Earnings Labs

The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 22, 2013

$0.64

-0.30%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+1.17%

1 Week

+1.16%

1 Month

-5.08%

vs S&P

-7.17%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Stephanie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Hain Celestial Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2013 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mary Anthes. Please go ahead.

Mary Celeste Anthes

Analyst

Thank you, Stephanie. Good afternoon, and thank you, all, for joining us today. Welcome to the review of our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013 results. We have several members of our management team here today to discuss the results: Irwin Simon, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer; Ira Lamel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Rob Burnett, Chief Financial Officer (sic) [Chief Executive Officer], Hain Daniels. Unfortunately, John Carroll, Executive Vice President and CEO of Hain Celestial U.S. is ill today and unavailable to join us. But in his absence, Maureen Putman, Chief Marketing Officer, Grocery and Snacks; Jim Meiers, President, Hain Celestial Personal Care and Chief Supply Chain Officer, Grocery, Snacks and Personal Care, will discuss the results of Hain Celestial U.S. Our discussion today will include forward-looking statements, which are current as of today's date. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements, either as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Our actual results may differ materially from those projected and some of the factors which may cause results to differ are listed in our publicly filed documents, including our 2012 Form 10-K filed with the SEC. This conference call is being webcast and an archive of the webcast will be available on our website at www.hain.com under Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions] Now let me turn the call over to Irwin Simon, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer. Irwin?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Bill Chappell

Thank you, Mary, and good afternoon and thank you for joining us today on this beautiful sunny day. Hopefully, you had a chance to review 2 press releases that we issued this afternoon after the market closed. I will begin with a brief overview of our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013 results, as well as an update on our strategic initiatives. We continue to benefit from positive trends across the organic and natural food and personal care industry. We're very pleased with our record fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013 financial results, and these trends continue to perform. Our momentum throughout the year helped us wrap up a strong fourth quarter, our largest sales quarter in the company's history, with $463.5 million of sales -- of net sales, up 32.1%, the 10th consecutive quarter of double-digit adjusted EPS growth. Well, thanks to John and his team, Hain Celestial U.S. sales were up a record 17.6% to $285.2 million. Hain Daniels also generated record results, with net sales of $121 million. Now I'll briefly discuss the key drivers that led us to our impressive sales performance. Our organic growth from our brands was up high single digits x currency. The fourth quarter was driven by new distribution, new products and consumer demand. Our consumption, measured by Nielsen, in the U.S. was strong, up 7.7% in the latest 4-week period and up 24% on a 2-year stack basis. Natural and organic products are helping to drive growth in AOC. The total channel grew 1.6% in the latest 4 weeks, with natural organic products outpacing the growth at nearly 5x what conventional products are growing at and that conventional products are growing at 1.1%. In the U.K., we continue to execute on our strategy to drive higher margin-branded growth, the integration of…

Maureen M. Putman

Analyst · Mitch Pinheiro

Thank you, Irwin. Hello, everyone. I'm going to talk about Hain Celestial U.S. Q4 was another very strong quarter for Hain Celestial U.S. and a great finish to FY '13. Key highlights of the quarter include Q4 net sales of $285.2 million, up 17.6% versus year ago, with base business growth in the high single digits. Our latest 12-week Nielsen AOC consumption growth was up 6.7%, which is 4x higher than total AOC channel growth. During this period, our growth was achieved even as we lapped double-digit Q4 year-ago growth of 15.5%, resulting in a 2-year stack consumption growth of over 24%. These results were driven by gains across the portfolio, including 16 brands that had double or high single-digit increases. Also in Q4, our gross profit margin was up over 168 bps as we were able to offset $7 million in inflation with improved mix, productivity savings, pricing and trade efficiency. And our Q4 U.S. operating income was $42 million, up 14.4% versus year ago. Now as we turn to full year FY '13 performance, we see our Q4 results top off another strong year for Hain Celestial U.S. Our U.S. business model, strong portfolio of brands and focused strategy enabled us to deliver FY '13 top line sales of over $1 billion, I have to pause at that, up 11% versus year ago driven by accelerated consumption growth, and operating income of $177 million or 16.2% of sales. This is up 18% and 108 bps versus year ago, respectively, and it's driven by strong top line growth and gross margin expansion. The U.S. business model continues to deliver against 4 key financial objectives, and I know, John, you're listening: first, mid to high-single-digit top line growth; second, margin improvement of 50 to 100 bps; third, double-digit operating income growth; and fourth, increased operating cash efficiency. And as we look to FY '14, we continue to be optimistic about the U.S. business. Yes, we have tough comps to beat and some commodity headwinds, but we're well prepared with a full line of innovation: a proven productivity process, plenty of distribution whitespace with only 1/3 of distribution points in AOC and we're just in the third inning of the game. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to my teammate, Jim Meiers.

