Lamb Weston Holdings, Inc. (LW) Q4 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Lamb Weston Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 26 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Debbie Hancock. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Lamb Weston's fourth quarter and full year fiscal 26 earnings call. Debbie Hancock, Lamb Weston's Vice President of Investor Relations. Earlier today, we issued our press release and posted slides that we will use for our discussion today. You will find both on our website at lambweston.com. Please note that during our remarks, we will make forward-looking statements about the company's expected performance that are based on our current expectations. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in our SEC filings for more details on our forward looking statements. Some of today's remarks include non GAAP financial measures. These non GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with our GAAP results. You can find the GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations in our earnings release in the appendix to our presentation. Joining me today are Jan Eli Craps, Executive Chair; Michael Jared Smith, President and CEO; and James Derek Gray, chief financial officer. Each will provide prepared remarks, and then we will be available to take your questions. I will now turn the call over to Jan.

Thank you, Debbie, and good morning, everyone. I am happy to be with you today. For my first earnings call at Lamb Weston. I will start with observations from my first months as Executive Chair, then turn the call over to Mike and Jim for their review of our performance. I will come back at the end of our call with additional remarks about the roadmap ahead, before we take your questions. In the next hour, we plan to spend about 2-thirds of our time on prepared remarks, and leave about 20 minutes for questions. it is a real pleasure to work with this board, management team, and partners. I joined Lamb Weston in early February after more than 20 years with ABI, most recently as a CEO and co chair of Budweiser APAC, and APAC CEO for ABI. Now let me share what attracted me to Lamb Weston. First, the company operates in an attractive and growing category. Expanding volume, price, mix and margins over time. Largely serving foodservice customers, on multi year contracts. Second, Lamb Weston is a skilled leader with an advantage plant network in this grid category. With a strong and growing core North American profit pool, significant cash generation potential and a meaningful turnaround opportunity, and optionality across our international footprints. And third, Lamb Weston has a seasoned board making swift and purposeful decisions to drive incremental value for shareholders. My role as Executive Chair has several key responsibilities. Chairing a deeply engaged Board of Directors to set the company's priorities and track its progress. Focusing on people through talent development and building a performance culture. Leading the next leg of our strategy development, including where to play, how to win, inorganic moves like M&A and partnerships or divestitures, and driving a clear growth algorithm. Mentoring Mike and the executive leadership team, providing insights on priority topics, like embedding a cost culture, realizing tech and benchmarking opportunities, where my past experience complements the leadership team's expertise. And finally, working with Mike, as he continues to lead the daily operations of the organization as a CEO, translating our strategic plan into a robust operational plan, and driving the execution of our strategy and our teams to deliver results. it is an exciting time to be part of Lamb Weston. Let me wrap up my opening remarks with observations and actions from my global onboarding sprint so far. Over my first 100 days, I spent a significant amount of time meeting our teams and getting to know our people. They are passionate about our business, I have engaged with our colleagues at more than 15 plants in the U.S., in the U.K., Europe, China and Australia or more than half of our facilities. I visited farms, customers and stores and I have spoken with select analysts, bankers, investors and industry players. I have been struck by the energy and ideas across our value chain and ecosystem. I am encouraged that we are rebounding confidently from a period of uneven execution and disrupted market dynamics. Controlling the controllables including rebuilding North American volumes on a more resilient and efficient supply chain. And I see a leadership team that is embracing more strategic clarity and choices, a deeper performance culture, and sharper focus on costs cash flow and consistency. While the Focus 2 Win strategy is in its first year, I view it as the right first steps for Lamb Weston. Implement it with an essential customer first mindset. I am focused on the execution of the first phase of Focus 2 Win, as a key step of a broader program to improve performance and returns on capital at Lamb Weston. I am encouraged by our team's progress and execution of this first phase. In parallel, we are driving initiatives to expand those efforts more broadly across the organization in subsequent phases of Focus 2 Win. I will discuss some of these efforts later in our call, and this will culminate in an Investor Day in early calendar 2027. The key message I want you to take away from me is that there is focus and alignment in driving this company to achieve its full potential. To that end, and in support of this opportunity, I have made a significant personal investment in Lamb Weston shares. And my compensation is tied to the stock price. I do not participate in the annual incentive plan, I am rewarded if you, our shareholders, are rewarded. With that, let me hand it over to Mike.

