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The Marzetti Company (MZTI)

Q4 2022 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 25, 2022

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Sarah, and I will be your conference call facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Lancaster Colony Corporation's Fiscal Year 2022 Fourth Quarter Conference Call. Conducting today's call will be Dave Ciesinski, President and CEO; and Tom Pigott, CFO. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. And now to begin the conference call, here is Dale Ganobsik, Vice President of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations for Lancaster Colony Corporation.

Dale Ganobsik

Analyst

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Lancaster Colony's fiscal year 2022 fourth quarter conference call. Our discussion this morning may include forward-looking statements which are subject to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements based upon subsequent events. A detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties is contained in the company's filings with the SEC. Also note that the audio replay of this call will be archived and available on our company's website, lancastercolony.com later this afternoon. For today's call, Dave Ciesinski, our President and CEO, will begin with the business update and highlights for the quarter. Tom Pigott, our CFO, will then provide an overview of the financial results. Dave will then share some comments regarding our current strategy and outlook. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to respond to any of your questions. Once again, we appreciate your participation this morning. I'll now turn the call over to Lancaster Colony's President and CEO, Dave Ciesinski. Dave?

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst

Thanks, Dale, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you today as we review our fourth quarter results for fiscal year 2022, and look forward to fiscal year 2023. Before I cover our results, I'd like to provide you with a brief update on our ERP initiative, Project Ascent. As planned, on July 1st, we executed the first wave of Project Ascent, the implementation of our new SAP S/4 HANA ERP system. I'm happy to share that the cutover went very well and in line with our expectations. For context, wave one was the most complex wave of Project Ascent, encompassing all financial transactions and all customer and supplier-facing business processes. This included order to cash, trade promotion management, procure to pay, the general ledger, and an EDI re-platform. Wave one also converted two of our manufacturing plants, one large distribution center, and all of our third-party warehouses, onto the new ERP system. Customer fulfillment levels remain strong before and after the system cutover, with no unplanned disruptions in receiving orders, producing products, shipping orders, or receiving payments. I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to our teammates who put forth a tremendous effort to reach this important project and company milestone. I'll have more to say about the strategic importance of this later in my comments. Moving on to our financial results for our fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30. we were pleased to report record sales and gross profit, despite the difficult operating environment. Consolidated net sales increased 17.3% to $452 million, while consolidated gross profit improved 1.8% to $98.4 million. Retail segment net sales grew 8.8% in the quarter, driven by our pricing actions and incremental sales attributed to advanced ordering by our customers near the end of Q4, ahead of our ERP…

Tom Pigott

Analyst

Thanks Dave. Overall, the results for the quarter reflected strong topline growth and improvements in our gross margin performance. Our successfully implemented pricing actions have begun to offset the unprecedented levels of inflation impacting our business. Fourth quarter consolidated net sales increased by 17.3% to $452.4 million. The growth was driven by pricing actions taken in both segments and the customer pull-forward of shipments in advance of our ERP go-live. Customers increased their orders for deliveries near the end of the quarter to ensure they had adequate inventory prior to our SAP implementation on July 1. We estimate these shipments contributed $25 million in incremental sales to the fourth quarter results. Decomposing our 17.3% revenue growth, 15.1 percentage points were driven by pricing. The customer pull-forward of shipments accounted for 6.5 percentage points, and a volume decline that was in line with our expectations, accounted for the balance. Consolidated gross profit increased by $1.7 million to $98.4 million. Gross profit margin declined by 330 basis points. The increase in our gross profit reflected the pricing actions implemented in both segments. In addition, we estimate the gross profit benefited from an incremental $5 million due to advanced sales prior to our ERP go-live. These items were offset by the unprecedented inflation and increased supply chain costs. Inflation for commodities and packaging materials was up nearly 30%. The majority of the commodities we utilized were priced at or near 10-year highs. Our significant exposure to soybean oil, which was up notably, drove our inflationary impact higher than many of our peers. The increase in our supply chain costs resulted from a number of factors. First, we experienced a high level of inflation on our factory labor and other manufacturing costs. Second, our manufacturing costs were up due to operating challenges in this…

