Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Incorporated fourth quarter and fiscal 2020 year-end operating results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference may be being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Michael Valentine, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you Jimmy. Good morning everyone and welcome to our 2020 fourth quarter and fiscal year earnings conference call. Thank you for joining us today. On the call with me today is Jeffrey Sanfilippo, our CEO and Jasper Sanfilippo, our COO. Before we start, we may make some forward-looking statements today. These statements are based on our current expectations and they involve certain risks and uncertainties that are inherent in our business. The factors that could negatively impact results are explained in the various SEC filings that we have made including forms 10-K and on occasion forms 10-Q. We encourage you to refer to these filings to learn more about these risks and uncertainties that are inherent in our business. I will start the call today by covering financial highlights for the 2020 fourth quarter and fiscal year. The current fourth quarter net sales decreased by 5.8% to $204.2 million compared to net sales of $216.8 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. The decrease in net sales in the quarterly comparison was primarily due to a 3.3% decrease in our weighted average selling price per pound. The decline in the weighted average selling price came from a shift in product mix from higher-priced almonds, pecans and walnuts to lower-priced trail and snack mixes and peanuts. Lower selling prices for cashews, which resulted from lower acquisition costs, also contributed to the decline in the weighted average selling price. A 2.6% decline in sales volume, which is defined as pounds sold to customers, also contributed to the decline in net sales. Sales volume increased in the consumer distribution channel by 16.1%. The volume increase in the consumer channel was primarily driven by a 25.2% increase in private brand snack nut and trail mix sales with existing customers. Approximately 59% of…

Thank you Mike. Good morning everyone. After reporting record results for our third quarter of fiscal 2020, the company finished the year strong despite significant headwinds from the impact of COVID-19 and the dramatic shift in consumer behavior and consumption trends at the start of our fourth quarter. Navigating through a challenging landscape in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, the company still ended the year by breaking records in gross profit which increased by $17.5 million or 11.1% to $175.8 million. Net income reached a record $54.1 million, as Mike mentioned and earnings per share reached a record $4.69. Our five production facilities, our essential businesses have stayed open through the pandemic to sustain the food supply chain. I am so proud of the hard work, dedication and leadership of our team members throughout the company. They showed up to provide essential goods for our customers. They showed up to service our consumers and they showed up to support their families and to support each other. A special thank you to our manufacturing teams who come to work every day and continue to stay focused on operational efficiencies in production to reduce spending per produced pound while at the same time providing best-in-class service levels for our customers and consumers. Our strong financial position allowed us to pay cash dividends for the ninth year in a row. We paid $68.7 million during fiscal 2020 to our stockholders. And we are paying bonuses to each of our exceptional associates throughout the organization who worked together this past year. These are truly extraordinary times for all of us. The pandemic had positive and negative impacts upon our results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. We saw strong evidence of a shift in consumer preferences to shop in smaller store formats…

Okay. Thank you Jeffrey. At this time, we will open the call to questions. Jimmy, can you please queue up the first question?

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Chris McGinnis with Sidoti & Company. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and nice quarter in such a tough environment.

Good morning Chris.

Morning. I was wondering if you can maybe just talk around trends and I think probably around the consumer but also related to food service? I guess you provided a little color on food service progress in the quarter. But can you also many give us an update up to since the quarter ended but also how the consumer trended through that quarter and maybe where you are exiting at on the demand side? Thank you.

Hi Chris. This is Jeffrey. So since April really, we have seen continued dramatic shift in consumer behavior. If you just look at some numbers since April, the grocery channel has actually grown 22% since April. We see growth in the dollar store channel. That channel was up 24.5% since April. E-commerce, though, is where you are seeing the most dramatic growth. It's up over 82% since April. Consumers that never bought online have purchased product online. They have gotten used to the technology. They like the convenience of buying online, having it delivered to their homes or easily picking up at a local retailer. And so we expect to continue to see growth in e-commerce. And that's why I mentioned on the call, we are reprioritizing or reallocating additional resources to e-commerce to take advantage and follow consumption where it's going. We see strong growth in the club channel as well. And a lot of markets like the club channel, for example, somewhere we are not very well developed. And so we have a key focus on building a strong platform in the club channel to follow consumer growth in that channel. Food service, as I mentioned, we saw some positive reductions in declines, I guess you would say, in June as a result of some of the re-openings of states and restaurants. We just watch it. We monitor it very closely. I will say that June and July, or actually July, we saw a little bit more positive growth rebounding from some of the state closures and some volume pickup in the food service channel. We do expect, with the fluid situation with the pandemic, that it is just difficult to say what will happen, but we are optimistic that as things settle down, we will see some of that growth rebound in food service.

