NYSE:CAG Conagra Brands Q2 2025 Earnings Report $23.86 -0.32 (-1.32%) Closing price 05/2/2025 03:59 PM EasternExtended Trading$23.98 +0.13 (+0.52%) As of 05/2/2025 07:57 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Conagra Brands EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.70Consensus EPS $0.68Beat/MissBeat by +$0.02One Year Ago EPS$0.71Conagra Brands Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$3.20 billionExpected Revenue$3.15 billionBeat/MissBeat by +$45.89 millionYoY Revenue Growth-0.40%Conagra Brands Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2025Date12/19/2024TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateThursday, December 19, 2024Conference Call Time9:30AM ETUpcoming EarningsConagra Brands' Q4 2025 earnings is scheduled for Thursday, July 10, 2025, with a conference call scheduled on Friday, July 11, 2025 at 12:30 PM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckReportQuarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Conagra Brands Q2 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrDecember 19, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Melissa Napier, Head of Investor Relations for Conoco Brands. Please go ahead. Melissa NapierSenior Vice President of Investor Relation at Conagra Brands00:00:08Thanks, Wyatt. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for our live question and answer session on today's results. Once again, I'm joined this morning by Sean Connolly, our CEO Dave Marburger, our CFO and Matthew Neisses, Senior Director, Investor Relations. We may be making some forward looking statements and discussing non GAAP financial measures during this session. Melissa NapierSenior Vice President of Investor Relation at Conagra Brands00:00:33Please see our earnings release, prepared remarks, presentation materials and filings with the SEC, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website for more information, including descriptions of our risk factors, GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations and information on our comparability items. Wyatt, please introduce our first question. Operator00:01:00All right. It looks like our first question comes from Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please go ahead. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:01:06Good morning, everyone. Happy holidays. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:01:09Happy holidays. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:01:09Good morning. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:01:12Sean, we saw, I guess, during the course of the quarter, sort of a little bit of a gap open up between, sort of scanner and sort of Conagra shipments. And I'm just curious if you saw any benefit from the Thanksgiving timing change on volume in the quarter, that you would expect to reverse in the Q3, just given others with sort of similar fiscal years have kind of discussed this dynamic? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:01:35Yes. Good idea, Andrew. Let's get grounded in some of the detailed facts around Thanksgiving, because I suspect that this dynamic differs by company. For us, in our Q2, shipments were plus 1% and consumption was plus 0.6%. So, they tracked very, very closely. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:01:53And after the first half, our shipments and our consumption are actually equal. And this is an important fact, as we exited Q2, our inventory levels with customers were essentially even with a year ago. So, there really was not a Thanksgiving timing effect for our company. Now I can't speak to other company shipping patterns and inventories entering our Q3, but I can tell you that's our situation. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:02:21Thanks for that clarity. And then, you talked about incremental inflation and FX as the key reasons for some of the back half EPS pressure versus previous expectations. Is incremental investment, whether consumer or trade, part of this as well? And I asked because it would seem you are seeing a return on some of the spending with the volume and share trends that you spoke of in the prepared remarks. And we continue to hear about the consumer being more value seeking for longer than many expected. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:02:46So I'm just trying to get a sense if that is sort of part of the dynamic around estimate changes for the back half of the year or not? Thanks so much. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:02:56Good question and I think it's very important we clarify this. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the decision to invest to drive the top line back to growth is not a new concept for us. We implemented that strategy in Q2 last year and those investments have always been built into our plan for this fiscal year. And as I said earlier, those investments are obviously working. If you look at our trend lines going back 5 quarters, it's been consistently going north. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:03:24So we weren't surprised at all to see it break into positive territory this quarter nor am I the slightest bit surprised to see real strength in our frozen and snack business. So that's satisfying, but it's good to be back north. As for the trade component of our investments, mechanically, we plan quarterly and then we true up actual spend at the end of each quarter. In Q2, our actual spend came in a bit lower than planned and we've redeployed those funds to Q3 versus cutting them. So, I guess you'd characterize that as a small shift. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:03:57But I think it's important not to confuse that with us being dissatisfied with top line momentum and scrambling to add adequate support. We've had our support in place for 5 quarters. It's working and we're going to continue to see it work going forward. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:04:14Thanks for the clarity. Operator00:04:19And our next question will come from Ken Goldman. And we would like those to ask and limit themselves to one question. Ken Goldman, please go ahead. Kenneth GoldmanManaging Director at JP Morgan00:04:27Hi. In discussing the industry's higher investments in advertising, promo, trade and innovation, Sean, you said the consumer response has varied significantly by category and company. I'm hoping to kind of unpack this a bit. From your vantage point, are there any best practices perhaps that can maybe thoughtfully be applied to the industry as a whole, just given some of those consumer challenges or those value seeking behaviors? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:04:54Sure, Ken. Here's how I think about it. Somewhere in maybe Q2 of last fiscal that I first called out a series of behavior shifts that we saw from cutting discretionary spending to more cooking from scratch, to more cooking for many instead of meals for 1, preserving leftovers as opposed to throwing them in the garbage. We saw those things emerge last year and what I've said all along is that the benefit of convenience is the one trend that has been most unshakable over the last 50 years. So, we saw some impact early on on frozen single serve meals. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:05:34I told you that that was not going to last. Consumers don't like to meal plan. They don't like to prep. They don't like to cook and they don't like to clean up. And that's exactly how it's unfolded. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:05:43So, my comment before is that really it's category specific. If a category has the benefits that consumers really long for, they can make a behavioral shift for a little while to make their household balance sheet work, but if those benefits like convenience are really important, that shift isn't going to last forever. The other area that I'd say is kind of a signal of what's on trend is within snacking. There's obviously been a movement toward protein snacks and healthy snacks and our categories are squarely within that. So a year ago, we saw people were kind of trading out, maybe cutting their buying rate a little bit, but the magnetic pull of convenience and healthfulness and healthy snacking is pretty strong. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:06:25So what we've done all along, as we've said many times, is we've nudged the consumer back to those behaviors that we know they're longing for using a whole battery of investments from an innovation to advertising to high quality trade like end caps and sampling in certain channels of trade, things like that. And it's been effective. We don't have a lot of categories where it hasn't been effective, but we've keep in mind, we've focused a lot of our investments in frozen and snacks and we just happen to have brands that are resonating well with consumers in those spaces. Kenneth GoldmanManaging Director at JP Morgan00:06:59Thanks. Happy holidays. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:07:01Thank you. Operator00:07:04Next question will come from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Christopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells Fargo00:07:11Hi, good morning, everyone. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:07:13Good morning, Chris. Christopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells Fargo00:07:15Can you just perhaps expand on your leverage targets for the full year inching up a bit, free cash flow conversion, it looks like it's coming in better, What's driving that? The leverage kicking up a bit, I assume, is more about profit as opposed to debt pay down. Can you just update us on, I guess, visibility on free cash flow? How quickly you think you can get to your leverage targets? And in general, how you're thinking about cash deployment maybe over the next year and perhaps over the next several years between the dividend and share repurchases and of course M and A? Christopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells Fargo00:07:53Thanks. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:07:55Hey, Chris, it's Dave. Let me take that from the top. So yes, our forecasted leverage ratio for this year is now 3.4x versus 3.2x. As I said in my prepared remarks, that's entirely due to the takedown in our profit. So in terms of our forecasted free cash flow, we're on track with our plan in terms of how much debt we expect to pay down. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:08:20The free cash flow conversion is now above 100% because that's a metric of free cash flow as related to net income. So with net income coming down obviously that's going to go up. So but the broader point there is we're really pleased with our performance in free cash flow. The company is very focused on it as an organization. Now that we've come out of COVID, we're really making great progress in working capital, particularly with inventory. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:08:47Our supply chain organization is doing a fantastic job setting goals to take days of inventory out, Things like tax, just other areas of cash, we're just really focused on it. So we're really pleased with the progress and it's going to continue to be a priority for us. So as I also said in my prepared remarks, we still expect it to hit our long term leverage target of 3 times by the end of fiscal 'twenty six. And so that's where we are. And then we've always talked about a balanced approach to capital allocation. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:09:20Over the years, you've seen us do a lot of things in terms of M and A, both acquisitions, divestitures, share repurchase, levering up and then paying down our debt. We're open to everything and we like the flexibility candidly that we would have, but we are super focused on getting to that 3 times target for leverage by the end of fiscal 'twenty six. Christopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells Fargo00:09:46Okay. Thanks so much. Operator00:09:50And the next question will come from Thomas Palmer with Citi. Please go ahead. Thomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi00:09:55Good morning. Thanks for the question. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:09:57Good morning. Thomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi00:09:59Wanted to ask, in the presentation indicate that the Q3 operating margin is expected to be the lowest of the year. I think this would then imply that 4Q would be the highest of the year. Thomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi00:10:12So I just want to make sure I kind of understand the key drivers of this expected inflection come 4Q. I know there is some incremental pricing. Are the investments you noted for the Q3 expected to taper off in the Q4? Just any help on that inflection? Thanks. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:10:30Yes, Todd. Let me try to give you some perspective on that. So kind of take it from the top, let me give you a little bit more color on Q3. So we do expect volumes to sequentially improve as we talked about in the Q3. We did talk about and Sean did a nice job of summarizing sort of the dynamic with trade and the shift from Q2 to Q3. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:10:54So that's in there. We also have a little bit more kind of innovation investment, if you will, in slotting that's going to come in for Q3. That's impacting us there. We did comment that we do believe operating margin will be the lowest of all the quarters for the year. Our A and P and SG and A are going to be in line with a year ago. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:11:19So it's basically that. And then from an inflation perspective, obviously, we've taken up our forecast to close to 4% for the full year and it will be higher in Q3 than Q4. So that's another kind of dynamic there. So that's just the flow of how Q3 will go. Thomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi00:11:42Thank you. Yes. Operator00:11:46And the next question will come from Peter Galba with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Peter GalboDirector - Equity Research at Bank of America00:11:51Hey, guys. Good morning. Peter GalboDirector - Equity Research at Bank of America00:11:54Sean, I just wanted to ask, I know you said there was no Thanksgiving kind of timing benefit to the quarter. But Slide 15, you have the Staples portfolio with several of the brands that were kind of growing double digits. So just wondering if there was any hurricane impact in the quarter maybe that helped benefit some of the shipments that might not repeat? And if so, if you could just quantify for that for us? Thanks very much. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:12:19Pete, there was a I would say characterize it as a very small benefit from the hurricane in the G and S segment, but not material to our overall results for the quarter. Operator00:12:39And the next question will come from Robert Moskow with TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:12:45I think the Lamb Weston call took all the energy out Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:12:48of the sell side. So I'm going Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:12:49to try Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:12:53to inject a little more into this one. So Sean, you've raised your inflation guidance just a little bit and it's had a pretty substantial impact to your earnings outlook. Is it more difficult than normal to put through pricing to offset higher costs because of where the consumer is right now? And I know you I know the guidance assumes that these costs come right back down again, but some of them look a little sticky particularly Cocoa. So what happens if those costs stay high into fiscal 'twenty six? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:13:29Yes, let me unpack that for you, Rob. First, taking it from the top, the EPS call down today equates basically identically to the inflation in the back half versus what we had previously expected, that's the majority of it, plus FX. So it's just that queues up and that is the reason back to the earlier question around the leverage going from 3.2 to 3.4. It's not the need to invest more or any of that and I want to make sure we don't get caught up in that. So, on a percentage basis, while it looks, hey, 3% to 4% on a dollar basis in terms of inflation and the impact on EPS, it just ticks and ties. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:14:15As to what's driving that, it's really yes, there is inflation in cocoa and sweeteners and that's very small narrow in our portfolio and we will be pricing to offset that. But the bigger driver for us has been protein. It's meats, eggs, things like that. And we did anticipate that there would be inflation in the second half, but we anticipated that level of inflation will be lower. And we still anticipate that those peak protein costs are going to come down pretty much across the board, but there's a bit of a deferral for that. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:14:50So then it kind of leaves it as a judgment call for companies like ours, which is do you if you believe that the forward curves are going to be coming down, do you want to price start the whole cycle all over again of the lag, the elasticity effect. And right now, we think what's in the best interest of the consumer and in the best interest of our shareholder with respect to kind of long term cash flows and value creation is to keep the top line momentum. And that's what we're doing. It's been working very well for us. It was great to get back to positive territory. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:15:21And so, obviously, there's a margin implication near term, but we do see that changing. Now, you never know, like we thought the back half was going to be less inflationary. If we find ourselves in next fiscal and there's more inflation, we'll deal with that then. But that's just a little color on kind of how we're looking at things now. And I think the headline is we've got really strong brand performance. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:15:40We've got industry leading share performance. We think the right thing to do is to keep that momentum. Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:15:47Thank you. Operator00:15:50And the next question will come from Alexia Howard with Bernstein. Please go ahead. Alexia HowardAnalyst at Bernstein00:15:55Good morning, everyone. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:15:56Good morning. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:15:57Hi, Alexia. Alexia HowardAnalyst at Bernstein00:16:00Just taking a little bit of a different tack, you announced your Healthy Choice GLP-one on track messaging recently. Can you talk about what insights you've gathered from that segment and plans for maybe expanding that program over time? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:16:17Sure. Well, this is an opportunity for me, Alexei, to kind of give a little promotional shout out to our forthcoming CAGNY presentation this year. The centerpiece of our presentation at CAGNY is going to be titled The Future of Frozen and the Future of Snacking. And really the point there is, we think our categories are extremely well positioned in a dynamic macro environment, including a macro environment that has speculation around GLP-1s and regulatory and things like that. And we think brands like Healthy Choice could really benefit in that kind of environment. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:16:52And we think snacks that are protein centric and fiber centric as well. With respect to Healthy Choice, we did add what you might think of as a wayfinder on the front of the package for people that are managing their diet proactively, including using GLP-one. So, the title of the wayfinder is called On Track and we use the language GLP-one friendly on there and there was an article in the paper last week that kind of talked about that if anybody wants to dig into it more. But obviously, it's small right now in terms of the number of people on it. People who do go on it are still dropping off of it. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:17:27And what's interesting about that is a brand like Healthy Choice, we think can be a solution for both somebody who is actively taking a GLP-one drug, but also somebody who gives it up, but then is seeking to maintain the progress that they've made while on GLP-1s. Those consumers need a bit of an off ramp and Healthy Choice provides an excellent off ramp for them as well. So we're on trend and we will focus our marketing and our packaging to make sure people know that. Alexia HowardAnalyst at Bernstein00:17:56Great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on. Operator00:18:00And the next question will come from Max Gunport with BNP. Please go ahead. Max GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP Paribas00:18:07Hey, thanks for the question. And this might be stealing the thunder from your upcoming CAGNY presentation, it sounds like. But Sean, you touched on the move within snacking to protein and healthy snacks. And really that's a microcosm for what we're seeing in the broader category this year. You've got higher protein categories like nutrition shakes, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt all leading on the growth side and then you've got unhealthy snacking categories that are showing larger declines. Max GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP Paribas00:18:36In your view, what's driving this trend and how long do you think it can persist? Max GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP Paribas00:18:42Thanks. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:18:42Well, snacking is how big snacking is, it's $80,000,000,000 It's a huge space and it's a space that has always had a tremendous amount of variety and depending upon what the hot macro trends are, you will see some shifting within that space from variety to variety. It just so happens that for a whole host of reasons, things like protein and fiber are super on trend right now. And who knows how that will change. I don't see any change on the horizon in terms of protein and fiber being and low carb really being on trend. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:19:20And so we are highly concentrated in our snack business in those benefit areas. And what happens when you get on trend like that is the categories grow and retailers add new brands to just to satisfy the demand. So when you think about big categories, in the food industry, you see cookies as an example, you see a lot of variety and that's needed to satisfy demand. So that's why you see in areas like meat sticks, new brands showing up because that's textbook and that's why we acquired the fatty smoked meats business because it's a new brand, it's playing that role and it's growing at a super fast rate. So we now have in Meat Sticks what we call the trifecta smokehouse between Slim Jim, Duke's and Fatty and we think having a suite of brands there just like we do in popcorn and seeds is the best way to continue capitalizing on that growth. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:20:13But I don't see those trends changing and I like being protein centric, fiber centric and I like not being DSD. That's a good combination for snack business. Max GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP Paribas00:20:23Great. Thanks very much. Operator00:20:27And the next question will come from Rob Dickerson with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Robert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies00:20:32Great. Thanks. Just a quick easy question. I might be wrong, but I thought Q2 was supposed to be the highest kind of spend for the year just in terms of advertising and promotion. Robert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies00:20:50But then I also hear maybe there's Robert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies00:20:52a little bit more trade going into Q3 and I heard a little time shift. And then also I think you said kind of total SG and A and ad and promo would be the same in Q3 relative to last year's Q3, right, which implies Q3 is higher. So was there like anything that just kind of occurred in the quarter where you say, okay, hey, we might have a few new innovations that might have slipped into Q3, so maybe we'll also shift some of that ad and promo or maybe we want to promote a little bit more in December to the holidays. Just trying to gauge kind of the I guess it's seasonality to a certain extent on ad and promo, but just kind of how you're thinking about that as we kind of move through Q3? Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:21:35You want to Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:21:36hit that, let me take that, Rob. So just kind of take it from the top. From a dollar perspective, we spend the most in Q2 in terms of trade merchandising, just in terms of absolute dollars. Although Sean talked about it, we were a bit favorable to our forecast and some of that shifted to Q3. From an A and P perspective, we are ramping up A and P, so that will continue to ramp up. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:22:02So that by the end of the year, I think our A and P percentage is pretty much in line with the prior year is what we said. And so that would ramp up and that obviously will start in Q3. I mentioned too that we did have a little bit of innovation investment that was higher that we expect to be higher in Q3 versus what we had forecasted before. Again, not really material, but it is an increase versus what we had forecasted before. So and then SG and A as you had commented, we're still kind of our commentary is the same in terms of where we expect SG and A to be. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:22:38So they're really the dynamics I would say that hopefully answered your question. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:22:43Yes. And Rob, most of those events are easy to plan. Thanksgiving and Christmas and Lent, you know where they fall in the calendar, you plan around. The ones where you have to stay more agile is support for business like Swissness, where the weather moves around and you want to try to have your investment track with when the weather hits. But I wouldn't say that that type of variability is material at all in the scheme of our spend. Robert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies00:23:07Okay, perfect. No, that was great. Thank you. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:23:10Thanks. Operator00:23:12And the next question will come from Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Leah JordanAnalyst at Goldman Sachs00:23:18Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I'm seeing if you could comment on the competitive environment in Frozen. A large peer has talked about adding capacity in the category and stepping up some investments to support its growth. So just seeing if you have seen any shift in behavior yet and how you think these changes could impact your ability to continue to drive volume improvement going forward? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:23:41Well, Frozen is an absolutely awesome space. We've been saying that pretty much exclusively for about 10 years. So, I'm glad people are starting to recognize the opportunity in the space, because it's a vast domain within the retailer store and we've been really the only ones who have been active in driving that. And as a result, our products are and our innovation machine is well out ahead of our competition. You can see that in extremely strong market share. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:24:10So we love our model. We're just going to continue to drive it and lead it. And to the degree the retailers continue to appreciate how much upside innovation space remains in frozen, the faster the overall category is going to grow and we're the leaders globally in frozen and certainly clearly in the U. S. As you can see by the share numbers and we intend to stay that way. Operator00:24:36There Operator00:24:39are no further questions at this time. And I would like to turn the call over to Matthew Nissus for closing remarks. Matthew NeisiusSr. Director, Head of Investor Relations at Conagra Brands00:24:46Thank you, Wyatt, and thank you all for joining us today. Please reach out to Investor Relations with any additional questions. Melissa NapierSenior Vice President of Investor Relation at Conagra Brands00:24:54Happy holidays, everyone. Operator00:24:57Happy holidays, indeed. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may nowRead moreParticipantsExecutivesMelissa NapierSenior Vice President of Investor RelationSean ConnollyPresident and CEODave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFOMatthew NeisiusSr. Director, Head of Investor RelationsAnalystsAndrew LazarManaging Director at BarclaysKenneth GoldmanManaging Director at JP MorganChristopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells FargoThomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at CitiPeter GalboDirector - Equity Research at Bank of AmericaRobert MoskowManaging Director at TD CowenAlexia HowardAnalyst at BernsteinMax GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP ParibasRobert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at JefferiesLeah JordanAnalyst at Goldman SachsPowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallConagra Brands Q2 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipants Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckReportQuarterly report(10-Q) Conagra Brands Earnings HeadlinesConagra Brands Inc. stock underperforms Friday when compared to competitorsMay 3 at 12:30 AM | marketwatch.comConagra Brands Inc. stock underperforms Thursday when compared to competitorsMay 2 at 5:44 PM | marketwatch.comHere’s How to Claim Your Stake in Elon’s Private Company, xAII predict this single breakthrough could make Elon the world’s first trillionaire — and mint more new millionaires than any tech advance in history. And for a limited time, you have the chance to claim a stake in this project, even though it’s housed inside Elon’s private company, xAI.May 3, 2025 | Brownstone Research (Ad)Chef Boyardee to be acquired by Brynwood Partners from Conagra - WSJMay 1 at 10:23 AM | in.investing.comHometown Food Company, a Brynwood Partners Portfolio Company, Agrees to Acquire the Chef Boyardee® Brand from Conagra Brands, Inc.May 1 at 8:35 AM | prnewswire.comConagra Brands Enters Into Definitive Agreement with Hometown Food Company, a Brynwood Partners Portfolio Company, to Divest the Chef Boyardee® BrandMay 1 at 8:30 AM | prnewswire.comSee More Conagra Brands Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Conagra Brands? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Conagra Brands and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Conagra BrandsConagra Brands (NYSE:CAG), together with its subsidiaries, operates as a consumer packaged goods food company primarily in the United States. The company operates through Grocery & Snacks, Refrigerated & Frozen, International, and Foodservice segments. The Grocery & Snacks segment primarily offers shelf stable food products through various retail channels. The Refrigerated & Frozen segment provides temperature-controlled food products through various retail channels. The International segment offers food products in various temperature states through retail and foodservice channels outside of the United States. The Foodservice segment offers branded and customized food products, including meals, entrees, sauces, and various custom-manufactured culinary products packaged for restaurants and other foodservice establishments. The company sells its products under the Birds Eye, Marie Callender's, Duncan Hines, Healthy Choice, Slim Jim, Reddi-wip, Angie's, BOOMCHICKAPOP, Duke's, Earth Balance, Gardein, and Frontera brands. 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PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Melissa Napier, Head of Investor Relations for Conoco Brands. Please go ahead. Melissa NapierSenior Vice President of Investor Relation at Conagra Brands00:00:08Thanks, Wyatt. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for our live question and answer session on today's results. Once again, I'm joined this morning by Sean Connolly, our CEO Dave Marburger, our CFO and Matthew Neisses, Senior Director, Investor Relations. We may be making some forward looking statements and discussing non GAAP financial measures during this session. Melissa NapierSenior Vice President of Investor Relation at Conagra Brands00:00:33Please see our earnings release, prepared remarks, presentation materials and filings with the SEC, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website for more information, including descriptions of our risk factors, GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations and information on our comparability items. Wyatt, please introduce our first question. Operator00:01:00All right. It looks like our first question comes from Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please go ahead. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:01:06Good morning, everyone. Happy holidays. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:01:09Happy holidays. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:01:09Good morning. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:01:12Sean, we saw, I guess, during the course of the quarter, sort of a little bit of a gap open up between, sort of scanner and sort of Conagra shipments. And I'm just curious if you saw any benefit from the Thanksgiving timing change on volume in the quarter, that you would expect to reverse in the Q3, just given others with sort of similar fiscal years have kind of discussed this dynamic? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:01:35Yes. Good idea, Andrew. Let's get grounded in some of the detailed facts around Thanksgiving, because I suspect that this dynamic differs by company. For us, in our Q2, shipments were plus 1% and consumption was plus 0.6%. So, they tracked very, very closely. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:01:53And after the first half, our shipments and our consumption are actually equal. And this is an important fact, as we exited Q2, our inventory levels with customers were essentially even with a year ago. So, there really was not a Thanksgiving timing effect for our company. Now I can't speak to other company shipping patterns and inventories entering our Q3, but I can tell you that's our situation. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:02:21Thanks for that clarity. And then, you talked about incremental inflation and FX as the key reasons for some of the back half EPS pressure versus previous expectations. Is incremental investment, whether consumer or trade, part of this as well? And I asked because it would seem you are seeing a return on some of the spending with the volume and share trends that you spoke of in the prepared remarks. And we continue to hear about the consumer being more value seeking for longer than many expected. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:02:46So I'm just trying to get a sense if that is sort of part of the dynamic around estimate changes for the back half of the year or not? Thanks so much. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:02:56Good question and I think it's very important we clarify this. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the decision to invest to drive the top line back to growth is not a new concept for us. We implemented that strategy in Q2 last year and those investments have always been built into our plan for this fiscal year. And as I said earlier, those investments are obviously working. If you look at our trend lines going back 5 quarters, it's been consistently going north. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:03:24So we weren't surprised at all to see it break into positive territory this quarter nor am I the slightest bit surprised to see real strength in our frozen and snack business. So that's satisfying, but it's good to be back north. As for the trade component of our investments, mechanically, we plan quarterly and then we true up actual spend at the end of each quarter. In Q2, our actual spend came in a bit lower than planned and we've redeployed those funds to Q3 versus cutting them. So, I guess you'd characterize that as a small shift. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:03:57But I think it's important not to confuse that with us being dissatisfied with top line momentum and scrambling to add adequate support. We've had our support in place for 5 quarters. It's working and we're going to continue to see it work going forward. Andrew LazarManaging Director at Barclays00:04:14Thanks for the clarity. Operator00:04:19And our next question will come from Ken Goldman. And we would like those to ask and limit themselves to one question. Ken Goldman, please go ahead. Kenneth GoldmanManaging Director at JP Morgan00:04:27Hi. In discussing the industry's higher investments in advertising, promo, trade and innovation, Sean, you said the consumer response has varied significantly by category and company. I'm hoping to kind of unpack this a bit. From your vantage point, are there any best practices perhaps that can maybe thoughtfully be applied to the industry as a whole, just given some of those consumer challenges or those value seeking behaviors? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:04:54Sure, Ken. Here's how I think about it. Somewhere in maybe Q2 of last fiscal that I first called out a series of behavior shifts that we saw from cutting discretionary spending to more cooking from scratch, to more cooking for many instead of meals for 1, preserving leftovers as opposed to throwing them in the garbage. We saw those things emerge last year and what I've said all along is that the benefit of convenience is the one trend that has been most unshakable over the last 50 years. So, we saw some impact early on on frozen single serve meals. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:05:34I told you that that was not going to last. Consumers don't like to meal plan. They don't like to prep. They don't like to cook and they don't like to clean up. And that's exactly how it's unfolded. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:05:43So, my comment before is that really it's category specific. If a category has the benefits that consumers really long for, they can make a behavioral shift for a little while to make their household balance sheet work, but if those benefits like convenience are really important, that shift isn't going to last forever. The other area that I'd say is kind of a signal of what's on trend is within snacking. There's obviously been a movement toward protein snacks and healthy snacks and our categories are squarely within that. So a year ago, we saw people were kind of trading out, maybe cutting their buying rate a little bit, but the magnetic pull of convenience and healthfulness and healthy snacking is pretty strong. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:06:25So what we've done all along, as we've said many times, is we've nudged the consumer back to those behaviors that we know they're longing for using a whole battery of investments from an innovation to advertising to high quality trade like end caps and sampling in certain channels of trade, things like that. And it's been effective. We don't have a lot of categories where it hasn't been effective, but we've keep in mind, we've focused a lot of our investments in frozen and snacks and we just happen to have brands that are resonating well with consumers in those spaces. Kenneth GoldmanManaging Director at JP Morgan00:06:59Thanks. Happy holidays. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:07:01Thank you. Operator00:07:04Next question will come from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Christopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells Fargo00:07:11Hi, good morning, everyone. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:07:13Good morning, Chris. Christopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells Fargo00:07:15Can you just perhaps expand on your leverage targets for the full year inching up a bit, free cash flow conversion, it looks like it's coming in better, What's driving that? The leverage kicking up a bit, I assume, is more about profit as opposed to debt pay down. Can you just update us on, I guess, visibility on free cash flow? How quickly you think you can get to your leverage targets? And in general, how you're thinking about cash deployment maybe over the next year and perhaps over the next several years between the dividend and share repurchases and of course M and A? Christopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells Fargo00:07:53Thanks. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:07:55Hey, Chris, it's Dave. Let me take that from the top. So yes, our forecasted leverage ratio for this year is now 3.4x versus 3.2x. As I said in my prepared remarks, that's entirely due to the takedown in our profit. So in terms of our forecasted free cash flow, we're on track with our plan in terms of how much debt we expect to pay down. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:08:20The free cash flow conversion is now above 100% because that's a metric of free cash flow as related to net income. So with net income coming down obviously that's going to go up. So but the broader point there is we're really pleased with our performance in free cash flow. The company is very focused on it as an organization. Now that we've come out of COVID, we're really making great progress in working capital, particularly with inventory. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:08:47Our supply chain organization is doing a fantastic job setting goals to take days of inventory out, Things like tax, just other areas of cash, we're just really focused on it. So we're really pleased with the progress and it's going to continue to be a priority for us. So as I also said in my prepared remarks, we still expect it to hit our long term leverage target of 3 times by the end of fiscal 'twenty six. And so that's where we are. And then we've always talked about a balanced approach to capital allocation. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:09:20Over the years, you've seen us do a lot of things in terms of M and A, both acquisitions, divestitures, share repurchase, levering up and then paying down our debt. We're open to everything and we like the flexibility candidly that we would have, but we are super focused on getting to that 3 times target for leverage by the end of fiscal 'twenty six. Christopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells Fargo00:09:46Okay. Thanks so much. Operator00:09:50And the next question will come from Thomas Palmer with Citi. Please go ahead. Thomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi00:09:55Good morning. Thanks for the question. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:09:57Good morning. Thomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi00:09:59Wanted to ask, in the presentation indicate that the Q3 operating margin is expected to be the lowest of the year. I think this would then imply that 4Q would be the highest of the year. Thomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi00:10:12So I just want to make sure I kind of understand the key drivers of this expected inflection come 4Q. I know there is some incremental pricing. Are the investments you noted for the Q3 expected to taper off in the Q4? Just any help on that inflection? Thanks. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:10:30Yes, Todd. Let me try to give you some perspective on that. So kind of take it from the top, let me give you a little bit more color on Q3. So we do expect volumes to sequentially improve as we talked about in the Q3. We did talk about and Sean did a nice job of summarizing sort of the dynamic with trade and the shift from Q2 to Q3. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:10:54So that's in there. We also have a little bit more kind of innovation investment, if you will, in slotting that's going to come in for Q3. That's impacting us there. We did comment that we do believe operating margin will be the lowest of all the quarters for the year. Our A and P and SG and A are going to be in line with a year ago. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:11:19So it's basically that. And then from an inflation perspective, obviously, we've taken up our forecast to close to 4% for the full year and it will be higher in Q3 than Q4. So that's another kind of dynamic there. So that's just the flow of how Q3 will go. Thomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citi00:11:42Thank you. Yes. Operator00:11:46And the next question will come from Peter Galba with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Peter GalboDirector - Equity Research at Bank of America00:11:51Hey, guys. Good morning. Peter GalboDirector - Equity Research at Bank of America00:11:54Sean, I just wanted to ask, I know you said there was no Thanksgiving kind of timing benefit to the quarter. But Slide 15, you have the Staples portfolio with several of the brands that were kind of growing double digits. So just wondering if there was any hurricane impact in the quarter maybe that helped benefit some of the shipments that might not repeat? And if so, if you could just quantify for that for us? Thanks very much. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:12:19Pete, there was a I would say characterize it as a very small benefit from the hurricane in the G and S segment, but not material to our overall results for the quarter. Operator00:12:39And the next question will come from Robert Moskow with TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:12:45I think the Lamb Weston call took all the energy out Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:12:48of the sell side. So I'm going Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:12:49to try Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:12:53to inject a little more into this one. So Sean, you've raised your inflation guidance just a little bit and it's had a pretty substantial impact to your earnings outlook. Is it more difficult than normal to put through pricing to offset higher costs because of where the consumer is right now? And I know you I know the guidance assumes that these costs come right back down again, but some of them look a little sticky particularly Cocoa. So what happens if those costs stay high into fiscal 'twenty six? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:13:29Yes, let me unpack that for you, Rob. First, taking it from the top, the EPS call down today equates basically identically to the inflation in the back half versus what we had previously expected, that's the majority of it, plus FX. So it's just that queues up and that is the reason back to the earlier question around the leverage going from 3.2 to 3.4. It's not the need to invest more or any of that and I want to make sure we don't get caught up in that. So, on a percentage basis, while it looks, hey, 3% to 4% on a dollar basis in terms of inflation and the impact on EPS, it just ticks and ties. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:14:15As to what's driving that, it's really yes, there is inflation in cocoa and sweeteners and that's very small narrow in our portfolio and we will be pricing to offset that. But the bigger driver for us has been protein. It's meats, eggs, things like that. And we did anticipate that there would be inflation in the second half, but we anticipated that level of inflation will be lower. And we still anticipate that those peak protein costs are going to come down pretty much across the board, but there's a bit of a deferral for that. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:14:50So then it kind of leaves it as a judgment call for companies like ours, which is do you if you believe that the forward curves are going to be coming down, do you want to price start the whole cycle all over again of the lag, the elasticity effect. And right now, we think what's in the best interest of the consumer and in the best interest of our shareholder with respect to kind of long term cash flows and value creation is to keep the top line momentum. And that's what we're doing. It's been working very well for us. It was great to get back to positive territory. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:15:21And so, obviously, there's a margin implication near term, but we do see that changing. Now, you never know, like we thought the back half was going to be less inflationary. If we find ourselves in next fiscal and there's more inflation, we'll deal with that then. But that's just a little color on kind of how we're looking at things now. And I think the headline is we've got really strong brand performance. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:15:40We've got industry leading share performance. We think the right thing to do is to keep that momentum. Robert MoskowManaging Director at TD Cowen00:15:47Thank you. Operator00:15:50And the next question will come from Alexia Howard with Bernstein. Please go ahead. Alexia HowardAnalyst at Bernstein00:15:55Good morning, everyone. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:15:56Good morning. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:15:57Hi, Alexia. Alexia HowardAnalyst at Bernstein00:16:00Just taking a little bit of a different tack, you announced your Healthy Choice GLP-one on track messaging recently. Can you talk about what insights you've gathered from that segment and plans for maybe expanding that program over time? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:16:17Sure. Well, this is an opportunity for me, Alexei, to kind of give a little promotional shout out to our forthcoming CAGNY presentation this year. The centerpiece of our presentation at CAGNY is going to be titled The Future of Frozen and the Future of Snacking. And really the point there is, we think our categories are extremely well positioned in a dynamic macro environment, including a macro environment that has speculation around GLP-1s and regulatory and things like that. And we think brands like Healthy Choice could really benefit in that kind of environment. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:16:52And we think snacks that are protein centric and fiber centric as well. With respect to Healthy Choice, we did add what you might think of as a wayfinder on the front of the package for people that are managing their diet proactively, including using GLP-one. So, the title of the wayfinder is called On Track and we use the language GLP-one friendly on there and there was an article in the paper last week that kind of talked about that if anybody wants to dig into it more. But obviously, it's small right now in terms of the number of people on it. People who do go on it are still dropping off of it. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:17:27And what's interesting about that is a brand like Healthy Choice, we think can be a solution for both somebody who is actively taking a GLP-one drug, but also somebody who gives it up, but then is seeking to maintain the progress that they've made while on GLP-1s. Those consumers need a bit of an off ramp and Healthy Choice provides an excellent off ramp for them as well. So we're on trend and we will focus our marketing and our packaging to make sure people know that. Alexia HowardAnalyst at Bernstein00:17:56Great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on. Operator00:18:00And the next question will come from Max Gunport with BNP. Please go ahead. Max GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP Paribas00:18:07Hey, thanks for the question. And this might be stealing the thunder from your upcoming CAGNY presentation, it sounds like. But Sean, you touched on the move within snacking to protein and healthy snacks. And really that's a microcosm for what we're seeing in the broader category this year. You've got higher protein categories like nutrition shakes, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt all leading on the growth side and then you've got unhealthy snacking categories that are showing larger declines. Max GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP Paribas00:18:36In your view, what's driving this trend and how long do you think it can persist? Max GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP Paribas00:18:42Thanks. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:18:42Well, snacking is how big snacking is, it's $80,000,000,000 It's a huge space and it's a space that has always had a tremendous amount of variety and depending upon what the hot macro trends are, you will see some shifting within that space from variety to variety. It just so happens that for a whole host of reasons, things like protein and fiber are super on trend right now. And who knows how that will change. I don't see any change on the horizon in terms of protein and fiber being and low carb really being on trend. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:19:20And so we are highly concentrated in our snack business in those benefit areas. And what happens when you get on trend like that is the categories grow and retailers add new brands to just to satisfy the demand. So when you think about big categories, in the food industry, you see cookies as an example, you see a lot of variety and that's needed to satisfy demand. So that's why you see in areas like meat sticks, new brands showing up because that's textbook and that's why we acquired the fatty smoked meats business because it's a new brand, it's playing that role and it's growing at a super fast rate. So we now have in Meat Sticks what we call the trifecta smokehouse between Slim Jim, Duke's and Fatty and we think having a suite of brands there just like we do in popcorn and seeds is the best way to continue capitalizing on that growth. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:20:13But I don't see those trends changing and I like being protein centric, fiber centric and I like not being DSD. That's a good combination for snack business. Max GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP Paribas00:20:23Great. Thanks very much. Operator00:20:27And the next question will come from Rob Dickerson with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Robert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies00:20:32Great. Thanks. Just a quick easy question. I might be wrong, but I thought Q2 was supposed to be the highest kind of spend for the year just in terms of advertising and promotion. Robert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies00:20:50But then I also hear maybe there's Robert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies00:20:52a little bit more trade going into Q3 and I heard a little time shift. And then also I think you said kind of total SG and A and ad and promo would be the same in Q3 relative to last year's Q3, right, which implies Q3 is higher. So was there like anything that just kind of occurred in the quarter where you say, okay, hey, we might have a few new innovations that might have slipped into Q3, so maybe we'll also shift some of that ad and promo or maybe we want to promote a little bit more in December to the holidays. Just trying to gauge kind of the I guess it's seasonality to a certain extent on ad and promo, but just kind of how you're thinking about that as we kind of move through Q3? Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:21:35You want to Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:21:36hit that, let me take that, Rob. So just kind of take it from the top. From a dollar perspective, we spend the most in Q2 in terms of trade merchandising, just in terms of absolute dollars. Although Sean talked about it, we were a bit favorable to our forecast and some of that shifted to Q3. From an A and P perspective, we are ramping up A and P, so that will continue to ramp up. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:22:02So that by the end of the year, I think our A and P percentage is pretty much in line with the prior year is what we said. And so that would ramp up and that obviously will start in Q3. I mentioned too that we did have a little bit of innovation investment that was higher that we expect to be higher in Q3 versus what we had forecasted before. Again, not really material, but it is an increase versus what we had forecasted before. So and then SG and A as you had commented, we're still kind of our commentary is the same in terms of where we expect SG and A to be. Dave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFO at Conagra Brands00:22:38So they're really the dynamics I would say that hopefully answered your question. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:22:43Yes. And Rob, most of those events are easy to plan. Thanksgiving and Christmas and Lent, you know where they fall in the calendar, you plan around. The ones where you have to stay more agile is support for business like Swissness, where the weather moves around and you want to try to have your investment track with when the weather hits. But I wouldn't say that that type of variability is material at all in the scheme of our spend. Robert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at Jefferies00:23:07Okay, perfect. No, that was great. Thank you. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:23:10Thanks. Operator00:23:12And the next question will come from Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Leah JordanAnalyst at Goldman Sachs00:23:18Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I'm seeing if you could comment on the competitive environment in Frozen. A large peer has talked about adding capacity in the category and stepping up some investments to support its growth. So just seeing if you have seen any shift in behavior yet and how you think these changes could impact your ability to continue to drive volume improvement going forward? Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:23:41Well, Frozen is an absolutely awesome space. We've been saying that pretty much exclusively for about 10 years. So, I'm glad people are starting to recognize the opportunity in the space, because it's a vast domain within the retailer store and we've been really the only ones who have been active in driving that. And as a result, our products are and our innovation machine is well out ahead of our competition. You can see that in extremely strong market share. Sean ConnollyPresident and CEO at Conagra Brands00:24:10So we love our model. We're just going to continue to drive it and lead it. And to the degree the retailers continue to appreciate how much upside innovation space remains in frozen, the faster the overall category is going to grow and we're the leaders globally in frozen and certainly clearly in the U. S. As you can see by the share numbers and we intend to stay that way. Operator00:24:36There Operator00:24:39are no further questions at this time. And I would like to turn the call over to Matthew Nissus for closing remarks. Matthew NeisiusSr. Director, Head of Investor Relations at Conagra Brands00:24:46Thank you, Wyatt, and thank you all for joining us today. Please reach out to Investor Relations with any additional questions. Melissa NapierSenior Vice President of Investor Relation at Conagra Brands00:24:54Happy holidays, everyone. Operator00:24:57Happy holidays, indeed. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may nowRead moreParticipantsExecutivesMelissa NapierSenior Vice President of Investor RelationSean ConnollyPresident and CEODave MarbergerExecutive Vice President and CFOMatthew NeisiusSr. Director, Head of Investor RelationsAnalystsAndrew LazarManaging Director at BarclaysKenneth GoldmanManaging Director at JP MorganChristopher CareyEquity Analyst - Head of Consumer Staples Research at Wells FargoThomas PalmerVice President, Senior Equity Research Analyst at CitiPeter GalboDirector - Equity Research at Bank of AmericaRobert MoskowManaging Director at TD CowenAlexia HowardAnalyst at BernsteinMax GumportDirector - Equity Research at BNP ParibasRobert DickersonManaging Director - Consumer Staples Equity Research at JefferiesLeah JordanAnalyst at Goldman SachsPowered by