James R. Meiers

Analyst · Bill Chappell

Thank you, Maureen. We continue to see strong momentum across the business, and we believe it's sustainable based on 5 key factors. The first factor is our continued U.S. consumption momentum. Q4 was our 14th consecutive quarter of strong consumption growth. Importantly, our Q4 year-ago comp was a double-digit 15.5% growth quarter, and we still drove strong consumption gains. We feel confident our strong consumption will continue given our second factor, which is our AOC distribution growth. Q4 AOC distribution was, again, up over 4% versus a year ago. This continued the acceleration of our distribution growth versus Q3 as we fill in the distribution whitespace that you hear us talk about, at key customers and on key brands. Our top 13 brands accounting for over 80% of our AOC sales saw distribution increases of 9% on consumption growth of 11%. Brands experiencing strong distribution gains included Earth's Best, Imagine Soup, Dream nondairy beverage, Greek Gods, Sensible Portions, Celestial Seasonings, Alba Botanica, Spectrum, MaraNatha and Ella's Kitchen. Our third factor behind our optimism is our strong innovation results. Our year-to-date product sales are up 36% versus a year ago. We're seeing strong innovation results across all of our businesses, highlighted by exciting new products such as: Spectrum non-aerosol sprays for cooking, baking and grilling; Dream nondairy lattes made from almond milk and fair trade coffee; MaraNatha coconut almond butter made with whole coconut pulp; Garden of Eatin' cheesy tortilla chips; Alba Botanica Good & Clean and Hawaiian Deep Conditioning Minute Mask; Earth's Best organic shelf-stable mini meals; Earth's Best organic veggie and protein pouches; and the expansion of our very successful frozen line with Earth's Best barbecued chicken nuggets. This year, we launched over 150 new products, and we're confident these introductions will continue our strong momentum in this area.…

Rob Burnett

Analyst

Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon, everyone. Here in the U.K., we saw sales increased 113% in the quarter to $121 million, and operating income increased from $1.3 million last year to $11.2 million this year. Our operating income margin was 9.3% in the quarter, compared to just to 2.3% last year. For the full year, sales more than doubled from $192 million to over $420 million, and operating income increased from $9.7 million last year to just over $31 million this year. And our margins for the year improved from 5% to 7.4%. As Irwin mentioned earlier, we saw significant brand strength in the quarter, and we were also supported by strong private label gains. As a reminder, 51% of all food sales in the U.K. are made through the private label channel. And our private label prepared fruit, soup and chilled desserts all grew in the quarter at high double-digit rate. As we anticipated, private label meat-free and private label frozen desserts were down significantly as we continue to rationalize unprofitable lines, which we outlined on our Q2 earnings call. Now to give you an update on some key projects in the U.K., we launched the first phase of our private label chilled desserts business at the end of May with 8 products, and we expect the roll out to continue well into the spring of 2014. The coffee shop drinks trial we discussed last quarter was extended to over 60 stores recently, and we also added several new fruit products to this trial. We completed Phase 2 of the 3-stage transfer of production of Cully & Sully products from Ireland to our facility in Grimsby, England. In Hartley's, one of our key grocery brands, launched one fruit portion products to ASDA during the fourth quarter. This is a very…