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst

Thanks, Tom. In fiscal year 2023, we expect to continue to deliver industry-leading sales growth. In retail, we expect strong sales growth from pricing, in addition to some incremental volume on new items, such as the launch of a new, larger size of Chick-Fil-A Sauce, a national distribution of Chick-fil-A Barbecue and Sweet And Spicy Sriracha Sauces, a new Olive Garden Caesar dressing flavor, and the addition of Arby's Horsey Sauce And Arby’s Sauce. Just for reference, we are also planning a very limited regional test for Chick-fil-A refrigerated salad dressings during our fiscal second quarter. Consumer demand elasticity, and the impact of product rationalization initiatives we implemented in fiscal year 2022, will pose a headwind to volume gains in fiscal year 2023. In Food Service, we anticipate sales growth fueled by pricing and momentum at select QSR customers, will be partially offset by a slowing economy and any potential diminution in consumer sentiment. Also note that our first quarter sales will be unfavorably impacted by the ERP advance ordering, which pulled an estimated $25 million of sales into the fiscal fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022, as Tom mentioned in his comments. In fiscal year 2023, we’re forecasting another year of significant inflation. In late Q4 of fiscal year 2022, we implemented another round of list price increases on retail dressings and sauces. These increases became effective in early August, and are already reflected on the shelf. In our Food Service Segment, we will continue to realize offsets to increase commodity and freight costs through contractual-based inflationary pricing. Our cost savings programs and ongoing initiatives in revenue growth management will also offset the unfavorable impacts of inflation in the year ahead. Turning to our supply chain strategy, our significant expansion at our dressing and sauce facility in Horse Cave,…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Brian Holland with Cowen. Please. Go ahead.

Brian Holland

Analyst

Yes, thanks. Good morning. I guess if I could start off with just kind of thinking about the puts and takes into fiscal ’23, nice sequential gross margin improvement. Just trying to think about magnitude going forward. Can we expect that kind of sequential lift as we look into the first half of the year? Are we kind of range-bound with Q4? And maybe just looking out to fiscal ‘23 gross margin full year, obviously if you go back to 2021, you had a 26 gross margin, somewhere in that mid-20s range. How much of that do you think you can get back in fiscal ‘23? Is that a viable kind of year-end range for you as we think about pricing catching up?

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst

Well, you covered a lot of water there. Maybe I'll start with the basics. We feel really good about the topline of our algorithm and driving sales growth, but the way we're going to get there, Brian, is going to be a little bit different than let's say several years ago, where it was all driven by volume. Now what you're going to see, and we tried to outline that in the press release and our prepared comments, is that obviously we're pushing through a lot of pricing. On PNOC, which really kind of gets into that margin question, we feel like we're turning the corner, right, particularly in our retail business. We mentioned the fact that in Q4, we had half of a quarter of pricing on our frozen business, the frozen bakery business, and we took another price increase that just became effective in early August on our dressings and sauces. So, what I would tell you is, we feel good about PNOC that we're turning a corner. As you look at sort of sequentially as we go through the quarters, you're going to see a little bit of noise, and as we go forward, bearing in mind that we had the shift in timing of some of that volume, and we also had plants down for the first five days of the month of July because of this cutover. As you might expect, we literally shut things down, do a physical inventory. We poured all the data from the old systems into the new systems, and then we start things back up. But to your broader question then, how do we feel about fiscal year ‘23 as a whole? I think what you're going to see is continued improvement, but I'm going to offer a caveat that…

Tom Pigott

Analyst

Yes. No. And Brian, as you model it, I think the key focus for us is PNOC, but as you do your model, we're looking at similar levels of inflation and pricing in fiscal ‘23 as we had in fiscal ‘22. So, in fiscal ‘22, where we looked at slightly over 200 basis points of dilution going into it, we’re looking at it in a similar way, in terms of the percentage diminution, but from a PNOC perspective, as Dave indicated, we feel like we've turned the quarter and we're starting to go positive.

Brian Holland

Analyst

Okay, that's great. I appreciate the color. And maybe speaking to the gross profit versus gross margin question, at least relative to my model, I think where clearly in retrospect I mismodeled was the magnitude of pricing coming through still on the Food Service side. I would imagine you start to lap a little bit heavier more of that pricing as we get into - deeper into the first half of 2023. Is that the right way to think about it, or do we just have other rounds of pricing such that that that could support that level of increase? I'm just trying to make sure I understand order of magnitude on pricing in Food Service.

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst

Right. What I would offer, Brian, is that is how I would think about it, with maybe a caveat. We aren't seeing prices necessarily fall back. What we're seeing is the rate of increase in our inflation is slowing down. So, there's a little bit of nuance there. We would need to see a more dramatic pullback in order for us to actually see - for the pricing that we’ve put to start to unwind. And we can go into some of those categories if you want, but Tom.

