The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 7, 2024

The Kroger Co.  isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Kroger Co., Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rob Quast, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Rob Quast: Good morning. Thank you for joining us for Kroger’s fourth quarter and full-year 2023 earnings call. I am joined today by Kroger’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rodney McMullen; and Interim Chief Financial Officer, Todd Foley. Before we begin, I want to remind you that today’s discussions will include forward-looking statements. We want to caution you that such statements are predictions, and actual events or results can differ materially. A detailed discussion of the many factors that we believe may have a material effect on our business on an ongoing basis is contained in our SEC filings. The Kroger Company assumes no obligation to update that information. After our prepared remarks, we look forward to taking your questions. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Rodney.

Rodney McMullen: Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I’d first like to take a moment to welcome our interim CFO, Todd Foley. Todd has been a meaningful contributor to Kroger for more than 20 years, and we are excited he is serving in this leadership position. Before we begin, I’d like to provide an outline of our discussion topics this morning. I will start by sharing a recap of our 2023 performance, how the strength of our value-creation model allowed us to deliver on our goals and how it positions us well to continue our momentum in 2024 and beyond. Then Todd will cover our financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2023 as well as our financial guidance for 2024. Finally, I will conclude with an update on our proposed merger with Albertsons before we open it up for questions.

I’d like to start with Kroger’s value creation model, which supports our optimism for the future. We are guided by our vision that when people think food, they think Kroger. To achieve this vision, we are delivering a best-in-class customer experience and investing in our associates. We know that when we take care of our customers and our associates, we generate attractive and sustainable returns for our shareholders. Kroger’s go-to-market strategy includes four focus areas: fresh, power brands, seamless and personalization that propels a customer experience that will grow sales and build loyalty. Our team of associates power Kroger’s success by executing this strategy and delivering an outstanding customer experience. To attract, develop and retain our talented teams, we make holistic investments in our associates.

Our value creation model enables us to balance investments in our customers’ experience and associates while generating sustainable returns for our shareholders. We’ve made significant investments to strengthen this model and are now demonstrating how we can generate growth in more ways than ever. By delivering fresh products and personalized offers through a unique seamless shopping experience, our retail business creates traffic and loyalty that accelerates our growth opportunities in other areas such as alternative profit businesses. This generates sustainable net earnings growth and increases in cash flow, which supports capital investments to grow the business, which in turn creates more jobs for associates and more career opportunities and enables us to return excess capital to shareholders.

As part of our capital investment plans for 2024, we are excited to announce that we are building more new stores in a meaningful way that will support our long-term growth model. When we launched Restock Kroger several years ago, we knew that a strong omnichannel experience was a key to serving our customers in the future. We are pleased with the progress we’ve made there, and we’ll continue to invest in digital as it remains an important part to our growth model. In addition, we believe a strong and growing store network is important. Many of the ways we go-to-market in digital still comes through the store channel. We know that our most profitable customers shop both in-store and online. So it’s important to be there for our customers in a way they choose to shop with us.

As a result, we expect new stores to be an important part of sales growth in our TSR model going forward. Now I would like to provide a brief recap of 2023. Last year, customers were affected by many factors, which pressured their food-at-home spending, including reduced government benefits such as SNAP, higher interest rates and the depletion of excess savings that many families accumulated during the pandemic. As a result, customers were looking for value to stretch their budgets. Kroger’s commitment to lowering prices and executing our go-to-market strategy positioned us well to meet our customers’ needs. By delivering fresh products, enhancing our brand’s quality and improving our digital experience, we grew loyal households in 2023, and our customers saved even more through our industry-leading personalization capabilities including loyalty discounts, fuel rewards and personalized offers.