Ira J. Lamel

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Thank you, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me take you through the financial results for the fourth quarter and the full year. Income from continuing operations in the fourth quarter was $25.9 million compared to $35.7 million in last year's fourth quarter. We earned $0.53 per diluted share from continuing operations on a GAAP basis this year compared to $0.77 per diluted share in last year's quarter, with last year's quarter including income from the reversal of a contingent consideration liability amounting to $15.5 million or $0.33 per share. Adjusted income from continuing operations was $31.7 million this year compared to $21.6 million last year, improving by 46.5%. This year's fourth quarter adjusted earnings was $0.65 per diluted share compared to $0.47 in last year's quarter, improving by 38.3%. Our adjustments are detailed in the table with our press release. For 2 of these adjustments, I want to provide a little bit more color. First, our tax expense in the quarter benefited from certain items that we have treated as onetime, nonrecurring items. Our GAAP earnings in the quarter benefited by approximately $1.7 million, with the release of a prior-year valuation allowance on deferred tax assets in the U.K. Second, our joint venture in Hong Kong reported that they classified one of their business lines as a discontinued operation, resulting in a charge in the quarter. Our 50% participation in this joint venture has brought a $500 million charge into our GAAP P&L, and we have eliminated the impact of this charge. This joint venture business line discontinuance has also resulted in an increase to our previous quarters by $0.01 per share in the first quarter and $0.02 per share in the second quarter as we look back at those quarters and eliminated the impact of those -- of…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Greg Badishkanian.

Gregory R. Badishkanian - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst

Just my first question is just with respect to guide increase [ph]. So could you kind of breakout maybe what your assumption is for commodities and maybe organic sales growth by the different -- by the U.K. and U.S. and any different big regions?

Ira J. Lamel

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Look, Greg, we ran about 4%, 4.5% inflation in the fourth quarter. So when we looked at developing our guidance in that same rate into our commodity exposure, we certainly -- well, Steve will certainly report as we move forward every quarter what the inflation experience has been, just as I've been doing. What was the second part of what you asked when we look into inflation?

Gregory R. Badishkanian - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst

Organic sales growth by major geographic region.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Bill Chappell

So Greg, as I have said, each one, it was around high single digits. And that's organic -- that's organic growth in brands that we've owned over a year.

Gregory R. Badishkanian - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst

Yes. Yes. And would you expect that in fiscal 2014? Is that kind of the...

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Bill Chappell

If you look at our budget, half our budget is organic sales growth, the other half is coming from our acquisitions that we acquired. So exactly it's high single digit, low double digit and the rest is acquisitions.

Gregory R. Badishkanian - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst

Right. Great. And just another question in terms of maybe opportunity on the U.K. side in terms of margins. I think this quarter, it was around 9.3%, and in the U.S. side, it's around 15%. What's the -- is there any impediment to getting to closer to the 15% range over the next several years? And what do you think the opportunity is there for margin improvement?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Bill Chappell

So Greg, let me take it first and I can -- also from Ira. Number one is we only integrated and we acquired the grocery business 8 months ago, so get the synergies and the savings kind of halfway through the year. We eliminated a lot of the unprofitable products. The other thing is from a margin standpoint, losing Costco with soup being in our...

Ira J. Lamel

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Not Costco, Tesco.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Bill Chappell

Tesco, soup being our Celestial Seasonings tea business with the high margins and high growth, that hurt us on the margin in the U.K. So -- and fresh, there is lower margins on fresh. Do I think we will get to the U.S. margins -- we've got some work to do. But do I think the margins will improve dramatically in the U.K.? Yes, they will.

Ira J. Lamel

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Yes, just let me -- let me just amplify that a little bit. The operating margin coming in from Daniels when we bought it basically was the same as what we are here at Hain. If you remember, there was a reduction in gross margin, but also a reduction in SG&A because their SG&A basis is quite a bit lower than our consolidated rate was at the time. But looking forward, one of the things that's very important is getting the Fakenham plant completed and getting to the full run rate, getting to its stride in the dessert business that we're going to be doing for the retailer in the U.K. We don't have that yet in any measure in our quarterly results. So you will see a kind of a step increase in operating margin over time.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Chappell.

William B. Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Bill Chappell

I guess first question, just looking at the guidance and just trying to understand, when you're talking about the SG&A going from 16.4% in '13 to 16.3% in '14, I guess it looks a little conservative. I'm just trying to understand, is there anything in terms of new product launches or something else that I'm missing? Because I would think your -- it's more of the carryover of both integrating Ella's and some of the back office and other productivity or -- I know productivity is more gross margin, but other cost savings that should help improve that number.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Bill Chappell

So there's a couple of things, Bill. I think it's going to take us time to integrate Ella's in the business, and we continue to reinvest back in the business. I mean, we're in a great category, and there's -- we feel investing in our brands, bringing more consumers over from the conventional category is the big opportunity here. And you heard what I said before, natural organic is growing 5x the size. So a big part of our SG&A number is reinvesting back in the business. The other big thing is we grow our Ella's and grow BluePrint and grow our Histon brands around the world, and we'll be investing dollars around the world to do that.

