The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Robert Ohmes: Got you. And then just a quick follow-up on the previous question. I think with the lower income customer that might have been where you had been seeing more market share pressure. Is there any change in that or any change in your lower income customer or your ability to keep them?

Rodney McMullen : Not. It’s slightly better, but we still have a lot of work to do. And one of the things that half full and half empty, the half full is that our customers that are most profitable for us is our mainstream and upscale customer, but we’re not satisfied with where we are.

Operator: Our final question today comes from Kelly Bania from BMO.

Kelly Bania: Just wanted to go back to alternative profit in KPM in particular. Did that end up around a $500 million EBIT contribution in 2023? And at this stage, just can you just help us understand what are the factors that are going to drive that 20% growth that you’re planning for ’24? How much is maybe on property or off-property or some of the new investments that you’re making in this business? Can you help us just dig in a little bit more on that.

Rodney McMullen: I will talk broad and then I’ll let Todd get into the specifics. When you look at media overall, we see no reason why our share of CPGs media spend should be the same as what our share of the products we sell. And it’s our responsibility to make sure that the way we help them spend their money that they get a great ROI on that investment. And our KPM team holds themselves accountable to be transparent and making sure that people get a good return on their investment. And we will continue to do that. So we think the opportunity is still huge in terms of continued growth. Relative to specifics for ’24 and other things, Todd, I’ll let you answer that.

Todd Foley : Yes. No, that’s good, and I appreciate the question. Thanks, Rodney. I don’t know that I’ll get into the breakout between on and off, but I think we see growth in both, both on property and off. Certainly, our digital ecosystem is built around driving that digital engagement within our stores. We know those customers are more loyal to us and increase their spend. And that ecosystem, along with KPM really gives us some opportunities to drive our own growth in both of those businesses. The other thing that KPM is doing and that has us really excited, I think you heard it alluded to earlier, is the new platform that they’ve put in place. We’ve always used first-party data from our loyalty programs so that our clients can create custom audiences in the work that they do in building out their campaigns.

But this new platform, I think makes it even easier for them to activate their campaigns and drive their data and insights, and it gives them some self-service opportunities for more direct access to these audiences as they execute these on property and off. And so I think the new tool and the functionality and the features that it brings has us really excited about that opportunity for growth, both on and off.

Rodney McMullen: Thanks, Kelly. And thank you for all the questions today. As always, I’d like to share a few comments with our associates that are listening in, and we always have a lot of associates listening each quarter. First, thank you for all you do every day for our customers and each other. I’d also like to take a moment to celebrate two of our outstanding associates in Colorado. Just this week, Chris Gay from Citi market who won two gold medals in skiing during the Special Olympics event at Copper Island, the Copper Mountain. Chris is an amazing athlete, taking second place in an Olympics event in Aspen just last month. A few months ago, I had the pleasure to meet Jeff Gregory, a special Olympian at King Supers. Last year, Jeff was honored as Male Athlete of the Year.

And I had a chance to meet Jeff and his parents and what an inspiration. Congratulations, Chris and Jeff. We are so proud of all you do and what you continue to accomplish and all that you’ve done for our customers and communities and uplifting those around you. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today, and have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.

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