Thank you, Jan. it is great to have you and Jim with us today. I am excited about the work we are doing together to accelerate and build on the foundation we have in place. And good morning to everyone joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and full year results. The key message I want to leave with you today is that we made meaningful progress as an organization in fiscal 26. I told you a year ago that Lamb Weston was on a journey to rebuild its credibility with both our customers and investors. I believe fiscal 26 was a strong step toward that goal. We delivered for our customers in the way they expect of us. And we delivered on the financial targets and key performance milestones that we shared with you on our July 2025 call. I want to start again this quarter by thanking the Lamb Weston teams around the world for their efforts in executing a new strategy in a challenging and dynamic market. Together, we delivered a solid quarter and year. Led by the strength of North America, Throughout fiscal 26, we stabilized our North America business growing volume sales and EBITDA for the full year and ending with a 26% segment EBITDA margin. Internationally, in the fourth quarter, we faced disruption in shipments and volatile input cost inflation from the Middle East. Jim will speak to our fourth quarter performance shortly. As we have previously discussed, market conditions drove greater competition and pricing pressure notably in EMEA. We are controlling the controllables and setting a strategic plan to maximize returns across our global footprint. Including closing a facility in the Netherlands. We invested effectively significantly reducing capital expenditures and delivering strong cash flow. And we returned $321 million to shareholders bringing our total return since going public to greater than 2.2 billion Today, I am going to focus on what we accomplished this past year. My first full fiscal year as CEO. Jim will then review the financials, and Jan will speak to the strategic work he is leading as executive chair. Within our Focus to Win strategy, strengthening customer partnerships has been my top priority since taking over as CEO. We have worked to reaffirm our role as a trusted partner. We drove the mantra of customer centricity across the organization. We focused our commercial teams on joint business partnerships and value added relationships. Our supply chain organization was laser focused on meeting our customers' quality, service, and order fill rate requirements. And our marketing and innovation teams ensured we armed our customers with insights and menu items to stand out in the marketplace. These efforts have delivered 6 consecutive quarters of volume growth. And in Q4, volume and share grew in North America despite a demand challenged market. And we grew in opportunity regions such as Asia Pacific, and Latin America. During the year, we extended several of our largest strategic customers' contracts. We seamlessly supported significant new customer rollouts. We partnered on menu innovation including value add, higher margin LTOs. And we facilitated the store and geographic expansions of our customers. In the U.S., where we measure Net Promoter Score, according to proprietary research, our NPS increased over last year and is the highest among major competitors. Our customers value Lamb Weston. They trust us. They demand our quality. They rely on our service and our innovation. We are committed to creating value together. Executional excellence is another strategic pillar we significantly advanced this past year. Similar to reaffirming customers' trust, this was another top priority for me. Our increasingly nimble supply chain team facilitated this customer success. Meeting the demand and incremental North America volume. While also driving improved operational efficiencies recurring cost savings and debottlenecking plants to increase capacity. We are moving in the right direction, with the opportunity for improvement as we bring standardization and adopt best practices across our manufacturing network. As we further develop our demand planning systems, we believe that outstanding individual plant operating teams can be even better together. Outside North America, we are optimizing supply chain assets globally to reduce our costs and better meet future customer demand. During fiscal 26, we opened a new state of the art production facility in Mar del Plata, Argentina. This facility provides us with a clear advantage to deliver some of the highest quality and premium product in the region. As we ramped up production, performance and profit improved throughout the year. We closed an older legacy facility and consolidated production into 1 location. Volume is up. Utilization is better, and we have room to grow. In China, our newest facility in Inner Mongolia has a similar trajectory, Opened in 2023, this facility provides us with additional local processing capacity in a growing market. We have grown volume and net sales double digits since opening the facility. These strategic facilities are big bets in important growth regions that take time to build to optimal utilization. Our local presence has led to expansion of our market opportunity and additional customer wins. In Europe, our efforts to meet global customer demand and maintain a competitive advantage have led to the reduction in our footprint. During Q4, we temporarily curtailed a line in the Netherlands. And in early June, we announced our intention to close an older production facility in Broekhuizenvorst. Which is also in the Netherlands. That facility represents about 10% of our EMEA production capacity. These actions, while difficult, will rebalance our capacity with demand and build a foundation for more effective network utilization and lower costs. And as it has been reported in the media, the industry has announced some delays to new production. There is significant work being done behind these decisions about where to play and how to win. Jan will speak to this next layer of our strategy work shortly. Another significant deliverable in our Executional Excellence pillar is lowering costs and improving productivity. The team has done a tremendous job of identifying and successfully executing against opportunities. A year ago, we launched a cost savings program to deliver at least $250 million of annualized run rate savings by the end of fiscal 28. After year 1, we exceeded our first year milestone of $100 million This is the result of a lot of hard work from everyone at Lamb Weston. Based on the success of the program to date, in delivering structural savings to the supply chain, reducing our manufacturing cost per pound, and reducing SG&A costs, we will continue to pursue additional opportunities to improve our cost structure and capital efficiency. These savings have offset inflation and allowed us to invest in targeted support for our customers and to offset some mix headwinds. We believe the investments that we have made in our customers has strengthened our base and will lead to future opportunities to create value together. Our price mix investment has moderated in Q4. And the combination of strong volume demand and cost savings is beginning to show results. As evidenced by our fourth quarter North America EBITDA margin expansion, and dollar growth. Finally, disruptive innovation remains a key unlock in our value add for customers and consumers. Innovation drives traffic, unlocks new markets, and anticipates consumers' changing taste preferences. In fiscal 26, we launched new items at retail including private label innovation, and new Alexia seasoned items. And with food service, we introduced operator and distributor innovation as well as Lamb Weston batter line extensions. Our consistent focus on innovation, has increased the percentage of net sales coming from new items. A key KPI in measuring our innovation success. And this month, we launched new items aligned to consumer preferences, expanding our Alexia olive oil product into additional retailers and launching similar products into the food service channel. There is more to come this fall with disruptive innovation launches for both retail and food service. At the core of our success is our people. Throughout the year, we work to develop a continuous improvement in performance culture. As leaders, my team and I led with transparency and clarity, We ended the year with improved employee engagement scores, and we are building on this going forward. We also added depth to our board and management. With additional global and strategic expertise from Jan and more recently, the addition of Jim as CFO. Earlier this month, Amit Philip joined us in the new role of Chief Strategy and Technology Officer. Amit brings expertise from a distinguished career spanning consulting, technology, and food manufacturing. Including leadership roles at TreeHouse Foods and The Hershey Company. In closing, we delivered a solid year driven by sustainable results including a strong recovery in our North America business. Meaningful progress in executing Focus 2 Win, especially with customers and execution. A greater than anticipated achievement of cost savings, improved capital discipline and strong return of capital to shareholders, and strengthened engagement with our teams and new executive team members. The year was not without its challenges. As the international segment absorbed startup costs associated with our new Argentina plant and an industry slowdown in the EMEA region. And across the business, we faced volatile inflation at year end due to the Middle East conflict. We are addressing these issues head on. I am proud of what we accomplished this year. And we have strong plans to continue driving progress in fiscal 27 and beyond. I will now turn the call over to James Derek Gray to review the financials and our outlook.

