Tyson Foods Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 6, 2024

There are 15 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Tyson Foods Second Quarter 20 24 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sean Cornett, Investor Relations.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and welcome to Tyson Foods' fiscal 2nd quarter 2024 earnings conference call. On today's call, Tyson's President and Chief Executive Officer, Donnie King and Chief Financial Officer, John R. Tyson, will provide some prepared remarks followed by Q and A. Additionally, joining us today are Brady Stewart, Group President, Beef, Pork and Chief Supply Chain Officer Melanie Bolden, Group President, Prepared Foods and Chief Growth Officer Wes Morris, Group President, Poultry and Amy Tu, President, International. We also have provided a supplemental presentation, which may be referenced on today's call and is available on Titan's Investor Relations website via the link in our webcast.

Speaker 1

During today's call, we will make forward looking statements regarding our expectations for the future. These forward looking statements made during this call are provided pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements include all comments reflecting our expectations, assumptions or beliefs about future events or performance that do not relate solely to historical periods. These forward looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which may cause actual results to differ materially from our current projections. Please refer to our forward looking statements disclaimer on Slide 2 as well as our SEC filings for additional information concerning risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our projections.

Speaker 1

We assume no obligation to update any forward looking statements. Please note that references to earnings per share, income and operating margin in our remarks are on an adjusted basis unless otherwise noted. For reconciliation of these non GAAP measures to their corresponding GAAP measures, please refer to our earnings press release. Now I'll turn the call over to Donnie.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Sean, and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. I'm pleased with our performance in Q2, and I want to thank our team members for their ongoing commitment to driving operational excellence. We certainly come a long way from where we were a year ago and wouldn't be where we are today without their hard work. Our momentum continues to strengthen and all of our businesses are running better today than they were last year. Our results this quarter are part of a solid performance in the first half of fiscal twenty twenty four compared to the first half of last year.

Speaker 2

Adjusted EPS and adjusted operating income are both up nearly 60%, while operating cash flow increased by more than 50% and CapEx decreased by more than 40%. This performance gives us confidence in our improved outlook for the fiscal year and in our long term future. As you saw in our results, tailwinds in Chicken again offset headwinds in Beef as we benefit from our multi protein portfolio. While we're not immune to the macro environment, we're taking steps to reduce our exposure to commodity markets. We are expanding our offerings in seasoned and marinated meats to value up our portfolio across beef, pork and chicken to provide consumers convenience and new flavor options.

Speaker 2

Across our brands, we're focusing on meeting the consumers where they are by offering convenient restaurant quality food options at home. We are a leader in protein with some of the most iconic brands in food with offerings that span the value spectrum. This is why our share remains healthy despite a more challenging environment for consumers. We continue to support our brand through efficient marketing, effective innovation and strong partnerships with our customers. We continue to build financial strength by being disciplined in our capital deployment to improve cash flow and position us well to tackle challenges and capture opportunities.

Speaker 2

We also continue to take bold actions to improve performance and drive long term value for shareholders. And I remain highly confident in our strategy and optimistic about our future. Now let's delve into an update on market share. At Tyson Foods, we have a broad portfolio of offerings across foodservice and retail at a range of price points to meet consumers where they are, even as they manage through a challenging macro environment. We also have some of the strongest and most iconic brands across food and beverage behind the Tyson, Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm names, which allows us to make efficient choices to maintain margin while strengthening our shelf position.

Speaker 2

We see this in the strength of our dollar share in our core business lines, which we believe reflects the quality of our share position. Since Q2 of fiscal 2019, we've added 400 basis points of dollar share in our core business lines. While our share is down modestly versus last year as we lapped some record performance, we have gained dollar share over each of the past three quarters. Our core bacon brands, Wright and Jimmy Dean have contributed to this recent growth. In fact, our dollar share in bacon for Q2 was at a record high level over the past 5 years, and we were the fastest growing in the category during the quarter.

Speaker 2

I'm excited about our opportunities in bacon and expect our share to continue improving as our new vacant facility that opened in January ramps up. The value proposition of our iconic brands resonates strongly with our consumers and our market share and household penetration rates remain healthy. We continue to have opportunity to expand the household penetration of our great brands, leaving room for continued share growth over the long run. Moving on to the segment performance starting with Prepared Foods. Consumers focus on value continues to impact our retail volumes.

Speaker 2

However, our share remains healthy and as I mentioned, we are gaining dollar share in bacon. Our volumes outside of retail continue gaining traction as we strive to grow this business with a focus on customer diversification and margin accretive channels. Operational efficiencies and lower raw material costs drove solid profitability both in Q2 and the first half of fiscal twenty twenty four. In Chicken, the momentum established in the second half of fiscal twenty twenty three continued in Q2. In fact, versus the Q2 of last year, AOI increased more than $325,000,000 While we are benefiting from better market conditions including lower grain costs, our bold actions and focus on the fundamentals are also evident in our results.

Speaker 2

We have made progress across the value chain. Our live operations are substantially better. We've improved yield, labor efficiencies and utilization in our plants. Our demand planning and customer service have also taken significant steps forward. When our live operations are running well and our demand plan is more accurate, we can operate more efficiently and better service our customers.

Speaker 2

In summary, our focus on getting back to the basics in chicken is working. As you all know, in beef, limited cattle supplies led to spread compression. Despite some quarterly volatility reflecting market conditions, our results for the first half of fiscal year have come in as we expected. Our goal remains to offset some of the challenges of a tight cattle supply environment by focusing on the controllables such as labor utilization and managing mix to meet customer and consumer demand. Turning to pork, Better spreads and ongoing operational execution led to improved profitability in the quarter and the first half of the year.

