Richard L. Bond - President and Chief Executive Officer
Analyst
Thanks Wade. I am going to start first with chicken. Our chicken sales increased a $146 million and operating income increased to $154 million over the third quarter of 2006. Year-to-date operating income is up $156 million over the same period last year. Third quarter sales prices were up nearly 19% although volume was down almost 10%. A third of the lower volume is attributed to the sales of two commodity poultry plants as well as a plant destroyed by fire. Another third is due to reduced leg quarter inventories from the high levels of last year and the remaining third is due to plant production cuts. Grain impact excluding risk management activities was $120 million for the quarter and $229 million for fiscal year-to-date. Near the end of the third quarter we launched, Raised Without Antibiotics, fresh chicken in the retail market and it has been received very well. Though expanded distribution with current customers along with the acquisition of new accounts, our fresh chicken volume is up almost 35 million pounds on an annualized basis as a result of this initiative and we see significant sales potential going forward. Retailer interest has allowed us to penetrate markets in areas where we had limited distribution. We are proceeding with plans to convert the Deli Rotisserie and Marinated Raw Breaded chicken to be Raised Without Antibiotics platform later on this summer. Earlier this month we announced Any'tizers, a line of restaurant quality appetizers that can be enjoyed any time and we anticipate this line of frozen products to do extremely well. Customers representing 89% of the all channel food volume have accepted Any'tizers. On average, these customers took 7 out of the 10 items which was exactly on target. We began shipping on July 8th and Any'tizers are beginning to show up in freezer cases across the country. These segment continues its turnaround as sales increased $330 million and operating income increased $43 million over third quarter of fiscal '06. Operating income for the nine months of fiscal of -- '07 is up $296 million over the same period last year. Volumes were down in the third quarter primarily due to lower carcass weights. Our operating margin was 1% moving towards our historical normalized range. Conversion costs improved by 7.6% versus the same quarter last year as a result of operating cost efficiencies and plant rationalizations. In addition, yields improved significantly. We also benefited from improved margin spreads and favorable risk management activities. Capacity utilization improved year-over-year from the low to the mid 80's. While some people have voiced concern about tightening cattle supplies, I'd like to remind everyone that even though placements are down, the July 1 "Cattle on Feed" report indicated the feedlot supply was down just slightly from last year's herd and it is still the third highest in the past 10 years. Turning to pork; our pork sales increased $99 million and operating income increased $25 million over the third quarter of '06. Operating income for the nine months of fiscal '07 is up $78 million over the same period last year. Operating results in the third quarter benefited from improved margin spreads, strong export sales particularly to Japan and increased sales volume due to strong case ready sales. Our team members have done a great job in reducing costs and improving yields. Despite a tightening spread, we maintain pricing and improved capacity utilization to 80% compared to 76% in the third quarter last year. Pricing improvements lead to a $5 million sales increase in the Prepared Foods segments. Operating income increased $13 million over the third quarter of '06 although higher raw material costs minimized gains. Operating income for the nine months of fiscal '07 is up $31 million over the same period last year. In the past we've talked about internalizing raw materials and it goes well beyond bellies to bacon. For example, we are using and developing more sauces from our plants in Fort Worth in Chicago for a broader range of our own prepared foods. This reduces the need to purchase sauces from external suppliers and improves the efficiencies of our operations. In our second quarter call, I told you about a national fast-casual restaurant chain that had recently asked us for help with a summer sandwich promotion, I'd like to report that from our initial meeting in the discovery center in April to a national launch we've achieved this in 60 days. We are supplying meat and sandwich spreads so that this is a tremendous success story for our prepared food segment as well as for our discovery center. Now turning from the domestic to our international results. Total export sales were up $661 million... I am sorry total export sales were $661 million up 31% from the third quarter last year and we experienced stronger pricing across all three proteins during the quarter. Within chicken, lower volumes and higher sales prices, leg quarters contributed $70 million more dollars to third quarter sales. Third quarter 2007 volumes were down because we were working to reduce large inventories in the third quarter of 2006 which resulted in unusually high sales volumes. The news stories recently about China banning all Tyson products were inaccurate. We continue to do business with China and they are an excellent trading partner. Not only have we done a good job of growing our leg quarter exports to China but also to Asia, Africa and the Middle East. By having multiple international outlets as well as focusing on growing domestic demand for dark meat, we are creating a more diversified customer base. Within beef, we believe we will move towards improved international beef trade, Taiwan and South Korea should normalize this fall and by the end of the calendar year we expect Japan to change its current practices and allow imports of 30-month and under cattle. Within pork, overall boxed pork export sales were higher than the same period last year, but Mexico could not keep pace with last year's record volumes. We did however maintain our market share. Strong interest in Japan replaced some of that lost volume. Now I am going to talk briefly about the discovery center. The discovery center has sure lived up to our expectations. The facility along with our strong food service consumer products and R&D teams has provided a great environment to innovate and create growth for Tyson and our valued customers. In less than six months, 50 of our largest customers representing more than a-third of our total business have utilized Tyson's discovering process to develop consumer insights, creating new food solutions, and utilize our unique resources. We're excited about the opportunities we can create with our customers to drive their growth and ours. Now just briefly on our cost management initiative. For the nine months of fiscal '07, we've experienced a 12.4% reduction in SG&A. Our team has done a great job in controlling cost and it's reflected in the Company's performance. We've already surpassed our original $200 million cost management initiative goal for 2007 and we expect to exceed $250 million for the fiscal year. In conclusion as I've said many times, we can't save our way to prosperity and we've been working to create new growth opportunities. I mentioned earlier about our Raised Without Antibiotics and Any'tizers product launches. We started the new "Thank you, Mom" advertising campaign and our renewable fuels ventures are very exciting. And there are more innovations in the pipeline. There are always challenges in our business and despite significant improvement; our company will not be immune. However, I couldn't be more optimistic about the long-term future of the Company. We're developing an agile, high performing organization focused on achieving our long-term success to excellence in demand creation, pricing and supply chain. We're going to keep innovating with our customer partners and building international trade relationships to create more gain changers for our Company. In closing, I want to thank everyone at Tyson Foods. I'm running out of adjectives to describe how pleased I am with the work of our team members over the past year and I know they will continue generating new ideas for growth and cost management. I thank you all for your attention and now I will turn the call over to Susan for your questions. Question And Answer