Thank you, Mike, and good morning to everyone. I have been with Lamb Weston since April, it has been a pleasure getting to know the team and see our operations in the basin as well as the Netherlands. We have a great team, and I am excited about the opportunities to create shareholder value. Let's turn to our performance which was a solid result fueled by North America. Fourth quarter net sales for the company increased 6% led by a 7% increase in sales volume and 2% favorable currency impact, partially offset by a 3% decline in price/mix. It was the sixth consecutive quarter of sales volume growth. On a constant currency basis, net sales were up 4%. As Mike said, our North America segment had a strong Q4. North America net sales increased 9%, with sales volume up 11% as momentum continued with customer wins share gains, and strong retention as well as the addition of an extra week. Price mix declined only 2%, with price and mix equally impacting the quarter. Modest investment in price and trade and a continued mix shift towards lower price channels including chain and private label, drove the change. Looking at the underlying market drivers for this quarter, as reported by Circana CREST, U.S. Restaurant traffic was flat. QSR traffic was also flat led by 3% growth in QSR chicken, largely offset by a 4% decline in QSR burger traffic. In our international segment, net sales declined 2%, led by a sales volume decline of 2% and price/mix decline of 4%. Partially offset by favorable currency impacts. James growth in Asia Pacific and Latin America was more than offset by challenging market conditions in EMEA. Including the impact of the Middle East conflict, which began early in our fourth quarter of fiscal 26. Internationally, QSR traffic in the quarter declined 2% in the U.K. and France, and 1% in Italy however, it was up slightly in Germany and Spain. Adjusted EBITDA declined $6 million compared to last year. As North America adjusted EBITDA dollars grew 17% or $45 million In Q4, North America sales volume grew with modest price investment and cost savings more than offset inflation. Our international decline was driven by EMEA challenges. We were carrying higher raw potato costs into the quarter and we experienced higher fixed cost absorption due to slower European demand. Furthermore, we incurred higher incremental freight costs as a result of the Middle East conflict. For the company, inflation in the quarter was up more than we had expected, all inputs other than raw potato prices were up, with a substantial increase in edible oils and transportation costs. Demand for biodiesel has driven up the cost of most edible oils And while we are hedged against oil, we are seeing spot price inflation. The input cost volatility experienced in Q4 impacted the quarter, and also carried into the cost of our finished goods, which we will move through in the first quarter of fiscal 27. Adjusted SG&A was up $16 million in the quarter as cost savings benefits were more than offset by higher incentive compensation. On a full year basis, net sales increased 2%, led by a 7% increase in sales volume, and a 1% increase in favorable currency impact. Partially offset by a 6% decrease in price/mix. The North America segment delivered 3% net sales growth for the year, led by a 9% increase in sales volume partially offset by a 6% price/mix decline. This included an $86 million benefit from the 53rd week. International segment net sales increased 1%, led by a 5% favorable currency impact. and 2% sales volume growth. Notably in Asia Pacific and Latin America. These gains were partially offset by a 6% decline in price/mix. On a constant currency basis, net sales were down 4%. In addition, the extra week added $41 million to the full year results. Full year adjusted EBITDA was down 9% as international challenges were only partly offset by growth in North America. In North America, higher sales volume lower manufacturing cost per pound, and the benefit of cost savings more than offset inflation and price mix investment. Internationally, the decline in EBITDA was driven by lower organic sales given the competitive environment, as well as higher manufacturing cost per pound. The higher costs included write offs of excess potatoes, lower utilization of our international production facilities, and start up expenses for our new plant in Argentina. These were only partially offset by the benefits of cost savings initiatives. The extra week added $29 million in adjusted EBITDA for the year. Cash generation has improved significantly this year, In fiscal 26, we generated $943 million of cash from operations, up $75 million versus last year. The increase is largely attributable to $55 million of favorable changes in working capital. Capital expenditures were $410 million in the year, down more than $240 million year-over-year. Our focus on execution and capital discipline has enabled us to deliver $537 million in free cash flow. For fiscal 26. A significant increase year over year. Our liquidity remains strong with approximately $1.3 billion available under our revolving credit facility, Net debt was $3.8 billion and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio was 3.4x on a trailing 12-month basis. For the full year, we have returned $321 million to shareholders including $208 million in cash dividends $113 million of stock repurchases of which $63 million was repurchased in the fourth quarter. In addition, we announced this morning the next quarterly dividend of $0.38 per share to be payable on September 4. As we look to fiscal 27, our position with customers lower cost base, improved operating efficiencies, and the lap of 1-time items provides us with a view to expect earnings to grow faster than sales in the coming year. In fiscal 2027, we expect net sales to be flat to up 1% versus a 52-week adjusted net sales base of $6.5 billion for fiscal 26. We are focused on sustainable earnings growth. In fiscal 2027, our adjusted operating income target is in a range of $720 million to $800 million The benefits of lower raw potato costs incremental supply chain cost savings initiatives, favorable fixed cost absorption from higher utilization, and the lapping of fiscal 26 potato write offs and Argentina start up costs is anticipated to be modest, mostly offset by inflation in essentially all other input cost areas. We will continue to drive cost savings in both cost of sales and SG&A. In fiscal 27, we expect SG&A to decline as a result of these efforts. Equity earnings from our JV in North America is anticipated to grow modestly as we have restarted curtailed lines. We expect interest rate expense of $190 million an effective tax rate in the range of 25.5% to 27.5%. We anticipate adjusted EPS to be in the range of $2.95 to $3.25 versus the 52 week fiscal 2026 adjusted EPS number of $2.90 We anticipate diluted common shares outstanding to be between 137.5 million and 139 million Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion versus a comparable 1.13 billion over the 52-week period of fiscal 26. In fiscal 27, we anticipate cash used for capital expenditures of approximately $380 million to $410 million This estimate includes carrying amounts from projects started in the prior year. Going forward, on an accrual basis, we anticipate investments of up to $350 million We are improving capital efficiency through the better pacing of investments process improvements to debottleneck, which also expands capacity, and strong rigor on returns on investment. In addition, our anticipated wastewater related spend will largely be complete by the end of fiscal 27. Operating cash flow remains strong, is expected to be in the range of $750 million to $800 million as we expect to hold the investment in working capital relatively flat year over year despite an anticipated increase in net sales. Our company net sales outlook of flat to up 1% assumes flat global restaurant traffic. Our range for EBITDA outcomes on the low side largely reflects uncertainty around the Middle East impacts on global input cost volatility. Through the first half of fiscal 27. The upper end of our EBITDA range would assume more favorable net sales from customers channel and product mix, as well as delivery of cost savings. North America is expected to continue top line sales volume growth and market share gains. Net sales on a comparable week's basis is expected to be flat to up low single digits, with low single digit volume growth and low single digit price mix decline. North America EBITDA is anticipated to be flat to up low single digits as modest pricemix investments combined with cost inflation, are anticipated to be offset by sales volume growth and our ongoing cost savings initiatives. Our International segment top line is anticipated to be down low single digits. Driven by the challenging competitive conditions in EMEA, pricemix investment is expected to be low to mid single digits, partially offset by low single digit volume growth. We expect top line growth in the other regions in International. International segment EBITDA is anticipated to improve between 40%-50% as we lap an incremental $33 million of pre-tax charges for potato write offs. As well as start up costs from our Argentina facility. Overall segment EBITDA is expected to reflect positive contributions from international regions outside of EMEA, SG and A savings and operating leverage. Partially offset by price investments from carryover and a competitive environment. To help with modeling the cadence through the year, in Q1, we expect the carryover effects from the cost of prior year potato crop and edible oil inflation to have a greater impact. For the first quarter, we anticipate net sales to be flat and EBITDA to decline in the low teens. Before growth ramps through the remainder of the year. Shifting to an update on the potato crop. In North America, the crop year is off to a strong start with favorable weather and crop development slightly ahead of historical timing. Our contracted acreage is modestly higher year over year to support increased sales volume growth. In Europe, the crop year is also off to a favorable start with good growing conditions across key regions. Our expectation is for an average crop. But it is early in the season. Planted acreage is down year over year, with a more pronounced reduction in contracted volumes across the industry, including our own. With that, let me hand it back to Jan.

