Earnings Labs

The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, May 8, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hain Celestial Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2014 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Mary Anthes, Senior Vice President, Corporate Relations. Ma'am, you may begin.

Mary Celeste Anthes

Analyst

Thank you, Sayed, and thank you, all, for joining us today. Welcome to Hain Celestial's Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2014 Earnings Call. Irwin Simon, our founder, President and Chief Executive Officer; John Carroll, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Hain Celestial U.S.; and Steve Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and several other members of our management team are with us today to discuss our results. Our discussion today includes 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 what is described in these forward-looking statements, and some of the factors which may cause results to differ are listed in our publicly filed documents, including our 2013 Form 10-K filed with the SEC. A reconciliation of GAAP results to non-GAAP financial measures is available on our earnings release, which is posted on our website at www.hain.com under Investor Relations. This conference call is being webcast and an archive of the webcast will be available on our website 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 · Piper Jaffray

Thank you, Mary, and good morning. Hope everybody had an opportunity to look at our press release that was released this morning. I hope you've had a chance to go over our numbers today. I'll start with a brief review, an overview of the quarterly results, as well as an update on our strategic growth initiatives and our recent acquisitions, including Tilda, which unbelievably we own for 2.5 months, which we closed on January 13; and Rudi's, which we just completed last week. We continue to experience strong demand for organic and natural brands, as demonstrated by the increasing consumption of our products. The strong demand has translated into yet another record quarterly performance for Hain. We generated our largest sales quarter in Hain's 20-year history, up 22%, over $557 million, representing our 13th consecutive quarter of double-digit sales growth, the 13th consecutive quarter of double-digit adjusted earnings growth. Together we are executing on our mission to be the leading manufacturer of organic and natural better-for-you products. Today, this is has -- today, this has more relevance than ever. Our products are available on more shelves across more geographies and sales channels than ever before. And we believe the opportunities ahead of us are even more compelling, as we expand distribution with new and existing customers, a key strategic initiative that we've addressed over the last few years in our distribution white space opportunities in the U.S. Our latest 4-week consumption measured by Nielsen showed strong 12.4% growth. What a great number. Taking on our top 100 SKUs in the U.S. from approximately 30% ACV to 50% ACV would represent an incremental at-retail sales opportunity of $250 million. John will take you through some of these great success Hain has in the U.S. and how we're going to go about…

John Carroll

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Yes.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

We believe Hain is well positioned for the future as a leading manufacturer, marketer and seller of organic and natural products in the U.S., if not the world. We believe our legacy business and our long-term relationship with our farmers, our growers should ensure our ingredient supply on a consistent basis. And these are relationships that go back 20, 30 years that we have purchased ingredients, products from these farmers. We continue to look at a vertical integration. And this summer, we are testing our first farm in New York that will supply BluePrint brand with parsley, cucumber, kale, red beets, romaine lettuce and spinach, all organic. We will continue to build out our future infrastructure to support future growth with additional investment in CapEx, as we did this quarter with our investment in our Oregon facility to meet the increasing demand for MaraNatha. And this is well worth waiting for because the demand for MaraNatha has been well up over double-digit. Our Hain Pure Protein joint ventures continues to do well, with net sales up 12%. Demand for antibiotic and organic protein has been at the highest levels that I've ever seen. Our Hutchison Hain Organic joint venture also did well, with sales increase in the high teens, principally from China, Philippines and Singapore. I'm in Asia next week, as we look to build out the infrastructure there. We look where we need to build out facilities to supply our demands of snacks and infant formula and baby food. Focusing on our recent acquisition of Tilda, a 100% branded leading premium basmati and specialty rice company. This acquisition expanded our branded grocery product offerings with basmati rice into the ethnic special channel and into new geographies in the Middle East, North Africa and India. What we found out is…

