PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ:PEP) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Christopher Carey: Hey, Hugh. Just one quick follow-up on the gross margin. You said that the pricing tailwinds year-to-date are basically in line or offsetting inflation. I couldn’t tell if you said commodity inflation. I guess what I see is about 600 basis point benefit from pricing and a 400 basis point headwind from commodity inflation. So it seems like you’re actually tracking ahead. But when you made that comment? Was that a total inflation comment or is there a mix tailwind as well? So maybe price is actually below what we can see in price mix. So I just wanted to clarify that. And I guess connected is just in the context of full year gross margin, unless there’s some offsets, it seems like you could see some notable expansion for the full year. Am I reading that wrong that’s going to allow you to invest or are there some offsets I’m not thinking about? So thanks, so much.

Hugh Johnston: Yeah. Hey, Chris. It’s Hugh. So what I had said was pricing was up exactly in line with our commodity inflation. So both are in the teens and the numbers are basically identical. So that obviously is not driving margin improvement because those two are essentially offsetting each other. In terms of the balance of the year margins, we have previously communicated, we’d be at least equal with where we were last year. We’re now clearly going to be ahead of where we were last year. So margins will improve this year as opposed to the at least equal that we had previously communicated. And the driver, of course, behind that is productivity. And the things that I’ve been talking about and Ramon has been talking about for a while, we’ve made these investments in digitalization.

We’ve made these investments in automation. We’ve been investing in building out a global business services operation. And I think that’s the pivot that you see happening inside of our numbers right now is that the margins will improve, I think, on a sustained basis and it will be driven by productivity and that productivity will come out of those three buckets. So I don’t think this is a one or two quarter thing. I think you’re going to see margins continue to steadily improve this year and into the coming years.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Peter Grom with UBS. Your line is open.

Peter Grom: Thanks, operator and good morning, everyone. So I was hoping to get some updated thoughts on the Celsius agreement and kind of what you’ve learned over the past several months? Obviously, the growth has been tremendous, but how has that outsized growth or better-than-expected share performance shifted your view as to whether this is the right structure for PepsiCo longer term? And then just having previously distributed Bang and kind of given the Bang and Monster News, do you have any updated thoughts as to whether this could impact the growth trajectory for Celsius looking ahead? Thanks.

Ramon Laguarta: Yeah. Good morning. I think there’s a couple of realizations on this. The number one is that the power of our distribution system our DSD machine in the U.S. is very powerful. And obviously, you can see by the increase in the numerical distribution and the quality of execution. So that’s one element that makes us feel very strong about our capabilities in the U.S. Beverages. Second, I think Celsius is a brand that is capturing new consumers to the energy category, consumers that were not consuming energy drinks for many reasons in the past, flavor or image or some other elements. That is a positive. The category keeps expanding and we’re glad that that’s in our portfolio. And we’re working together with Celsius to see additional international opportunities, whether we can expand the brand in some other markets, especially more developed markets where the category is a bit more developed.