By increasing customers’ digital experience, we can more effectively deploy our data sciences and our AI to serve the right offers to customers at the right time. In 2023, our customers clipped 4 billion coupons, which is 1 billion more coupons compared to 2022. We know these offers help customers stretch their budget and lead to deeper loyalty. During the fourth quarter, our effective promotions helped turn traffic positive. These trends position us well and give us optimism for 2024. We expect consumer sentiment to improve in 2024 but our customers will still have to manage many of the same macro pressures as last year. Kroger will continue to provide customers with lower prices and exceptional value. We also know that customers expect a great shopping experience, and we have robust plans to improve seamless shopping both in-store and online, where customers can get the products they want without compromising on quality, selection and convenience.

We are raising the bar on our full fresh and friendly metrics and investing for growth. As with our brands, which enables Kroger to offer innovative products at a great value, growing sales and improving margins, we create destination items that our customers love and can only find at Kroger. This year’s addition of the Hispanic-inspired Mercado line to our brand’s portfolio is an example of how our brands can innovate in categories that meet our customers’ evolving needs and accelerate growth. In 2024, our brands expects to launch more than 800 new products. As part of the next phase of Kroger’s brand architect work, the team is reimagining there our brand’s portfolio with a refreshed look, which is based on the insights and preferences collected from extensive customer feedback studies.

Next is Fresh. Fresh is an important influence on where customers shop and we are continually trying to add days of freshness for our customers. With end-to-end fresh and more than 2,100 stores, we are seeing higher produce sales and improving share. Beyond adding days of freshness, we are expanding our assortment. Customers love our convenient in-store fresh-cut fruit program, and we will continue to expand the offering by introducing regional specialties and seasonal favorites. Now turning to seamless. Digital had strong results in 2023, delivering more than $12 billion in sales. Digital sales grew by 12% on a 52-week basis, and we improved our cost to serve through increased volume and process enhancements as well as technology to optimize associate pick routes for more efficient picking.

Digital is an important growth accelerator in our business. And in 2024, we expect to deliver another year of double-digit sales growth. As we grow volume, particularly in our Kroger Delivery network, we expect our unit economics to improve and become a tailwind to our long-term financial model. We have a clear path to improving our digital margins, closing the gap with our traditional brick-and-mortar business over time. Kroger is well-positioned through our combination of stores and dedicated fulfillment centers enabling us to serve all customer trips, including both immediate and next day. Customers value the ability to shop on their own terms with zero compromises and we are increasing the number of omnichannel households in our ecosystem.

Customers who shop both in-store and online spend 3x to 4x more compared to in-store only shoppers. Personalization is also driving digital engagement and remains one of the primary ways we deliver value for customers beyond low prices. By offering personalized savings, we can ensure customers get the right promotions at the right time, allowing us to get the most important return on our promotional spend while enhancing loyalty. Moving promotions online allowed Kroger to take personalization to a new level, targeting customers more efficiently and increasing the breadth and depth of promotions. During the fourth quarter, this led to an 18% increase in digitally engaged households. Our digitally engaged households are extremely valuable to our long-term growth model as they spend more with us and help power our alternative profit businesses like Kroger Precision Marketing.

Operational excellence is essential to bringing our strategic pillars to life. Our full fresh and friendly strategy is the roadmap to achieving a best-in-class customer experience. We were pleased to see the continued progress on these metrics in 2023, notably significant improvement in our in-stock rate as we achieved a new all-time high during the year. We will continue our momentum on in-stock rate in 2024 to further drive sales as well as to improve our execution in these other key areas as well. By delivering our retail strategy, including fuel, we are building customer loyalty and expanding opportunities for profitable growth, including alternative profit businesses in health and wellness. Alternative profit businesses achieved solid results in 2023, generating $1.3 billion in operating profit.

We were pleased with the portfolio’s performance in 2023, where our media business once again delivered strong results. Looking ahead, we expect that the significant investments we’ve made in Kroger Precision Marketing last year will lead to more than 20% growth in our media business in 2024. The U.S. media landscape is evolving, and Retail Media is one of the fastest-growing channels. Systems built 20 years ago to power digital advertising, including third-party cookies are losing effectiveness and ineffective ad spending is creating more opportunities for those who use first-party data to connect the right content to the right customers while clearly measuring return on investment. KPM is well-positioned to excel in this space by offering brands a superior advertising experience.