Tom Pigott

Analyst

Yes. In Food Service, you're kind of looking at pricing in the first half of mid-20s, and then it gets into the mid-teens in the second half based on our current outlook. So, that - so you're right in terms of your projections.

Brian Holland

Analyst

Okay, perfect. And then last one for me, I guess a two-parter. One, do we have a sense how much the licensed sauces contributed in the quarter? I didn't see anything that would allow me to back into it, but I may have missed it. And then, obviously what we saw in the quarter was the slowdown in the growth rate. And I know that we've talked about some of the merchandising that was done at the launch. Just a sense of how that's building. Obviously, in the most recent data out earlier this week, that license portfolio looks like back up in the low double-digit range. So, looks like it's getting back on track. But in a - I guess in an inflationary environment and a lot of heavy pricing, what we're hearing from a lot of companies is, pulling back on some of the media spend where we're not really going to get the return. We're focused on the pricing. This is something where you’re obviously trying to drive visibility towards. So, just help us think about the investment that's going to go into that category, mindful of the current environment we're in

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst

Maybe first, I'll start with the contribution of those brands. I'll give you the IRI numbers here. Directionally, if you look at Chick-fil-A Sauce, it was about $34 million in retail scanner sales. Olive Garden was about $36 million of scanner sales, and PWW was about $12 million in scanner sales of what we had. On the net sales line, give me a second here, it's probably more like pushing 70, somewhere in that range is where we were on those - and that's just total sales, not necessarily incremental, but total sales on those items in the quarter. As we think about sort of how we're focusing on driving the business, we went back and we looked at our marketing spend, and we've done a couple of things. A leader of our retail team and the marketers that he works with, stepped back and looked at, one, the size of the spend, but also how we're spending, and we've elected to make a bit of a strategic shift in that we're moving away from traditional and we're starting to double down more in digital. We're also focusing more on in-store and point of purchase, where we feel like we get better leverage. So, in the aggregate, we've produced it modestly. But we haven't historically been a big advertiser like some of the others. I think the other thing that may be worth consideration, Brian, is, given the growth that we've had in licensed businesses, and given the marketing spend at those organizations, like Olive Garden, and Buffalo Wild Wings, and Chick-fil-A spend on their own marketing, it doesn't necessitate the same level of spending that it would on one of our traditional brands. So, as you look at our marketing spend as a percentage of our total sales over time, don't be surprised if you see that moderate slightly. What we're doing essentially is looking at the level of spend by brand. And our view is on licensed brands. Because we're paying a license, we shouldn't have to spend as much.

Brian Holland

Analyst

That's great. I can leave it there. Appreciate all the color. Best of luck.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Todd Brooks with The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Todd Brooks

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys, and congrats on the gross profit improvement in the quarter. Nicely done.

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Thanks, John.

Todd Brooks

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Quick question. Dave, you outlined a bunch of incremental product opportunities that you're looking at for fiscal ‘23 on the license branded product side. Is there a way to dimensionalize either if you're thinking across the total roster of opportunities, or if you wanted to break it into Chick-fil-A large size versus the incremental flavors? Just, is there a way you can dimensionalize the incremental benefit from licensed product introductions that you're expecting in ‘23?

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Well, let's see. First, maybe, I would put it in some context. If you go back and you just look at Chick-Fil-A Sauce, for example, in retail sales over the course of a little more than a year, it's become a business that does about $135 million, $140 million in sales or thereabouts, right? So, as you look at what we've done with licensing just in the last 18 months, there's been a pretty big step-up in our sales. So, what I want to share is, don't expect necessarily to see something like that. But as we look at the items that we have there in the portfolio, I think it's reasonable to assume that we might be able to achieve something more in the one third of that kind of range, right. And it's going to be mixed. Coming across the large size, it's going to be in RB Sauces, and then the new variants like Chick-fil-A Barbecue and the Sweet and Spicy Sriracha, and then the Olive Garden Caesar. And that’s sort of is, you’re thinking in the current year. Now, bear in mind that these items, the earliest ship for select customers is going to be October, but the majority of these customers aren't going to begin to take these items more until the spring when they start to do their shelf resets. So, the early adopters will cut it in. But before you really see all these items in grocery stores everywhere in the country, it's going to be more in the other side of calendar year 2023. But that's why we - in the comment to maybe Brian's question earlier, and your question now, as you look at our overall algorithm, we continue to have confidence. We feel like we’re teamed up with winning food service operators. And we really, we cherish their partnership. And we feel like between our own brands and then what we're doing in licensing, we’re set up to continue to deliver really solid, if not industry-leading topline growth.

