General Mills (GIS) Q3 2026 Earnings Transcript

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Date

March 18, 2026 at 9 a.m. ET

Call participants

• Chairman & Chief Executive Officer — Jeffrey L. Harmening
• Chief Financial Officer — Kofi A. Bruce
• Group President, North America Retail — Dana C. McNabb
• Vice President, Investor Relations — Jeff Siemon

Takeaways

• Portfolio activity -- Approximately one-third of General Mills (NYSE:GIS) net sales have turned over due to acquisitions and divestitures since fiscal 2018, including the announced divestiture of the Brazil unit (Yoki and Kitano brands), which management said will "enhance our margins and increases the International segment's focus on our key global platforms."
• Price mix -- Dana C. McNabb stated that price mix was down, attributing this to base shelf price investments rather than promotion, and indicated "we do expect to get back to price mix growth in fiscal 2027."
• Innovation contribution -- New products comprise about 25% or slightly higher of North America Retail segment sales, and 20%-25% for the total portfolio, with several cited launches (e.g., protein-fortified Cheerios, stand-up pouch for Love Made Fresh).
• Love Made Fresh distribution -- Management reported surpassing 5,000 coolers in distribution and highlighted that the launch of a stand-up resealable pouch—which represents 55% of fresh sales and delivers twice the dollar value of rolls—should bolster sales turns.
• Segment dynamics -- Salty snacks in North America Retail achieved double-digit dollar growth in the third quarter, offset by significant declines in hot snacks (Totino’s) due to pack architecture changes and ongoing weakness in certain grain snacks.
• Retail inventory & trade impact -- Kofi A. Bruce noted that a significant retailer inventory headwind in Q3 should flip to a roughly 200 basis point tailwind in Q4 organic growth, supported by favorable trade expense timing comparisons.
• Pet segment volatility -- Quarter-to-quarter retailer inventory swings in Pet generated a roughly three-point gap between net and retail sales in Q3, with guidance for Q4 assuming no material headwind or tailwind in Pet shipment timing.
• Gross margin outlook -- Kofi A. Bruce stated, "we do see stable to growing volume as an enabler for returning and restoring our margins," and identified leverage from cost savings and transformation initiatives as margin expansion drivers for 2027, but withheld specific margin guidance.
• Inflation drivers -- Labor remains the biggest inflationary component for 2027, with overall inflation projected to be "roughly in line with this year" and at least 4% productivity from Holistic Margin Management (HMM) expected.
• Foodservice segment weakness -- Bakery flour volumes accounted for 30%-35% of Foodservice segment profit decline in Q3, with management expecting a potential recovery in flour performance in Q4 but providing no assumption of further competitiveness in flour for the remainder of the year.

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Risks

• Kofi A. Bruce specifically cited, "at the low end of our guidance, we might not be able to fully recover" from cost overhang due to supply chain disruptions and shipment timing, potentially impacting profit variability.
• Management flagged the 53rd week as a tailwind in the current year that will become a headwind for fiscal 2027, along with the headwind from U.S. yogurt divestiture and incentive compensation normalization.
• Significant and persistent volume and profit declines within Foodservice are attributed to consumer bakery flour and recent yogurt divestiture effects, with "forecast we have for the rest of this year would not contemplate becoming more competitive on flour for the next three months."

Summary

General Mills reaffirmed full-year guidance and forecasted a notable step-up in both top-line and bottom-line performance beginning in Q4, underpinned by recent portfolio optimization and the majority of pricing investment completing. Management announced the sale of the Brazil business, which will increase segment focus on higher-margin, global priority platforms and further reshape long-term strategy. Gross margins are expected to improve as volume stabilizes and cost savings from ongoing transformation initiatives accumulate, though management declined to offer specific 2027 targets. The company indicated a sizable tailwind for Q4 organic growth from inventory normalization and trade expense timing, offset in part by segment-specific headwinds such as weak bakery flour volumes and near-term profit variability due to supply chain disruptions. Strategic focus remains on boosting innovation, expanding key differentiated brands, and returning to price mix growth while managing ongoing inflationary pressures and execution risks in select categories.

