have fryers? That's it. Thanks.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

I'm not gonna get into all the product technology, but we're super excited about that product, and how it's performing. It's performing better than expected. You know, I've been talking about that for a long time in terms of getting into non-fry channels, and that was a big first step. We've done that with other, well-known chains, also. You know, we're gonna continue to monitor it. We're gonna, you know, work with, non-fry channel customers as we do today. We'll continue to do that. We have a great innovation team working on, you know, non-fry potato products, but those are long lead time items. I will tell you what is happening with that particular product is exciting, and it's performing amazingly.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

You know, we'll continue to monitor it, but it's, you know, it's been a long time coming. Hats off to the team that put a lot of years of work into getting that to market, and it's great to see it pay off and really do well in the marketplace.

[Rob Dickerson, Managing Director of Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies]

Got it. Super. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Final reminder, ladies and gentlemen, it is the star key followed by the 1. We'll hear next from William Reuter from Bank of America.

[William Reuter, Managing Director of US High Yield Research at Bank of America]

Good morning. I just, I have two questions. The first is, you mentioned M&A. You also are, you know, active in building a handful of new facilities. You're gonna be consolidating the JV, and you talked about a lot of the operational changes you're gonna make there. I guess, do you feel like you're at the point now where you still could be active? I guess, what types of businesses or where within the supply chain, do you expect that you would be more active?

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah. The intent and part of our strategic playbook is we're always gonna be evaluating potential acquisitions within the potato category, that's the number one focus. Category's strong, it's good returns, great investment. It's growing, and, you know, we have not only invested in expanding our current manufacturing footprint around the globe as we're doing with the projects we have going on. You know, to the point Bernadette Madarieta made earlier, it's important for me and the company to make sure we have a strong balance sheet. If an opportunity comes up, we'll be able to execute it. That's always gonna be on the table, and I've been consistent in that over the past six years. You know, I feel good about where our capital, our balance sheet is. We're investing to expand our footprint.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

It's right on strategy. We're positioning ourselves in the industry to support our customers in all the markets around the world. I feel good about where we're at.

[William Reuter, Managing Director of US High Yield Research at Bank of America]

Okay. My second question, is there any way for you to provide some additional color around what the impact of open market purchases were this year? Just trying to think about in the event that you're able to fill that with contracted purchases next year, what that tailwind could be.

[Bernadette Madarieta, CFO at Lamb Weston]

We haven't quantified the impact of those open market purchases. A little bit different this year in that we were short on yield versus last year, there was an impact for yield and quality. While we are needing to bring in a fewer open market purchases, the cost this year is significantly higher. We have not quantified that, but there is a meaningful impact this year, similar to last year.

[William Reuter, Managing Director of US High Yield Research at Bank of America]

Great. Okay. That's all for me. Thank you.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah.

[Dexter Congbalay, VP of Investor Relations at Lamb Weston]

Hey, hey, Bill, one other thing. I mean, the reason that we had to go to the open market is because the crop yields weren't good this year. Typically, you know, if you have an average crop, then you really don't have to go into the open market that much at all.

[William Reuter, Managing Director of US High Yield Research at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

We do have a follow-up from Andrew Lazar from Barclays. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Lazar, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Thanks so much. Just a super quick one. Tom, when you announced the joint venture acquisition with Meijer, I think one of the things you'd mentioned was that you also hope that or intended that this action would kind of send a message, right, to the broader sort of European, sort of competitive environment there. That, you know, you were certainly looking for there to be over time, the potential for further consolidation in what is a much more fragmented, right, operating theater, right, in Europe. I'm just curious if this transaction now that you've closed it and you're a couple of months or since announcing it, whether the, I don't know, the dialogue or converse-- pace of conversations maybe with others has picked up more generally.

[Andrew Lazar, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

We saw another one outside of you, right? The transaction that happened, whatever it was, a couple of months ago in Belgium. I'm just curious if your expectation would be that we're likely to see more somewhat sooner or not, and if you're hearing more chatter and dialogue. Thanks.

[Tom Werner, President and CEO at Lamb Weston]

Yeah, Andrew, great question. Obviously, I can't get into what conversations are or are not happening. You know, consistent, Andrew, with how I've positioned this over the last several years is, you know, we're continuing to be as active as we can. I think the intention of what I would love to do from an industry standpoint is known. Certainly, the transaction with Lamb Weston and Meijer, you know, people took notice, I'll leave it at that and, you know, hopefully, you know, the fragmentation of the market, you know, it's a, it's a private sector and, you know, you gotta, people gotta come to the table and, I'm pretty sure they're clear they know what I wanna do.

[Andrew Lazar, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you.

[Operator]

That does conclude today the Q&A portion of today's conference. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dexter for any additional or closing comments.

[Dexter Congbalay, VP of Investor Relations at Lamb Weston]

Thanks for joining for the call this morning. If you want to schedule a follow-up session, please just send me an email, and we can organize a time. Thanks for everybody for joining the call. Thank you.

[Operator]

That does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Bernadette Madarieta, CFO
• Dexter Congbalay, VP of Investor Relations
• Tom Werner, President and CEO

Analysts

• Adam Samuelson, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs
• Andrew Lazar, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays
• Peter Galbo, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America
• Rob Dickerson, Managing Director of Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies
• Tom Palmer, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan
• William Reuter, Managing Director of US High Yield Research at Bank of America