Speaker 2

As you may have seen, we made the difficult decision to close one of our port facilities. This is part of our efforts to optimize our footprint and improve performance by reallocating resources to nearby more efficient plants while improving mix and better serving our customers. Now let me take a step back and talk about our recent corporate rebranding initiative. We launched a new corporate logo earlier this year that captures our one team, one Tyson spirit. It encompasses our differentiated capabilities and scale and our diverse portfolio across channels, categories and eating occasions.

Speaker 2

Our Tyson Foods corporate logo represents our company's legacy and our team's purpose, which is to feed the world like family. Our approach to driving long term value hasn't changed and is built on a core of 3 key pillars. 1st, we are fortifying our foundation of core proteins. We strive to be best in class operators while continuing to look for ways to value up our portfolio. 2nd, we are building our brands by delivering innovation for new occasions, categories and channels to better serve consumers.

Speaker 2

Today, we have 3 of the top 10 protein brands with room to expand our household penetration. Brands are our best opportunity to drive faster growth, higher margin and stronger returns. 3rd, we're growing globally. Our international business grew revenue 8 fold to $2,500,000,000 over the 5 years through fiscal 2023. We expect to drive profitable growth over time by capture expanding consumer markets, particularly in Asia, and we believe we are well positioned to win.

Speaker 2

These strategic pillars are supported by key enablers of operational excellence, customer and consumer obsession along with data and digital. A key element of operational excellence is to gain enterprise scale and unlock savings in our controllables by modernizing our operations and driving performance to standards. We win with our customers by building long term partnerships and delivering top tier experiences. We enrich consumers' lives creating best in class marketing and innovation. Finally, we continue to build our digital capabilities utilizing data, automation and AI tech for better decision making and outcomes.

Speaker 2

Before I hand it over to John to review our financial performance, let me remind you of our priorities this year where we focused on controlling the controllables. Our results for the first half of the year clearly show that we're controlling our CapEx and working capital to drive strong cash flow. Another priority is to optimize our footprint and network. We've closed the last of the 6 chicken facilities that we announced in 2023 along with the 2 case ready beef facilities. And as mentioned earlier, we are closing one of our pork plants.

Speaker 2

We're also focused on operational excellence by restoring performance in chicken, strengthening prepared foods, managing beef through a difficult cattle cycle and driving efficiencies in pork. As you have seen in our results, so far this year, we are making tangible progress in all these areas. With that, I'll turn the call over to John.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Donnie. I'll start with an overview of our total company results before moving on to our individual segment. Sales in Q2 were essentially in line year over year at $13,100,000,000 as a decrease in chicken was nearly offset by an increase in beef. Adjusted operating income increased $341,000,000 year over year to $406,000,000 driven primarily by significant improvement in chicken profitability. Operational performance and substantially higher AOI led to a $0.66 increase in adjusted EPS, which came in at $0.62 in Q2.

Speaker 3

Now let's review our segment results starting with Prepared Foods. In Prepared Foods, Q2 revenue was down slightly year over year. Volume growth was led by benefits from the Williams acquisition. The pricing decline reflects the mix impact of the lower contribution from retail. AOI in Q2 was down modestly versus last year.

Speaker 3

Lower raw material costs and operational efficiencies were more than offset by startup costs and mix. Despite the decline in AOI, our margin for the first half of the fiscal year remained in the low double digits. Moving to Chicken. Sales in Q2 declined 8.2% year over year, primarily due to lower volume. Volume declined 6.1% driven by lower production as we better aligned our supply to customer demand, while the 2.1% reduction in pricing was due in part to the pass through of lower input costs.

Speaker 3

Despite the decline in sales, AOI increased $326,000,000 year over year to $160,000,000 The benefits of our strategic actions and the substantial operational improvements we've executed since last year are clear. Market conditions including lower input costs, net of pass through pricing and a better supply demand balance were also key contributors to improved profitability. The current quarter results include a $55,000,000 derivative loss compared to a $35,000,000 loss in the year ago quarter. As a reminder, our grain hedging program is part of an overarching risk management strategy and not a speculative tool. In our Beef segment, revenue was up 7.3% year over year in Q2 with both volume and pricing increasing.

Speaker 3

The 2.8% increase in volume was primarily driven by higher average carcass weight, while pricing increased 4.5%. While revenue increased AOI decreased versus last year, primarily reflecting compressed spreads as expected. This more than offset continued progress on our operational efficiencies, including better labor utilization and better management of product mix to meet customer and consumer demand. Moving to pork, Q2 revenue increased 4.6% driven by volume growth and higher pricing. Volume growth of 2.9% was led by more plentiful hog supply.

Speaker 3

Pricing improved due to healthy global demand. AOI also increased year over year going from a loss of $31,000,000 last year to a profit of $33,000,000 this year in Q2, benefiting primarily from improved spreads and better operational execution. Year to date, pork AOI has improved $151,000,000 Finally, our international business continues to make progress towards stronger profitability. AOI increased versus last year as we begin to lap some of the startup costs of our newer facilities and continue to focus on operational execution. Shifting to our financial position and capital allocation.

