Earnings Labs

The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC)

Q3 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 1, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day. My name is Shannon, and I will be your operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Kraft Heinz Company's Third Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. I will now turn the call over to Chris Jakubik, Head of Global Investor Relations. Mr. Jakubik, you may begin.

Christopher M. Jakubik - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining our business update for the third quarter of 2017. With me today are Bernardo Hees, our CEO; George Zoghbi, our Former Chief Operating Officer of our U.S. Commercial Business and now Strategic Advisor; Paulo Basilio, our former CFO and new President of the U.S. Zone; and David Knopf, taking over for Paulo as CFO, most recently the Head of our Planters business. During our remarks, we'll make some forward-looking statements that are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ due to risks and uncertainties, and these are discussed in our press release and our filings with the SEC. We'll also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures during the call today. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with GAAP results. And you can find the GAAP-to-non-GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release and at the end of the slide presentation available on our website. Now, let's turn to slide 2 and I'll hand it over to Bernardo.

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thank you, Chris; and hello, everyone. Since our last call, there's been a lot of talk about changes in the industry and how consumer staples companies will adapt to this new reality. We believe in this fast-moving environment, the companies that are adaptable and data and consumer driven will have an edge in the marketplace. With that, I would like to start by saying our plans and our progress remains on track. Our Q3 results were consistent with our expectations for sequential improvement, and we remain confident in our ability to drive sustainable, profitable growth going forward. As far as results go, and I believe I said on our last call that, while we're not entirely satisfied with our financials, we are confident in our ability to drive further improvement going forward, and that remains the case today. Our Q3 operating numbers show a good pickup in momentum, despite the usual mix of ups and downs that come with running a global business. We saw sequential improvement in all segments, both top and bottom line. Despite some category-specific volume losses, we have been willing to accept in a few countries, some supply chain issues in the United States and other headwinds that come about in the rest-of-the-world market. What's more encouraged is that sales are starting to leverage the business investments we have been making. For instance, EBITDA growth was solid, despite the dire (3:16) balance of pricing and commodity costs not coming to as strongly as anticipated as bacon and dairy costs picked up during the quarter and pricing has yet to catch up. And we continue to improve against our goal of maintaining strong margins as savings in each region have continued to come in strong and cumulative savings from our Integration Program went $1.58 billion at the…

Georges El-Zoghbi - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thank you very much, Bernardo, and good afternoon, everyone. As usual, I will start the update for our U.S. business on slide 4. Overall, we continued to move in the right direction during the third quarter. We leveraged Kraft Heinz's scale at retail with a well-executed Labor Day event. We're seeing solid consumption gains in a number of our largest categories, including continued growth in our frozen business, Kraft American slices and Heinz Ketchup, as well as innovation-led growth from Lunchables and P3, and our renovation of Oscar Mayer hot dogs driving improved category performance. Our share performance has remained consistent overall, continuing with positive share trends in roughly half the business in measured channels, despite the strong private label push that you've seen in the past few quarters. In outside measured channels, in Q3, we began once again to deliver faster than market growth in foodservice and our e-commerce sales are up more than 70% year-to-date. That's not to say that we don't still have some market share and consumption challenges. But they remain concentrated in the same few categories we've been talking about for some time, and we understand what needs to be fixed. They include cold cuts, which continues to be a largely self-inflicted problem with delays in new equipment start-up that will, in fact, impact Q4 merchandising, sales and market share; natural cheese, where shares remain under pressure due to increasing price gaps to private label; and, finally, ongoing weakness in our Kraft salad dressing business. Overall, the fact that we're building momentum as we take significant steps to transform our U.S. business gives me comfort and confidence in handing the business off to my partner and friend, Paulo. So for the outlook, let me pass the baton to Paulo. Paulo Luiz Araújo Basílio - The…