John Carroll

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Thank you, Irwin. Good morning. Q3 was a record quarter for Hain Celestial U.S. Key highlights from the quarter included net sales of $319.5 million, up 15% versus year ago. Importantly, we had strong Q3 organic growth of 8%. This was achieved while funding a $6 million shift to account-specific, point-of-sale programs. These programs, as we discussed last call, are classified as a reduction of sale. The impact of this shift took our net organic sales increase of 10%, down almost 2 points, but still to a very strong 8% organic increase. Our latest 12-week Nielsen AOC consumption growth accelerated to 11.6%, which was 30x the AOC total channel growth of 30 bps. Actually, it was more than 30x. Our growth was achieved even as we lapped strong year-ago comps, resulting in a 2-year stack consumption gain of 21.4%. These results were driven by gains across the U.S. portfolio, including 14 brands with double or high single-digits increases. Our Q3 operating income increased to $56.7 million, up 11% versus year ago. Now our Q3 operating income margin was 17.7%, which was down 70 bps versus year ago. However, this reflected the lower operating margin structure of Ella's Kitchen, which we actually had mentioned when we acquired it. X Ella's Kitchen, our U.S. operating income margin was 18.6%, or up 20 bps versus year ago. Now on previous calls, we've talked about how we review 5 key factors as we look out for the balance of the year. The 5 key factors are: Where are our consumption trends? What's going on with our AOC distribution growth? How's our innovation faring? Where we are we on productivity? And how are our most recent acquisitions performing? Now when we reviewed our latest results, it showed strong momentum against all 5 key factors, starting…

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. They say the third time's the charm. And so with that, I'll begin my third quarterly results call. I'm going to take you through the financial highlights of our third quarter performance, and then, we'll have a few comments on guidance. First, I want to highlight a few items which impacted our net sales performance versus the prior year. Our acquisition of the Ella's and Tilda businesses increased sales by $69 million in the current quarter, with each of these businesses showing strong growth versus the same period last year, when they were under prior ownership. Our performance versus a year ago was also benefited by currency movements. However, the benefit versus the guidance we provided in February was nominal, less than $1 million, as currency rates underlying our guidance were very consistent with average rates for the quarter in our most significant foreign currencies. Another factor impacting sales performance was increased point-of-sale trade spend activities versus a year ago. This activity, which is shown as a reduction of net sales, increased and impacted net sales approximately 80 basis points on a consolidated basis versus a year ago, with an offset in reduced SG&A spend. Finally, as we discussed on our February conference call, businesses we got out of in Europe impacted sales for the quarter by approximately $4 million. Our adjusted earnings from continuing operations was $0.88 per diluted share, compared to $0.72 per share in last year's quarter, improving by 22%. We earned $0.75 per diluted share from continuing operations on a reported GAAP basis. Additionally, we took a $0.06 charge for the sale of our Grains Noirs business. In the prior year, we reported $0.87 per diluted share from continuing operations, which included a onetime tax benefit of $0.28 from…

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Thank you, Steve. I guess, after all that long commentary, you got lots of questions out there. So let's open it up for questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Sean Naughton from Piper Jaffray.

Jared W. Madlin - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

This is actually Jared on for Sean. I guess, just first of all, could you provide an update on the out of stocks in the quarter? And then, should we expect that to entirely normalize going forward with the new launch of the MaraNatha line?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

John, you go with U.S. and I'll talk to Rest of the World.

John Carroll

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Sure. What we actually saw was the U.S. in-stock fulfillment was at about 95% to 96%. And MaraNatha got into the low 90s percent. We'll have some challenges in Q4 on the MaraNatha line, as what we're getting is a lot of pent-up demand and people filling out their backroom inventories. So we'll chase that through Q4. And as we go into FY '15, we expect to be in our 97% to 98% targeted percent level for fulfillment in the U.S.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

And Jeremy, in regards to the Rest of the World -- Jared, sorry. In regards to the Rest of the World, we had some production issues with our New Covent Garden soups in the U.K. and that is back up. In regards to Europe, we've had some challenges, even with 13% growth on our non-dairy business, out of our Germany facility. And that's just keeping up with demand, plus a start-up. And then, what John mentioned, with MaraNatha, there are some of the effects in Canada that we have that affects some of our growth in demand there. So we've had some challenges with other stocks. And hopefully, with MaraNatha upping the new line, with our soup facility now being retrofitted and some new lines coming in, and in regards to our Germany facility, and a lot of it is demand we've had to move to co-packers. And we're looking, do we add some more lines there? We hope to overcome that in stocks.

Jared W. Madlin - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Great. That color was very helpful. If I could use squeeze in one more here. On the marketing side, the ad spend, how are guys measuring the return of success of the shipped [ph] there versus what you're doing prior, just anything you could offer there?