Speaker 3

Year to date showcased strong operating cash flow of approximately $1,200,000,000 as we continue to manage working capital. We remain very disciplined with CapEx, which came in at $621,000,000 for the first half. The $267,000,000 in CapEx for Q2 was the lowest quarterly spend in several years and represents the 5th quarter in a row of sequential decline as we lap our elevated CapEx from the previous 2 fiscal years and focus on controlling where and when we deploy capital. Year to date free cash flow of $556,000,000 increased nearly $900,000,000 versus the first half of last year and was more than $200,000,000 ahead of our year to date dividend payments. Our balance sheet management approach remains unchanged as we're committed to building financial strength, investing in our business and returning cash to shareholders while maintaining our investment grade credit rating and returning net leverage to atorbelow 2 times net debt to EBITDA.

Speaker 3

Our net leverage again declined sequentially coming in at 3.6 times in Q2 driven by improving last 12 months EBITDA and we expect it to continue to improve for the balance of the year. We ended Q2 with $4,400,000,000 of liquidity. As you may have seen from our press release in March, we successfully raised $1,500,000,000 in new senior notes and we paid down a portion of our term loans. We plan to use the remaining proceeds to retire our outstanding notes coming due this August. We remain committed to maintaining a disciplined yet opportunistic capital allocation strategy, ensuring that we deploy resources to maximize long term shareholder value.

Speaker 3

Now let's take a look at our updated outlook for fiscal 2024. We are reiterating our overall sales guidance to be roughly flat year over year. However, given our strong year to date results, we are raising our AOI guidance driven primarily by an improved outlook for Chicken. For the total company, we now expect between $1,400,000,000 $1,800,000,000 of operating income. Moving to the segments.

Speaker 3

In chicken, given the strong start in the first half of the year, we continue to believe that there are more tailwinds than headwinds. We are raising our AOI guidance range to be between $700,000,000 $900,000,000 Prepared Foods also had a solid first half. In this segment, we are tightening our AOI outlook to be between $850,000,000 $950,000,000 indicating a weaker second half of the year, which reflects typical seasonality. In beef, the first half of fiscal twenty twenty four has progressed in line with our expectations. However, uncertainties remain, including the progression of the cattle cycle.

Speaker 3

And we now expect our full year AOI to be between a loss of $400,000,000 and a loss of $100,000,000 In pork, we've seen solid first half performance and are raising our guidance to be between $50,000,000 $150,000,000 To add some color to the shape of the rest of the year, uncertainties remain around consumer strength and behavior, the progression of the cattle cycle and key commodity costs. When we factor in these variables with pork and prepared foods seasonality, there are reasons to believe that Q3 could be weaker than Q4. To round out the key P and L items, we anticipate interest expense to be roughly $400,000,000 and our tax rate to now be approximately 24%. Turning to CapEx, we're maintaining tight controls on spending in line with profitability and cash flow. And we are narrowing our CapEx range to be between $1,200,000,000 $1,400,000,000 this year.

Speaker 3

And finally on free cash flow, we're committed to managing working capital and CapEx and we're even more confident now that we can fully fund our dividend this year through our free cash flow generation. Now, I'll turn the call back over to Donnie to wrap up before we move to Q and A.

Speaker 2

Thanks, John. Before we get to your questions, I'd like to thank our 139,000 team members who worked tirelessly to feed the world like family and fulfill our mission to bring high quality food to every table in the world. It is the strength of our team that secures our position as a world class food company and a recognized leader in protein. Together, we delivered a solid first half. We still have more work to do and believe we have the strategy in place continue our progress and deliver long term shareholder value.

Speaker 2

Now I'll turn the call back over to Sean for Q and A instructions.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Donnie. We will now move to your questions. Please recall that our caution on forward looking statements and non GAAP measures apply to both our prepared remarks and the following Q and A. Operator, please provide the Q and A instructions.

Operator

The first question today comes from Peter Galbo with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, guys. Good

Speaker 5

morning. Good

Speaker 3

morning, Peter. Good morning, Peter.

Speaker 4

Donnie, maybe just to start, you typically give, I think, kind of an update on the state of the business and things have improved here sequentially at least pretty dramatically.

Speaker 6

I guess just curious a

Speaker 4

little bit on 2 things. 1, kind of are you happy now with kind of the state of the portfolio and the state of plant closures and asset rationalization? And then secondly, just trying to understand the commentary around Q3 weaker than Q4 seasonally in light of what you've been saying, but that would run kind of counter to what has been the case seasonally for the past, I don't know, 5 or 6 years. So maybe if you can just unpack those two areas would be helpful.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Peter, and appreciate everyone for being on this morning. Your first part of your question is essentially am I satisfied? I'm encouraged. I would I'd stop short of saying satisfied in terms of the results. I'm proud of the results that we delivered in Q2 and we're seeing the benefits of our diverse portfolio across proteins, channels, categories and eating occasions.

Speaker 2

Now where we saw chicken and pork are offsetting the headwinds in beef. In our Q2, our momentum continues to strengthen on all of our businesses and they're running better today than they were last year. We have come a long way from where we were a year ago and my thanks to all of our team members for continued improvement and execution. We're executing against the priorities we laid out for fiscal 2024. We're controlling the controllables.

Speaker 2

We're optimizing our network. We remain focused on operational excellence. We have taken bold actions to drive performance and to build financial strength. We're delivering meaningful results compared to the first half of last year in profitability, cash flow, CapEx in line with historical rates. Our performance has given us confidence to raise our guidance while acknowledging uncertainties remain and we have much work to do.