• Management plans a nationwide scale-up of Ghost Protein Bars and functional nutrition launches, including protein and fiber line extensions across core snack and cereal brands.
• CEO Harmening emphasized prioritizing resource allocation toward brands with proven profitable growth opportunity, stating that the Brazil exit aligns with "disciplined approach we have consistently taken to reshape our portfolio."
• Kofi A. Bruce pointed to the lapping of the 53rd week and U.S. yogurt divestiture as mechanical headwinds for fiscal 2027, and specified labor and logistics as principal inflationary risks.
• Salty snacks strength and competitive price pack architecture are offset by hot snacks (Totino's) weakness, reflecting varying success across subcategories and emphasizing the need for targeted renovation and marketing adjustments.
• The company will intensify point-of-purchase marketing for Love Made Fresh and plans to further improve on-shelf availability through more frequent store rep visits and packaging innovation.

Industry glossary

• Holistic Margin Management (HMM): General Mills’ comprehensive productivity program aimed at driving cost savings, margin expansion, and operational efficiency across segments.
• Price pack architecture: Strategy of designing product sizes and prices to optimize value perception and competitive positioning at shelf.
• SRM (Strategic Revenue Management): Framework for managing pricing, promotion, and mix to maximize revenue realization and profitability.
• Remarkability Framework: Company-specific initiative focused on improving brand distinctiveness through product, marketing, and consumer experience enhancements.
• Turns: The rate at which inventory sells through a retailer's shelf, used as a key metric for measuring on-shelf product movement and replenishment needs.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Jeffrey Harmening: Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everybody. We will turn to Q&A here in a couple of minutes, but I thought I would just take a minute or two to provide some context of what we have been through the first three quarters of this year, and then based on the progress we have been able to demonstrate, how we are positioned to deliver a significant step up in financial performance which will start in our fourth quarter, which is why we reaffirmed our guidance for fiscal 2026.

As a reminder, as we entered this fiscal year, we made a proactive and strategic decision to reinvest to improve the remarkability of our brands, with full awareness that this would weigh on near-term results as we sharpened our competitiveness. Now three quarters into that plan, we are seeing strength and momentum on critical building blocks for sustainable growth, namely household penetration, improved baseline volume, distribution, and market shares. This progress only reinforces our conviction that this strategy is the right one for General Mills, Inc. In North America Retail, our investments in remarkability are resonating with consumers. We are rebuilding household penetration and baseline growth, which are the key indicators of future growth.

In pet, we are adding households as well and fueling our fast-growing cat feeding portfolio and also taking steps to accelerate our growth through Love Made Fresh. We will continue to be competitive in North American Foodservice and International. We know there is still more work ahead. We know that. But with most of the reinvestment phase behind us, we expect to deliver meaningfully better top-line and bottom-line performance in Q4 and beyond. I also want to talk briefly about the other piece of news you may have seen yesterday, which was our agreement to sell our Brazil business.

This builds on a strong track record we have in portfolio shaping both in acquisitions and divestitures—nearly a third of our portfolio once this is complete over the last number of years. Brazil includes our Yoki and Kitano brands. While it is not on the scale of pet or the yogurt transactions, it is the same disciplined approach we have consistently taken to reshape our portfolio, namely our desire to prioritize our resources and investments on brands and platforms where we have the strongest opportunity to generate profitable growth.

This deal will enhance our margins and increases the International segment's focus on our key global platforms, including super premium ice cream, Mexican food, snack bars, and pet food, where we have stronger margin and excellent growth prospects. So with this transaction, as I said, we have turned over nearly a third of our net sales since fiscal 2018. As we look to fiscal 2027 as well, as we said in our press release, our number one goal is going to be to continue to improve our organic sales results while at the same time maintaining our industry leading—as well as the transformation initiative we have to make sure we are maintaining efficiency.