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thank you, Paulo, and hello, everyone. I'll start on slide 5 with our U.S. financials. As expected, organic net sales performance continued to improve in Q3 to a 0.4% decline. Volume/mix performance was in line with what we saw in Q2.To the plus side were consumption-led growth in Lunchables and P3, gains in foodservice and a roughly 30 basis point benefit from hurricane-related consumer pantry loading. But these were more than offset by distribution losses in nuts and cheese, as well as lower shipments in meats and coffee. By contrast, pricing began to come through stronger in Q3, reflecting higher prices in cheese and bacon to address rising commodity costs, as well as pricing in desserts that were partially offset by the timing of promotional activity versus last year in a number of categories, including Oscar Mayer cold cuts and Capri Sun ready-to-drink beverages. We also saw stronger EBITDA performance in Q3 than either Q2 or the first half, with adjusted EBITDA up 6.8%. As Bernardo mentioned, incremental Integration Program savings of $125 million between the U.S. and Canada was a key contributor. Beyond Integration Program savings, lower overhead costs and favorable pricing were partially offset by unfavorable key commodity costs, particularly in meats and cheese. On our last call, Paulo talked about a better balance of pricing and key commodity costs in the second half versus what we saw in the first half. While this did, in fact, happen, it was less pronounced than anticipated, due to a step-up in dairy and bacon costs during the quarter. Going forward, there are a couple of factors that will impact U.S. performance in Q4. Organic sales growth in Q4 will see a 30 basis point headwind from hurricane-related consumer pantry loading in Q3; as George mentioned, delayed production line start-ups impacting…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from David Palmer with RBC Capital Markets. You may begin.

David Palmer - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Excuse the background noise. I'm actually on the road. When you talk about the U.S. food market, retailing environment getting more difficult, I think there's quite a few versions of what that might mean these days. There's a lot of theories and problems that people have cited. Could you zero in on what has gotten more difficult in the U.S. food market in general this year in terms of having profitable sustainable growth? And I'll have a follow-up. Thanks.

Georges El-Zoghbi - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thank you, David. This is Georges here. I'll take the question. There's no doubt that there is a change in the retail landscape today, and a change in the retail landscape is not something new. What is new is the frequency and the speed at which the market is changing. So we are seeing the majority – the vast majority of retailers investing to provide consumers with more shopping options. So we see almost everyone now trying at some stage in the cycle to offer in-store pickup, delivery to home, and people coming and shopping inside their stores as usual. Our job is to be agile enough to deliver the relevant offering and the bundle that consumers – that caters to consumers' shopping options. That's what we need to do, and that's where we're making the majority of our investments. For us, it is not a question that, for instance, we have to choose between an e-commerce versus a traditional channel. It is operating in every channel effectively, and that's the job to be done. And that's the job that we are focusing on.

David Palmer - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

And does that creeping influence of e-commerce mean less pricing power? Or just simply that there is a desire from some of the bricks and mortar players for you to share in those investments? Is that simply what's happening going on right now?

Georges El-Zoghbi - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Well, for us the contribution margin from the sales in the e-commerce channel are comparable to the traditional channel because the physical movement of product is the same from us to the customers. Where we are making the investment, however, we're making an outsized investment to build our capability for the pull factor because the way consumers shop when they are in front of a screen, or they're using the mobile commerce, or they're using the voice commerce, is very different to their shopping behavior when they are walking through the aisle. And so our focus to making an investment to be able to cater for that and stimulate demand for us and our trading partners. So we will see that investment catching – the return catching up once we build scale in this area.

David Palmer - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Georges El-Zoghbi - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ken Goldman with JPMorgan. You may begin.

Kenneth B. Goldman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. You may begin.

Hi, thanks. One quick one from me and then a broader one. I think it was implied last – on last quarter's call, and maybe stated absolutely that it was expected that sequentially organic growth would improve throughout the year, so 4Q would probably be better than 3Q. David, I think, you've been talking about some of the headwinds that we might face in 4Q versus 3Q, but we have a much easier comp as well in organic sales growth. Do we still believe it is still reasonable to expect that organic sales growth for the whole company will be a little bit better in the fourth quarter than the third quarter?