John Carroll

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Sure. Actually, it's actually easier to measure with what we're doing now. What -- and I said this in previous calls, we've identified 3 areas where we want to spend marketing money: one is social media, second is account-specific marketing, and the third is innovation. If it's not one of those 3 areas, we shouldn't be spending the money. In account-specific marketing, we are looking at the brands that are in these key accounts, and we are measuring if we are seeing an increase in our base volume levels on going after the investment.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

And Jared, we see it on consumption data. I mean, you see it right at the retail account, and that's where you see it, account specific. And the big thing is, again, those that cover big consumer package good companies, you commit to TV advertising or print advertising. Oh, my god, the quarter looks good, we're not going to spend, we pull it back. Here, again, we can see performance instantly because you're seeing it at shelving, you're seeing it at retail, and that's what driving some of this consumption number out there. Yes, it affects some of the top line numbers. But if it's driving the sales, let's continue on that.

John Carroll

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

And let me add one last point. And that is why it's so key to look at your base consumption level. Anybody can drive volume with promotions. Our promotion level is relatively flat to year ago. It's our base that is driving our increase in our consumption.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Scott Van Winkle from Canaccord.

Scott Van Winkle - Canaccord Genuity, Research Division

Analyst · Canaccord

John, you mentioned the strong growth in both -- on Rudi's, sorry. On Rudi's, you mentioned strong growth in both gluten-free and organic. Can you compare the relative growth rates of those 2 segments?

John Carroll

Analyst · Canaccord

Yes. The organic is low-double digits and the gluten-free is like -- is just about double that. So basically, assume that organic's running at 10 to 12 and gluten-free is running 20 plus.

Scott Van Winkle - Canaccord Genuity, Research Division

Analyst · Canaccord

And where do you see the opportunity? If you were going to move that growth rate now under the Hain umbrella, do you think the gluten-free is what you could accelerate or the organic? I'm wondering what the thoughts are that you could make an impact on the business.

John Carroll

Analyst · Canaccord

Look, I -- we were excited about both. Basically, Rudi's is -- the significant part of that business right now is in organic. And we don't feel like there's been enough attention paid to really keep leveraging the leadership position they have in organic. While you know as well as I do, Scott, that everybody wants more gluten-free. So we think that it's actually going to be an opportunity to drive organic, particularly in natural, and gluten-free everywhere else.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Canaccord

And Scott, I think the big thing is, listen, bread is a big category. And you come back and look at the whole size of the bread category, and where white breads are moving towards organic and whole grains at the same time, gluten-free. We, today, have over 400 gluten-free products, do over $100 million of our own products. And the opportunities with our Arrowhead Mills, the opportunities with our other products, I mean, Rudi's has basically sold less than $1 million in Canada and taking Rudi's to the U.K. and Europe and building it out there. And the key -- and one of the key factors that came along with Rudi's is the infrastructure in the plant and the production, you heard Jim say before. We had our team out there yesterday watching the lines and speeds and the opportunities to expand, whether it's into buns and into other bread-type products. So it's an exciting category, and we saw many, many gluten-free offerings stuffs, but we waited for the first one, and we're excited about this.

Scott Van Winkle - Canaccord Genuity, Research Division

Analyst · Canaccord

Great. And then another, if I could. Obviously, broadening distribution in natural organic is the top du jour this week. John, you gave a stat of 7% distribution growth across your top 13 brands. I'm wondering how do we foot that against, let's call it 10% organic growth on your gross sales line? That 7% distribution gain, what did that translate into contribution of your 10% organic growth? How much came from distribution?

John Carroll

Analyst · Canaccord

I would -- based on the math we're doing on something like this, about 1/2 to 2/3 of it is driving the increase in consumptions. Because remember, you're just getting seated on some new items and new distribution. So basically, let's assume that if it's 7%, it's accounting for 3.5% to 4.5% of our double-digit consumption organic growth number.

Scott Van Winkle - Canaccord Genuity, Research Division

Analyst · Canaccord

And that pickup, the 7% from 6%, I believe it was last quarter, I mean, is there a trajectory here that we're undergoing currently, where we're seeing accelerated distribution gains?

John Carroll

Analyst · Canaccord

Well, here, as I took you through the different accounts, we've actually seen a really strong response in the most recent 90 to 180 days in terms of accounts being more aggressive and grabbing more of our natural and organic products for new distributions.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Canaccord

And Scott, I think what you're seeing -- you visit stores, I mean, it's -- Whole Foods opening more stores, Wegmans opening more stores, but more and more retailers like Kroger, like Publix, which John talked about, bringing more and more natural organic products within their stores.

