Jim Snee
Analyst · Stephens Inc. Please go ahead
Well, thank you, Jeff and good morning everyone. Since Justin’s was founded in 2004, the business has experienced tremendous growth. Looking forward, we expect Justin’s to grow at low double-digit rates from a starting point of approximately $100 million in fiscal 2017 net sales. Justin’s will report into the Grocery Products segment. Justin’s enhances our scale in the nut butter category complementing our Skippy brand positioning very nicely. The Justin’s brand gives us a great platform in natural and organic specialty nut butter spreads, the fastest growing portion of the nut butter category. Justin’s also further balances our portfolio of brands towards younger, more health conscious and on-the-go consumers with their pioneering squeeze packs, a portable snack that comes in all seven of Justin’s nut butter flavors. We intend to leverage key Hormel Foods resources and supply chain, finance and R&D while leaving their mission and vision unchanged. We look forward to working with the Justin’s team in Boulder, Colorado and finalizing the acquisition in the coming weeks. I will now take you through each segment. Grocery Products segment profit was up 21% for the quarter. Input cost tailwinds and improved plant efficiencies drove the gains. Sales were up 1% led by Skippy peanut butter, Hormel chili, Wholly Guacamole and our Herdez line of authentic Mexican products. Sales for our chunk meats business and Compleats microwave meals were down this quarter. Our Skippy peanut butter products had a great quarter. Our traditional jarred peanut butter continues to capture share in the marketplace as our sales team gains additional distribution. Our most recent innovation, Skippy P.B. Bites has had many early successes and key measures such as trial and repeat are meeting our internal targets. The company continues to leverage its iconic brands in new and innovative ways. And this past April, we opened the new 14,000 square foot Spam Museum located in downtown Austin, Minnesota. We invite you to come and visit our new family of friendly museum. Refrigerated Foods second quarter operating profit increased 13%, with sales up 7% and volume up 3%. Refrigerated Foods benefited from strong pork operating margins, the addition of the Applegate business and great results from our foodservice business. We saw growth from many of our value-added products, including retail sales of Hormel Natural Choice lunchmeat, Hormel pepperoni and Hormel party trays. Our foodservice value added products experienced solid growth led by brands such as the Austin Blues line of products, Hormel Bacon 1 fully cooked bacon and Hormel Fire Braised meats. When we announced the Applegate acquisition in 2015, one of our top priorities was to tackle the supply constraints we identified during the acquisition. While staying true to Applegate’s mission of changing the meat we eat, we have secured additional supplies and the team is working to gain back distribution that was lost when supplies were pressured. Applegate remains on track to deliver earnings results consistent with our initial guidance for this business. Jennie-O Turkey Store’s second quarter segment profit increased 20%, while sales decreased 4%. Results were impacted by the lingering effects of avian influenza as flocks lost in 2015 created shortfalls in operations and sales. Production volumes have now returned to normalized levels and we remain optimistic that avian influenza is behind us. However, the team continues to be diligent and heightened biosecurity remains a top focus. We remain focused on gaining back distribution that was curtailed during the outbreak, but we did enjoy growth this quarter in our Jennie-O lean ground turkey, retail bacon and Oven Ready product lines. Our Specialty Foods segment reported an operating profit increase of 74%. The increase was aided in part by a favorable comparison to expenses last year related to the closure of the CytoSport production facility. Operational synergies captured in the current year within the CytoSport and Century Foods supply chain also contributed to the increase. Muscle Milk sports nutrition products posted excellent results in addition to launching many new innovative items, such as Muscle Milk protein smoothies. The gains made by our CytoSport team were offset by lower contract packaging sales, resulting in a 5% decrease in sales this quarter. International’s operating profit decreased 33% and sales declined 17%. Weak exports of our Spam and Skippy family of products in addition to soft pork export markets contributed to the declines. Our China meat business had a difficult comparison to last year in addition to pressures from higher pork raw material costs. Our Skippy business in Mainland China experienced nice growth this quarter. We expect input cost tailwinds to continue for Refrigerated Foods and Grocery Products. We look for these segments to continue driving year-over-year gains in sales and operating profits through increases in our value-added products. Jennie-O Turkey Store production is now at normalized levels and we are positioned to deliver growth in the back half of the year provided there are no significant reoccurrences of avian influenza. The team is investing in their fourth Make The Switch advertising campaign, highlighting turkey as an alternative to beef. Lower grain input costs should continue to be a tailwind in the second half of the year. The Specialty Foods segment may show year-over-year sales and earnings declines due to the sale of the Diamond Crystal Brands business. Positive sales trends in the Muscle Milk brand and incremental sales from new innovative Muscle Milk products will offset some of the sales declines. With the sale of Diamond Crystal Brands and to reflect the enhanced margin profile of CytoSport, we are increasing our segment margin guidance for Specialty Foods to 11% to 14%, up from the previously guided 8% to 11%. We look for the international segment to return to growth in the second half through increased export sales of our Spam luncheon meat and Skippy peanut butter products, along with gradual improvement in our China retail meats business. We continue to reinvest into our businesses through increased advertising and marketing support for brands such as Hormel pepperoni, our Spam family of products, Skippy peanut butter, Muscle Milk protein products and Jennie-O Turkey. As a result of the strong second quarter and continued confidence in our position heading into the back half of the year, we are raising our full year guidance from $1.50 to $1.56 per share to $1.56 to $1.60 per share. At this time, I will turn the call over to Jody Feragen to discuss the financial information relating to the second quarter.