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi Ken. This is David. And thank you for the question. So to summarize my comments from earlier, I'd say in Q4 we'd expect organic sales to reflect two things. One, some one-off headwinds from the U.S. and Canada, but we do expect this to be offset by acceleration in rest of the world. So I think that's kind of the trajectory you would expect for organic sales. The other thing I would say is we continue to expect strong EBITDA growth globally into Q4. Paulo Luiz Araújo Basílio - The Kraft Heinz Co.: And, Ken, just to mention on Q4, keep in mind that organic net sales growth was up 1.6% last year. So it's not necessarily an easy comp.

Kenneth B. Goldman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. You may begin.

No, you're right. I was looking at the wrong year, and I apologize for that. My larger question in terms of personnel changes, obviously there have been some fairly major ones lately at the top. Can – I just – not to take up too much time, but can we just ask a little bit about why some of these changes were made? What, Bernardo, you think that individual strengths are in terms of David and Paolo and George, and why they are right for these roles? I'm just trying to get a little bit of a sense for why at this company's life cycle, or this point in the life cycle, these movements were taken on?

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi, Ken, it's Bernardo. I think, it's a really good question. And if you think about it, we thought it was really the right timing to do that given that if you take the whole integration after two years of Kraft Heinz was already behind us, we went into a lot of transformational steps, not only from a result standpoint, but a way of doing business, pushing a large speed to market, to innovation go-to-market, and other things, a lot of different campaigns to products and renovation. And George has really done a phenomenal job leading us in the U.S. during this whole period. And part of his job as well was to prepare other players that could be his successor in this, and he could be helping us in a different role, what he is going to be doing that to myself, to Paulo, to the Board and so on. I think, for Paulo, after leading the finance world from this whole period since the acquisition of Heinz in 2013 was really a phenomenal opportunity for running a business and really adding to his skills and the talent he has. He understands the business better than anybody else. He had to work side-by-side with George, with myself during this whole period. So I wouldn't say I know people take by surprise, but the way you write this, it's very normal for us to have people in different areas and rotating and really adding to the business for the long run. And, David, it's really a question of, it's really a result of talent and proven results from the past, be now taking from a different – completely different role being the CFO of the company. I think, it's a great proof of meritocracy and ownership in action. So I know, it was a lot bundled together, but in the sense that something has been built for quite some time, has been – the transition has been very smooth. And really Paulo is already running the business, but David is already the CFO. George is already helping me in several initiatives like he was mentioning the e-commerce, the channel mix, things related to innovation, related to our stock plan initiatives. So I would say it's really a proof of meritocracy and speed to market when we move the company to the next level.

Kenneth B. Goldman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. You may begin.

Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Grainger with Morgan Stanley. You may begin. Matthew C. Grainger - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. Good evening. Thanks for the questions. I just had two. First I guess for David or for Paulo. I just wanted to ask about gross margin in the quarter. It was a bit below our expectations. I'd assume the main driver of any shortfall that might've occurred relative to your own outlook was a function of that price cost balance improving a little bit less than expected. But apart from that dynamic, could you just talk about the balance between supporting the brands with trade versus advertising at the moment? Are you seeing any incremental pressure from competitive dynamics, or retailers, that's resulting in the need to reallocate a bit of money from brand building back toward trade spending?