John Carroll

Analyst · Canaccord

And more space.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Canaccord

And the big thing is, there's more space that's being dedicated. And my whole thing has been, this year, there's $700 billion of food sold. And why is consumption with a lot of the big CPG companies not growing? It's the consumer transforming and buying more and more natural organic products.

John Carroll

Analyst · Canaccord

We're also seeing a strong correlation to where we have account-based teams sitting in the same locations as the account to driving distribution. When you think about the accounts I talked about, Kroger, Publix...

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Canaccord

Target.

John Carroll

Analyst · Canaccord

Sprouts, Target, Wal-Mart Whole Foods, all of which we have dedicated teams to drive those businesses.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Amit Sharma from BMO Capital Markets.

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Irwin, a quick question on the Whole Foods slowdown that we saw yesterday. Any impact on your sales in the natural specialty channels from this apparent slowdown?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

So when you say, is there any -- I don't understand your question. Is there any in the natural channel?

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Right.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Listen, I think the natural channel, a couple of things. And coming back at Whole Food slowdown, was it their comps? Some of it was pricing, some of it's cannibalization in the stores, et cetera. Don't forget every time a new store opens up for Whole Foods, it's not cannibalization for us, okay? It's more products going into that store when you got 22,000 products. And in regards to if pricing is coming down, in actuality, we're seeing in some cases, if they're good, hot promotions, an increase in sales. So we're still seeing good solid growth at Whole Foods. And the other thing was, which is interesting, the independents. We're not seeing a slowdown in the independents. I think they have their loyal customers and consumers. And at the same time, Amit, with Sprouts, I think you saw their numbers yesterday. We're seeing good demand at Sprouts. So the natural channel for us is not slowing down at all. And I think what happens today, consumers are crossover shoppers; they may go the Whole Foods for certain products and will shop at Kroger for other products. So the answer to your question is, no.

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Great. And then, Stephen, if I may ask you one question on gross margins. You took down gross margin expectation for the full year. Is that simply a function of moving the sales support investment from above the line to below the line?

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

It's a combination of year-to-date performance, as well as continued shifts in the trade spend versus the way it was originally forecasted.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

And some of it also was mix. You also got some commodities, I mean, with almonds and dairy prices. So I think a little bit of everything as -- hit our gross margin. Also, you got some businesses in there with lower gross margins. So I think it's a combination of all them.

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Great. So going forward, is this sort of a good run rate for the gross margin? Or we think there's more room for those spend to move around between those lines?

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question?

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

So I'm saying, is this a good run rate for gross margin, accounting for seasonality? Or there is more opportunities for moving the sales spend between above and below the lines?

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Well, I think that, that's something we'll evaluate as we move forward into next year and plan against next year's fiscal year. There's clearly opportunities to expand gross margins. Tilda, we've said, will be accretive to slightly accretive to our gross margins; but Rudi's, on the flipside, will be dilutive to our gross margins. So you have different things going on. But there will be opportunities on underlying business performance to improve gross margin.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

And I think, Amit, because this year, we completed the year close to $50 million of productivity on a worldwide basis. We're going to be looking for a lot more as we go into 2015, with the procurement team that we have in place today. And you heard me talk about procuring from India, Middle East and South America. And how we take more and more costs out is something, listen -- we -- our objective is to get our gross margins up. On the other hand, we're not going to just get our gross margins up and take our spending and put it below the line where it's not going to get the growth out of our business. I mean, we have such opportunity to grow our business and operation white space. We're going to invest continuously back in our business in spend that's going to drive the growth.

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

And Amit, the one thing I'd like to say is that while we will continue to focus on expanding gross margins, what we want to do is not only expand the gross margins, but expand operating margins to an even larger extent.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

And that's a perfect example is, our free cash. And the other thing, Amit, what we're able to do here is the integration of acquisitions. And you see our SG&A, and the SG&A and the savings, and there's more work to do on SG&A savings, whether it's still from BluePrint, whether it's from Ella's, whether it's from Rudi's, I mean, we're carrying still in Rudi's. Ella's, we have not integrated anything in the U.K. anything in the backroom. We've not integrated anything from Tilda. Hain Daniels, we just finished integrating Histon and Hain Daniels. So there's a lot of SG&A savings for us over the next couple of years that we'll continuously get, that will ultimately help our operating margins, that will allow us to invest back in the business.