Todd Brooks

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

That's great. That's helpful. Thanks, Dave. And then if we can talk about obviously the past sort of nature of the pricing that you've gotten in Food Service, and Tom talked to maybe the cadence of how you see that playing out first half versus second half. Can you remind us, with the August increase, what we're running for kind of blended price increase now on the retail side of the business, and maybe just what the tenor of those discussions were around the August increase. And do you expect that you still have the ability to get further increases if needed, or do we need to start to think about some of these increases rolling off as we anniversary them?

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Sure. So, if you go back, Todd, and you look at the last couple of years, most of our portfolio now with this latest round of price increases, is up probably 15% to 20% across the two price increases that we've taken. So, the height of that, again, 15. The lower end would be a little bit lower. In the most recent August price increases we took on dressing sauces and dips, that range was 9% to 11%, just to give you an idea. And then, if you don't have any other questions on that, I'll go in then to your question about sort of the discussion and how things went. You remember, I think we came out - the last call we had, we shared that we were in the process of taking a price increase, and that was on the heels of some tough earnings coming out with some of the big merchants, Target and Walmart. And as you might have imagined, those discussions were probably a little bit tougher than they had been before. But what I would tell you is that they were fact-based before, and they were fact-based now. They ask us to document the reason for the increases, and we laid out what was happening on input costs, particularly on oil in the case of our dressings and sauces, and they became constructive. Their concerns are our concerns, and we were able to work our way through it. Now we're just - we're pressing forward. I think it also helps with the fact that we continue to bring new news to the category. In many cases, they're viewing us as sort of the innovation leader in dressings and sauces because of what we've been able to do, and at some level that helps also

Todd Brooks

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Great. And a final one for me, and I know you've talked about it increasingly the last couple of quarters, just the SKU rationalization journey that you've started. As you're looking out to fiscal ‘23, are you looking to further rationalize the portfolio? Is there anything that we should think about as kind of a put on revenue growth related to further rationalizing the SKU base? Thanks.

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Not really. It's ironic that you picked that. I was going through and looking at things and comparing fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2022. To give you an idea, we started that journey with about 1,400, a little more than 1,400 SKUs between Retail and Food Service, and we're down to a little more than 1,100 on that right now, to give you a magnitude. So, that's - you’re talking in the order of 25% of a reduction. So, no, we don't expect big pruning. A lot of this pruning, Todd, was all geared towards getting us ready for an SAP cutover. We felt like we needed to simplify our business and really focus on our core if we wanted to ensure that this cutover was going to be successful. And as we got deeper and deeper into inflation and we had to focus on optimizing the use of our capacity and making sure that we could service our customers, that really sort of was a secondary driver for us to go back and look at some of the slower moving SKUs that we had, and go back and rationalize. But, sort of where we sit today looking forward, SKU rationalization activity just isn't going to be a big area of focus. We'll prune as we have to. Tom, I don't know if you have anything you want to add.

Tom Pigott

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Yes. Todd, I'll just give you a couple of numbers for your model. So, as we look at the Retail segment and the exit of Mamma Bella and Produce Packers, that was about $7 million this quarter, and is expected to be about the same level next quarter, and then it declines to $2 million to $4 million for the remainder of the fiscal.

Todd Brooks

Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Okay, great. Thanks, Tom, and congrats again.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Andrew Wolf with C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst · C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Wanted to ask like a follow up on pricing, kind of a simple question, but do you feel like if the - I think most economists and so on, Ag economists and so on, and people in the trade are looking for some kind of disinflation at some point, right, maybe later in 2023. But if that doesn't happen and you need more pricing in a real basic sense and the economy is slowing, do you think you're going to experience pushback from - and not Lancaster as a - more the industry. Do you have a sense from some of the bigger retailers that they'll accept more pricing, or you would you anticipate some pushback if future pricing is needed?

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · C.L. King. Please go ahead.