Speaker 2

So in terms of your specific question around prepared, let me make a few comments and then I'll pass it over to Melanie to add some detail. Our results were in line with our expectations. Our brands are strong and our share remains healthy. Persistent inflation is weighing on our bifurcated consumer. Our strategy is to meet the consumer where they are with offerings at various price points.

Speaker 2

In terms of more details, let me flip it over to Melanie to add a little color to your question.

Speaker 7

So Peter, I think you were asking specifically about our projections for Q3 as well as the rest of the full year. And so I'll just talk specifically about prepared foods and let any of the other leaders chime in. So you know the first half of the year prepared food delivered $500,000,000 in AOI. And you also know that profit delivery in the second half of the year has historically been lower than the first half and we expect this year to be the same. So therefore, the midpoint of our second half guidance is $400,000,000 And I also want to point out that historically Q3 has performed better than Q4, but we're seeing higher commodity costs in Q3.

Speaker 7

So we expect a pretty even split between the two quarters.

Speaker 4

Great. Melanie, that's very helpful. Yes, we've gotten certainly a number of questions on that. So thank you for the context. And then Donnie, maybe just as a follow-up, look, we've had a number of companies this quarter, both in the CPG industry and in restaurants.

Speaker 4

Just kind of comment on the state of the consumer and low income consumer. I know that was in some of your prepared remarks. But curious if you could dive a little bit deeper on just your view on food service and some of the channels that you service there. Just any commentary around quick service, casual dining and non commercial would be helpful. Thanks very much.

Speaker 2

Melanie, why don't you answer that?

Speaker 7

Yes, happy to. So, Peter, in both retail and food service, as you know, the consumer is under pressure, especially the lower income households. And in retail, we're seeing roughly 20% cumulative inflation over the last 3 years. Now the inflation impact coupled with historically low savings rates has created a more cautious price sensitive consumer. And we're also seeing a cautious consumer prioritize essential staples over discretionary categories.

Speaker 7

Now that said, we're advantaged in that our protein categories enjoy lower levels of elasticity compared to the broader consumer landscape. And in retail, we're experiencing well, I should say, but in retail, we are experiencing a little slippage to private label with lower income households. However, our share remains strong with growth in bacon, snacking and sausage. Now in foodservice where you specifically noted, we continue to deliver solid performance, but we are seeing shifts from fine dining into QSR. We're also seeing QSR slippage to more meals being consumed at home.

Speaker 7

But for Tyson, we're advantaged as we serve both in home and away from home consumers. The key point, I guess, I'd like you to take away from all of this is that we've intentionally built a portfolio diversified across strong brands spanning multiple protein offerings and value tiers And our scale allows consumers to find our products in multiple places throughout retail and food service channels. And this allows us to deliver on our goal of meeting our consumers where they're at across a variety of value spectrum.

Speaker 8

Questions. Congrats on those very outstanding results. Just wanted to dig a little bit into the dynamics of chicken that we've seen and kind of unpack a little bit the volume performance on the production side. Can you help us to kind of frame it a little bit more? Is it lower head?

Speaker 8

Is it lower weight? Is it a combination of it? What have you done differently in terms of like adjusting your operations to kind of have those sales down, but at the same time, this very nice profit swing? And that would be my first question. And then I have a quick follow-up.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 2

I think I caught all the question. Let me start out and it was if I heard correctly, it was a kind of a supply question and then let me talk about that

Speaker 9

and I will flip at the West to add some

Speaker 2

very specific details. But in terms of chicken supply, if you look at the publicly available data, USDA has projected chicken supply to increase about 1% in 2024. But if you look at the data underneath it, there are some things that you need to get from this. This is a livability and hatchability story for the industry. If you look, pull it in hand mortality continues to be elevated.

Speaker 2

Broiler mortality continues to be elevated. Hatchability continues to be 3% to 5% below historical rates. So the net of all that is this, there will be fewer live plants delivered to the processing plant than forecast. So if I look at that, I believe the supply will be lower than 1% projected by USDA. The other thing I would say with that is this is not a short term fix.

Speaker 2

If you remember, we have a genetics company as well and we've seen some of this activity as well. So this is can be a little bit longer term issue. So you ask, we didn't ask, but I would tell you at least from our perspective, why? Genetic selection over the last several years have been skewed towards broader characteristics like yield and fee conversion. There has been some impact or cumulative impact from no antibiotics ever across the supply chain.

Speaker 2

And there's some, I won't say new disease, but disease persists creating mortality in the broiler. There is a new one or new to me called avian metapneumonia virus. It's out there, lorangotracheitis, our LT is out there today and there are other things. But I think the supply could be will be less than 1% based on the data points I'm looking at and from flat to 0.5% something along that order. Let me flip it to Wes and let him talk about our supply and see if that answers your question.

Speaker 2

Yes, Ben, we certainly see the USDA numbers projecting up 1%, but we're seeing the exits up, weight up, but slaughter pounds relatively flat. The good news is I'm very proud of our live performance. We hedged 8234 in the quarter. Our livability is up 50 points year over year. And so looking at our live performance and then our S and OP process, our supply demand group, we're in a good position for the back half of the year to stay balanced, to take care of our customers and I'm very pleased with our live and supply demand planning group.

Speaker 2

Specifically, the Q2 volume, our volume is solid. It's consistent with Q1 and our expectations. Just as a reminder, 20 23 is a challenging comparison period. Our pricing is solid. Just as a reminder, we lag a quarter to a quarter plus.