Amit Sharma - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

No, that's great. I mean, we certainly seen a lot of SG&A productivity over the last several quarters. And if that trend continues, I think that will be good.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Andrew Wolf from BB&T Capital Markets. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Encouraging to me that the U.K. really moved the needle this quarter. Wanted to ask if you could, without knowing exactly what Tilda's margins are, but making some, I guess, an educated guess, back of the envelope, it looks like the non-Tilda business probably had around 200 basis points of operating margin expansion. Is that a reasonable guess? So that we can try to understand the underlying business, the underlying businesses x Tilda. It's profitability improvement?

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

Actually, what happened was most of the operating margin expansion in the U.K. came from Tilda. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Okay, so my math was 50-50. You're saying it's closer to almost all of it was...

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

No, no, no. But I think the big thing is here -- is the integration and getting the benefits out of Histon. And one of the big things where the opportunity is in the U.K. is the benefit of our New Covent Garden Soup, where that hurt us in the quarter, where we didn't get the growth. So is it 60-40, Tilda versus Hain Daniels, but the opportunity on the upside is our New Covent Garden Soups with 50% margins, Andy. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Absolutely. So there was a more modest improvement in the underlying business, but it's not 100% driven by Tilda?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

Exactly, not 100% driven by Tilda. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Made Tilda quite the acquisition if it was. All right. So that was encouraging.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

Well, we only owned Tilda for 2.5 months also, Andy. So it would make it a phenomenal acquisition. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: All right. So John, moving down to Ella's. Also back of the envelope, given the numbers you gave, it looks like Ella's is running about 5% EBIT margin or thereabouts? And if that's a good guesstimate, what's in that? Why would that be? And where should that head?

John Carroll

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

Ella's is running low single -- I mean, high -- mid- to high-single-digits operating margins. And as Irwin said... Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: I thought you said the operating margin. I apologize for the interruption. I thought I heard you say the operating margin in the U.S. would've been up 20 bps if you excluded Ella's, that's why I said that.

John Carroll

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

That's correct. That's correct. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Okay, so it's just -- okay, but my math was wrong.

John Carroll

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

Right. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: So it's still about 6%, 7% below the rest of the portfolio?

John Carroll

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

Yes. And then, the key there -- and Irwin's already alluded to it. Remember, Ella's, we've done no integration of Ella's U.K. into any of our U.K. platforms. So ultimately, that will have a significant improvement on their operating margins going forward.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

We've worked with them in regards to procurement and productivity, but it's still a stand-alone. Paul and team are still in place and it runs as totally a separate operating unit within the U.K. So and -- so... Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: And have you talked internally or externally about a timetable for that to occur?

John Carroll

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

Yes, it's -- we're going to make some pretty significant moves in that area in FY '15. Andrew P. Wolf - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Okay. And the last thing is just on Rudi's. I guess, I heard you say it's a bit dilutive, but turning accretive. To me, the math was it came out accretive out of the gate. Is there some costs in there that you just don't plan to exclude but are really, more or less, onetime transition costs or brand launching?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets

Andy, there's about 17, 18 people that are still in the business, that will ultimately exit the business throughout the quarter. And then, there's still in there -- our cost, so that's the big number.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Scott Mushkin from Wolfe Research.

Scott Andrew Mushkin - Wolfe Research, LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