Great. I appreciate it. And I guess just thinking about, how are you taking advantage of that, especially the significant increase in the e-commerce? Are you changing branding? Are you thinking of marketing? Can you just maybe dig in a little bit about taking advantage of that? Thanks.

Sure. So we actually had a really strong position going into the pandemic. We have spent a lot of time this past year on building a strong e-commerce platform, both for our brands on Amazon and at walmart.com. So we were prepared and in a good position to take advantage of the spike as consumers started to buy online. We are reallocating marketing investments towards more social media, moving away from some of the typical FSIs and other radio advertising that we were doing in the past and reallocating some of those resources to e-commerce. It's a different way to approach consumers but it's the right thing to do.

Great. And I guess just a couple of wins and losses throughout the portfolio. Can you just talk maybe a little bit about your customer base and the health you are seeing and I guess any changes longer term that you think about where the brands are going and where they will be sold through?

Sure. And so as I have mentioned on previous calls, we have a very low ACV on a lot of our brands. And so there is so much opportunity to expand organically through just our current brand distribution. So we are laser-focused on that. As I mentioned, the grocery channel is growing dramatically as a result of the pandemic. And so our sales and marketing teams and innovation and R&D are really focused on building our branded distribution in grocery because we just see the increase in growth there. And so we are focused on expanding our distribution, expanding our ACV and also looking at the category in a different way. I mentioned that we are seeing less of the multi-pack, single-serve format as consumers look to buy larger size formats. So we are adapting quickly to those consumer changes as well and changing some of our pack sizes, both on our brands and in private brand as well.

Okay. And I guess just on that last point, obviously you have had really good success with that product relative over last year too. Do you see trends as states are starting to open? Have you seen any change of those maybe picking back up lately? Or no?

It's hard to say because we don't have a. really good gauge on exactly how many restaurants are open, what the restrictions are on those restaurants or service outlets. So it's really difficult number to pan. So we just don't have good, accurate information on what percent are open and when they are what percent of people are allowed to come into the restaurants. But we are optimistic. People will regain confidence in going out when things settle down and hopefully we have some solutions for the current situation with the pandemic. But we just believe it's going to take some time for customers to get confident to go back on a regular basis. But we are optimistic.

And Chris, this is Mike. As we noted in the release, April in food service was down 90% on sales volume and then improved to negative 34%. And I just want to stress that the 34% is probably not the best run rate to pick because there was some inventory replenishment going on but certainly we feel like going forward, the significant declines that we saw in both April and May should not be the kind of decline percentages we see going forward.

Sure. I appreciate that.

And Chris, I will also say that, yes, I also want to mention that our food service team has done a great job diversifying, focusing on where consumers are shopping or what the needs are in the food service channel. And just the enormous growth in meal kits and obviously aren't traveling as much and so they are looking at different snacking options. But the team has done a great job finding opportunities to still supply customers within the food service and commercial ingredient channel with food products, whether it's meal kits, food banks that are so desperate for products now. The team is really responding. So we didn't know restaurants might not be coming back in full force. This team has really focused on looking at other opportunities to continue to grow that channel.

And I guess just maybe a bigger picture, just around the industry itself. Can you maybe just talk about the competitive landscape and what's happening and maybe is it environment or opportunity for you to go out and get more share as you think about the industry? Thanks.

Sure. So it's a dynamic time. I am sure all companies are reacting and challenge with shifts in not only consumption but the timing. When we saw the huge pantry load in March and April, it would have been very difficult for a lot of companies to meet those demands. Because of our investments in our capabilities, our manufacturing and production and operations, we were able to meet those increased demands that were just dramatic for any business. And I have to believe that some of our competitors who didn't have such a large infrastructure may not have made some of those investments would have been more challenged than JBSS. But the competitive landscape, we haven't seen dramatic changes at this point. We still have the same private brand competitors. We saw the same branded competitors. People, I think, are shifting some of their marketing focus as we are. So we expect competitive landscape not to change too dramatically.

Okay. And I appreciate that. And I guess just two more questions and I will jump in the queue. But can you maybe just talk around maybe new product introductions you have lined up? And has that changed, given kind of the environment?

Yes. So I talked a little about, it's really, right now some of it's pack size going from multi-packs and small single-serves to larger size pack. Not a dramatic innovation but it's something that is a change in some of the packaging in the product portfolio. We launched our chickpea chip which is our first entry into non-nut snacking last year. And we have seen some positive growth in the places where we have distribution. So you should continue to see us focused on that product line. It's kind of the stepchild we don't talk about it a lot because it's such a small brand at this point and small launch. But we see opportunities in that nut snacking portfolio. We continue to look at nut butters. We are still continuing to do test on the nut butter program. And we continue to look at other really indulgent snacks with our Squirrel brand and some other products that we are looking at as well.