Speaker 2

And then the other dynamic unique to us is we have quite a few grain based models that pull pricing down, but it does stabilize our margin.

Speaker 8

Okay, perfect. And then just a quick follow-up on beef in terms of like what you're seeing on the industry. Have you seen any signs of heifer retention? So just what you like getting on the ground to get a better feel on how bad is it still going to get until it might get better, a little bit of a preview maybe into 2025?

Speaker 9

Sure, Ben. This is Brady and thanks for the question. And first of all, I guess really at a high level, we haven't seen anything relative to any of the industry numbers that have been published that would really indicate that true meaningful heifer retention has begun. And so at this point, we can potentially anticipate retention beginning in the fall, but there's some caveats to that. And certainly as we shift from an El Nino weather pattern to a La Nina, the pasture conditions are extremely important to heifer retention and there's a potential we could see some drier conditions as well persist.

Speaker 9

We'll continue to monitor that along with additional metrics around heifer retention and the percentage of heifers that move into slaughter. And then lastly, one of the promising signs would be we have seen a meaningful decline of the number of cows that are going to slaughter down double digits from 2022 and 2023 both. And so really we find ourselves what looks like in the midst of a transition pattern and we'll continue to monitor to understand the timing of that as we move forward.

Speaker 8

Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Tom Palmer with Citi. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Good morning. Thanks for the question. Maybe start off on the chicken side, at least relative to consensus estimates, the guidance boost would seem to indicate more than just upside in the quarter. So maybe talk on the components that are driving that increased outlook for the second half of the year. I mean, it does seem obviously like speed is favorable, seems like the pricing environment is getting better.

Speaker 6

And then you've had positive commentary on productivity. So just any help on kind of how much those items are helping, if there are other items to consider and any quantification of course would be appreciated? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Sure. Let me start off and I will let Wes add a little color to this as well. But one of the things I got to point out is that the focus on the fundamentals that Wes and our chicken team have had over the past year actually is quite impressive and that's a result of some of this. I would point out this that there have been some market tailwinds that as far as chicken is concerned. But of the $325,000,000 that were better year over year, more than half of that came from execution type things such as the footprint and network as well as some of the other tougher decisions that we made.

Speaker 2

And with that, Wes, why don't you cover some of the more specifics around the program? Yes, sure. We're certainly focused on controlling the controllables and Donnie talked about live operational performance, which includes our network changes. And then probably the biggest change is making sure that we match our supply and demand. We've talked about the lab being better.

Speaker 2

Our plant performance and network optimization is right on target. Our capacity utilization continues to improve sequentially. We've improved our order fill rate by actually lowering our working capital over $400,000,000 driven almost exclusively by inventory. Demand solid and 2023 is not a very good comp. Let me add a little more color to valuing up and our path forward.

Speaker 2

And so we have our new startup plant in Danville. It is currently single shifted and I expect due to demand will be double shifted by the beginning of 'twenty five. And so we are running a fundamentally stronger chicken business. We got strong BU leadership in place and strong future growth plans. So specific to your question, Q1 and Q3 are typically our strongest quarters.

Speaker 2

So good balance front half and back half. Grains have moderated that are still higher than pre COVID levels. We continue to watch the total protein availability, obviously spring and summer are better growing conditions, so that should increase some volumes in the industry. We're also paying real close attention to the consumer behavior and how that may shift our mix. But we will be doing quite a bit of investing in the back half of the year in our value added business where we have a number one share in both retail and food service.

Speaker 2

And as I said earlier, we're ramping up Danville well ahead of schedule. If I could, I'd like to just reiterate something that to make it really clear in our Chicken business. Our strategy is very simple. It's live performance, excellence in live performance, it's operational execution and matching supply and demand. It's that simple.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks for that. And then maybe a quicker one on pork. Just with feed costs falling, are you seeing any signs that the industry in terms of hog supply making better profit and might start ramping up supply at all or still a

Speaker 3

bit too early?

Speaker 9

Thanks for the question, Tom. Certainly, the compression we've seen on some of the feedstuffs has helped move some numbers back to profitability within the industry from a pork production standpoint, which is certainly good news for our producer partners as well. What we've seen consistently for the last year, which is of importance is we've seen genetic improvement across the entire industry leading to additional pigs per litter. And when you compound that with the fact that we've seen over the last 10 years, probably the best year relative to true industry herd health. We're seeing ample supply as we move forward as well.

Speaker 9

So I'd be speculating if we commented on any potential expansion, but certainly the environment is set up in a much better position versus last year. But let me be clear, when we look at our business, we really focus on the controls and I've seen good improvements from our pork business through the first half of the year relative to operational excellence, relative to yields within our assets, and relative to our mix management conversions as well. That's really coupled with the fact that we have plenty of runway ahead of us to continue to improve and get better and that's the expectation as we move forward.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Yes. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Maybe continue on the discussion on controlling the controllables. Donnie, in response to the last question, you talked about kind of improvements in live operations, operational efficiency, kind of matching supply demand.

Speaker 10

I would just love to get your view on where the company is today and certainly notably improved versus where you were 12, 18 months ago, but where how much where can you get it to? How much kind of cost reduction on a per pound or 1,000,000 of EBIT dollars do you think is still kind of attainable excluding changes in the external market environment in the Chicken business?

