Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE:TSN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

John Tyson: Yeah. And I also want to add and emphasize on what we already talked about. But I don’t remember exactly how you asked your question. But something to the fact of hey, what’s difference right now, we are looking backwards. And it’s worth pointing out, I think we’ve taken pretty meaningful steps to get the cost structure back in balance that includes the two closures back in the March time frame, the NAE move that we’ve talked about, as well as these additional ones. So I think just pointing to that as evidence and then, when you look at quarter-over-quarter market conditions are the same. We’re delivering on the operational execution. There are multiple proof points in the last, call it nine to 12 months that I think we are and we believe are indicative of the trajectory on this business.

Adam Samuelson: Okay. That’s helpful color. I’ll pass it on. Thanks.

Operator: Our next question comes from Andrew Strelzik from BMO. Please go ahead with your question.

Andrew Strelzik: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. My first one is related to the Chicken facility closures that you just announced, but I’m wondering if you could, kind of compare and contrast the Chicken dynamics to what’s going on in the Beef and Pork operating environment. You talked about controlling the controllables and utilization rates, and certainly struck by how difficult decisions are to close plants. But why does it make sense to do that in chicken and not across your beef and pork businesses given the supply contraction that you’re talking about?

Donnie King : Sure. Let me let me start out and remind you that I said we were looking at everything and we are. And so, I guess, your question around why not look at beef and pork? And again, I would tell you we are looking at everything in terms of how it works across the board. Fundamentally, we are focused on executional excellence across all businesses and functions at Tyson, including that overhead and cost structure at our corporate facilities. And so, we’re doing that well. I’m not saying – I’m not telling you that we’re not looking at Beef and Pork, in the same manner that we have looked at Chicken. We’re evaluating everything. And I think that’s probably the biggest takeaway from that. But there was a – the first part of that there was a chicken component.

John Tyson: Yes. I think the specific question was comparing chicken to beef here. And how do you think about that? I think, look, there’s multiple factors that go into making decisions like this. Asset efficiency and projected capital requirements are a big driver here. And when we talk about poultry today and we just think about the older kind slower less efficient assets, compared to where we’re moving the birds, we see that as a big uplift. And we make those same kind of evaluations across the whole network if that would make the comparison there? I think the other thing to point out, we’ve talked about this on previous calls. We are in this kind of special moment of facing headwinds in chicken, pork and beef segments. The recovery time line on each of those is different.

We would expect to see chicken recover most quickly, pork is a little different and then, the beef cycle and those dynamics, I think are well documented. So it’s just worth recalling attention to that we’ve discussed before.

Brady Stewart : I would say this, John As one final thought. As we think about Chicken and you mentioned John, that chicken would recover faster and I think that’s all true. But I think if you look at the chicken business today versus where we were just a quarter ago, there are more tailwinds than headwinds in the chicken business in the near to long term here.