In 2026, we are really pleased with the pound share competitiveness we have had in NAR as well as dollar share in the other segments. As we look at fiscal 2027, we will aim to improve our dollar share performance in NAR, as we have lapped a lot of these price investments and the rest of our Remarkability Framework elements take hold. We are confident in the strategy we have and we know that we are making progress. We will continue to do that in Q4 and into fiscal 2027. With that, let us open it up for Q&A.

Operator: Our first question comes from Andrew Lazar from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Andrew Lazar: Thanks so much for the question. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. So, Jeff, by the end of this fiscal year, General Mills, Inc. will have the bulk of the pricing investments behind it along with a lot of the remarkability work. You mentioned in your prepared remarks your expectation for more stable pricing next year as you lap the pricing. So I guess the key metric will be, right, can General Mills, Inc. return some level of volume growth in fiscal 2027, even in the context of category growth that remains, for now anyway, below the longer-term level?

I was hoping for whatever you can share on expectations along these lines at this point, knowing you are not obviously going to get into specific 2027 guidance yet.

Jeffrey Harmening: Andrew, you are on the right track in terms of our thinking. What I would say is that as we look at fiscal 2027, our goal really is going to be to increase our competitiveness in dollar terms. This year, we certainly did in pound terms as a result of all the pricing actions to be more competitive there, and in 2027, we will try to maintain the pounds as well as we can and, at the same time, let our innovation and the renovation on our core and our improved marketing and ROIs on our marketing campaigns do the job of increasing our dollar sales results.

What we feel good about is that we have the building blocks in place, and we have taken a step up on new product innovation and renovation this year from where we were before. I would look for us to take another step forward as we look at next year, both on innovation and renovation, particularly in NAR and in Pet. So that will be our goal. It is a very volatile world, so what exactly that yields, we will talk about in June. We talked about at CAGNY, our category is growing about 1%. But as I said, volatile. We will come back with a revised view of what we think our categories will grow.

But I can tell you definitively that our goal will be to increase our dollar share competitiveness across NAR, as we have done in the other three segments.

Andrew Lazar: Got it. Okay. And then price mix, obviously, in categories, I think, continued to be positive despite some of your price investments. What have you seen competitively in your key categories following your own price investments? Thanks so much.

Dana McNabb: Good morning, Andrew. Thanks for the question. From a price mix standpoint, we have seen price mix in our categories up a little bit. That is behind some small brand innovation. But predominantly, in terms of our price mix this year, as you know, in the front half, it was about investing to get our base shelf prices right. It was not about promotion activity, adding frequency or depth. It was about getting below key cliffs and gaps in competition, getting that right, which is why our price mix is down.

As we start to lap that, we saw it a little bit in the back half of this fiscal year, but really the full lap will occur in the beginning of next fiscal year. We are starting and we expect to see that price gap close, starting first with our Pillsbury business and cereal, and then we will start to see some of our fruit snacks come along. We do expect to get back to price mix growth in fiscal 2027.

Andrew Lazar: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Leah Jordan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Leah Jordan: Hi. Thank you. Good morning. Building on some of that, you called out the step up in innovation this year. Can you talk about how that has been resonating so far? How is the growth tracking for new products versus the 25% goal that you had stated previously? And as we look ahead, I know you called out strong seasonal events for 4Q. What should we be looking for? Any early commentary on 2027 as well?

Jeffrey Harmening: Overall, I would say we are really pleased with our innovation and we are tracking at about 25%, maybe a little higher in North America Retail, and between 20–25% for the portfolio in aggregate. I am really pleased with what we have seen out of NAR. Maybe I will have Dana give a little bit of color on what is resonating.

Dana McNabb: From a NAR perspective, I think we will land a little bit higher than the 25% growth from new products. We have really leaned into mainstream premium benefits such as protein and fiber, and better tasting news on some of our snacks items, and that is resonating really well. I will use Cheerios Protein as an example. The biggest brand gaining a protein benefit—that is going to be $100 million by the end of this year. Some of the taste renovation that we have done on our salty snacks and our fruit snacks is resonating incredibly well.