Speaker 2

Sure. Let me Chicken specifically, but let me start with the across the portfolio. Just managing working capital and CapEx, driving cash flow and really in support of the dividend, that's still a priority for us and the part of the controlling the controllable. Optimizing the footprint and network, still huge priority for us. Restoring chicken performance is right there at the top and also strengthening our prepared foods business, really important to us.

Speaker 2

And then managing beef through the cattle cycle, the unknown around that is once we do see heifer retention, obviously, you were not going to be processing those animals. So what does that do and we still got that coming our way and then continue to drive efficiencies in pork. As you stated versus last year, every business is performing better. We had we raised the guidance primarily this quarter based on strong chicken performance. But let me acknowledge that there's still some uncertainties out there relative to the consumer and their strength and behavior and that's still out there.

Speaker 2

I mentioned the cattle cycle already. Key commodity markets, what is there are tailwinds today, but what do they look like beyond our horizon. Pork and prepared foods seasonally could be seasonally weaker or will be seasonally weaker. And then Q3 could be, I'd say could be weaker than Q4 driven by prepared and import. Chicken, chicken is we're seeing better execution in our Chicken business and we've seen some time better capacity utilization than we've seen in some time.

Speaker 2

We're very optimistic in terms of where we are. And we've gone slow in our chicken business. We've built this thing from the ground up and we're excited about the momentum that we're seeing relative to that. Wes, do you think about chicken specifically that I haven't said? Yes, I think I'd say it this way, Adam.

Speaker 2

In the long term, Tyson is the market leader in the industry and I would fully expect us to deliver best in class results over time regardless of the market conditions, but we still got work to do.

Speaker 3

And Adam, I think this is John. Just with one final clarifying point. You had a specific question around can you quantify the operational performance opportunity. I would just say that, we've got a range of guidance out there. I think that it reflects a balance take and the midpoint of that is probably a reasonable place to be for the total company.

Speaker 3

But we've left things open a little bit on the top side and the high end of all the estimates for the various segments would reflect at least what we believe to be achievable in our fiscal 2024 from an operational improvement opportunity. So I think that's about as much detail as we're intending to provide here. But safe to say, I think we see a lot of opportunity throughout the portfolio. The guidance reflects what we can get in 2024 and we're optimistic about 2025 and beyond too.

Speaker 10

Okay. Now that's all very helpful color. And if I could just ask a follow-up on beef and taking, Brady, some of your comments about kind of uncertainty on if heifer retention has actually begun in earnest across the industry, but if it did that would further reduce slaughter utilization for a period while those cattle don't come to market. Again, under the spirit of controlling the controllables, if we actually are entering a heifer retention cycle and herd rebuild cycle, Can you help quantify the magnitude of controllables in beef that you actually have to mitigate kind of what would be a further drop in volume and throughput that mean the business is already operating at a loss today. Presumably that would be a meaningful incremental challenge.

Speaker 10

So could is there a path for the beef business to make money through the worst of the heifer retention period?

Speaker 9

Thanks for the follow-up question there. And we've been pretty consistent with our message over the last few quarters, whereas there is absolutely a variety of expected outcomes here and how we move through relative to supply and pounds. One of the good signs we've seen is we have seen additional weight per carcass. And so that has provided some dilutive effect relative to cost structure, which is one of the concerns as you move through lower supplies. How that translates itself into potentially higher grading cattle is of interest as well and we'll be monitoring that.

Speaker 9

But as we looked at the cycle and the potential outcomes of the cycle, we created a strategy that was completely focused on understanding a range of outcomes and how we can provide deliverables within those outcomes as well. And I'd just say we really appreciate and we like the strategy that we have developed regardless of the range of outcomes on the supply side. We like the progress we have made year to date relative to controlling the controllables, which for us is operational excellence and efficiency within our assets, managing our mix and delivering to our customer. And we like the runway in front of us relative to improvements that we can continue to make as we move through what is going to be a range of outcomes through the cycle as well.

Speaker 10

Okay. I appreciate the color. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Speaker 11

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Heather Jones with Heather Jones Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Good morning. Congratulations on the quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Heather.

Speaker 11

Yes. I have a couple of questions, 1 on chicken and 1 on beef. And I just want to start on chicken. I want to go back to the volume question. So I understand that Q2 was a more difficult compare than Q1, but it was a pretty substantial volume decline.

Speaker 11

And you all had closed those facilities, but I think I remember those were going to be consolidated into other plants. So just wondering is this production decline going to continue going forward and was it lower outside meat purchases or lower internal production? Just wonder if you could help us how to think about the rest of the year going into 2025?

Speaker 2

Sure, Heather. Let me start out and just maybe remind us of last year. In 'twenty three, it's at least the first half of 'twenty three is not a real good comparator. If you look at Q1 of last year, we absolutely missed the demand signal in Q1 of last year and that carried on into Q2 of last year. And so if you look at volume in Q2 of last year versus Q2 of this year, you're going to see that it is down.

Speaker 2

But last year was really overstated. Volume growth was in fact there, but there was also issues with profitable sales as it relates to Q1 and Q2 last year. So we're beyond that. We've cleaned all of that up and we're moving forward. We're running a much better business today in our chicken business.

Speaker 2

And Wes, you want to speak to the volume? Yes. Heather, thank you for your question and asking for clarity. Our volume is in line with our expectations. We are well positioned in supplydemand balance and we have strong growth plans put in place and you'll start to see that in the second half.

