Alex Slagle: Got it. And any high-level guardrails in thinking about 3Q profitability as you sort of evaluate where 2Q came out, if there were timing of cost saves or a bigger ramp in the shrink reduction that maybe had an outside benefit in the quarter? I’m just trying to get a view on the third quarter from that perspective.
Sandy Douglas: Yes, I think John said in his prepared remarks very well. Our guidance implies $255 million of EBITDA in the second half. The fourth quarter has an extra week, which is about $9 million, and that would be all that we’ve said about the pacing.
Alex Slagle: Okay. Thank you.
Operator: And your last question for today comes from the line of Peter Saleh with BTIG. Your line is open.
Peter Saleh : Great. Thanks for taking the question. I may have missed this, but did you guys give us an exact amount of where we were on shrink? I know pre-pandemic I think it was 20 basis points. And last we heard we were running, I don’t know, maybe 60 basis points or so of shrink. Just trying to understand exactly where we are today given the progress you’ve made on shrink.
Sandy Douglas: Yeah. I think the numbers you just provided are consistent with what we said before. And what we said today is that we’ve made significant progress, in fact more progress than we’d expected to make, and I’m happy to see that because this is pure waste, so. And then I think commented further that we actually see the opportunity going forward to get to new lows below pre-COVID. So we made material progress on it. We have more progress to go.
Peter Saleh : Great. And Sandy, on that progress to be better than pre-COVID on shrink, is that something you foresee in the near term, or is that more of a multi-year kind of initiative? Just trying to understand the timeline on getting to those levels.
Sandy Douglas: Yeah, that’s Peter. We haven’t obviously given go-forward guidance. I think I’m just pointing to it as an operational opportunity and something that we’ve got conviction on.
Peter Saleh : Great. Thanks.
Operator: I will now turn the call back over to Sandy Douglas for closing remarks.
Sandy Douglas: Thanks, Operator, and thanks to everybody for joining us this morning. Our team is committed to sustaining our operational momentum as we look to the balance of fiscal 2024. We remain confident in our multi-year improvement plan. As a result, we believe we have a compelling opportunity to create sustainable value for our customers, suppliers and our shareholders through our scale, enhanced capabilities, efficiency initiatives, and profitability focus. We’re optimistic we’ll build on the progress we’ve made in our first half, and we look forward to continuing to update you on this. I also want to thank John Howard for his leadership over the last five years, and for the support that he’s provided to me when I joined UNFI.
John, on behalf of UNFI, we wish you all the best. And finally, for our customers and suppliers, we thank you for your continued partnership and the business we do together. For the UNFI associates listening today, our thanks to each of you for everything that you do for our business, our customers, our communities, and each other. And for our shareholders, we thank you for the trust you continue to place in us. Thanks again for joining us this morning, and I look forward to updating you in June with Matteo.
Operator: This concludes today’s call. You may now disconnect.
