Richard K. Smucker
Analyst · Deutsche Bank
Thank you, Sonal. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. By now, you have seen our financial results for the third quarter, which were obviously below our historical performance levels, as well as our and your expectations. On today's call, we will provide an update on the dynamics that challenged the business in the quarter and discuss our plans to address the issues going forward and why we remain optimistic and confident in our plans. First, to ground everyone. We now anticipate cost increases in excess of $500 million for the full year, which we have been covering primarily with price increases, along with expense cuts and productivity gains. To put this into perspective, our net pricing increased approximately 16% for the quarter, which we believe is more than double the average inflation rate in the food sector. With leading brands in most categories where we compete, we have maintained price leadership and transparency with our retailers and have been responsible with both price increases and decreases when commodity cost warrants such adjustment. Although we expected volume to decline during the quarter, the magnitude of the decline was unexpected. Consumer takeaway declined sharply in a number of our categories during the Fall Bake and Holiday season. This is consistent with IRI data, which indicated that year-over-year, the overall volume of food and beverage sold through measured channels decreased 4% for the 12-week period ended January 22, reaching a new 5-year low. This time period, of course, aligned fairly closely with our own quarter. Other factors, notably, significantly higher price points on a number of our key items, consumer pantry loading of peanut butter ahead of our November price increase, a reduction in retail inventory levels and aggressive pricing by a few key competitors and retailers further impacted the volume shortfall. In a moment, Vince will discuss these dynamics as they relate to our 3 largest categories. Sell-through was disappointing, considering we entered the period with sound marketing and merchandising plans in place, as we discussed on our call last quarter. As our marketing and sales teams performed post-holiday reviews, we saw an increase in the number of bake centers and Smucker items included on these bake centers as we expected. In addition, our holiday advertising and social media were well executed. The difference played out in the actual consumer takeaway relative to what we had expected from our promotional activities. For example, in our core Folgers Coffee offering, this year's promoted price point of $8.99 was 30% less than the un-promoted everyday price, but it was substantially higher than last year's promoted price of $6.99. As stated, we expected the volume to be down somewhat, but it was down greater than we thought. Having identified the reasons for the overall volume decline, we are actively addressing the issues with pricing, along with taking other actions aimed at strengthening the business. First, let me say that we do not view our quarter's results or the consumers' behavior as fundamental changes that would affect our business model. We want to emphasize that we are confident in our long-term strategy and expect the consumer to adapt to adjusted market prices over the coming quarters. Over the past several months, commodity costs have generally declined, with the exception of peanuts and sugar. Coffee, which is our largest purchase commodity, has seen recent Arabica futures average around $2.20 a pound. This compares to over $2.75 a pound just a few months ago. If costs continue at the current levels, we would likely take a coffee price decrease early in fiscal 2013 and expect a positive volume impact from this action. As commodity costs moderate, we will continue evaluating opportunities to adjust pricing and promotional activities in other categories as well. We also continue to invest in our brands, and we use the consumer analyst group of New York's conference next week as an opportunity to provide an update on a number of new products and marketing initiatives. While the quarter was challenging, there were a number of key accomplishments. First, we closed the acquisition of the Sara Lee North American foodservice hot beverage business in January and are making great progress on integration. We have targeted May 1 as the date we plan on transitioning customer ordering and invoicing, manufacturing and green coffee processes onto our systems. Second, our Pillsbury Baking business was strong this quarter, further strengthening its position as the #2 brand in the baking category, gaining nearly 2 share points during the most recent 12-week period. Third, our brands outperformed significantly the closest competitor in most of our categories, as measured by share of market. And in general, our market share remained strong across most of our categories. Fourth, K-Cups continued on its growth trajectory, with sales in the U.S. increasing $38 million or approximately 180% over last year. We expect to achieve over $160 million in K-Cups sales this year. And finally, as Mark will further explain, we increased our cash flow significantly during the quarter, providing additional liquidity for growth and shareholder return. Before I turn the call over to Vince, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of our team. During challenging times, our employees persevere and work their hardest. We thank them for what they have done and for what they will do as we move forward. I would also like to welcome our new employees from Sara Lee to the Smucker Company. While our tactics may change, we are confident in our strategy of owning #1 brands sold in the center of the store. As we have reiterated many times in the past, we are focused on long-term growth and building our brands for the benefit of all of our constituents. With that, I will now turn the call over to Vince, who will share more detail on the performance of key brands and categories, as well as some exciting news about our relationship with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.