Thank you, Jim. When I joined Lamb Weston, I decided to invest significant time and energy in a deep onboarding process get to know the business well and identify the biggest opportunities for this turnaround. My global onboarding sprint and deep engagement so far with fellow board members, senior leaders and the broader team and partners have reinforced the reasons I joined Lamb Weston and are informing how we unlock additional value in the business rapidly from here. We have a strong foundation a good start with a focus to win strategy, and an opportunity to be even bolder in our decisions, braver in our performance targets, and acting with even more urgency in our initiatives and execution. We have momentum underway to make the business more predictable, more profitable and more valuable. To accelerate change with incremental initiatives, and to drive structural change throughout the business, I am focused on 3 priorities. People, strategy, and resources. I am driving 3 key initiatives within each priority. So first, people. My top priority is unlocking our greatest asset: our people. Our first initiative within our people strategy is performance culture. In fiscal 26, we added ROIC and free cash flow already to our compensation metrics. To fully achieve the potential of Lamb Weston, we are building a performance culture by adding enterprise, entity and individual targets. We are driving individual accountability and ownership through the tighter use of individual KPIs. For net sales, adjusted EBITDA and cash generation. A change we have already approved for this fiscal 27. For example, Mike's 5 individual targets as a CEO are designed to deliver holistic improvements. Including net sales growth Big Bets innovation growth, targeted growth in some focused regions, as well as ambitious SG&A targets, and EBITDA margin improvements. Our second initiative within people strategy is leadership talent. Here, recent appointments including Jim as CFO and Amit Philip as Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, are strengthening our talent bench. We are elevating the talent management process, and strengthening our succession planning, to ensure we are identifying and developing top tier talent around the world. Finally, people strategy addresses organization design. We are implementing an organizational design which focuses on simplicity and accountability, to enable faster decision making. My second priority is strategy. We kicked off rigorous new strategy work that defines which market clusters or logical groups of countries profitable growth will come from, where to play in this landscape and how to win in these priority markets so we drive sustainable profitable growth. As Mike and Jim have shared, we have made big progress over the past year reconfirming our leadership with North American customers. That business has stabilized, it is operating with less volatility and the team delivered the strong year with a healthy profit profile and more efficient operations. With more room for growth. As we look beyond North America, we are working to identify new routes to growth and value creation with the right international footprint. We will make choices and allocate different roles to different geographic clusters, with sharper resource allocation. We will use M&A, partnerships, and divestitures together with our organic growth priorities to navigate and execute these outcomes across clusters. This will lead to a renewed growth algorithm. Third is our resources priority. Over the past year with Focus2Win, the company already began implementing a cost program. And we are now taking that further to drive a deeper cost culture in SG&A, capital expenditures and working capital, driving immediate impact on the business results. Across the globe, we are creating a culture connected to costs where costs are reset to zero and justified on current business value rather than historical habits, spend is connected to strategic outcomes through granular KPIs, and savings help rebuild margin and fund high return innovation, market expansion and organizational resilience. We also implementing more rigorous plant rankings and adopting best practices to continue to drive supply chain efficiency. Finally, we invest smartly behind clear and simple technology priorities, including leveraging the potential of AI to be ever more efficient over time. Looking ahead, we expect to drive outcomes in a business with more durable growth and less volatility than many anticipate. There is a high sense of urgency in the organization, to drive change and impact in an accelerated way. I am energized by our momentum and potential, We see significant opportunities to build a high performance culture, sharpen our strategic clarity and growth algorithm, and strengthen our cost discipline, supply efficiency and tech capabilities. And we are undertaking this as a seasoned and aligned board and leadership team. We look forward to sharing more with you in future calls, and at our Investor Day in early calendar 2027. We will now take your questions.