It's a great question and one that we're spending up a lot of time thinking about. What I would share with you, Andrew, is, on weekends, I spend time at grocery stores. I do some of our own family shopping, and just make it a point sometimes with my kids to go through the stores. And I walk most of the aisles. And what I would tell you is, I mean, just beyond our categories, what surprises me is just the magnitude of the prices that you see on some of the items. Having worked on Heinz Ketchup years ago, I always sort of look at where they are. And I can remember when we used to promote it at 10 for 10, and now the item is on the shelf for more than $3.50. they have sizes that are on there for more than eight bucks. And you can see that same thing in a range of different areas. Let's start maybe, and just say, like you, you can't help but be surprised at the prices on the shelf, but at the same time, when you look at the magnitude of the input cost increases that we've seen, none of our peers in the food space are building margins through this. And if anything, we're just passing along what we're seeing out into the trade. Generally, I think that the trade remains constructive in the conversations. Consumers are continuing to spend, albeit they're making trade-offs. I think they're pulling back in things like apparel and other hard lines. They're spending on food selectively. I think what we're starting to see the early signs of, are shifts. So, the shopping behavior of lower income consumers are starting to show maybe more erosion than middle consumers or more affluent consumers. So, and I think merchants know this. And I think what you can expect to see is, I think we're all realistic. As is the input costs, if they do continue to climb, there's going to be a need to pass them on. And I think what you're going to see is, depending on the demographic segment, probably different areas of focus to create value. So, I don't see - if costs go up, I don’t - I think we're just going to be in the same loop we're in right now. This is probably a long answer to a short question you’re asking as I think my way through it. But I think what you're going to find is, we'll just continue to move forward as is.

Tom Pigott

Analyst · C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Yes. I'll add a little bit of color. So, as we think about it, one of the key initiatives we're working on is our value engineering program to look at ways to optimize our products, maintaining a high level of quality, but being able to somewhat offset what we're seeing in terms of this commodity inflation, as well as some productivity projects at our factories to reduce our costs. So, we're all focused on trying to mitigate those increases. Broadly, in this business, historically, as you get into more of a recessionary environment, if we get there, we have seen tailwinds in our higher margin retail business, which is to our benefit, but certainly some headwinds on the Food Service side.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst · C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Thank you. That was really thoughtful. I appreciate it. And then I wanted also to ask about the - on the volume outlook, as a - sort of a sense of the cadence, not to ask you to tell me, hey, Q1 is this, but whether it's going to - it sounds like it's - well, I'd like to get your sense of the cadence. I mean, the quarter you just had was down a little in retail, and you had obviously a tough compare and the lingering SKU rat, which you mentioned. And then, as you look forward, you talked about the SKU rat. I don't know about the compares. Maybe you can help us with that. And then on you're - what you think about elasticities. What are you seeing now? And what do you kind of anticipate in your model - in your budget?

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Sure. And maybe I'll start. Tom, and then you can weigh in. What I would tell you is, if you look into Q1, the first thing I would tell you is, you're going to have to take into consideration the volume that shifted between Q1 into Q4 as retailers pulled forward orders to get on the other side of ERP, right? So, that's going to be an overarching volume adjustment, and you can sort of do the math on that. To your point on the fact that we've rationalized and exited a couple of businesses, we've provided you that. That needs to be taken into consideration. And then, there's the elasticities that we shared with you. So, what we still feel confident of is, we're going to continue to provide solid, if not industry-leading topline growth, but getting there by way of pricing, but with volume on the softer side. So, that's probably how I would think about working the math. So, you're going to see some diminution on volume and pricing driving the algorithm. Now, as we get deeper into the quarters two and three, obviously the pull-forward becomes a non-event. And so, that works its way out. And even the rationalizations work their way out. So, the only thing that's going to be left is some of the reduction in volume due to consumer elasticities. I think you'll sort of see it stabilize from second, third, fourth quarter or late second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst · C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Okay. And the reference to what you're talking about on timing, that's because the impact of the pricing you've put in kind of recently, will flow into the market and you'll see what the elasticities are. Is that how we should think about it?

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Yes. And we track it every week. And so far, those elasticities are performing in alignment with our modeling. So, I think that the timing things that I would focus on would be just making sure you're capturing the shift between Q4 and Q1 that Tom outlined in his comments, and the fact that we did exit a couple of businesses last year that we've talked about as well, and making sure, first and foremost, you're adjusting for that. And then the elasticity, you can use your judgment.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst · C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Okay. Well, thank you. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Connor Rattigan with Consumer Edge Research. Please go ahead.

Connor Rattigan

Analyst · Consumer Edge Research. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me. I appreciate it. Yes. Just one quick one here at the end of the call, just to wrap up on the commodity front. Can you guys maybe remind us about any hedging policies or contracts you have in place? Just given that soybean oil is about 20% off the tie, it seems like we should expect some relief on the inflationary front heading into fiscal ‘23, but in the release, it looks like you're expecting commodities to actually increase over the fiscal ‘23. Can you maybe help us sort of understand what's driving that expected step-up?