And then, of course, big businesses like Pillsbury and grain, where we have been able to bring great-tasting bake-up-bigger news or protein news, is resonating really well. So we are getting really good trial and repeat on our new product this year, which, of course, is encouraging for next year because it means year two on those items will be helpful to us next year. I think the plans next year are even better. We are going to see another step change in new products—again, better-for-you functional nutrition. We are bringing protein to the number one cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios. Our Ghost Protein Bars, which we have just started to launch, are turning very well.

We are going to scale that nationally. We make fiber taste great. We have got Annie’s Fruit Snacks coming with fiber, Larabar Protein and Fiber, Ratio Granola and Fiber and Protein. As I look to some of the bold flavors we are launching, we are launching a new authentic Mexican brand called La Tiara. We have got hot honey coming on Pillsbury biscuits. We have got Tabasco Old El Paso kits and protein shells and chimichanga kits. We have really good innovation coming that is starting to ship this quarter, and we will support that with double-digit media investment, seasonal events, and really good in-store and online execution.

I feel confident that now that we have got the shelf prices right and we have got pounds somewhat stabilized, when we lean into the rest of the Remarkable Experience Framework, we will be able to improve our performance next year.

Leah Jordan: Okay. Great. Thank you. And then just a follow-up on Love Made Fresh. You called out an acceleration in recent weeks after some of the changes that you plan to make that you highlighted previously at CAGNY. Any more color on the magnitude of that acceleration, how we should think about further distribution growth from here, and then also an update on how your on-shelf availability is tracking? I know that has been an area of focus for you.

Dana McNabb: Thank you for the question. I will just reiterate that we are pleased with where we see the Love Made Fresh launch so far. We have made really good progress in a lot of areas. We like our execution. We are above the 5,000 mark on coolers right now. We think our marketing execution has been strong, and we are getting great product reviews from retailers and from consumers. As we pointed out, the place that we needed to focus was strengthening our turns at shelf, and the number one place was our on-shelf availability. We realized we needed to have our store reps go to the stores every week to make sure that the coolers were full.

We have had that happen now for about three weeks, and we have seen a step in turns in those stores. But again, it is only three weeks, so I would not want to lean into any specific number there, but we have seen a step up. The other two items that I think are going to be really important to improving our turns are that we did not have a stand-up resealable pack, and that pouch format is 55% of fresh sales. That is launching now, and we have that coming into the marketplace. It is two times the dollar ring of rolls, so that is going to really help us from a turns standpoint.

From a building awareness standpoint, we are really pleased with how we have built broad awareness. We have to come down a little bit more in the marketing funnel and reach consumers and pet parents, tell them where they can find the product, and do more to convert to trial. Over the next month, we are definitely going to be adding more coolers. We are going to make sure shelf availability in those coolers is better with reps visiting the store once a week, and we are confident that we will see our turns improve.

Leah Jordan: Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from David Palmer from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

David Palmer: Thank you. I wanted to ask you about the results you are getting from not just the Remarkability framework but the levels of spending, the kinds of spending that you are making, and maybe juxtapose it to what you did pre-COVID. A lot of, you know, 5% of sales in innovation is the activity rate that you had pre-COVID, and you have kind of gotten back there. Promotion spending has been restored, and you are leaning in on marketing as well. In that immediate pre-COVID period, you had stabilized your organic sales. What is different today versus then, just in terms of the responses you are getting from each of these growth spending activities? And I have a quick follow-up.

Jeffrey Harmening: What has been different the last three quarters is that we have been investing a lot more in our base pricing, as Dana talked about, to maintain or improve our competitiveness. You are right, the level of new product innovation we have is approaching pre-COVID levels, which we feel good about. Our marketing is approaching pre-COVID levels, which we feel good about. Now our price gaps relative to competition will be approaching pre-COVID levels, which they have not been for the last couple of years, which is why we made this change in pricing.

It is also why it gives us confidence as we look forward to Q4 and next year that our level of competitiveness in terms of dollars will improve because, as you said, we are getting back to the levels of activity—whether it is on the marketing side and innovation and media spending, or whether it is our price competitiveness—that we saw before. I would actually say Dana and her team have done a great job. Our level of renovation on our core is probably better than it was pre-COVID.