Thank you. *1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. We will go first to Andrew Lazar with Barclays.

Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody.

Morning, Andrew.

Great. Thanks. Maybe first off, just for you, Jan, I realize management and the board are still working through various possible actions to sort of solve for sort of international profitability. Guess my question is whether there are certain limits to what actions can be taken or are all options on the table regarding, where and how the company should compete. Or are there certain maybe structural limitations around what can be done that maybe I am not aware of?

Yes. Thank you, Andrew, and great to connect again. Thank you for your question. Yes. So as I mentioned, we are kind of in the middle of our strategy work now. it is really a fact-based, disciplined process. And we are really looking at net landed costs, where do the profit pools develop and what are the clusters of countries that will drive our growth. Then we looked at where to play, how to win. And really, essentially, it sets us up to make choices between these country clusters as we grow as we build our growth algorithm. And as a result, we are going to be allocating different roles to different country clusters. Where today, maybe every country is trying to achieve everything in a certain way. There will be more clarity as to what is the mission of each country should also drive sharper resource allocation. So that will then in turn drive any decisions on M&A, partnerships, and divestitures that will really be a result of this work. And to your point, technically, everything is on the table as we look through different country clusters and their role to drive the growth algorithm. So we are really in the middle of the work right now, and we will come back to you with more details at the Investor Day. But the other thing is the team is not sitting still while we do the strategy work. Right? So maybe it is helpful, Andrew, if I hand it over to Mike and you know, maybe, Mike, you can talk us through how we are improving the EMEA results in the shorter term as well.

