Kellogg Company (NYSE:K) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Stephen Powers: Hey, great. Good morning. Thanks guys. Maybe to start, just some follow-up on a couple of topics that came up earlier. Just — the first one on the cash cost, the CAPEX associated to $300 million, is that — is there any kind of timing element on that, does that — has that come pretty equally throughout the year, does it build as we get closer to the actual event? And on pricing, I’m sure there’s incremental pricing in 2023 in the emerging markets. It sounds like there’s pricing to come in Europe. My question is, is there any kind of material magnitude of pricing anticipated in the U.S. and if so, could you give us a little sense of the magnitude there?

Steven Cahillane: I’ll start with the pricing and let Amit take the CAPEX. I’ll start with what we always talk about in terms of we’re not going to get into forward-looking pricing and customer negotiations and things of that nature, but we always start with the first line of defense against rising costs is productivity. And so this is — the receding of bottlenecks and shortages have given us the opportunity to really put together more historic productivity plans because all that noise is starting to recede. And so we will have an aggressive productivity plan. But as Amit talked about, our intention is to stabilize margins to slightly grow them. So that’s going to require revenue growth management throughout the year, and that’ll look different throughout the year, depending on what geography it is. But that is our intention.

Amit Banati: And I think in terms of the onetime costs and the phasing through the year, I mean, we’re right in the middle of the program. And so I think you could expect it to be spent through the year. So there’s nothing particular to call out in that.

Stephen Powers: Okay. Yes. Okay, great, thank you. And I guess the other question is and I appreciate that a lot more will be forthcoming on this. But just in terms of thinking about the North American Cereal Company and its anticipated prospects over the course of 2023 relative to the total enterprise and the guidance you gave this morning. Is there a way to frame the expectations for organic growth and operating profit growth of that North American cereal portion of the business relative to the total company guidance you gave today?

Steven Cahillane: Yes. We don’t go into that category level, but you can look at the momentum that we have and the comments I made earlier. We plan on continuing that momentum, getting back TDPs that were lost that’s been very successful up to this point and to continue to grow our gross margin. We came to a low point, obviously, because of the fire and strike. So we’re coming off that. But the underlying momentum, the trajectory of the business, we feel very good about, and we aim to continue that trajectory.

Stephen Powers: Okay. Thank you very much.

John Renwick: Operator, we are at 10:30, so we are out of time. But everybody, thank you for your interest in Kellogg. And please give us a call if you have any follow-up questions.

Operator: Thank you for joining today’s call. You may now disconnect your line.

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