Speaker 11

Okay. And then my follow-up is on beef. More recently, beef demand seems to have been more challenged and don't know if it's related to the HVAI or what. But anyway, just wondering if you could give us a sense of how your margins are tracking relative to where they were in Q2?

Speaker 9

Yes, Heather. Thanks for question. I would say relative to demand, we've seen fantastic demand on both the chicken side and the pork side relative to retail promotional activity as well. While we've seen fantastic demand being driven by that retail and promotional activity, beef really has not received much promotional activity at all. And so, we're in the past as we move into the summer months, you've seen that activity.

Speaker 9

We'll be watching for that as we move into Q3 to see if we see additional promos or where retail specifically going to drive the consumer relative to any of the proteins. Luckily for us, we're in good shape on the pork side, good shape on the chicken side in terms of meeting that customer in those channels as well.

Speaker 2

So just to maybe a clean up for clarity, I think you may have misspoke on it. It is pork and chicken that we are seeing the feature activity right now. Correct. That's correct.

Speaker 11

And so have you seen any I know you've narrowed your guidance and you took down the up the high end for beef. I'm just wondering has there been any deterioration

Speaker 12

in margins relative to Q2,

Speaker 11

given that you haven't gotten the feature activity you normally would have gotten at this time of year for beef?

Speaker 9

The beef promotion that's been that's really been a calendar 24 story. And again, we'll continue to monitor that as we move through the remainder of the quarter, but we won't provide any additional guidance on Q3 other than what we provided already.

Operator

Okay. All right. Thank you so

Speaker 8

much. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Ben Bienvenu with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Ben.

Speaker 13

Good morning. So you noted in the chicken business, fairly equal contribution in the first half of the fiscal year of the improvement to what we saw last year between operational improvements and market improvements. As you look to the balance of the year, 3Q, 4Q, is it similarly, equally split or should we see a diminished operational improvement contribution and more of the improvement is predicated on the market having strengthened?

Speaker 2

Well, let me say this in short Ben and then Wes can give you the details. As I mentioned in my opening statements, we have made great progress, but I would be I would also make sure that you understand that we believe there's still a lot of work to do. Good progress, but much work to do. And so you can define that financially if you'd like, but we're not where we need to be yet in our chicken business. But Wes?

Speaker 2

Yes, Ben, I'd say we certainly got more tailwinds than headwinds and it's really a function of the volatility of the grain market, what ultimately happens in the supply and chicken markets and then the consumer mindset. And then as I've said a couple of times, we do have some go forward investments in our value added business in the back half of the year.

Speaker 13

Okay, very good. My second question is related to total company. And in particular, in years past, you all have gone through the exercise of articulating what you think kind of normalized earnings power is for the business and you've provided some clarity by segment. Not asking today what that earnings power is, but maybe when you think you all might be at a place where you can provide that level of clarity at the total enterprise and across the segments, given all the changes that you've made and the operational improvements that you've made progress against?

Speaker 3

Hey, Ben. This is John Randall. Let me try to answer that question. So, short version, yes, we're not making any adjustments to long term outlook on normalized ranges today. We would plan to do that maybe as we go through the balance of this year and start to look to 25 and kind of give some color around that potentially.

Speaker 3

But let me take the opportunity just to talk about the shape of the total of the rest of the year for the total company and build on some things that have already been said today. So I just want to point out that from a total range standpoint, guidance has come up from midpoint to midpoint $350,000,000 We think that is reflective of the results year to date and some of our optimism for the balance of the year. And there's also a range of outcomes in there. And I think that we've despite some of the potential signal we see in chicken around supply and demand, I think there's more tailwinds and headwinds there. I think going to our prepared segment, although we are experiencing some of the consumer behaviors that we've heard so many other companies talk about.

Speaker 3

I think we feel really good about our portfolio. And we've gotten questions about food away from home, food at home. We're in a pretty good position to win, no matter where consumers are shopping. And I think that you kind of heard us say, hey, Q3 could be softer than Q4. I think I want to just put a point on that that we see the rest of the year as being fairly balanced, but just with all of the various factors at play and some seasonality in pork, especially there could be a tweak there, but don't want anyone to over read into that.

Speaker 3

We don't mean to get so overly precise. There's a lot of factors at play. And I would just emphasize that we're confident about the balance of the year and the midpoint to the guidance we've given.

Speaker 14

Thanks very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Alexia Howard with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 3

Hello Alexia.

Speaker 11

Hi there. So can I start with chicken? I think you remember that the cold snap in January hit production operations somewhat this quarter. Are you able to quantify any of that, how much it hit volumes and profitability for the segment overall?

Speaker 3

Hey, Alexia. Yes, this is John again. I would say that we typically plan for a little bit of that weather in the quarter. When we talked to you in February, we were pretty early on and had experienced some significant events just at that point, kind of 1 month in. I would say overall though, the impacts in the quarter were not so significant that it had a disproportionate impact on earnings.

Speaker 3

So I think nothing to read into there.

Speaker 11

Okay. And then 2 quick things. How much longer do you expect the start up costs in Prepared Foods to remain a headwind? When does that go away? And then finally, do you have a forecast for where you expect your leverage to end up by fiscal year end?

Speaker 7

Hi, Alexa. This is Melanie. And in terms of our start up costs, we may experience a little bit bleeding over in Q3, but we think the majority of them have hit in Q2.

Speaker 3

And to your second question, Alethia, on leverage, not placing a specific number where we expect to exit the year, but safe to say we are definitely trending toward lower leverage and 2 times or below is the long term target. That's as much as we can give right now.

