And so you may ask, well, does that mean you’re going to build it this year or not? The answer is I’m not really sure. It’s really difficult to predict inventory changes. What I would say is that we feel like we’re in a good place as we end the third quarter with our retail customers, whether that’s in North America retail or whether that’s in Pet. We don’t have too much inventory, but I think we have enough. And so what to — we’re not expecting any change in the fourth quarter. And to the extent there is a change, we think it would be modest, but we’ll let that play itself out.
Jacob Aiken-Phillips: Yes, you got the question. Thank you. And then, [Kofi] (ph), another one is, so reduction in incentive comp. I know you have the trade timing headwind in 4Q, but — are there any changes to your expectations of investing in media or in the brands going into 4Q? Or is it how you’re expecting last quarter?
Kofi Bruce: No, I think — I appreciate the question. I would say one of the things that worked really well, and I want to make sure it didn’t get lost in the strong profit performance in the quarter is that we have continued to invest behind our brands at a mid-single-digit rate. I wouldn’t expect that to change as we go into Q4 even as we’re driving better-than-expected profitability in a year in which we’ve seen obviously some top line pressure. So — from where I sit, I think what you’re hearing is we’ll continue to keep our foot on the pedal. I don’t expect a material change. So I’d expect around the year out somewhere in the mid-single-digit range of increase on our media, which will put us comfortably ahead of our top line expectations.
Jacob Aiken-Phillips: Thank you so much.
Jeffrey Harmening: You bet.
Operator: We’ll take our next question from David Palmer at Evercore ISI.
David Palmer: Hi. A question on North America retail and what you’re looking to see from that segment as you think about fiscal 2025. Obviously, that’s a key high-margin segment, and there’s some big categories that make a lot of money for you in that segment. And I’m wondering, for those of us that are watching the scanner data and thinking about how you’ll be thinking about the business and whether you can be sort of on Algo for fiscal ’25? What should we be looking for that will give you that confidence? For example, do you need to see volume approach flat year-over-year? Are there a couple of categories that you’re reviewing a little bit more closely than others.
Jeffrey Harmening: Yes, I would say, you know, on — without giving guidance to fiscal ‘25, still trying to kind of answer the tone of the question. I guess, I would say we’ll look for continued improvement in North America retail and hopefully, we’ll see it in Pet too. But North America retail since you asked about that, hopefully, continued improvement. We saw a little bit in the third quarter, and we’ll see about what happens in the fourth quarter, particularly in volume improvements. And we’d hope to see that broadly. I mean, of course, we always look at the cereal category and what we’re doing there and snacks in Mexican. Some of our big categories, but I would say that would be broadly speaking, that’s what we’re looking for.
So we’d like to get back to a position of growth as a company, and we’re going to continue to invest to do that to make sure we invest in marketing to make sure we grow. And so in a year where we hope productivity is still strong and we talked about earlier, and inflation is still there, but hopefully, relatively benign. Hopefully, we can reinvest some of that productivity back into marketing spending, so that we can continue to grow the top line of the business, because we’ve been very good in the middle of the P&L. The biggest challenge, obviously, this year has been with growth. And so it’s really important for us as a company and not in particular, but everybody really to get back to growth.
David Palmer: And then you were talking about early signs of a SNAP — lack of SNAP subsidy headwind, I should say. What are you seeing? Is there — is that something you’re seeing in the last week or two? Is it specific to certain categories that you think are a little bit more family oriented or meal oriented? I mean what are you seeing there? And thank you.
Jeffrey Harmening: Yes, the first thing a couple of important points about SNAP, I said them earlier, but I’m going to reiterate, because I think they’re important. The first is that — we have seen a little bit of a benefit, but it’s not going to be a step change. It’s not going to come in and, frankly, week-by-week, and it will roll in over time. And the benefits we’re going to see from those are going to be modest. I mean, there may be — we think there will be a benefit, but I think they’re going to be modest in nature. The other thing I guess the other context I would add, and I’m not going to go category-by-category, but the benefits do accrue category-by-category. And so they’re not going to be even from one category to the next.
And so as we look at it, yes, we’ll aggregate them because that’s the easiest way to do it. But some categories are different than others. And certainly, when you’re serving families as we do some — for our portfolio, those are categories that tend to benefit from SNAP benefits more than others.
David Palmer: Thank you.
Operator: We will go next to Pamela Kaufman at Morgan Stanley.
Pamela Kaufman: Hi, good morning.
Jeffrey Harmening: Good morning.
Kofi Bruce: Hi, Pam.