I guess, the first thing I wanted to do is a more strategic, Irwin, question for you is that, it seems if my math is correct about, gosh, you're over 40% now coming from international. It sounds like you have pretty big plans in Asia and India to grow that business. Strategically, how do you see this business breaking down over the next 3 years or so? I know it's always been kind of a goal of 60% in the U.S. and 40% international, but it seems like we're tilting more international. And I was just wondering whether you’re headed that way?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Scott, you heard what I say, wherever there's a cash register, I want to sell food. So wherever there's more cash registers, that's where I'm going. No, seriously. 50-50. I think if you come back and look at the world population and look at the U.S., there's, what, 320 million to 360 million people in the U.S. You look around the world -- you look at India and look at China, it's 2.3 billion people. It's 8x the size of the U.S. and natural and organic, big opportunity. I got so much demand in the Middle East for Hain products, where these guys are Procter & Gamble distributors today, who want to bring on our products. So we sell in 65 countries today, and my objective is to get to at least 100 countries over the next couple years. With Jim Meiers and the team, we've gone through how much we ship today on containers and boats. It's amazing. Like, it's 10,000 containers a year that we're shipping product across the channel. So with that, it's at least 50-50 and we include Canada on that side. The opportunity for us today in Mexico, where we sell to. And we've had lots of calls from Wal-Mart just on e-commerce in Asia and some of the stuff they're doing. So that's where we look to go, and it's not with every product, big opportunity on baby. One of the things in Asia, next week, we're talking about is putting up a snack factory there, looking at our whole infant formula business there. In Dubai, in the Middle East, the exact same thing. So it's maybe 25, 30 of our products. The other big opportunity for us, Scott, is taking a lot of our existing U.S. products, which we're doing right now and…

Scott Andrew Mushkin - Wolfe Research, LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Perfect. And then, I had 2 more so I probably have to pick now because...

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Go ahead, you can have one more, Scott.

Scott Andrew Mushkin - Wolfe Research, LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

I have one more so I guess this is to Steve...

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Mary's yelling at me because I allowed you to do it, Scott, but go ahead.

Scott Andrew Mushkin - Wolfe Research, LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

So Steve, I was wondering if you could maybe -- maybe my math's a little bit off, but it seems like gross margins are going to pop pretty good in the fourth quarter. And I was just wondering kind of what -- what's the underlying reason for that to happen for gross margins to kind of come up in the fourth quarter? Just to kind of make me understand a little bit better what's going on in the business?

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · Wolfe Research

It's going to be mix of the business and then it's going to be the timing of the productivity savings kicking in, which we always said was going to be back-end loaded.

Scott Andrew Mushkin - Wolfe Research, LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Okay, but I am correct, you're going to see a very sharp increase in your gross margin rate, is that correct?

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Yes.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Yes. And Scott, look, as he said, some of it is productivity, which -- there's a big piece coming in the fourth quarter. It's a big sales quarter for us. You got a full quarter of Tilda, which is a big quarter of Tilda for Ramadan, et cetera. So that's a lot what's going to happen. It's a big snack quarter going into Memorial Day.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from David Palmer from RBC Capital Markets.

David Palmer - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

I'm sure you can understand there's been a lot of curiosity about channel dynamics lately in the natural channel, and ultimately, beyond the natural channel and ultimately what that means, everything from Wal-Mart, with its commitment to natural and organic and seemingly, concurrently, more committed to a retailer brand in that space; and Whole Foods obviously, having some share losses in natural. Some theories out there from clients are worries is that these shifts will be, in some way, negative longer term for your margins. Just wonder if you would comment on that? And then, separately, your M&A strategy, it seems to be shifting a little bit, or at least there seems to be a tweak in that, when you're looking to buy stuff, whether it's Tilda's or Rudi's or Ella's Kitchen, that you're looking to these to be global cross-selling opportunities, that you think you might be able to sell it into another region better than the next guy. Could you comment on that, too, please?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

So in regards to our growth, and there's a lot of noise within natural organic because of the demand for the category. So number one, I always come back and say, David, "If you're in category, you're not getting a lot of noise, there's not a lot of growth and not a lot of people want to come in it." As I step back for a second, Hain has been doing this for 20 years. We're probably the largest natural organic food and personal care company in the U.S., if not the world. And we want to get bigger. And I'll use -- a CNBC commentator that said it, we want to be the gorilla in this category, okay? And as the gorilla in the category, we want to be in every category that makes sense. We want to be the best in buying. We want to have the best in brands. And doing this for 20 years, first of all, we've set up great sales teams. So we have a sales team in Minnesota, Bentonville and Cincinnati, in Austin, out with our club store business. So we have an infrastructure and a sales team that is set up, number one, to sell into these accounts. Number two is, we have a distribution system that is able to deliver to these accounts which we think's at the lowest cost you can. Thirdly is, you heard what I said before from growers and supply. If I had to say this here, what keeps me up at night is just keeping up with demand and supply. By 2018, everything sold in Whole Foods will be GMO-free. The State of Vermont will pass today, where it has to be labeled GMO-free. And it's not that there's any science out there, David, that GMO-free…

Operator

Operator

We do have Ken Goldman in line from JPMorgan. Kenneth Goldman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I know you aren't giving 2015 guidance yet, so I'm not asking for numbers. But as we think about your margins, generally going forward from here, is there a reason to expect SG&A to climb back to historical levels? Do you expect it to continue dropping over time, stay flat? Just like I said, general color will be really helpful. Because one of the questions I'm fielding today is if these SG&A levels, going forward, are sustainable?