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi, Matt. This is David, and thank you for the question here. So to answer your question, I think there are a few things to note on how the P&L is playing versus last year. So on gross margin, as you asked, the performance versus last year really reflects two factors. So first, we've seen an unfavorable balance in pricing and commodities, with commodity inflation that we've talked about in first half and last quarter. I'll reiterate that we did see improvement in Q3, and we expect to see an accelerated improvement in this balance into Q4. And in fact with that improvement in Q4, it should enable better flow through of savings – of our integration savings to the bottom line to EBITDA. The second factor here to highlight is we did have some increased depreciation and amortization expense within our gross margin line. If you actually take this out – and it's related to the footprint projects that we've talked about previously – if you take out this increase, our gross margin actually increased in Q3 by 35 basis points. So again, we started to see the improvement in Q3 which we expect to improve with PNOC and into Q4. Matthew C. Grainger - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Thanks, David. That's helpful. And then just one other question, I guess following up on David Palmer's question earlier. When we're thinking about the pace of change in the U.S., there's been a huge amount of focus on the expansion of a few small but growing retailers within the food landscape, like Amazon and the hard discounters. And a lot of the risk factors being discussed are much more forward-looking than something that's really imminent or having a significant tangible impact right now, or at least it seems…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Robert Moskow with Credit Suisse. You may begin. Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Hi. Thanks. I guess a couple of questions. One is you raised your cost savings target, but my recollection is that that's also net of other costs that you might incur, inflationary costs such as freight. And with freight rising, how did that factor into your decision to raise the savings? Would it have been even higher excluding that, I guess? And then the second question is, I thought I heard Paulo comment about price matching by traditional retailers, or maybe I misunderstood. But is that a function of traditional grocers trying to match what the hard discounters are putting out there? And that's really my question.

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi, Rob, this is David. And thanks for the question. So to answer it, I think this increase in integration savings that we saw from the $1.7 billion to a range from $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion. Again, this is net of some of the inflation and investments we talked about, so that's an all-in number. Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Okay. So it would've been higher, but are you raising your freight number in there also? Would it have been higher...

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Again, this is an all-in number, so it's net of some of the inflation investments that we've had. Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Okay. Okay.

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Yes, in terms of the – sorry. Your second question about price matching. So we're seeing some private label matching between retailers that are creating a bigger and wider gap versus the branded product for some specific customers. Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bryan Spillane with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. You may begin.

Bryan D. Spillane - Bank of America-Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. You may begin.

Hey, good afternoon, everybody.

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hey, Bryan.

Georges El-Zoghbi - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi, Bryan.

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Good afternoon.

Bryan D. Spillane - Bank of America-Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. You may begin.

Hi. So I guess my question is just around the EBITDA performance year-to-date, right. So I think currency – constant currency adjusted EBITDA is up 2% versus last year through the first three quarters. So can you give us a sense of where that stacks up versus, I guess, what your internal plans are? And also, I guess, there is an implication that EBITDA growth will be a little bit better in the fourth quarter, but just kind of where you are tracking versus plan? And I guess related to that, SG&A was pretty low this quarter, so trying to get a sense – I guess, some sense in there about how much of that is sustainable? Or are there some factors that drove SG&A down in the quarter that we should think about maybe not repeating?

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi, Brian. It's Bernardo. Let me take the first part of your question about the performance evaluation, and then I'm going to ask David to follow-up on the SG&A piece. I think it's reasonable to say that after the first quarter that that has been a weaker quarter for us and for the industry in general, right? And we have been significantly progressed, month-by-month, quarter-by-quarter, and when you compare the second half with the first half, we continue to make core progress in almost all geographies and all channels, right? That's something we have been highlighting on calls. George has talked about that several times as well, and we are pleased to see that coming, right? So when you see our profitable growth agenda to mean investments of big bet innovations, go-to-market, digital growth, whitespace food service, efficiencies on the marketing side. They are all materializing, right? And it's gaining momentum as we speak. So we are pleased to see that. On other hand, you're right to say that we have some short-term headwinds that really doesn't – that doesn't change the growth potential and the way we are seeing 2018 and beyond. And you're also right to say that we should continue to see the acceleration of our EBITDA growth looking fourth quarter, right? Especially with the savings curve materializing the way we wanted them to do it. We finalizing our footprint initiatives, we are raising our all-in base of the savings, so we should see more of that in the fourth quarter, especially in the bottom line worldwide. With that, I will pass to David here to comment on specific on the numbers.

