Mission Produce, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tom Palmer: Oh, great. Okay. Thank you. And then just on you gave some indication of what you expect industry volumes to be from a distribution standpoint. And then you’ve also got Peru coming in lighter than you expected, sounds like California, which was solid as winding down. So, would you expect to grow in-line with the industry as we look at fourth quarter? I know longer term it’s at least in-line, but just for the fourth quarter, is the expectation in-line or is that going to be a little tougher given Peru?

Bryan Giles: I mean, I think if we look at our fourth quarter and if we — after the fact when we look at what the actual growth is, both in North America and abroad, I would think with Peru still being even with the smaller crop Peru, we’ll still make up a pretty significant portion of the overall consumption in Q4. And with our position in Peru, I would think that it’s advantageous for us from a share perspective. Certainly with Mexico transitioning from their off bloom to the new crop and we’ll see more of that in the later part of the quarter. I don’t — when we’re in Mexico, I don’t necessarily think that that has a dramatic influence on our share one way or the other. But I think it could be, again, Peru is lower than what we saw last year, in the fourth quarter and it’s lower than what we had initially expected. But it’s still a meaningful amount of fruit, and it definitely gives us an advantage over our peers by having it.

Tom Palmer: Understood. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Gerry Sweeney with ROTH Capital Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Gerry Sweeney: Good afternoon, Bryan and Steve. Thanks for taking my call.

Bryan Giles: Hi, Gerry.

Stephen J. Barnard: Hi, Gerry.

Gerry Sweeney: I apologize, I’m on my mobile, but just wanted to dig in a little bit more on Peru, and I understand volumes were down, but you also discussed that, I think you made some movements or decision making. You had some decisions during the quarter where you allocated fruit. And I’m just curious, and obviously you can’t play Monday morning quarterback, but I’m just curious if you were to change anything in the quarter, but more importantly, does — what happened with this harvest maybe changed from a process or decision making processes in the future with Peru and would that be potentially beneficial?

Stephen J. Barnard: Well, we had two extremes. We had cold weather early and very hot weather. We had cold weather in the summer and hot weather in the winter, and it really — and plus a lot of rain due to that El Niño situation that went from California all the way down to Peru and further. But early on, it affected the set to start with the fruit, the fruit flowering because it was cold. And then when they did set, which was a little late, due to the cold weather and rain. It looked good at the beginning, but it got extremely hot. I can’t give you the exact temperatures, but for Peru and the mid of winter, it was probably close to 90 degrees or higher. And it’s — what it does, it stunts tree or stuns the growth of the fruit on the tree, because it’s kind of in survival mode at that point with the hot summer and or hot temperature and it’s trying to suck up the water as fast as possible to stay hydrated, etcetera.

So, we had two extremes that just effected the overall production for the season, as did everybody else.

Bryan Giles: Yes, I mean —

Gerry Sweeney: Got it. Yes.