Our media business can utilize first-party data from our loyalty program to create relevant audiences and measure ad spend effectiveness based on customer purchases, both in-store and online. To take the next step in this growth journey, KPM invested in enhanced advertiser functionality. In 2023, KPM launched its own ad platform and introduced a new self-service solution on ad buying platforms. The new ad platform makes it easier for clients to activate campaigns and gather data insights for advertising on Kroger-owned properties and the new self-service solutions are responsible for offering more direct access to custom Kroger audiences on clients’ existing ad buying platforms. We expect these enhancements will be key catalysts for growth in 2024.

Kroger Personal Finance delivered mixed results in 2023, which led to relative flat year-over-year operating profit. Our credit card business experienced a challenging macroeconomic landscape, which led to an increase in customer bad debt. In money services, we delivered strong results by implementing more fraud controls that allowed us to process payments more quickly while reducing fraud. Turning to health and wellness. Health and wellness delivered a better-than-expected performance in 2023, and we are excited about the momentum in this area of our business. As we find in other areas of our ecosystem, customers who are retail pharmacy patients are more loyal to Kroger than non-pharmacy customers. The retail pharmacy industry is going through a period of transformation which presents a significant opportunity for us.

We plan to deliver growth by focusing on a few key priorities. First, cultivating an exceptional patient experience. We are incorporating new technologies and simplifying our team’s work, which adds capacity in our pharmacies. Our pharmacy staff is using this capacity to provide better care and faster checkout for patients. Next, we are attracting new patients by raising awareness to our non-pharmacy customers. Many of our customers are not familiar with Kroger’s retail pharmacy operations. We are working to convert these customers by increasing our marketing and adding in-store engagement and utilizing our data sciences to help build awareness. Finally, we plan to build on our 2023 momentum in vaccines by accelerating share growth in 2024.

By improving our outreach in store, expanding marketing campaigns and working with providers, we can grow vaccines and help customers live healthier lives. I’d now like to take a moment to talk about our associates. We respect and appreciate our associates for all they do to take care of our customers every day, every time. We firmly believe that by investing in associates and being an employer of choice, we can facilitate an outstanding customer experience. At the core of our operational initiatives this year is delivering a consistent store experience. Team consistency is a key to that strategy. To support this strategy, we are taking a holistic approach to retention, which includes wage and benefit investments that Todd will talk on later, as well as investments in associate experience, including training, technology and career development opportunities.

Investments in technology enable us to support our associates beyond the initial onboarding process. Our training app provides ongoing support and development during the flow of work, giving associates more confidence in executing their tasks and leading to a better customer experience. Importantly, associates are developing the skills for their next role with Kroger. We are pleased to see these efforts lead to strong improvements in retention this year. In 2024, we will remain focused on further enhancing training and development opportunities, solidifying Kroger as a place where associates come for a job and discover a career. With that, I’ll turn it over to Todd to take you through our financial results and guidance for 2024. Todd?

Todd Foley: Thanks, Rodney, and thank you for the warm welcome. Good morning, everyone. Kroger’s 2023 results reflect the strength of our business and demonstrate the evolution of our model. We are a more diverse business with more ways than ever to generate net earnings growth. Over the past four years, adjusted EPS has grown at a CAGR of 20%, significantly higher than our long-term growth model. As net earnings grow, we are also producing improved cash flows. And in 2023, we delivered more than $3 billion of adjusted free cash flow. This is strengthening our balance sheet, giving us the flexibility to reinvest in growth opportunities for our business and return excess cash to shareholders. As Rodney discussed, our retail business is performing well and driving data and traffic needed to power our model and accelerate growth in alternative profit businesses.

