The Clorox Company (NYSE:CLX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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But what we see is still a business that has great opportunity to grow and be an outsized contributor to the company given people they care about cleaning and disinfecting as part of keeping them well. But we’re going to be normalizing as we get through this and consumers continue to adjust their behavior. And hopefully, we’ll get into a more normalized cycle where cold and flu normalizes, and we’re seeing a more normalized impact from COVID, but we’re not quite there yet. And as we look at the volume loss, that’s really due to that bad factor around normalization, but also the pricing that we have, and it’s in line with our expectations. So as we look at that, that just gives us conviction because it’s about what we expected it to be. And then as we move forward, we’ll continue to adjust as consumers adjust.

But it’s the same thing we’re focusing on innovation in those categories where we can make the job easier for them. We’re continuing to invest to help people to understand different ways to keep themselves well, whether that be in a professional setting or at home. But we feel really good about the health names business overall. It’s just going to be bumpy until we get back to a normalized environment.

Operator: And our next question will come from Anna Lizzul with BofA Global Research.

Anna Lizzul : I just wanted to follow up on the cost side. You’re still seeing cost inflation, but you noted in your prepared remarks that cost inflation has moderated slightly on a sequential basis, even though it’s still higher year-over- year. I was wondering if you can give some more color on which inputs are moderating and how quickly those are coming down versus the ones that are still headwind. And then could you also remind us how quickly you expect some of your raw materials to come down in your P&L relative to when you see spot prices for those raw materials decline.

Kevin Jacobsen : Sure. As it relates to the cost environment, and you said it correctly, we are seeing moderating cost increase. Now as I said, we anticipate it’s going to be inflationary all year long, but that year-over-year increase will moderate as we move through the year. As I look at specific commodities, we have anticipated resin would be a cost tailwind, so a lower year-over-year cost for resin. That’s something we assumed at the beginning of the year, and that continues to play out that we are seeing resin prices favorable year-over-year. But that’s being offset by — we’re seeing increases in most of our other buys outside of resin, so soybean oil, linerboard, chemicals, solvents, substrate. Most of the other key buys that we are purchasing, we are seeing cost increases on a year- over-year basis, and we expect that to continue throughout the year.

So that’s generally how it’s playing out. What I would tell you, when you talk about what that moderation is, I think you can see it when you look at just the first half results. If I look at Q1, commodities were a 330 basis point hit to gross margin. In Q2, they’re a 240 basis point hit. So that’s exactly what we’re describing. Still a headwind, but a lower hit each quarter. I would expect that to continue to play out that we’ll see a declining impact from commodity costs as we move through the year. But again, we’re looking at $400 million for the total inflation, resin being favorable. Most of our other buys continue to be unfavorable on a year-over-year basis.

Anna Lizzul : And just could you remind us how quickly you would expect the cost to come down in your P&L just relative to when we see those spot prices coming down?

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