William B. Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Bill Chappell

Okay. And then switching back to that question on kind of the commodity outlook. I realize that your commodities don't move as quickly as conventional ones. But would you expect as you get to the back half of the fiscal year to see some relief? And -- or are you also kind of taking more pricing right now to offset the near-term issues?

James R. Meiers

Analyst · Bill Chappell

Yes. It's Jim Meiers. So yes, in terms of the commodity outlook based on what we kind of peg the market at, we basically took pricing in that to help offset that, as well as productivity. One of the key -- as I mentioned in my delivery, there's 3 key areas that we saw the largest inflation, and that was on almonds, chia and in the dairy area. So the key is going to be the almond crop doesn't come in until the fall, and then that will determine what happens in the back half. But at this point, we have it laid out in our budget.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Bill Chappell

And we -- Bill, we have taken a little bit of pricing, nothing substantial from the company worldwide, a little over 1%. And it takes time to get that pricing out there. It takes time to get that pricing approved, but we are taking a little bit of pricing. But one of the big things that's important that has changed tremendously at Hain and 3 weeks ago, Jim Meiers led a productivity group around the world. And today, with the Ella's team, with the Daniels team, with the team in Histon, with the team in Europe, with the team in Canada and the team in the U.S., I mean, we're one of the largest procurers of organic fruits and vegetables around the world today. And as we combine our efforts on sourcing out there -- and it's tremendous when we couldn't get Italian rice or organic rice and how someone is buying it from Pakistan or buying it from somewhere else where we can get it -- a better quality and a cheaper product, and it's amazing what we buy in ingredients. So commodities are commodities, and we can't change where they come out. But I'll tell you what, from source and supply and buying at better pricing, we now have one of the best productivity plans in place to be able to get supply and get better pricing.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Sharma.

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · Amit Sharma

Just wanted to quickly focus on the U.S. business, Irwin. It seems like growth is accelerating in the non-measured channels. Can you talk a little bit what's going on in that channel?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Amit Sharma

The natural organic category has been strong, driven by a lot of innovation going into the area. We're seeing a lot more distribution, and consumption is strong. There are a lot of consumers, as you saw Whole Foods announced some good, strong consumption. But you see, more and more Sprouts and Fairways and retailers like that, that are opening up more and more stores, which obviously are taking some of the consumption away from conventional stores. So it's just more and more locations, independent naturals. For the longest time, I mean, independent naturals, you saw decline and flat. Now you're seeing growth in independent naturals in good high single-digit growth.

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · Amit Sharma

And that's great. Can you just provide a little bit idea of how much of that is new stores in that channel versus consumption growth, Irwin?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Amit Sharma

I would say maybe 70% of it is consumption, 30% -- and I don't have [indiscernible] to give it to you, but 30% is coming from new stores. And we are continuously winning more and more distribution. You heard Jim say about BluePrint. If you walk into Whole Foods today, it's our burritos that have gone in there, veggie puffs and shredded puffs, some of our Arrowhead Mills, our Earth's Best frozen meals and what you'll see happening with Ella's. So it's a lot more distribution with a lot new innovative products and a lot of our current products. Our nondairy business, we have seen some of our strongest growth that we've ever seen coming out of our Rice Dream, our Almond Dream, our Coconut Dream coming out of the natural organic industry. And that's -- and we saw a decline in that category in soy more in the conventional stores. So -- but don't forget, listen, we were up 7.7% in our last AOC, 24% stacked. And a big part of that, even added into that, were K-cups that brought some of our growth down. So there's good growth coming from mass market and supermarkets out there too, Amit.

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · Amit Sharma

No. I totally understand. And then just a question on margins. John always talk about 50 to 100 basis point of improvement. And notwithstanding what Jim talked about commodity headwinds, I mean, given all the incremental distribution for new products, given the accelerating productivity savings that you talked about, should we expect that margin improvement towards the higher end of that goal in 2014?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Amit Sharma

Listen, we're -- Jim and Maureen will speak for John and so do I. But yes, we expect to see margin improvement, and a big part of that is productivity and efficiencies out of the business. I mean, a big thing, and we don't have it today, but between Ella's and Earth's Best, we'll be purchasing somewhere between 120 million to 150 million pouches a year and filling out pouches in baby food and what we're sourcing out there. So looking for better pricing, better efficiencies, and there will be an improvement in margins.