Speaker 11

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

Operator

The next question comes from Andrew Strelzik with BMO. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to go back to the beef segment outlook and you've mentioned some uncertainty and ranges of outcomes. I guess, I'm just curious, what is the environment that would get you to the top end of the beef profit range versus the bottom end? Is it primarily around whether or not we get heifer attention and herd rebuilding efforts in the fall and that's kind of the biggest piece of it or the demand side?

Speaker 5

I guess, what are the range of outcomes that would get you to the top or bottom end of the range?

Speaker 9

Thanks for the question, Andrew. And specifically, we talk a lot about beef demand. We talk a lot about beef cutout pricing as well. But also we need to factor in the fact that drop is a significant amount of value that falls within the beef supply chain and also our largest cost is relative to live cattle cost as well. And so when you really balance the 2 revenue streams, the cut off pricing and the drop pricing and you take that into account with live cattle and where potentially we could see some live cattle pricing going, that really creates the range of outcomes is trying to balance those 3, the 2 revenue and the 1 supply cost perspective when we look at particular guidance and the range of outcomes.

Speaker 9

But again, we still have plenty to control within Tyson. And we really focus on making sure that we balance the grade of cattle with the demands of the consumer as we move through the cycle as well. We're continuing to see improvements relative to the efficiencies and yields. And really we'll just continue to look at value streams that we can continue to generate to help offset some of these headwinds we have from a margin perspective.

Speaker 5

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And then my second question is on the CapEx outlook. And I know last quarter when it was reduced, you were kind of matching CapEx and the operating profit outlook.

Speaker 5

And so I guess I'm curious just how we should think about CapEx on

Speaker 9

a go forward

Speaker 5

basis as the profit environment is better, since that hasn't really kept up and maybe there's timing dynamics and you've already mentioned controlling that tightly. But just as the profit dynamics get better, how should we think about the rate at which you might add back to CapEx? Where are the priorities at where you might want to add back? Just any color around that on the

Speaker 3

go forward would be great. Thank you. Hey, this is John. Let me take that question. So you are right in that we had talked in the past about being responsive to the operating environment and managing cash flows.

Speaker 3

I would tell you that first off, we feel good about our free cash flow projections for the year in terms of being in excess of covering our dividends, so just pointing that out. But I would also tell you that the tighter range on our CapEx today, 1.2 to 1.4, that's really reflective of us determining what are the needs for the business and where are there opportunities for good investment. What I want you to take away from that is we're not turning on and off this big, it's kind of based on our outlook on profitability, but rather trying to return to a normalized level of spend. And you asked where would be the best opportunities for investment. I think, the short answer is that our prepared portfolio and components of our chicken portfolio where we see the best opportunity for the growing our value added business is where we want to continue to invest.

Speaker 3

And then of course, we have our ongoing maintenance and repair that's needed. So I think that will probably paint the picture for you on how we think about capital allocation.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Speaker 14

Thank you. Good morning.

Speaker 6

Good morning.

Speaker 14

You had mentioned that you still have some work to do in chicken and you've touched on that in a few ways. But can you just be clear how that does or doesn't apply to your footprint there? Is the supply demand balance pretty well set? Or is that another piece of the equation that could evolve as well?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks for this question. So let me answer it in 2 ways. I think, first off, on the network moves that we've made up until this point, we anticipate that we have either recovered all or should recover nearly all of that all of the volume in chicken and nearly all of the volume related to our pork moves and the other moves. So I think I just want to be clear that when we talk about that rationalization, we're talking about being more efficient, taking cost out and losing none of the business.

Speaker 3

So I think that that is a point worth emphasizing. The other part of your question was about chicken specifically. And I think that we even talked last year or a couple of quarters ago about the overall capacity utilization. Safe to say, we still got some headroom in our current footprint and would expect to grow with demand in the more profitable parts of our business. And so I think have a positive outlook based on all of the network moves.

Speaker 2

If I might add one more thing relative to chicken. The back half of the year for chicken, if you look, grains have moderated, demand for chicken is very strong and we've built a fundamentally stronger chicken business. So we're excited about that. We're executing better and demand is certainly working in our favor.

Speaker 14

Okay. That's helpful. And just on international, you've touched on it a couple of times earlier in the prepared remarks. Just how should we think about its margin runway and what does it take for that to get a ramp up in profitability?

Speaker 2

Well, thanks for the question on international. And I think it's important to remind this came up a little bit in the CapEx question, but I think we should remember over the last 2 plus years, we've built 12 processing plants around the world. That was part of the driver as it relates to the capital spend. And we're beyond that and we're moving into filling up those capacities. But we're also ramping if you look at the international, we're lapping a ramp up cost for the 7 facilities outside the United States and our execution should continue to improve.

Speaker 2

Our focus short term is operational excellence and capacity utilization as it relates to our international business. Amy, would you like to speak?

Speaker 12

Thanks for the question, Michael. As Donnie said, we are absolutely focused on delivering the results that is expected of us. So we're focusing on driving operational efficiencies across our plants. We are focused on improving our conversion costs. We're identifying available and open available capacity or viewing our SKUs and delivering the more profitable list of products and we're also tightening our spending.

Speaker 12

So all of these actions are beginning to beginning to see the results and improve gross margins in AOI delivery.

Speaker 14

Okay, great. Thanks so much.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to the company for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thanks for your continued interest in Tyson Foods. We look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Tyson Foods Q2 2024
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