But they also reduced display sizes, reduced the amount of available volume. As we are fighting to get that back, right, the rest of the commodities don’t stand still. I’m making this up at this point. But if it’s strawberries or potatoes or tomatoes or whatever, they moved in and took that retail shelf space. So now we’re trying to gain back retail sales space, gain back promotional activity, and it’s just taking a little bit of time. So I would suggest the category is not only reacting to price and the change in price, but also promotional activity and display sizes. And we’re starting to see that come back. In fact, Shawn, in so far in the second quarter, we might be up…
Shawn Munsell: 9%.
Brian Kocher: 9%, we’re up in the second quarter on a unit volume basis for avocados.
Shawn Munsell: Yes. So that’s worth emphasizing that once we rolled into February, we did start to see a median improvement in conditions in the Grown segment. Not just an improvement in the gross profit, but the volume as well, so just kind of better flow-through of the volume. But you listen to the prepared remarks, the cautionary side of that is we know that there’s a lot of fruit coming in from Mexico. We know that the California season is getting underway. The Peruvian season is right around the corner. And so there’s a potential for some ongoing volatility with that supply coming.
Eric Larson: Okay. Yes. No, that — I mean, that makes some sense. And it’s just a little bit different thinking than what we’ve always had because retailers have always — they’ve been expanding their display of avocados. It’s done a very hot item. It’s very healthy oriented. And to hear that maybe the retailers even took display away from it is — it’s just kind of the first time I’ve heard that in the sort of the fresh avocado market. So that’s the dynamic I’m unaware of. So I’ll get back in the queue and maybe we can discuss a little bit of this a little bit later.
Brian Kocher: But Eric, I would also remember, even last year, supply was constrained. And so consumers are fickle. If supply is constrained and maybe they just can’t get in avocado out of that day, and it’s not the high-usage consumer. The high-usage consumer is going to look, going to go buy, going to buy their avocados every day, every — twice a week, whatever the rhythm is. But some of the low-usage consumers, to the extent that it’s not available or potentially not available because it’s not seen as promoted or not seen on the shelf side like it was, I think there’s a little bit of what I’d call winning them back, let’s say. But the category is — remember, just to be clear, produce for the second half of the year, total produce unit sales was down 3%, avocados was still — that last quarter was up 3%.
Eric Larson: Okay. Okay. That’s the important factor.
Operator: We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian for closing comments.
Brian Kocher: Look, we really appreciate you dialing in, asking the questions, giving Shawn and I a chance to talk to you about the business and where we’re headed. The fact of the matter is we didn’t deliver the earnings we expected in the first quarter, and the market conditions that our business faced caused us to reevaluate the landscape for the balance of the year. We need earnings growth, and we need unit volume growth across our platforms. However, I’ll tell you why I have hope. We’re investing in sales talent, where the market has the biggest opportunities for growth. Club channel, international, guacamole and deli resources are all being funded by repurposing and/or reducing expenses in other areas. We must gain new customers and gain new distribution with our existing customers.
