McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Lawrence Kurzius: We — and actually because of the second fourth quarter negative impact, we had a big negative impact in the second quarter and then had a reopening, solid third quarter and then a re-lockdown in the fourth quarter. We’re just part of our miss in the fourth quarter. You had no idea that was going to happen when we gave guidance. I think our full year guide for the order of magnitude that you’re talking about…

Mike Smith: Yes. If you look at that the 2023 outlook chart in our earnings deck, a 3% impact on EPS, that’s the full year impact, which is around…

Robert Moskow: Sure. Okay. But it’s really 2Q and 4Q that are the real comparisons?

Mike Smith: Yes. Those are the — exactly. Yes.

Robert Moskow: Okay. Last question. Have — do you think your sales force will get some more momentum regaining shelf space that they lost in 2022 as a result of the packaging redesign? Is that kind of a good way to get in with retailers to regain some of the SKUs that were cut? Or is it kind of two separate discussions?

Lawrence Kurzius: I think that absolutely, there is a tremendous opportunity for our sales force this year for a couple of reasons. One is that our service is in much better condition so that we don’t have as many unproductive conversations with our customers. The second is the sheer amount of innovation and the balance that we’re bringing to our customers is going to be really positive. And Brendan, I’m going to ask you to just say a few words about that.

Brendan Foley: Yes. It isn’t — as we would always say, Rob, it’s never just one thing, it’s a system of things, and that really drive that competitive strength, and that applies, I think, to your question as well. Yes, we have a big renovation plan as you called out, and that’s definitely going to be a big lever. And I think it’s all about driving and improving the category. And so our sales organization certainly is kind of selling behind the strength of story. We’ll continue to reclaim distribution points, not only over this year, but also over next year. That’s part of the process of doing this. But as Lawrence called out, I just think our innovation platform is going to continue building also additional distribution points.

We really like our innovation platform and the items that we’re coming out with this year. So, we expect to see a lot from that too. And all of these things put together with a very, very strong levels of brand marketing, brings together a really strong category conversation with the retailer. I think importantly, though, we keep pointing out the performance of McCormick and our other brands on shelf just continues to sort of outperform competition. And so those are some of the things that we use in category management to really prove the case that it’s a more productive shelf, the more McCormick guidance you have on it.

Mike Smith: And I think supporting those new products in our brand marketing, we were slightly favorable in the first quarter versus last year, but you’ll see in the second quarter that support will increase year-on-year.

Operator: Our next question is from the line of Max Gimport with BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your question.

Max Gumport: For the question. First one is on gross margin. So it came in well above Street expectations in the quarter. And I recognize it’s early and you talked about putting points on the board. But I do wonder that as you think about your path to mitigating the pressure points that impacted this line last year, have your used changed at all? It would seem like with inflation accepted to ramp down through the year and your GOE program as to ramp up through the year, you might now have a bit more visibility towards the higher end of your previous 25 to 75 basis point guidance range.

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