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

So I'll let John talk about his SG&A. And then, I'll talk about it on a global basis, Ken, or Steve will.

John Carroll

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Okay, so in regard to the U.S. SG&A levels, look, a lot of what you're seeing in terms of our SG&A reduction is a function of leveraging our investment in people over a larger -- over a larger top line. And that's one of our key things here. Look, we want to bolt-on businesses to the U.S. platforms and not only get the ability to leverage the platform to drive top line more aggressively than we could as a stand-alone, but also to get great synergies in SG&A. Because we only add the people that absolutely are essential to the business, which is usually much different than the number of people that are allocated to the business when we first acquire it. So I would expect that we will continue to drive SG&A synergies.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

And Ken, what you see is what we're -- these $60 million, $100 million businesses, as we acquire them, one of their biggest challenge is the SG&A they have in front of them, and how they support that, and have trouble making money because of their SG&A infrastructure. But I think if you come back and look at Hain and growing high-single digits, low-double-digits organic growth and adding $100 million of acquisitions on, and our sales that grow in the 22% because of acquisitions and because of growth, we're not adding -- the infrastructure's in place. And that's my whole point that I've been talking about. We have, as we set up the infrastructure, we have 31 plants around the world today. We have all these offices around the world. And you're going to see SG&A come down as we continue to grow the top line and do these $100 million acquisitions and grow it with the infrastructure we have. And we'll continue to add to people, but it's nowhere near the levels that we need to do to run some of these businesses. Kenneth Goldman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: That's very helpful. One quick clarification. Does that mean, just officially, there's nothing in these numbers this quarter, last quarter, in terms of SG&A that you think is unusual that will have to be added back next year, so to speak? Just want to make sure.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Like -- I don't know. I...

Stephen J. Smith

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

From the adjusted numbers, no.

Irwin David Simon

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

No, no, no. There's no -- no. Well, thank you, everybody, for our third quarter call. As you heard remarks from John, Steve and myself, the category continues to be an exciting category. And I'm very, very proud of our global team. And as I said, eating healthy is not a fad, not a trend. It's just going to continuously get bigger and bigger and we are well entrenched into it. And we -- today, if you come back and look at Hain and I say we got 4,500 people around the world, the big part of Hain is the employees that work within our factories that make our products. But a lot gets done with the management team. That's not long and wide. It's amazing how we achieved our largest quarter, $557 million and our $0.88. I really feel good about our business. I feel good of what happened in April. Our fiscal 2014 is coming to a close the end of June. And with the headwinds in commodity costs and competition, we really performed out there. And we're a complicated business where you have lots of brands to management, we have plants. And again, we're procuring a lot of agriculture products around the world. We are very different from your traditional consumer package food company of how we spend our money with the consumer, and you heard what I said before about appointing Emma Froelich with our Facebook, with our social media, with millennials. That's where our consumers are. And again, the way this business is changing in e-commerce and selling on a global basis, and that's something that we will keep up to and we've been all over it. It's just -- as I come back and look how packaging's changing, ingredients are changing -- and here we are today, Vermont is a state approving that it has to be labeled GMOs. I mean, most people 3 or 4 years ago didn't know what a GMO was, a genetically modified ingredient. So again, it's projected that organic natural chains could add over 1,000 new stores by 2020 and that's just natural organic stores, and looking at Whole Foods, Sprouts and a lot of the independents. And from Hain's perspective, we have the infrastructure that is able to go do that. So thank you so much for your interest, participation. Have a great day. So don't forget, number one, to stock up on our snacks for Memorial Day, which is in 2 weeks. Also, those that are celebrating Ramadan, our Tilda basmati rice is a great product. And let me tell you something, you are what you eat and if you eat healthy, life will be a lot longer for you. So have a great day, and thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes our program. You may, all, disconnect, and have a wonderful day.