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · Consumer Edge Research. Please go ahead.

Yes. So, it's a really good question. So, what we're seeing actually, even though - there's a couple of things to think about. There's the board price for soybean oil, which has started to moderate, but then there's a basis cost, which you don't see, which is increasing. So, we get to see that full benefit of the savings. And then the second aspect of it is, we had some good coverage on soybean oil in fiscal ’22, below market price. And then as we go into fiscal ‘23, we also have good coverage. But when you look at the deltas, we are looking at an increase in soybean oil year-over-year, despite what you're seeing on the board. But again, that's all factored into our PNOC and how we're managing our pricing relative to those costs.

Connor Rattigan

Analyst · Consumer Edge Research. Please go ahead.

Okay. All right. Got it. Thank you so much. That's all - that's it for me.

Tom Pigott

Analyst · Consumer Edge Research. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Connor.

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst · Consumer Edge Research. Please go ahead.

Connor, the only other thing maybe I'd add just quickly on that is the other new news besides oil with commodities was just the avian flu that hit later in the year, and it created a subsequent headwind, and we use you egg in a range of our dressings and dips, and it's also included as an ingredient in some of our baked items.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is a follow-up from Brian Holland with Cowen. Please go ahead.

Brian Holland

Analyst

Hey, thanks for letting me hop back on here. Dave, you mentioned your prepared remarks about kind of leveraging the - or thinking about the Lancaster Colony 3.0 model as a vehicle to leverage organic and inorganic opportunities. And I'm curious how the inorganic opportunities have evolved, right, because I would have thought about that in the context three years ago of going out and doing more acquisitions, similar to what you've done historically, but maybe you could do them larger in scale for a number of reasons, including more human capital at your disposal to run such businesses. But more recently, the success of the licensing program and some of the commentary you provided around that would suggest that maybe that's the inorganic opportunity, if indeed you would define it that way, i.e., bringing on a new partner as a source of inorganic growth. So, can you just help us think about the evolution of inorganic catalysts as you learn more about the license business? And the reason I ask is because that seems like a less risky sort of - or there seems that there would be less execution risk about continuing that formula than maybe going in and buying a new asset, but would love to get your perspective

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst

Maybe first just providing you a little context. With our old ERP system that was installed in 1994, 1995, it was such that we really struggled with any acquisition to be able to generate cost synergies. So, as we looked at acquisitions, ordinarily, we were more inclined to focus on growth synergies. So, as we've gone on this SAP S/4 HANA, which is an all-cloud-based system, it's going to allow us the option, obviously not mandate, but allow us the option to think about bigger acquisitions should we choose, and justify those with cost synergies. The other thing that it's going to allow us to do is to think about international as a component of growth, whereas in the past, it would have been difficult because of the limitations of some of our systems and processes. Now, I'm going to take a big step and a half back from that and say, we agree with you that we have been able to enjoy a fair amount of growth with licensing. And we have no intention of backing away from that. And as we think about 1.0 and 2.0 and 3.0, part of what we're trying to do is to create a platform really for the long term, just not the next year or two years or three years. But we view both Horse Cave and that SAP system as generational investments that we're going to be able to grow on. So, where we sit right now, this summer, I would tell you, Brian, we feel like we have near-term opportunities to continue to grow, and intermediate term opportunities to grow, driving our existing strategy, and we feel good about that. We also feel like we could take baby steps and follow some of our food service operators to places like Canada and execute that far more efficiently than we might have been able to do that in the past. So, this isn't - not that these aren't big, risky moves. As far as acquisitions are concerned, our view is, we agree with you on the risk. But in the past, we really haven't even - it's been difficult to think about how we might even be able to take on something bigger. Now, whether it's several years from now or longer, we feel like at least the machine is set up to take on things like that and to do it well. But the last thing we want to do is leave you with the impression that somehow we're going to make a bold pivot away from what we've done. This is all about generational investments to strengthen the platform so that we can continue to grow efficiently and meet your needs and others that are out there.

Brian Holland

Analyst

Got it, Dave. I'll leave it there. I appreciate all that color.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions. We will now turn the call back to Mr. Ciesinski for his closing comments.

Dave Ciesinski

Analyst

Well, thank you. And thank you, everyone, for participating this morning. We look forward to sharing our fiscal first quarter results with you in early November. Hope you have a great rest of the summer, and we'll look forward to catching up with you then.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.