Thanks, Jan. Andrew, as I think about the work that we are doing right now is as Jim cited, LATAM APAC had a good quarter. And really, some of the challenges we are seeing are in EMEA. But, you know, we are not sitting back. We are really trying to control what we can control. I think 1 thing to remind the group is that, you know, the industry is facing 3 challenges, really. You know, last season, we experienced really high yields. More acres were planted and that led to a lot of extra potatoes in the marketplace, which then were processed. You know, the second piece was around the fact that there was a lot of excess capacity in the marketplace. Some of that was driven by demand. Part of that was driven by less exports from Europe, as new capacity was built in some of those developing markets. And then the third area of challenge for Europe is really around the traffic slowdown, similar to what we have seen in other areas around the globe. The thing we are doing in each of those areas is that when you think about the potato crop, it resets every year. And as we shared in the prepared remarks, we reduced our acres in EMEA. And, you know, there is some industry reports out there that suggest that acres are down across the EMEA region. You know, we recently announced closing of Broekhuizenvorst. We believe that will improve our utilization rates by about 10 points and get us into those high '80s, low '90s. You know, we are also consolidating that Broekhuizenvorst and some of the other facilities that we have closed or curtailed into more cost efficient plants. And I will tell you, by doing some of that, I have a lot of confidence that we are going to be able to serve our customers even better. You know, there is even been some media reports out there that there is been other companies that are delayed some new production. And then the last thing I would just say is as it relates to some of the pressure around traffic, You know, we are seeing some softer traffic in the area, but in EMEA, we have some clear initiatives and programs in place that are going to help us offset the impact through lower costs. So really proud of what the team's doing, and they have plans in each 1 of our regions around the globe.

Really, really helpful color. Appreciate it. And then just 1 quick follow-up. I know it is probably still early in the process, but I guess where is Lamb Weston on sort of sort of negotiations with some of the key sort of customers that come up for contract renewals, as we go forward. And I guess, trying to get a sense of the visibility you have to sort of pricing in the competitive environment in North America in 27, you know, now that industry utilization is back into the low nineties. Thanks so much.

Yes. So I would say when it comes to contracts, you know, we are in the very early innings of that, just kicking things off. I think 1 thing to remind the group about is we have moved to that contracting calendar, about 1/3 of our large QSRs come due for contracting every year similar to what we have had the last 2 years, and so we will see that for this fiscal our fiscal year as well. there is nothing I would say that sticks out to me as being an anomaly this year. But like I said, we are early in that process, and we will share an update, you know, next quarter. Know, as I think about price mix, you know, as you mentioned, Andrew, we have grown volumes and we see a more balanced supply and demand in some of our regions. That allows us to be a bit more thoughtful about we go after incremental volume. And as you look at our quarter performance, you know, last quarter, we had shared that we had recently taken a price increase in our North America business to cover that input cost inflation across all of our categories except potatoes. And as we start to look at you know, the impacts of potential price/mix in the future, we will base the need for pricing changes on that input cost inflation and the margin requirements it takes to invest in our business to be able to support our customers. So like I said, you know, contracting is just starting off, and we will give an update next quarter.

Great. Thanks so much.

Thank you. We will take our next question from Peter Galbo with Bank of America.

Hey guys, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe, Mike, just to ask on the back of Andrew's question around kind of the country cluster work. As it relates more so to capacity in the manufacturing network. I mean, assuming The U. S. Is kind of in a state now that is better and maybe you are not going to do as much there, And a lot of the capacity expansion that is happened in the last you know, 5 or 6 years has been international. And so a lot of those plant I would imagine, are relatively new. And so as you go through the process of identifying countries and areas you wanna be or do not wanna be, just how are you factoring in you know, how new some of this capacity is and how, you know, you have spent a lot of capital in some of these markets. And to kinda give that up now after, again, these are probably highly efficient plants. Just how that is factoring into decision making.

Yes. I think 1 thing to keep in mind, Peter, is, listen, this our company has been around for 75 years and this industry has been around for a long time. And there are a lot of older facilities around the world. You know, when I think about the capacity out there, you know, a lot of it is kind of driven by new additions in some of those developing markets. And that is reduced that export demand, like I said earlier, out of Europe. You know, when I look at our side of the business, you know, we are closing older facilities that are close to their end of their useful life. We are able to move that volume into more productive, more efficient facilities. Which reduces our costs and optimizes our network. You know, as I mentioned in prepared remarks, the media has reported that there are other manufacturers that have curtailed lines or delayed previously announced new capacity and I think the 1 thing to remember when it comes to these new lines you know, scaling a modern fry line it is a pretty significant undertaking. You already know it involves a lot of capital, like you just said. But you really need a reliable source of high quality raw potatoes and, you know, then there is some other various complexities that go into that. You know, 1 that you may not think about is energy, and it takes a lot of energy to run these plants. And so you know, that requires securing the right, electricity and approvals to be able to operate it and so forth. So as we think about our asset position, we feel really good about where we are at in North America. And kind of the advantaged position that we are in and location that we are in. We have great assets in great locations, and we continue to evaluate that manufacturing footprint around the globe and make sure that we balance it with supply and demand. But like I said, it is about reducing our footprint in some of the older, higher cost facilities. and moving that into more efficient facilities that we recently built.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that, Mike. And Jan, you know, helpful to get your comments just on overall strategy. I think maybe the 1 piece that we did not hear about today is on, you know, the pause on the ERP program that was put in place 2 years ago. It was obviously kind of a core to modernizing the network and probably helping to simplify and improve things. Just where do we stand on that? Is there is there work being done around, you restarting that program that was paused? Is it something that Amit needs to come in and see a bit more first before we make a decision? Just help us understand kind of where we stand at this point. Thanks very much.

