Brendan Foley: Thanks for the question, Max. Yeah, as a reminder, the proactive discontinuations over the course of the last two years make up roughly 50% of the TDP losses that we experienced. So just a reminder, as background on that and then of the TDP that we lost really due to supply, we’ve recovered really quite a bit of it, not entirely all of it, but a lot of it. I think the context, I would add on top of that in terms of what we’re seeing right now, across our core categories, we’re really making pretty good progress. So, for example, just on recipe mix, our total distribution points were up again in Q1 and at this point, we probably have the highest TDPs that we’ve seen in that category, probably compared to the last three or four years, and our share of TDPs is really quite healthy and strong.
On hot sauce, again our TDPs were up in Q1, and we have the highest total TDP points on that business too, in the last three years. Mustard, similar situation, TDPs were up again in Q1, and we have the highest total TDPs and on that one, the share of TDPs in the last three years. So, a number of those categories, we feel like we’re doing quite well and progressing quite nicely, up against this. In spices and seasonings, we’re also making pretty good progress. In about five of our top six segments, we’re seeing TDP growth. Broadly right now, TDP shares is flat for us, but we expect that to improve as we go through the year. A lot of these resets, when you think about any category or mostly that tend to happen in the middle of the year. We think towards the end of Q2, those will start to reflect on shelf.
So I wouldn’t say for all of Q2, but definitely as we go into the back half of the year, we think there’ll be more full reflection of the gains that we think we’ve won.
Max Gumport : Great. And then one more on Flavor Solutions. So, it’s nice to see the positive volume growth to start the year. It was a bit earlier than we all expected, at least from RC. I know you called out that this segment can have fluctuations, whether it’s due to limited time offerings or promotional timing, new product launches, what have you. With that comment, are there any things you know about right now that would make you think we could see some step back in Q2? Or is it more just trying to let us know that this is a segment that is more volatile and there’s potentially reason to think that we could see a dip back to flatter performance in Q2? I’ll leave it there. Thanks.
Mike Smith: Yeah, this is Mike. I think you’re right. We’re really happy with the first quarter performance there, the sequential improvement. But, some of our regions, the QSR business is pretty material, such as the EMEA. It’s very public, some of the customers coming out talking about the food traffic. So, I think as Brendan said in the call, the second quarter, there is a bit of headwind there on the Flavor Solutions side, so I wouldn’t be surprised by that. But, as Brendan said, too, the second half, both for Consumer and Flavor Solutions volume, we’re expecting strength. I think about our performance, too, in halves versus quarters, because quarters can get very weak. That makes a difference sometimes. So, within the first half, we’re still calling for kind of flattish volume, second half volume growth across the business. So, think about it in those terms, too.
Max Gumport : Thanks very much.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Adam Samuelson : Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Brendan Foley: Good morning, Adam.
Adam Samuelson : So I guess, I wanted to dig in a little more on the Americas Consumer business and just maybe provide a little more context, Brendan, Mike, on the point on spices and seasonings and the unit share kind of improvement. Just is that was that coming through faster than you expected? Is that tracking as you thought and just retail sales broadly in January in particular accelerated for the for the whole industry? A little bit of weather and some of that channel shift that you alluded to seems like it’s gone back to the same similar trend through February. Was that – do you think you’ve held that unit share through existing the quarter through February or was there some bigger uplift towards the end of the quarter there?
Brendan Foley: Yeah, Adam I’m happy to provide more context on spices and seasonings. Just maybe speaking first to broadly what we saw in the industry, I think through the first quarter. As our prepared remarks noted, if you think about what appeared to be a very sort of challenging, difficult Q4, we started to see more center of store improvement compared to Q4 broadly, and maybe that came at the expense of food-away-from home to some degree. Certainly a cold winter always benefits McCormick. We like to see people make a lot of chili, and so that always is great for part of our recipe mixed business. But, what we’re speaking specifically to spices and seasonings here. So, we tend to think about this from a different perspective.
What’s really driving I think our performance right now is, I would point out maybe a couple of things that are benefiting our business. Our new packaging continues to increase velocity on shelf and we’re rolling out more of that. It’s just pulling through and more of it will be complete by the end of the second quarter. So we’re at 75% at the end of Q4. We believe that we’re obviously somewhere between 75% and 100% at this point in time, and so that’s driving improvement. We are recapturing distribution points too, and we think that sequential improvement led to some positive. That plus our increase in advertising and the velocity of our new – coming from our new packaging led to unit share gains at the end of the quarter. That increase in advertising, I think certainly was one of the things that we think led a lot of our positive trends in our business in spices and seasonings.