James R. Meiers

Analyst · Amit Sharma

Amit, this is Jim again. Yes, as we've talked about in the past, I mean, the U.S., we have a well-established, well-defined productivity process. And you heard Irwin mentioned earlier about we -- and we talked -- we rolled it out a year ago and we just had our global meeting. So we have the process, we're rolling it out all over the world and there's some great opportunities that are coming up. And when you look at the acquisitions, we basically have the playbook on acquisitions in terms -- as we integrate them, where we go in terms of driving the savings. And Ella's is a great opportunity from the standpoint. It was a well-run supply chain versus some of the other businesses we acquired. So that -- this way, it provides us an opportunity to take a deep dive right away in terms of driving savings.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Mushkin.

Scott Andrew Mushkin - Wolfe Research, LLC

Analyst · Scott Mushkin

The second thing, Irwin, I don't know that we've talked about, is more of a strategic question about fresh. Clearly, the U.K. business has got a lot of fresh in it. You bought BluePrint here in the U.S. Plus, we have the yogurt business. I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts, all our data shows that fresh is really a category that's growing pretty darn quickly. How do you address that category? Or do you want to address it more forcefully? How do you do it? How do you do it in a branded fashion to be true to the company? So I guess that's the first one.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Scott Mushkin

So to answer that we agree, the fresh category, if you look at Whole Foods, fresh is probably 60-plus percent. If you look at a lot of other retailers out there, the exact same thing. And if you look today at our fresh business, whether it's our meat-free business, whether it's our yogurt business, whether it's our BluePrint business, it's a good-sized business and growing nicely. We have a good-sized fresh soup business in the U.K. We've tested some things. We're going to continuously look at that category. We have a fresh fruit business in the U.K. We have a fresh meals business in the U.K. And there's a lot we're going to look at, Scott, in regards to the whole fresh category with Earth's Best and fresh meals for kids. The other thing is we own 49% of a protein business today that has fresh deli, organic and antibiotic-free fresh further process, which is a big category in antibiotic-free. So it's a big category, and there's tremendous growth. If you look at fresh market, you look at Fairway, you look at Sprouts, I mean, it's got some of the biggest areas in the store and one of the fastest-growing. And if you look today, nobody has really done a lot in the whole fresh category on the organic antibiotic-free side. So it's not -- we're not going to go into fruits and vegetables and commodity-type. It's got to be value-added products, and it's got to be organic or antibiotic-free and it's something that's high in our list of either acquisitions or innovations. And look, we've created, in Greek Gods Yogurt, we bought it 3 years ago around this time and it's approaching $100 million worldwide. We expect similar things coming from BluePrint. So that's 2 fresh categories. We think big opportunities in the whole meat-free seton [ph] area. So fresh, if we want to grow and acquire and look where there's going to be $100 million categories, fresh is where you're going to get scale in the store.

Scott Andrew Mushkin - Wolfe Research, LLC

Analyst · Scott Mushkin

So if I could follow up on the subject just for a second, I know you guys tested, I think, the New Covent brand in the Midwest last year. Any thoughts about maybe testing it in a different area, maybe New England, maybe with the Imagine brand? And I guess, what did you learn from that test, and what did you like, what didn't you like?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Scott Mushkin

Well, what we learned here and what I continuously, consumers don't want to buy soup in cans today, okay. So that's number one what I hear. And that category continues to decline, canned soup, and we see our tetra recart and aseptic soup category growing tremendously. If you look in stores today and look at soup at retailers, which is prepared within store and they got 3- to 4-day shelf life and it's poured in plastic that is hot, it's not some of the safest and best tasting soup out there, which is made at store. So we think from a quality, from a taste, New Covent Garden soups will do tremendous. It's just introducing the carton to the U.S. consumer, and that was our biggest challenge is investing the multiple dollars against it to educate the consumer of what it is, that it's not a juice or it's not some type of sauce. And that's part of our marketing plan for this year. The other thing was what we were up against in New Covent Garden when we introduced it here, nobody knew what New Covent Garden was unless you're an Englishman living in New York, okay. And under Imagine or Health Valley, because we have an existing soup business, that's where we'd look to do it. And the technology that we got here in the U.S., it's investing in a plant or flying it back. So it's high on our list, and there's a bunch of things we're looking at it, from soups to gravies, to sauces, to mixes, to refrigerated beans and things like that.

