Oil-Dri Corporation of America (NYSE:ODC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Leslie Garber: Thanks, Wade. I’m going to do the same thing again and combine two very similar questions, one from Robert Smith, one from can Ethan Star. First part of the question, with respect to Amlan in China and the change to a master distributor, what are the puts and takes to this change in marketing and your expectations for the coming year? And then the second part is, could you please explain the reasoning behind the restructuring of Amlan’s China business? How many employees does Amlan’s Chinese subsidiary have? Are any former Amlan employees now employed by the new master distributor? And why do you think this change will lead to higher sales and profits in China? Wade?

Wade Robey: Okay. Thank you, Leslie. And again, thank you, Robert, and Ethan, an excellent question or series of questions. And there’s a number of questions embedded in there. I’ll try to hit them all as I can as I go through. Like a lot of multinationals that are trying to sell into China, Amlan Oil-Dri made the decision this year that rather than trying to go in directly and build a large infrastructure and really learn as we spend as we try to penetrate that market, that we would take a step back and really focus on what has been our strongest distributor in that market to date, which is [long on that] [ph] we announced in our press release. They’re a very significant distributor within China. They have a large team and really service across China, across the species that we want to target.

So, an excellent partner for us to grow with and we felt to make that move to a master distributor was really the best decision for the company and the most efficient use of our investment as we grow that market. China, as you probably know is the largest swine market in the world. It’s second in poultry. So, it’s very significant to our business, and we didn’t want to step back. We simply wanted to make more efficient the way we went to market, the channels we chose and how we invested for growth. The team in China is going to be small. We’ll have a couple of representatives there that will support Zhongnong from a technical and a business perspective. As Zhongnong has a significant team already on the ground, we don’t need to build a large team going forward.

We’ll just support their efforts with training, with materials, with product in trial support. So, we can do that with a very efficient team, a very efficient spend. And then again, we expect the China market to grow significantly. It will continue to be a significant part of our portfolio, a significant part of our sales globally. And we expect growth in that region over the next couple of years that will be reflective of the investments we make. So, very excited about China, excited about these changes.

Leslie Garber: Great. Thanks, Wade. Our next question comes from Eric Cinnamond from Palm Valley Capital. And he asked, can you provide an estimate on how much lower natural gas prices help gross margins during the quarter? Susan, will you take that one, please?