that is a good question as well. I think we brought Amit in. And of course, 1 of his priorities strategy, another 1 is technology. And in technology, to your point, you know, 1 of the reasons that we combine these 2 areas is that they go very well together. Right? So I think on the technology front, there is some clear priorities put in place. It will have to do with data governance in the DDRP approach, which is more like a this is more like a lean backbone, and then, of course, things like AI and cyber are quite relevant in that context. And as Amit gets on board, you know, this is for sure 1 of the elements that he is looking at on how best to organize it. And, you know, suffice to say that, you know, this has some learnings on how to do things and what kind of things to avoid. And we will be sure to take it into account as we as we progress the agenda.

We will take our next question from Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.

Good morning, and thanks for the questions. First off, I did want to follow-up a little bit about North America. I think if we look back over time, there have been periods, where maybe innovation, right, coated fries, products that you guys developed that did not require fryers. Have been key drivers of winning customers. And I think there have been other times where maybe price is kind of the key determinant, in terms of winning certain customers. I mean, where do we stand in North America today kind of within that cycle? And then I guess as we think about the coming year and how you are thinking about price negotiations, Maybe a little color in kind of how much the first of that question guides your assumptions for the back half as you go through these negotiations?

Yes. Maybe, Tom, I will take us back to what we are doing around focus to Win. Because it has more to do with kind of the team and the execution rather than price or maybe to what you are alluding to, you know, buying business. You know, really over this last year, there is been kinda 3 pillars of that focus to win that have stuck out to me. 1, we are building those customer partnerships. You know, they are valuing the quality, the consistency, the service, the innovation that we deliver to them. And I think that is proven by the fact we have a strong NPS score with those customers. The second piece is we have been really focused on the cost savings program, and we have identified some additional cost savings above that current program and will it will allow us to offset some of that price mix. The last piece, as you mentioned, innovation's super important. You know, it drives loyalty. It expands the market. And I think some perfect examples are those that we shared today. We are also seeing some renewed interest from customers around LTOs globally, and that is exciting to see as well. And as you know, you know, innovation has higher price points, which drives margin accretion. So we feel really good about the progress that we are making in North America, you can see that in the results In Q4.

Tom, maybe I would add that you know, so as we always think about, well, is the North America customer channel mix sort of what its posture towards pricing. You know, what I have noticed is that you know, if we have freight rate changes, you know, and there is freight pressure, that is almost a separate negotiation, and it can happen almost at any time during the year. On some of our multiyear contracts, we have some variability elements. That are tied to underlying cost inputs. You know? Maybe edible oil, price is changing in the market. Some of our larger customers know that is an element of our cost. And, clearly, as we have a 2 or a 3 year contract, that pricing of that element is always gonna be, you know, kinda dynamic and passing through. So, you know, while you ask the question a little bit, like, well, this upcoming fall, you know, contracting for calendar 2027 with a lot of our food service customers. is true. I would just say that our customers are also seeing the underlying cost inflation. And that there are elements in how we price into the marketplace that are a bit more dynamic as we go through each year.

Great. Thank you for that. And, Jim, maybe I could just follow-up on that in inflation picture. How does it net out? It sounds like it may be a little bit different regionally, but kind of when we think about the 2 segments, inflation or deflation, I guess, when weighing potatoes versus all these other pieces that are more inflationary?

Yeah. I think that if you do take in the maybe an expectation of the more of a decline in the potato cost in Europe, although, you know, let's see what that crop looks like right now given some of the heat And then in the U.S., we are about 3% inflation And so that means other than potato, our inflation is a little bit higher.

Thank you. We will take our next question from Max Gumport with BNP Paribas.

On North America, your outlook for sales in EBITDA would suggest margins could be relatively flat for North America in 2027 I understand you have got modest price mix investments combined with cost inflation, which are expected to be offset by volume growth and some ongoing cost savings initiatives. But can you talk a bit more about how you are viewing the current, segment margin level and whether you see any opportunity to build from here going forward.