That is what gives us confidence that, having gotten past the bulk of this pricing activity now on base price, the rest of the elements of our marketing framework will work a lot harder for us. You have hit on our thinking, which is that is what we see. The only other difference I would say externally is that the consumer is a little bit more stressed than in 2019. That is why we see our level of promotion activity up a little bit higher, even if the depth is not higher and frequency is not higher.

Consumers are taking a little bit more away on promotion, which is why you see only a little bit of price mix in our categories. That is probably the one thing that has not bounced back all the way yet, but we believe that is a structural thing that is clearly cyclical, and as the economy improves, we would anticipate the consumers would improve with it.

David Palmer: That is very helpful. Just one quick question. Maybe this one is for Kofi. In terms of the gross margin, this quarter was relatively low, maybe lower than what we typically see in a fiscal 3Q versus your overall fiscal year. If you can have stable organic sales in fiscal 2027, where do you think gross margins can live for this company? I am wondering about maybe something in the low thirties versus the mid-thirties—you know, the street is near 34% for fiscal 2027. If you do have stable organic sales, can you get back to mid-30s in terms of gross margins?

Kofi Bruce: David, thanks for the question. I think you are starting with the right frame as we see it. We do see stable to growing volume as an enabler for returning and restoring our margins. We are not ready yet to go on record on where we expect them to be in 2027, but I think the path to improvement is certainly paved and aided by volume stability. What we find is when we have that, leverage improves obviously across the enterprise. We get more leverage out of our cost savings, which is always a significant contributor to stability and margin expansion in the middle of the P&L, as well as supporting reinvestment in the business.

As a reminder, we are in the middle of a multiyear transformation initiative, which I would expect next year, on top of this year, will add meaningfully to productivity. As Jeff referenced, we would expect to see improvement in price mix and be able to leverage more of the full suite of our SRM levers as we step into next year. I think the combination of all those things will help us start moving back. In terms of where we would like to be for 2027, I will go on record as we get out of Q4 and into the first quarter of next year.

Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Lavery from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Michael Lavery: Thank you. Good morning. Maybe following up on that and drilling in a little bit more to the inflation piece of it. You cited some inflation pressure this quarter already. Looking ahead, can you give a sense of what you see for fiscal 2027, maybe both with and without potentially elevated oil or diesel or oil derivative costs, and just an early sense of how it is shaping up? I know you have the savings you have given some color on, but how hard does that have to work to offset some of the inflation you might be looking at?

Kofi Bruce: Appreciate the question. We are not prepared to give you the full suite of our assumptions for 2027 yet. Our best estimate right now on range of inflation is roughly in line with this year, inclusive of, maybe on margin at the far end of the range, some more modest pressure from the macro basket. Labor probably still remains one of the biggest inflationary components of our cost structure, whether embedded cost in logistics or manufacturing, or pass-through even in our transformed commodities. I would share that as a reminder. The other critical tent poles are we would expect another year of industry-leading HMM at least 4%.

As I referenced in my last answer, some significant contributions on top of this year’s significant contributions from our transformation initiatives to help round out the picture. It is important, before I leave this point on 2027, to make sure that I give you some of the other sides of the ledger. We will lap the 53rd week, which is a tailwind this year and will turn into a headwind next year. We have one month of U.S. yogurt results reflected in this year’s results; as a reminder, that closed at the end of June, so we will expect to see that as a headwind. Incentive comp we would expect to normalize next year.

Those are three things on the other side of the ledger as we look at next year’s tent-pole assumptions.

Michael Lavery: That is really helpful. As you look at finishing fiscal 2026, early in the year, you indicated you expected positive organic revenue growth in fiscal 4Q. Now the language is just “improved trends.” Could you be specific if the positive organic revenue growth is off the table, or is that still something that you think is in reach? If so, would that be total company or NAR, maybe both? What is the right way to think about how the rest of the year unfolds?