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thanks, Bernardo. And hi, Bryan, thank you for the question. So on the SG&A line, I'd say we did see a significant decline versus prior year as a percentage of sales, and that really reflects lower people cost that we've seen, as well as ZBB savings versus prior year. The one thing I want to note to address your question is as you update your models, you should not straight-line the SG&A as a percentage of sales like you saw on year-to-date in Q4 – or sorry, year-to-date in Q3 into Q4, because we do have some seasonality in this line item.

Bryan D. Spillane - Bank of America-Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. You may begin.

And just to be clear, in SG&A, has there been any change in like comp accruals? Have you had to take down comp accruals at all this year, because you're tracking behind plan? Or has that been a factor in the lower SG&A, I guess?

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Yes. So I'd say if you think about EBITDA for the year – sorry, for Q3 globally, we saw strong EBITDA growth up $120 million to $130 million. That was really driven by two things. One, cost savings in North America, as well as growth in Europe and rest of the world. So if you look at North America, we're actually up $100 million, and the difference there, the $30 million, is really driven by Europe and rest of world. So in North America, we have the benefit of $125 million of integration savings. The delta there, the $100 million growth in EBITDA, was really driven by the unfavorable balance of pricing commodities that we talked about, which did improve in Q3, but was still had one for us, and that was partially offset by savings in the business. So that's kind of the rough trajectory of EBITDA versus prior year.

Bryan D. Spillane - Bank of America-Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. You may begin.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Pablo Zuanic with SIG. You may begin.

Pablo Zuanic - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst · SIG. You may begin.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you. One question for George and one for Bernardo, please. So, George, we hear a lot from the retailers that private brands are growing, that the good retailers are there, Wegmans, Costco, H-E-B are the ones that tend to have very more developed private label programs and that others may want to catch up. Do you see that? Do you expect that? And how does it affect your business? And then the question for Bernardo, and it's a bit philosophical. I would argue that a lot of your categories, Bernardo, are what I'd call more like commodity type nature whether it's cheese, cold cuts, even coffee, your brands are more on the commodity side, if I look at Maxwell House. So how do you adapt that portfolio? A, do you buy other brands' new categories? Do you enter licensing agreements with brands that are stronger? Or do you even enter private brands as a business? And I say that because your skill set, there are some questions on the marketing side, but I'm sure your skills are there, but your skill set clearly is on scale, in operations, in cost savings. So given this new retail landscape, why not make a bigger bet on private brands and operate private brands as well as you manage your own brands, have more scale and maybe help margins. Thanks. Maybe, George, you can answer the first question first. Thanks.

Georges El-Zoghbi - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thank you, Pablo. I will answer the first question, and I will hand it over to Bernardo to answer the second one. You are right. This year, we have seen, after a long period of being flat, a renewed focus on expanding the total distribution points or the TDPs of private label and some push on promoting private labels as well. And major part, that was to ensure a competition with new entrants expanding in the marketplace. Now, the impact on us varied by category. In some categories, we benefited because to make way for the increase in total distribution points, some of the brands were taken out of the categories, and therefore the category performance improved when retailer reduced the number of offering of low-velocity product and went into high-velocity products. So you see that very noticeable in our ketchup business, in our Kraft American slices business, in our beverages mixes business, and our ready-to-eat dessert business. On the other hand, by contrast, when retailers did not play with the assortment, but they resorted to price matching and having a very competitive private label with the expanding discounting sector, the gap between the branded and non-branded pricing expanded. And in those categories, we saw loss of market share. An example for that is the natural cheese. At the end of the day, we still manage to have about 50% of the business maintaining or growing share, and we will continue to invest in the quality and innovation and renovation and advertising to win in the marketplace across all our major categories. So that's where we landed. Bernardo?

