Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE:TSN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Alexia Howard: Great. And then, if I go back to a year, I mean, this time last year, you were looking for strong and speedy recovery in the chicken margin based on improved hatch rates and capacity utilization. Obviously, there was that the hiccup of the holidays with the forecasting error. But it seems as though the environment has changed materially. What has changed in the environment? And how quickly do you think you can get back on track on the Chicken side of the business? Thank you. And I’ll pass it on.

Brady Stewart: Thank you, Alexia. We are encouraged by the sequential improvement in 3Q and especially in June. As we have much work left to do, but we’re on the right path. And I think that’s important to call out. We are controlling the controllables better than before and I mentioned earlier that the best I’ve seen in terms of execution since pre-pandemic. But let me flip that over to Wes and let him add a little bit more color on Chicken.

Wes Morris: Yeah, sure. I am too encouraged by the sequential improvement, the team is focused on what they do day in and day out. And we’ve seen a big step change in improving yields, labor efficiency, line efficiency, and spend. And at the same time, we’ve seen great improvement in order fill and on-time delivery.

Alexia Howard: Thank you a lot.

Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, our next question comes from Ben Bienvenu from Stephens. Please go ahead with your question.

Ben Bienvenu : Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions.

Donnie King : Good morning, Ben.

Ben Bienvenu : So, I want to start on the Chicken business. Donnie you noted the sequential improvement in the business. You also called out the actions you took too close four facilities. I recognize, not all of those are a lot kill harvest facilities, but I do think there’s some sizable facilities and that put print. So could you talk a little bit about what the net impact to production might look like as you layer some of that production into the rest of your facilities? And then, think about what the go forward looks like.

Donnie King : Sure, Ben, I’ll add a few comments and I’ll flip it to Wes to add a little more color. In terms of the plant closings, closing plants is never easy for anyone involved. In fact it can be gut-wrenching. But I would tell you with a great deal of gratitude and thanks to our team members, our family farmers and the communities impacted, we made those decisions. And earlier today, we announced the closure of the four plants bringing the total to six this year. The facilities that we’re closing, just to give a little color about them, they’re typically smaller in scale and in need of major capital to make them viable. And so, that’s an important detail and I’ll flip it over to Wes to give you a little color on the capacity.

Wes Morris : Yeah, Ben. I would answer it simply this way. We’re moving our existing sales to more efficient assets and so, no material change in volume in any way, shape, or form and excess of 90% once implemented.

John Tyson: Hey Ben, this is John, if I can just add in a little bit because I think you’re trying to ask what the impact on these moves. So, you heard Donnie talk about adjusting the need for capital investments in some of the older facilities. We see that as a benefit with these moves. I think, number two, we’re talking about taking out around 10% of harvest capacities, which puts our asset utilization when all things are said and done of closer to that 90%, out of the low 80s. And not just talking about the asset closures, but when you think about the asset closures, the NAE to NAI, HM moves and some other operational changes that we’re making, we talked a lot about in last year around on mix et cetera, we would expect somewhere around a $200 million runrate uplift from those moves. And so exact to when all that comes to fruition in the end of ‘23 and ‘24, we can’t pay it all in one day, but that’s kind of order of magnitude what we’re talking about here.