Kroger is entering 2024 from a position of strength. Many of the headwinds we faced in 2023, including the reduction of SNAP benefits and the loss of pharmacy sales from the termination of our agreement with ESI are cycling this year. Recent investments to expand our strategic pillars and grow alternative profit businesses are paying off. We remain confident in our ability to navigate many different operating environments and are well-positioned to drive sustainable growth long term. I’ll now walk through our full-year 2023 results. Kroger delivered adjusted EPS of $4.76 per diluted share, including a benefit of $0.20 from the fifty third week. Excluding the fifty third week, adjusted EPS per diluted share increased 8%, which is above the high end of the guidance range we shared at the beginning of the year.

We achieved identical sales without fuel growth of 0.9%. Underlying growth would have been 2.3% after adjusting for the effect of our terminated agreement with Express Scripts. Digital sales grew 12% on a 52-week basis, led by 25% growth in Delivery Solutions. The FIFO gross margin rate, excluding fuel, and the fifty third week, increased 18 basis points, primarily attributable to strong our brand’s performance, sourcing benefits, lower supply chain costs, and the effect of our terminated agreement with Express Scripts, partially offset by increased price investments and higher shrink. Our strategy to improve margin over time has many components, including the expansion of our brands improvements in digital profitability, including growth in media, utilizing technology to improve supply chain efficiency and enhancing the product mix through fresh initiatives.

Our improvement rate reflected the investments we have made in these areas of our business, and it allows us to further invest in price for customers to help drive the flywheel in our model and continue to have a long runway for improvement. The OG&A rate, excluding fuel, the fifty third week and adjustment items, increased 21 basis points attributable to planned investments in associates, investments in strategic growth initiatives and the effect of our terminated agreement with Express Scripts, partially offset by the continued execution of cost savings initiatives and lower incentive plan costs. Our adjusted FIFO operating profit was $5 billion and $4.8 billion on an adjusted 52-week basis. The LIFO charge for the full year was $113 million.

Kroger continued to generate strong adjusted free cash flow through our consistent operating results and improvements in working capital. Working capital improvements primarily reflected an effective inventory management led by our sourcing and supply chain teams. In addition, we cycled through the unfavorable working capital results experienced in the fourth quarter of 2022. As a result, we delivered adjusted free cash flow of more than $3 billion in 2023. Our strong cash flow generation led to significant debt reduction and a strengthened balance sheet in preparation for our merger with Albertsons. Our net total debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio on an adjusted 52-week basis is 1.33 compared to 1.56 a year ago. Turning now to our fourth quarter results.

Adjusted EPS was $1.34 per diluted share for the quarter, including a benefit from the fifty third week of $0.20. Excluding the fifty third week, adjusted EPS increased 15%. Identical sales without fuel declined 0.8%. Underlying growth would have been positive 0.1% after adjusting for the effect of Express Scripts. Our sales trends improved in the final period of the quarter as we began to cycle the effect of ESI and unit trends improved in the quarter. The fourth quarter was our fifth consecutive quarter of sequential improvement in units and our teams remain laser-focused on volume growth in 2024. The FIFO gross margin rate, excluding fuel and the fifty third week, increased 13 basis points, reflecting strong our brand’s performance, sourcing benefits and lower supply chain costs, partially offset by increased price investments and higher shrink.

The OG&A rate, excluding fuel, the fifty third week and adjustment items increased 40 basis points compared to last year. The increase was attributable to planned investments in associate wages and adjustment for self-insurance expenses and the decision to contribute an additional $40 million to multiemployer pension plans, helping to stabilize associates’ future benefits and to reduce future contribution obligations. These were partially offset by continued execution of cost savings initiatives and lower incentive plan costs. Our adjusted FIFO operating profit was more than $1.3 billion, driven by our strong performance in gross margin. This quarter, LIFO was a credit of $18 million compared to a charge of $234 million last year. This was primarily attributable to lower-than-expected inflation in our pharmacy inventory.