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi, Pablo. Bernardo. About your questions about what you call more commoditized categories, and so, I think it's important to highlight two things. One, those are categories that you have been doing a lot of good work on renovation and bringing things to market on a different way, right. I think the hotdog example is a good example. The innovation in Planters Signature nutrition and others is another good example. On the cheese category with several different offerings within – from Philadelphia, but to the natural cheese and singles. It's another. So – and those are categories which – that are really very, very – tend to be extremely profitable, with high margins in all them. So in order to make this analysis we're making, I think it's good to see the profitability and the way to go to the category in a more longer-term view, right? That's always help. The second piece to our question, that we tend to like more the scale and then the things that you're going to need investment in growth. I tend to disagree with that because if you look the story of the last two years since the merger, we were able to really achieve significantly margin increase within our business, keeping the same level of growth as our peers. Now recently, looking at 2017, in most parts of the categories we are growing better than our peers. Right? Because of the agenda looking at innovation, the go-to-market, the marketing, the digital channels, the foodservice whitespace and so on. So even though I believe and we said that in the call many times, you have much more ahead of us not only for the year, looking into fourth quarter against third quarter and so on, but looking 2018, 2019 and beyond. Many of the categories we have today, we're in a much better place as we speak, and George have been highlighting that, than you were a year ago or two years ago. What make us excited about the momentum were coming and looking at 2018 and 2019.

Pablo Zuanic - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst · SIG. You may begin.

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jonathan Feeney with Consumer Edge Research. You may begin.

Jonathan Feeney - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · Consumer Edge Research. You may begin.

Good afternoon. Thanks very much. This morning, there was an article in The London Telegraph about a number of leading CPG companies who are participating in a pilot exchange that effectively cuts out – potentially cuts out some major retailers. And I guess, it's – it got me thinking, why isn't it – what stops something like that from happening in North America or more broadly? And what got me thinking, why is it inherently margin negative for retailers to fragment? You named – you just named some brands that have performed very, very well as retailers have been forced to reset shelves. Why isn't that the case that there's ways to go more direct to consumers; maybe partner more aggressively with existing e-commerce players to create not only – not only create a more rational market, but create greater leverage for your brands and for yourself? Especially in those businesses where you have high brand share, high penetration and the high can't-live-without-it factor for retailers? Just your thoughts on that. Thank you.

Georges El-Zoghbi - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thank you, Jonathan. When we reviewed our e-commerce strategy as we built the team, we looked at all options, and we felt and we decided that the most efficient option from an end-to-end supply chain is to partner with retailers because of the scale that they provide for everybody. And we decided that for the physical movement of product, we keep using central distribution warehouses to get the physical movement of product to retailers and our investment is better made to build a relationship with the consumers and convert these consumers as customers of our trade partners. And this is where we're investing the money, this is where we're putting our resources. And from the pilot that we did, and we had a number of initiatives that we tested in the marketplace, it proved very efficient, profitable, and can deliver growth for both of us, ourselves and our major customers.

Jonathan Feeney - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst · Consumer Edge Research. You may begin.

Thank you.

Georges El-Zoghbi - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thank you, John.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Driscoll with Citigroup. You may begin.

David Cristopher Driscoll - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. You may begin.

Great. Thanks a lot. Good evening, everyone. I had two questions. The first was just a follow-up to David regarding the changes to the asset – the asset footprint. You said something earlier about if you excluded the higher depreciation that gross margins would have been up. And the only thing I'd like you to explain is that I thought the concept is that you put all this new fancy equipment in because it gives you lower operating costs. One of the negatives, of course, is higher depreciation for the brand-new equipment. But isn't there a significant positive because there's lower operating costs? So if you take that part into account, can you still do the margin computation that you gave us saying that ex the depreciation, gross margin would've been up?

David H. Knopf - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi, David. Thank you for the question. So I think to answer your question, like I said, we had an increase in depreciation related to the footprint which if you strip this out we would've had increasing gross margin of 35 basis points. So I think the disconnect there is really timing related relative to the ramp up that we would see in some of these programs relative to the CapEx that we have to spend.