Yep. Maybe just let me touch on this just quickly. You know, I think price mix moderated in the back half of fiscal 26. Like we had forecasted. I think you think about fiscal 27, we expect modest price mix investments, and a lot of is going to be the result of decisions we made in last contracting season that we will be carrying over into this calendar year. But at the end of the day, you know, we are winning with customers and growing and we expect some volume growth. Like I said, some modest price mix investment, and we will continue to execute against our cost savings program that you talked about to offset that inflation and some of the cost volatility?

Yeah. Maybe on just on, you know, what would be on the upper end of what we would see in North America. You know, clearly, if there is some continued inflation or unexpected inflation, maybe it is in edible oils, maybe it is in corrugated or polybags, or maybe it is in freight. You know, we are gonna have to be working with customers on pricing that through. So we will be very agile in thinking about the timing of that. But we will also look at know, what we can get favorable channel mix, and we can get favorable product mix. And what that means is within food service, you know, do we generally see our food service operators relying on the attachment rates and relying on the value of French as part of the meal offering, whether that is part of a value meal or part of you know, a broader serving to consumers. I think there is potential, at least within the U.S. economy, in terms of where wage growth is and stuff that away-from-home eating, at least in terms of dollar spend, is still going to be healthy for our customers. And so we very much look at that opportunity on the upside for North America.

Great. And then just a follow-up on CapEx. So you mentioned how obviously, an accrual basis, CapEx is moving lower than 2027. And you mentioned that going forward on an accrual basis, you investments of up to $350 million, but that is an upper end. Can you talk about whether you see any further opportunity to reduce CapEx even further as you go forward in time.

Yeah. I think, you know, what we are using is not just thinking about, you know, our approach around, you know, zero based. Does not just kinda stop with expenses. It also thinks about our capital investments and you know, the global team does an amazing job prioritizing opportunities. And so within that, to the extent that we are gonna get, you know, leaner on some of the existing investments that are currently in our plan that adds up to that accrual of $350 million. If we can take $10 million or $20 million out of that number, we have a list. And so number 5 or 6 or number 7 on that list may offer, you know, a high teens, you know, type of r ROI. And pretty quick payback, we are gonna choose at that time. Whether or not to pursue that. Or if it feels like, hey. Maybe some of the inflation on those types of capital projects is more expensive, then we will we will we will we might pause and deliver a lower accrual amount. But we definitely have a list, and we would like to prioritize what we go after.

Okay. Great. Thanks very much. I will leave it there. Thank you.

We will take our next question from Scott Marks with Jefferies.

Hey, good morning. Thanks very much. For taking our questions. Wanted to just follow-up on the North America conversation. Obviously, this past year, was pretty solid from a volume perspective. And I am just wondering, as you think about going forward, how do you how do you think about number 1, maintaining those gains holding the share that you have picked up, but also as we look to fiscal 2027, maybe talk about which channels or opportunities you see as you know, the most, the most realistic or the most priority for your team.

Yeah. You know, as I think about the business, you know, into the future here into 2027, you know, we feel really good about the work that we have done this past year. Like I mentioned, you know, we have delivered some strong results. Our customer NPS scores have improved. We are delivering innovation to the team, and we are having our customers come to us ask for more asking for more innovation and talking about LTOs, which is all positive. Like I mentioned, we will be lapping some of the pricing decisions that we made in 26. But I will have a little bit of a carryover, in into 2027. But feel really good about our plan for 2027 in that North America business. And we encourage you to go try our olive oil. Innovation it is quite tasty. And it sells at a better price point.

Understood. And then just a quick follow-up on the CapEx conversation, just to piggyback off of the 1 Max asked. Just a moment ago. You know, as we think about this accrual rate of $350 million, obviously, that is a material step down from what the business was talking about just about 1.5 years ago. I think it was a $450 million base target previously. So just wondering with that big of reduction, if I have that correct, You know, how do you think about maintaining, you know, the status quo of the business, investing for growth, investing for efficiency with that much coming out of the base investments.

Yeah. Hey, Scott. You know, look, I think our reliability level of spend, you know, just staying in business on the plans, I believe it is less than $350 million. And so we still have dollars that we are putting into really optimizing. And so Sylvia Wilks and her team globally have ideas around each of the plants in terms of where we can actually make kind of measured production line changes. And when we do that, 1, we put in new equipment, which usually runs with you know, better water usage. Lower energy cost, and maybe it even expands our capacity because we have debottled part of, you know, a particular production line. And so we are just thinking about how we pace, those investments, you know, as we go forward. And so I think there is still a substantial amount of budget left in the $350 million amount. I think we should always, as a company, because the you know, what management may present to the board may say, hey. We have some really fantastic ideas that lead to payback and, you know, we wanna have a little agility on that number. But for right now, for 2027, we are gonna approve to $350 million in new projects.

Thank you.

That will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the call back over to Ms. Hancock. For any additional or closing remarks.

Thanks. Thank you, and I want to thank everyone for joining us today. Just a reminder that the replay of the call will be available on our website later this afternoon. Have a great day.

That will conclude today's call. We appreciate your participation.