Lawrence Kurzius: Actually, I would say that with our higher — with our improved service levels, I’d say, our promotional levels have also normalized. Now we were able to support promotional volumes now. The promotions that we run tend to be ROI positive. I think that’s an important part of building back market share that we didn’t talk about actually in making our points and I’m glad you asked the question. But sometimes promotion is thought of as dealing back price has not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about quality merchandising events that drive consumer takeaway. We’re going to over a little bit over time, but we’re going to take everybody’s question. So hope they’re not too long.
Operator: The next question is from the line of Cody Ross with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Cody Ross: I just wanted to hit back on the last question as it related to your volume expectations for the quarter. How do you think about promotions for the rest of the year, especially in terms of what your competitors are doing? Are you seeing promotions increase? And then as it’s related, how did your volume come in, in the quarter relative to your expectations?
Lawrence Kurzius: Well, as I said, I think our — our ability to full schedule of merchandising activity with our customers. I think that’s part of what gives us confidence in our outlook for the year, frankly, is that we’re able to have those kinds of positive conversations with our customers as opposed to some of the negative ones that we might have been having over the last few years about supply and their desire to promote. I mean, I think some great examples are like our French mustard where we finally have bottles in supply, and we’ve been able to drive 20% volume growth for the last two quarters and gained significant share. And I think that we’re going to do a similar thing with growing products. I think the renewal of our ability to meet our core product demand is also allowed us to innovate.
And so those promotions, in many cases, are showcasing our products in store, which also, I think, will contribute to volume. And again, our outlook for volume on the Consumer side of the business relatively flat for the year, I think we’re up against a tough comparison in the first quarter, and that’s part of the reason why volume is down lapping Omicron a year ago and so on. But I think we’re pretty optimistic actually on volume. And the pricing actions that we needed to take are loaded to the year. And again, so I think that, that’s something that will — it’s not in the way of growing our volume.
Cody Ross: And then just one last question, more on capital allocation. Your leverage stands above 4x. You called that out as a reason why interest expense is moving higher this year. Historically, share repurchases have not been a big use of cash. Just given the difficult operating environment in the credit markets right now, can you share with us how you think about prioritizing debt pay down versus M&A? And then in that context, can you also update us on what the M&A pipeline looks like right now?
Lawrence Kurzius: It’s always dangerous when the CEO talks about capital allocation, so I’ll let Mike give us the talking here. The one thing I’ll say about M&A is it’s not our priority right now, but we would not miss a good strategic opportunity.
Mike Smith: Yes. And I’d say like we’ve said, both at CAGNY and probably in the earnings — last earnings call two months ago, I mean our priorities right now is paying down debt, generating more cash, getting our debt-to-EBITDA back down to 3x by the end of 2024. So really nothing has changed from that. And we continue — as Lawrence said, we continue to look at great assets along the way, but our priority right now is paying down debt.
