Brendan Foley: I would just — Ken, just to maybe add a few thoughts to that. We did see volume strength in our portfolio, especially — I think we called it out in the script of it just from snack seasoning on Performance Nutrition and Health, and that’s pretty consistent with what we’ve been seeing, but the offsets really are not related to price elasticity. So I think that’s maybe important to call out. And there was a couple of things noted like some cold weather impact on branded foodservice or we’re certainly seeing an inflationary impact on our customer base and EMEA. They’re going through a fair amount of inflation right now in that market, the consumer is. And just pruning of — natural pruning of lower margin business. So, those are having an impact, too, on the volume profile. But I think our confidence still for the balance of the year is where Lawrence placed it.
Operator: Our next question is from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.
Andrew Lazar: I was hoping we could talk a little bit about what you’re seeing evolve in terms of price gaps in core spices and seasonings versus private label, particularly with some of the incremental pricing that came into play sequentially in the first quarter.
Lawrence Kurzius: Brendan, why don’t you take that?
Brendan Foley: Andrew, we still see price gaps continuing to narrow compared to private label. That happened in Q4. We saw it again in Q1. It’s really a result of seeing more private label taking price on the shelf. So that seems to be coming through and reading through the scanner data. And we would say and what we’re seeing is that the impact just continues to moderate. Again, it’s pretty consistent with what we saw in Q4. We really do believe a lot of our initiatives and a focus on value is also having a positive impact on our brands. And we continue this effort, whether it’s messaging or focused on value sizes, et cetera. So that’s also probably having an impact too. So that’s really the nature of what we’re seeing right now with regard to price gaps in private label.
Andrew Lazar: And then you mentioned — it’s early, I know, but early results of sort of the Lawry’s sort of value brand launches or kind of doing what you wanted to do. I think you said that over half of the purchases are from new buyers to McCormick. And then I think overall, incremental to the category. So I’m just trying to get a sense of where — I guess, where are these new consumers to the category coming from where they just didn’t operate in this category before? Or what is it about the Lawry’s brand launch that’s drawing, I guess, new consumers overall to the category because that’s obviously particularly important, I guess, for your retail partners as well?
Brendan Foley: Yes. It is performing better than we expected right now. And so we’re pretty pleased with the performance. A lot of the volume that we are sourcing as we called out, it’s definitely incremental to from a retailer standpoint, but also a lot of new brand buyers are coming into the McCormick franchise through Lawry’s. I think its people seeking the brand. They’re looking for value. And so, we see that playing out. And it’s been largely positive as we think about building out even more distribution. These are some of the positive results that we’re getting from this. It’s just simply turning faster itself. But their — Lawry’s brand really is appealing to sort of a number of consumers. It’s really strong with Hispanic households.
It’s strong with many other sort of demographic groups, and we see them coming into those stores being offered. They may not be buying then private label or they may not be buying in other retail outlets. So that’s where we see a lot of the growth coming from in the incrementality. You’re going to see more distribution growth on this, though, in 2023.