Scott Andrew Mushkin - Wolfe Research, LLC

Analyst · Scott Mushkin

That's perfect, Irwin. Is Steve there, by the way? I wasn't sure, I'm sorry. I'm in the airport, so I wasn't sure if he was actually joining the call or not, the new CFO.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Scott Mushkin

No. He's not an employee yet, so Denise will not allow him.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Thilo Wrede.

Thilo Wrede - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Some of your mainstream competitors over the last few weeks, while they reported earnings, they've all pointed out the weak consumers. Smucker's this morning talked about still the trifurcated consumer. How much of the consumer weakness are you seeing in your business? Or maybe asked differently, how much is the kind of the lowest 1/3 of the consumer income spectrum, how much is that part of your business right now, and how can you grow that?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

I didn't -- Thilo, I didn't hear your last part of the question. You broke up there.

Thilo Wrede - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

I'm sorry. The last part of the question was, the lowest 1/3 of the income spectrum across the U.S. consumer, how much is that part of your business already? How much is that part of your consumer base? And how can you grow that going forward given this ongoing consumer weakness?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Right. So number one, I think there's consumer weakness out there. I mean, it's interesting when we say consumer weakness. You hear back-to-school is not going to be as strong. So are they buying new backpacks, not buying new clothes. I mean, no one's not going back to school and not eating, okay. And we've not gone on one big fast and decided we're not -- we're going to skip a meal a day and that's how we're going to save money. In most recent results that came out from the CDC is obesity is starting to decline in this country, which shows you more and more consumers are buying healthier products. And you heard what I said before in regards to consumption, unconventional. It's up 5x. So I think number one, the reason you're seeing a lot of conventional food companies sales where they are, a lot more consumers are moving over to more and more natural foods, and whether there are more Whole Foods, whether there are more Sprouts, Fairways, Wegmans and that open up, you should see more and more of the sections that are bringing in natural foods and it's got to be coming from conventional foods. With that, our -- some of our biggest growth is coming from the mass markets. And if you come back and look at the lower percent, they are shopping in the mass market. So natural organic food is not only for the 1% out there.

Thilo Wrede - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

So it already is for the 100% already?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

What's that?

Thilo Wrede - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Sorry, no. I'll move on. And Ira, I just want to take the last opportunity to ask you a question. I saw accounts payable doubled year-over-year. Is that something that can come down again over time? What's behind that increase?

Ira J. Lamel

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Well, I think it's gone up because we did 3 acquisitions during the year. So of course, we have higher payables. I think the key is that our cash conversion has stayed flat year-over-year. So we've managed the cash conversion in the face of these higher dollar investments in inventory and receivables supporting growth and so on and of course, with these acquisitions. So to me key it's cash conversion.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

And $400 million more of sales year-over-year.

Thilo Wrede - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Right. But accounts payable went up a lot more on a percentage basis than sales went up, right?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

No.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Wolf. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: I wanted to ask Jim, on the productivity, you got a big budget next year, a lot of next year's how the stock's going to do depends upon how you perform, I think. And you sound pretty confident, which is good, and you gave us an update on some of the things you're doing globally. How much of that, when we just look at the $30 million or $25 million you printed this year and the $40 million to $50 million budget you got set out for next year, how much of that is sort of scale based and just sort of -- as the company gets bigger and sort of incorporates Ella's and also just has more productivity as utilization rates increase across the supply chain, how much of it comes from that versus how much of it comes from sort of one-off special projects? And I'm trying to get -- at some point in time, you would think these special projects sort of it's not an infinite opportunity set. I'm just trying to get a feel for that.