Fuel is an important part of Kruger’s strategy, offering customers an additional way to save through fuel rewards and providing yet another lever for us to grow profitability. Fuel rewards enhanced customer loyalty and customers who redeem Fuel Points spend twice as much on groceries and buy 3x the number of fuel gallons. Fuel reward engagement was strong throughout the year as customers save 14% more on fuel rewards versus last year. Our fuel rewards engagement helped lead the gallon sales, which significantly outpaced the industry. The average retail fuel price was $3.14 this quarter compared to $3.39 in the same quarter last year, and our cents per gallon fuel margin was $0.49 this quarter versus $0.51 in the same quarter last year. I’d now like to provide a brief update on associates.

In 2023, we increased associate wages resulting in an average hourly rate of nearly $19 an hour at a rate of nearly $25 with comprehensive benefits factored in. Over the last five years, Kroger has now invested more than $2.4 billion in incremental wage investments. Kroger remains committed to supporting our associates with investments in wages and comprehensive benefits that are sustainable and will allow us to continue to keep products affordable to the communities we serve. We expect to make continued associated investments in 2024, and those are fully contemplated in our 2024 guidance and long-term growth model. Turning now to financial strategy and capital allocation. We continue to be disciplined with our capital allocation decisions, and our priority is to invest in high-return projects that support net earnings growth.

We also remain committed to maintaining our current investment-grade rating, growing our dividends over time, subject to Board approval and returning excess capital to shareholders. We expect capital investments for 2024 to be between $3.4 billion and $3.6 billion. which is consistent with 2023 in our long-range model. Capital investments will be aligned with our strategic priorities and expect to drive sales growth and improve margins. To drive sales, our focus is on enhancing the customer shopping experience and increasing store investments. As Rodney mentioned earlier, in 2024, we plan on completing 30 major storing projects, including new stores, relocations and expansions with a focus on investments in higher-growth geographies that have a track record of delivering strong ROIC.

To improve margins, 2024 investments will also enhance our supply chain, including expanding distribution center capacity and utilizing data and technology to optimize network efficiency. Productivity improvements and cost savings continue to be an essential element of our model and are key to helping us fund investments in associates and the customer experience. These opportunities are embedded into all of our business areas, including in-store operations, digital, supply chain and procurement. Our productivity and cost saving initiatives are focused on simplification and utilizing technology to enhance the associate experience without impacting the customer experience. Looking forward, we’re testing new initiatives like customer pickup lockers, drive-thru lanes and AI-enabled store routing technology that will allow our pickup associates to be more efficient.

Through efforts like these, we continue to improve digital margins, which remains a significant opportunity to improve total company operating results. Turning now to 2024 guidance. We expect to achieve identical sales without fuel of 0.25% to 1.75%, adjusting FIFO operating profit of between $4.6 billion and $4.8 billion, and adjusted net earnings per diluted share of $4.30 to $4.50. This compares to 2023 adjusted EPS of $4.56 on an adjusted 52-week basis. We anticipate LIFO to be a similar charge to last year. We expect inflation to be around 1%, which is in line with the external forecast and consistent with our long-range financial model. We expect to grow revenue by investing in value for the customer and enhancing our seamless shopping experience.

We plan to balance investments in our business, including lower prices and increased associate wages with improved productivity and cost saving initiatives, improvement on long-term initiatives in gross margin and growth in our alternative profit businesses. As Rodney discussed earlier, growth in loyal households and digitally engaged customers position us well to grow profits and power the flywheel in our model. Overall, we expect FIFO gross margin rate, excluding fuel, and adjusted OG&A rate, excluding fuel, to remain relatively flat on a year-over-year basis. In terms of quarterly cadence, we expect identical sales without fuel to be stronger in the second half of the year. This reflects SNAP headwinds in the first quarter, combined with lower inflation.

