The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ:KHC) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Andre Maciel: Sure. Good morning, Ken. So yes, we still expect inflation to be in the low single-digit territory, like we said before. So nothing has changed in that regard, with inflation a bit more concentrated in Q2 and Q3 than in the shoulder quarters. And that’s primarily because of what we call the big three commodities: cheese, meat, coffee, which we are seeing particularly in meat and cheese, higher level of inflation happened in Q2, Q3 as we are lapping very favorable comps from last year. So yes, so we don’t see any other meaningful change here. And the price that has been taken is very surgical around those categories have been suffering the largest impact. And say cocoa likely is not a relevant part of our portfolio at all.

I mean a little bit in Netherlands, but beyond that, there’s nothing worth mentioning. And we don’t see any reason to believe at this point that we would not be able to continue to pass-through the prices in those commodity categories like it has always been the case. So…

Kenneth Goldman: All right. Thank you. And if I could ask a quick follow-up. Just the increase in gross margin guidance, coupled with no other changes implies a bit higher SG&A than you previously expected. So just assuming that’s accurate, are there any key areas in operating expenses we should think about that are maybe a little bit higher than planned, obviously, not a huge amount? Or maybe the plant shutdown is the primary, I guess, culprit here, so to speak. Just trying to get a little color there, if we could.

Carlos Abrams-Rivera: As you saw in CAGNY, we are starting to deploy our brand growth system, which is the method that allows us to continue to improve in our marketing and continue to strengthen our brands. And one of the components of the brand growth system is ensure that we have the sufficient level of marketing across the portfolio. And we’ve started to see a few selected areas where we need to step up the market investment, thinking on the long-term. And we have been gradually approving incremental investments on top of what initially planned on the marketing side, in particular, which I think is a great thing for us. That’s all. Thank you, Ken.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Bryan Spillane with Bank of America. You may proceed.

Bryan Spillane: Thanks, Operator. Good morning, everyone. I just had two questions. One, just, I guess, a detail. Can you share with us – I think in the past, you’ve shared with us how much the SNAP issue has impacted organic sales. So do you have that for the first quarter?

Carlos Abrams-Rivera: Look, it’s never 100% precise. We’re talking about the macroeconomic model, but we estimate on the U.S. Retail business back in the range of a few hundred bps negative impact.

Bryan Spillane: Okay. And then a question on the Away From Home in the U.S. and the deceleration. And again, you’ve quantified the impact of the plant closure, but just can you give us a sense of how much the – I’m sorry, the impact of the exiting the customer. But can you give us a sense of just how much of the decline is also related to like traffic at restaurants? Just trying to get a sense of the weighting of what’s actually driving the slowdown. And then also, as you look into the second half, right, where you’re expecting – there’s an expectation that there’s going to be some recovery, just what underpins that? And I say that in the context of as we’re kind of going through earnings season, a lot of the restaurants have incrementally gotten worse or slower. So just is there maybe too much optimism baked into the back half expectation for recovery when it looks like a lot of these restaurant companies are guiding down?

Carlos Abrams-Rivera: Let me start and then Andre, if you want to kind of build on that, and thanks for the question, Bryan. First of all, I continue to feel very good about overall strategy globally about Away From Home. Again, it’s a business that we are seeing continue to improve outside the U.S. and even as we are seeing some of the slowing of the restaurant business here in the U.S. If I think about the second half, there’s a few things that I think we’ll feel better as we go into this rest of the year, even in the U.S. here. First of all, we mentioned about this factor impact that we had to close for unplanned maintenance, and that’s going to affect us in Q2, and that will be behind us as we go into the second half of the year.

The second part is that we are also going to be expanding the number of clients is where you’re going to find our portfolio. So there’s a number of things that I cannot speak today, but that we’ll see as we go into Q3, in which we actually expand the distribution of our products. And then the third part is that we are going to continue to drive the focus on us going into attractive higher-margin channels. So again, beyond the restaurants in places like leisure, hospitality and travel, where we are actually seeing better performance because of the higher-income consumer and us getting into those channels in particular. And I think within that channel, we are seeing very successful programs around our Heinz Selection program and hospitality experiences that allow us to bring differentiated type of programs in an industry that until now, we really have in play that strongly.

And then lastly, what I would say is this is an area where we’re going to continue to drive innovation in Away From Home. I mean already, you are seeing how we are taking our Heinz REMIX machine, and we’re actually using that and planning it to work in the partnership that we have with BurgerFi, which is now our first restaurant to debut through Heinz REMIX, and that we’re going to see that expanding as we go into 2024. So the idea is it’s not only the fact that we’re going to be present, but we’re also going to continue to bring innovative in both the channel and the type of products we’re going to bring into those channels. And Andre, anything else you could talk about?

Andre Maciel: I don’t think so.

Carlos Abrams-Rivera: Thanks for the question, Bryan.

Bryan Spillane: Thanks, guys.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from John Baumgartner with Mizuho Securities. You may proceed.

John Baumgartner: Good morning. Thanks for the question.

Carlos Abrams-Rivera: Hi, John.