SpartanNash Company (NASDAQ:SPTN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jason Monaco: Hey, Scott. This is Jason. We will give guidance on ’24 next quarter. Broadly, on the promotional environment, we have seen an uptick in promotions. And as you said, it’s been largely funded by the vendor community. So as inflation has eased or disinflation has occurred, what we’ve seen is an easing of the impact on unit volumes. And we’ll continue to evaluate that and optimize our business going forward, we’ll share more about what we think ’24 looks like next time around.

Scott Mushkin: And that’s actually a good segue into my last question. You guys have talked about volume getting a little bit better. Our data is not necessarily hugely supportive of that, do you think you’re tracking a little bit different than the industry? Or are we talking volume is getting a little bit better on the margins, but really isn’t the elasticities aren’t really reacting as much as maybe you would think at this juncture?

Jason Monaco: Yes. Our revenue growth would have been 1.6% X Amazon, so we feel like we’re in a solid spot from a revenue growth standpoint. And obviously, it’s a dynamic environment out there with inflation, we saw 40-year high inflation, we saw it for 18 to 24 months. And now that’s winding back, but the consumer is still paying for two years of double-digit inflation back-to-back. And so what we’re doing is leveraging the insights that we bring to bear and bring to the market both in our retail and our wholesale businesses, so that we can ensure that we’ve got the right solution for our consumers and our customers along the way. And as we’ve said before, a bit of a test and learn organization, we’re going to try this out, test it, see what works and make sure we’ve got winning propositions for consumers, and so that we can meet them where they are with their budget.

Scott Mushkin: Any thoughts on the volume? Any elasticities?

Jason Monaco: Yes. I think it’s probably too early to call the specific elasticity, but we’re seeing as inflation is declining or disinflating, we’re seeing units respond. I think one of the most important things to highlight is our own brands performance. And we’ve invested in known brands and began that investment journey a couple of years ago. We talked about the work that we were putting in and that we were building a portfolio of products that we’re going to win now. We didn’t necessarily expect to have two years of double-digit inflation. But consumers are responding very favorably to our own brands portfolio and it’s helping to drive unit volume performance in our business and with our customers. Our family brands are performing well and consistently outperforming the national brands.

Operator: Our next question comes from Krisztina Katai from Deutsche Bank.

Jessica Taylor: Good morning. This is Jessica Taylor on for Krisztina. Thanks for taking our question. I just wanted to go back to the reductions with the Amazon account and just get your thoughts on like how you’re planning for that go forward. Do you think that business is gone for good and are you looking to drive other accounts in order to replace that volume? Or is that something that you see coming back in 2024? Thank you.

Tony Sarsam: Great. Thanks, Jessica. So a couple of things to think about. One, I guess this is probably not a lot of additional information out there, other than what Amazon has shared directly. Amazon is very committed to this business. They’re committed to food, they’re committed to their grocery business, and their fresh business. And they’re working through some changes right now. And those changes have manifested in our volume being down. But we think they’ve got a plan that they’re putting together to get on track and get that business growing again. We’ve met with him a handful of times recently to kind of figure out and kind of work through our strategy with them. We have a lot of confidence in the Amazon team, and that they’ll get this business in the right place.