David Cristopher Driscoll - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. You may begin.

Okay. Europe. You guys mentioned that you are taking back some of the licenses, or the licenses that reverted back from Mondelez. Can you spend a little bit more time and talk about this? I think this can have a reasonably significant impact over time. But I would like to hear exactly what brands have come back or what products have come back to you and what are your plans going forward to enhance your European business with these licenses?

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Hi, David. It's Bernardo. That's correct. We came to an agreement with the Mondelez and had the brands that were under Kraft name actually, and Bull's-Eye another brands within continued to come back to us this fourth quarter. What really, I think, allowed us to already start talking to retailers and to plan properly 2018 and accelerate our plans moving forward. We are excited with that because, especially the Continental Europe get us more and more presence in scale in condiments and sauces business, that's for sure a category that's strategic for us and one that we want to expand our presence worldwide within that and that happens. We did do a discussion, when you look at Germany, Italy, Spain, and some other countries within Continental Europe. By having the brands now, like I said, allowed us to really move at a faster pace to our plans already for next year. The biggest product next year that's coming back is really Kraft Mayo, but we also have to have other sauces in barbecue, even ketchup, and others that are also coming back with the repatriation of the brands especially on the Kraft name.

David Cristopher Driscoll - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. You may begin.

Can you give us any sense of scale as to what revenue this will contribute next year?

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

We are not giving the numbers now for sure. We're working the plans what this can be. I think the first step is really to have them in-house and really establishing and keeping the commercial relationship as it is today, and then from there you're going to see what can be growing and how we can scale to our distribution and so on. It will be more looking at through second half next year when you can have them completely in-house the way we would like to, but I would say it's a good start of the process.

David Cristopher Driscoll - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. You may begin.

Thank you so much. I'll pass it along.

Christopher M. Jakubik - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Great. If we could take one more question, that would be great.

Operator

Operator

Our last question is from Andrew Lazar with Barclays. You may begin.

Andrew Lazar - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Good afternoon. So I guess my one question is we've seen a pretty severe devaluation in the food space irrespective of the last day or so. And I guess as capital allocation is such a large part of KHC's story, I guess I was wondering what you can comment on in terms of the company's ability to take advantage or monetize some of that – or some of these stock moves, and maybe use it to your advantage? And I guess, in other words, why wouldn't KHC be able to move faster on some of these capital allocation decisions in this kind of an environment where there would seem to be some additional opportunity?

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thank you, Andrew. It's Bernardo again. I think your question makes a lot of sense. I think it's important just without commenting on any specific or hypothetical names, or to say that our framework has really not changed within the M&A strategy and capital allocation. Your right to say I don't think it's a question of speed or not speed. We have proven in the past that we are disciplined and know how to allocate capital, and we have proven in the past also that we know how to be fast when applicable. I think it's coming back to the framework, the three things we have been saying for quite some time are still in place today in an important way. First, we do like brands that can travel, not only through geographies but to all channels. That's an important consideration for us. Second, we do like good categories and business that we believe can be sustainable for the long term. And third, the right valuation, the right value creation for the long-term is critical. When you find this combination that really allows us to say that two plus two is more than four, we can't move at a fast pace one when we can. We can add to our portfolio and really create within a Kraft science project something bigger, again when you find the two plus two, that's more than four. Your question about the right valuation what's happening in the market, that doesn't change our long-term perspective and our framework. You are right to say that the companies at those valuations and so really create a much more long-term value creation to the captor if they fit the framework. You are right to say so.

Andrew Lazar - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much for your perspective.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Chris Jakubik for closing remarks.

Christopher M. Jakubik - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Thanks very much, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. For the analyst with follow-up questions, myself and Andy Larkin will be available, and for anybody in the media with any follow-ups, Michael Mullen will be available for you. So thanks again for joining us and have a good night.

Bernardo Vieira Hees - The Kraft Heinz Co.

Management

Good night.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thanks for your participation, and have a wonderful day.