We expect inflation to be lowest in the first quarter but do expect it to increase as the year progresses. As a result, we would expect identical sales without fuel to be at or slightly below the bottom end of our annual guidance range for the first quarter, in the middle of our guidance range in the second quarter and near the top end of our range of guidance in the second half of the year. We expect adjusted net earnings per diluted share in quarter one will be down low double digits year-over-year, reflecting our most challenging quarter for sales growth. Quarter two is expected to be relatively in line with last year. Quarter three, we expect to increase double digits compared to last year. And quarter four is expected to be in line with last year on an adjusted 52-week basis.

Kroger is well positioned to continue the momentum we’ve generated over the last few years. In 2023, we delivered adjusted net earnings per diluted share growth, in line with our long-term growth model and on top of our historic growth from the prior three years despite navigating a challenging operating environment. We’re evolving into a more diverse business, and our value creation model is providing us multiple ways to drive sustainable future growth. I will now turn the call back to Rodney.

Rodney McMullen: Thanks, Todd. In closing, Kroger delivered another strong performance in 2023, and I’m optimistic about 2024 and beyond. Our retail business is performing well. And by building loyalty, increasing digital engagement and driving customer visits, it is well-positioned to continue that momentum in 2024 and beyond, which will accelerate growth in our alternative profit businesses. We are focused on enhancing our strategy with consistent store execution to drive sales and expect to build sales momentum throughout the year as we cycled SNAP benefits in the first quarter resulting in a strong finish to the year. Before we open up the floor to your questions, I’d like to provide an update on our pending merger with Albertsons Company.

While we were disappointed about the FTC’s recent attempt to challenge our merger, we were not surprised given the current political environment. Our track record in previous mergers is clear. Kroger lowered prices, invested in associates, improved the customer experience and deepened its connections with the communities we serve. The character of a company is clear in its actions regardless of what others claim. Kroger keeps its commitments, and we’re happy to share this with whomever is willing to talk with us. We know this merger will result in a secure future for union jobs. Kroger has added more than 100,000 union jobs in a national retail environment where these union jobs shrank elsewhere. We are making historic investments in wages including $2.4 billion in incremental investments since 2018 on top of hundreds of millions of dollars in benefit investments.

The retail industry continues to be more competitive. We know our customers better than anyone. And every day, they make decisions about where to buy their groceries and how they eat. They shop with us, they shop with a wide range of competitors from Costco to Amazon to dollar stores, and they eat at restaurants. No matter how others define the industry, we know how our customers behave and we run our business accordingly. Throughout my four decades in the retail business, I have seen that when we take care of our customers and take care of our associates, our shareholders benefit. This is true in the past, and this will be true in the future. I know you likely have questions on the next steps. Here’s what we know today. The FTC joined by several states has sued to enjoin the merger.

Two states, Washington and Colorado have also sued separately. We are committed to defending the merger and litigation because we believe this is the best outcome for America’s families. We cannot close the merger while these actions are pending. Hearing dates have not been set yet, but we expect these to proceed in the mid- to late summer. We remain excited about the future of our combined company, and we look forward to explaining the benefits of our merger. Because we are in litigation, we will not be taking any questions on the merger this morning. With that, Todd and I look forward to taking your questions.

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Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Simeon Gutman from Morgan Stanley.

Simeon Gutman: My first question is on the comp. The comp guide with inflation expectation, I think you said about 1%. I guess, at the high end may imply a little bit of market share gain. At the low end, it wouldn’t. So I guess, how did you think about market share, especially as you’re investing into pricing, why shouldn’t that spread look a little bit stronger versus inflation?

Rodney McMullen : Great question, Simeon, and I’ll start and Todd add anything you want to add. But as Todd mentioned in the prepared remarks, we expect the first quarter to be a tougher quarter as we’re cycling ESI and SNAP, and we would expect as you go through the year, that our market position, market share would continue to improve throughout the year, both from cycling and from the comment that I shared that we expect to open incremental stores and more stores in ’24 than we did in ’23 or in fact, several of the past years. And it’s really all of those things together. Todd, anything you want to add?