James R. Meiers

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

Right. Okay. Yes, Andy. So I guess the thing is when you look at '13 and you look back, '13 we had a couple of big projects, right. You heard us talk on the last couple of calls about internalizing or self manufacturing the pouches. So we had an existing facility that we leveraged -- it's our West Chester facility where we installed a pouch line. And what we're able to do is we're able to balance off the co-packing versus what we do internally, and that drove quite a bit of savings. Given the expansion or the growth on our pouches and then with the acquisition of Ella's, you think about purees, and it's about leveraging the volume to basically get better quality, get better pricing. And then in Lancaster, in Lancaster we basically -- we've relocated that facility in -- basically built a new facility. That's drove savings in Q4, and it's a big opportunity for us as we look at '14. So Andy, I think each year, it kind of shifts a little bit, right, because as we make acquisitions, we leverage the spend side of it. And then -- and I -- Andy, I think you heard me talk about this before. Basically what we do is when we acquire a company and there's an asset involved, we have a model that we go through, and we basically optimize what we have and then we look to invest capital to drive more savings. So I don't have an exact split for you, but it's a combination and it varies year-to-year.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

But Andy, acquisitions and scale and size create a lot of the productivity. But last year, the U.S. group didn't do an acquisition. We did sense -- we did BluePrint and Ella's, which was done in May and still had $30 million of productivity. So not a lot of this productivity last year came through acquisitions. BluePrint was a small acquisition, and Ella's was done in the last 2 months of the year. So it shows you where most of this productivity came from, from the current business.

James R. Meiers

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

Well, and also, as our volume is growing in our facility, that drives efficiency and lowers your overall cost. So... Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: I appreciate that color and flavor. As we look to -- as you look at this year, or as I'm thinking about it, it sounds like you're going to get some of these outsized gains in the current year from Fakenham and as it ramps up, and I guess Ella's. And are there other things in '14 that sort of standout?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

Well, there's-- in '14, the U.K., we're going to have a full year of having our Histon, getting productivity, getting rid of unprofitable SKUs, getting our soup back into Tesco. We had a crappy soup season in the U.K. last year and that hurt us. Having a much better soup season, we'll change a lot of the dynamics in the U.K., integrating the businesses, which Rob is doing and getting a lot of synergies. The same in Europe. We now have opened our new nondairy facility, which where we're producing and packing our nondairy products where before, we were producing, shipping it to another location to pack and looking for a lot of efficiencies to come out of our nondairy facility and looking for a lot of sales gain there. So there's a lot in place in Europe. There's a lot in place in U.K. In Canada, we just are in the midst of eliminating a bunch of Europe's Best business that was not profitable. It was more profitable for us to eliminate sales because we were selling stuff at just a cost. So we've gone through where we're going to eliminate products that don't contribute, SKUs that were not selling and a lot of efficiencies in the business, Andy, that will drive margins and growth. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: And a quick follow-up and switching to CapEx, the CapEx jumped a lot. And some of it was projects related to these -- getting these productivity gains. And it sounds like the return on capital, the return on investment was quite high. But do you have a preliminary CapEx budget for this year that you can share with us? I didn't see it in the guidance. Yes, I mean, should we just, as we model out the company, I'm sorry, should we just look for higher CapEx given the kind of returns you're seeing when you do some of these CapEx projects?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

Well, Andy, first of all, as we've said, I mean, our CapEx last year was between $55 million and $60 million. And with that -- actually, I'm being corrected, I'm told it is $70 million. But with that, as Jim talked about this new snack plant in Lancaster with Sensible Portions and the efficiencies we're getting out of there, with the Fakenham facility, with our nondairy facility in Germany, I mean, the efficiencies we're going to get out of there. So it's getting close to a $2 billion company, and 60% of our business today is now manufactured in-house. We're going to have to invest in CapEx to support our growth, and that's the big thing out there is to support our growth. And we're looking at certain plants in the U.S. today in regards to MaraNatha and nut butters, and our Arrowhead Mills and our DeBoles pasta, we can't keep up with demand and has suffered huge out-of-stocks this year because of it. And we're going to have to invest more capital to support the growth. In fiscal '14, Andy, right now our budget is about $35 million. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: And just one last question, on inflation, cost inflation. I think the numbers, Ira, you gave, it sounds like it accelerated this quarter from last quarter. Is that mainly because dairy prices jumps while almond and chia stayed high? Or is there something else going on?

Ira J. Lamel

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

Well, almonds, which is the largest input ingredient that we have, has really skyrocketed in cost. I know Jim can speak specifically.