Great. And the I guess, maybe Mike this might be more for you. But just us in terms of thinking about the impact of the changing nut prices throughout the year, how much of a headwind is that in terms of the next 12 months? And then in the same line of questioning, just around maybe the margin profile for the next year in terms of the changes to the mix of different things happening within the portfolio? Thank you.

I would actually characterize what's coming our way as a tailwind. We are seeing just about every tree nut go down pretty significantly year-over-year with much larger crops. And that includes almonds, walnuts, cashews and even pecans and pistachios. And then on the peanut side, we are coming off of one of the worst quality crop years that I can recall in my 30-year history. And we incurred quite an additional amount of processing costs to remediate those quality issues that were inherent in the crop. But we shouldn't have to deal with that next year. So really across the board on the major nut types, I would characterize it as a big tailwind for us.

Okay. Thanks. And then maybe just on the margin profile as you look about the changing mix? I think it obviously wouldn't decline from the other two segments consumer if you take advantage of that? As you just see that mix, maybe is that margin profile sustainable over the next 12 months?

Well, sure. As our business continues to shift from contract packaging to consumer, that's certainly going to have a favorable impact. Also, just as food service rebounds, that will help the margin story too.

Great. Well, thanks for taking my questions. Good luck in Q1.

Thanks Chris.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from [indiscernible] with Capital Management. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.

Morning.

Morning.

All right. So in the press release, you said that the business was especially hit hard due to some temporary store closures, especially with the Orchard Valley Harvest brand and decreased promotional activity, at least in the physical stores? Are the stores reopening and will the marketing start to ramp back up?

Yes. This is Jeffrey. So Joey, yes, they are starting to reopen, not 100%. And again, I think they are restricting the amount of consumers that can enter the store just for safety purposes. But I will say that they have started to reopen. So we are seeing that distribution pipeline refill again.

Okay. Awesome. And so I know that you guys mentioned the home improvement store that canceled promotion for the recent quarter. At least that specific home improvement store, will that hold similar promotions in the future? Or are you guys more focused on the online sales?

It's a combination. Obviously, we want to make sure that we have product available where consumers are shopping, whether they are going to a home improvement store or sitting at home and at their computer shopping online. I will tell you, there has been a shift in retailer dynamics as far as how they are promoting. They are really being careful on running huge promotions as they used to because they want to make sure they keep the essential items on their shelves. They don't want to have a lot of set up in their retail stores just to mitigate the amount of people that are working in their stores. So we have seen dramatic shifts in the type of ways retailers are promoting. That's why you saw the shift in some of the promotional activity because retailers are looking at different ways to promote product without having to put a lot of people on the floor, building shipper displays and setting up promotions.

. Okay. All right. So I guess jumping off of that, then should we expect more online sales to continue to grow within the rest of the year? Or do you think it will decrease as more physical stores open?

No. I think that's one things that's going to stick from this pandemic is the result of online shopping. Consumers that have never shopped online are now comfortable with doing it and you won't lose those consumers. I think you won't see the dramatic increase in growth in e-commerce. But I think you are going to continue to see growth there. Just I believe that people have gotten accustomed to the simplicity of it, the convenience and the safety of shopping online. And the click and pick where you are shopping online, but then you swing by and pick up the product is becoming more important and more popular now as well.

And Joey, this is Mike. I would also add that what we are selling online compared to these nonfood retailers that are reopening are really two independent things. They are not necessarily competing with each other. So we believe that as more foot traffic goes through the apparel space and the home improvement space where we have some distribution, that actually should be an incremental win for us.

Okay. Awesome. And if I can sneak just one more question in there. It's a little bit of speculation. But I know that you guys have a much increased inventory level. And I know that a lot of your competitors are kind of struggled with that huge increase in demand in April. So I know that the holiday season is coming upon us in a few months. Do you guys think that you will be able to gain some market share or something with your increased capacity?

Well, I don't know if our inventory levels necessarily put us in a position to do that. But certainly, if we look at more on the packaging capabilities and machinery and equipment and all that, we have some really good capacity and capabilities there to take advantage of that.

All right. Perfect. That's all my questions. Thank you so much.

Thanks Joey.

Thank you. And I am showing no further questions in the queue at this time. I would like to turn the call back to Michael Valentine for any closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you Jimmy. Again, thanks everyone for your interest in JBSS. This concludes the call for our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 operating results.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today's conference. This does conclude your program and you may now disconnect.