Todd Foley: No, I think that’s a good color, Rodney. And frankly, actually, we are satisfied with the trajectory we’re seeing in some of our volume share trends. It’s improved consistently for the last five quarters. And I think what Rodney described is our expectation to build on that.

Rodney McMullen: Yes, that’s a great point. And we’ve seen improvements in tonnage and in dollars, both sequentially on trends, and we would expect that to continue.

Simeon Gutman: A quick follow-up on advertising. The grocery space in particular, there’s always been a lot of support on product in the store promotion, where product is placed. Now we’re getting advertising dollars as the consumer shifts the channel in which they’re shopping. The way in which your suppliers or your suppliers are looking at it, is the dollar basket you think still getting larger on whole? Or are they looking at it more holistically, the advertising plus the product support? Are those dollars still growing? And how do you think about that over the next several years?

Rodney McMullen: If you look from a media standpoint, we’re really competing against Google and Facebook and other channels. And everything that we can see that, those dollars are coming from other channels or even traditional media channels. And we tell our CPGs, we have to earn our right for you to want to spend media money with us because it doesn’t do us any good if you just take trade dollars and move them over. So that’s something we’ve been aggressive in terms of communicating with CPG since day one, and it’s really important. If you look at trade support, we actually saw a pickup in trade support. And it’s more around some of the CPGs are starting to focus more on tonnage growth than what they have in the last several quarters. And the trade dollars are really trying to support tonnage growth for certain CPGs, but not all.

Operator: The next question comes from Leah Jordan from Goldman Sachs.

Leah Jordan: I had noted an inflection to positive traffic in the quarter. I’m just curious if you could comment on where you think you’re gaining that trip. How much do you think a shift to more food at home has been a factor? And then just where are you seeing maybe in trip frequency across your customer base versus those that are more loyal versus maybe those that are a little lesser?

Rodney McMullen: Yes. In terms of where we’re seeing the growth, our loyal household continued to grow and it’s several quarters in a row. They are starting to shop with us more frequently as well. So it’s really both of those together. The food away-from-home to me is — if you ask me, what’s one of our biggest opportunities? Seamless is obviously one of them. But one of them would be food away-from-home. Our market share there is very low. And our deli and bakery team are doing some incredible work and incredible work partnering with a couple of outside companies really focused on making it a destination. One of the things that we recently did was reformulate our fried chicken and the customers are telling us they really like it. So when we look at food away-from-home, we think we’re just scratching the surface, and we think that’s really a huge growth opportunity. But the growth is really coming from frequency and our loyal shoppers.

Operator: The next question comes from Michael Lasser from UBS.

Michael Lasser: Rodney, presumably, you would get a lot of new stores if and when the Albertsons merger closes. So what’s driving the decision to accelerate organic store growth now?

Rodney McMullen: Yes. Thanks, Michael, and great seeing you a couple of weeks ago as well, and you did a great job. Touring, when you look at — it really ties back to capital. And it’s kind of, I call it, bifurcation because we continue to run our business just like we would run our business without the merger. And we’re finding good growth opportunities in certain markets where we have a strong ROIC and there’s good population growth. And it’s something that we feel comfortable doing with or without the merger. So it’s really strong from a both perspective. And we have good, strong, obviously, cash flow to be able to fund it as well.

Todd Foley: Yes. Great call, Rodney. And if you think over the last few years, we’ve really concentrated a lot of our capital investments in the digital space as we saw customers evolving more into that space, naturally, our investments went there. to help support what they were looking for and what we were trying to do in our business. And we’ve been very pleased with the progress we’ve made with those investments with customers. But as Rodney said, we continue to see opportunities to go into higher-growth areas in some of those markets where we have a good track record and making sure that we’re balancing those investments with both online and in-store investments because our best shoppers engage with us in both of those areas.