James R. Meiers

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

[indiscernible] There's 3 key areas, Andy. It was almonds, that's the largest spend, and that was a pretty significant increase; chia and then also dairy. All 3 of those, the range year-over-year was 25% to 35% increase year-over-year.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

And Andy, between our nut butters, our nondairy milk, chia, we're probably one of the largest buyers of chia seed in the U.S. today, if not the world. And dairy, with our Greek Gods yogurt, dairy prices went up dramatically. So... Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Are you seeing anything in the area of organic grains? Because there's been some press about shortages there. Don't -- you didn't call that out, either in the feed side of your business or in the production side.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Andrew Wolf

Not right now, Andy.

Operator

Operator

At this time, we have time for one to 2 more questions. Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Pinheiro.

Mitchell B. Pinheiro - Imperial Capital, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Mitch Pinheiro

So you talk -- there's a lot of good things. I was just curious what brands or product lines in the quarter were below average? And if you can provide some color on those, particularly in the U.S.?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Mitch Pinheiro

In the quarter, Terra didn't grow as quick as we wanted. It was in much lower single digit to flat. Arrowhead Mills, and that is just quantities we couldn't produce enough, and we were -- that was a production issue. Our nondairy business, it's coming back. It's come back strong in natural. It hasn't come back as strong in mass market. But we've introduced most of our new products so far in our natural food stores. Our Ethnic Gourmet and Rosetto, I mean, that -- and I didn't really talk about that x that, that still is performing way below, and we're continually looking, and we talked about where we are going to divest that. So that was the big ones. Our Personal Care business was up nicely. It's come back nicely. But that really is the categories that didn't perform for us in this period. And some of it is just, Mitch, timing on promotions versus last year. And with Arrowhead Mills, I mean, the brand was up for the year, extremely strong. But it's just keeping up with some of the capacity and couldn't get ingredients to make product. That's hurt us. We, in this year, past quarter, and Jim and the team worked hard, but we had a much higher out of stock rate than we ever had because we just couldn't get supply of some of the ingredients that we've talked about and couldn't keep up with demand and capacity.

Mitchell B. Pinheiro - Imperial Capital, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Mitch Pinheiro

That's very helpful. Just last thing is if you could just -- how about in the U.S. sales or performance by channel, like what are your fastest-growing mainstream grocery, mass, natural? Could you rank those?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Mitch Pinheiro

Well, right now -- and it's amazing how it shifts sometime. But right now, the natural category is actually growing faster.

Maureen M. Putman

Analyst · Mitch Pinheiro

It's actually all pretty even.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Mitch Pinheiro

Growing faster, but the mass and the grocery are up there also. So we're -- we've got a lot more products in the natural category, but there's a lot more stores in the mass and the grocery.

Operator

Operator

And your last question is a follow-up from Amit Sharma.

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · Amit Sharma

Just a quick one. Ira, did I hear you right that you said share count for next year is 49.5 million?

Ira J. Lamel

Analyst · Thilo Wrede

Yes, that's what we're modeling, Amit.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Bill Chappell

Thank you, Amit. And since that's the last question, thank you, everybody, for listening to our call. It's always hard to do your earnings call the last 2 weeks of August, and who's on the beach and who's listening to you. But hopefully, they're eating our products. Fiscal year 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of Hain, and it's truly amazing to think how far we've come and grown this company. And what Ira said when he got here in 2001 is true, where we are and where we are -- where we were then and where we are today. When I started this company 20 years ago, people thought I was crazy, and I'm sure people still today think I'm crazy. But boy, how things have changed. On a global basis, people are increasingly aware of what they consume with a focus on health and wellness. Our organic and natural products are now available to more consumers with our diversified brand portfolio at 60% U.S. and 40% internationally. The objective is to get to 50/50 between Canada, Asia, the U.K. and the rest of Europe and South America, when we can get there. Awareness continues to grow and move mainstream with more and more consumers, educated about what they eat and what they put on their body or what they clean themselves with. As I've said before, in the U.S., the CDC recently showed some stabilization obesity -- in obesity rate in adults, the first time in a long time, and even a decline in obesity rate in children across several states, which is music to my ears. So we believe healthy eating is here to stay with a broader consumer focus on products that are organic, natural, gluten-free, non-GMO and BPA-free, just to name a few. Hain is a…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.