Kofi Bruce: If you track from the midpoint of our guidance, implied in the annual guidance is probably about 75–80 basis points at the midpoint of organic sales growth. While we are expecting continued competitiveness—so pound share and dollar share in the rest of our business to hold—we are not banking, in this guidance, on a dramatic turn in market performance in Q4. Instead, we are expecting a lot of this to come from some mechanical factors. We referenced in our remarks a significant retailer inventory headwind in Q3 that we would expect to flip to a tailwind in Q4. That is on its own probably worth about 200 points of benefit to organic growth in Q4.

We would expect the rest of the improvement to come from the reversal of trade expense timing, which was a headwind in Q3 and will become a pretty healthy tailwind as we lap last year’s Q4.

Michael Lavery: Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

Kofi Bruce: You bet.

Operator: Our next question comes from Alexia Howard from AllianceBernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Alexia Howard: Good morning, everyone. Can I ask about the Foodservice weakness this time around? You mentioned bakery flour volumes. Is that something that is likely to persist? What does it tell us about some of those category or channel dynamics in that segment?

Jeffrey Harmening: Alexia, for Foodservice overall, let me take a step back, and then we will get to flour. As we think about Foodservice, the eating occasions at home are about 86%, and that has been pretty stable over the last few months or so. Commercial traffic is down about a half a point, and noncommercial traffic is up about a point. As a reminder, we over-index in the noncommercial space. As we looked at the third quarter, you see our volume decline a little bit and you see profitability decline. I will remind you on the profit side, about half of the decline is the yogurt divestiture.

So when you see that big number for that decline, know that about half of it is yogurt and about another 30–35% is flour. Those are the two biggest items. As I think about the fourth quarter, we are thinking that our flour business will come back in the fourth quarter of this year. We will see what happens. Because of the complex nature of distribution through Foodservice, the movement is a little bit slower one way or the other. I am really proud of our competitiveness in K–12 schools and the fact that we have changed to natural colors ahead of when we said we were going to do, and we are competing quite effectively outside of flour.

So outside of that one piece of our Foodservice business, I am pretty pleased with our performance and our level of competitiveness. This forecast we have for the rest of this year would not contemplate becoming more competitive on flour for the next three months.

Alexia Howard: Got it. And then can I follow up on Love Made Fresh? You had the 5,000 cooler goal for January, which I think you hit, and it is probably a little bit above that now. Is there another milestone in terms of additional distribution that you can share, or at the moment is the focus on getting the turns up before you have another big move forward on the distribution side?

Jeffrey Harmening: On the distribution side, there are the number of coolers and then the distribution within those coolers. To the extent we just launched a stand-up resealable pouch, that will add distribution, but it may not add the number of stores. It will add the number of SKUs we have in the store that we are currently in, and we think that is going to be the most productive. Our focus really is on enhancing the turns where we are. To the extent we get a little more distribution, that is okay too.

But as Dana talked about, making sure that availability is increased significantly and that our marketing is taking place at the lower end of the funnel, closer to the point of purchase, that is going to be our focus. We know we have a great product. Now we have good distribution. The job to do now is to make sure we keep improving the turns where we are. As Dana said, three weeks into having more people at the shelf more often, we are seeing positive benefits of that. We will look to see that continue as well as redoing our marketing mix so that we have more at the point of attack, if you will.

Operator: Next question comes from Robert Moskow from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Robert Moskow: Dana and Jeff, I was hoping to dive into the high single-digit decline in Snacks. The salty snacks segment of the market has become much more competitive with price cuts and innovation. I wanted to know if some of that is just adjacent to you, or do you think that is carving into your brands at all? What gets us back to growth in that segment?

Dana McNabb: Thanks for the question, Rob. Good morning. Starting first with salty, in the categories we compete in we are not seeing the same trends as some of the other salty competitors. In salty, this is a business where we have had three consecutive quarters of pound and dollar share growth. We are seeing consumers respond to our price investments. We have had really good price pack architecture, and the product renovation that we did to improve the flavor is resonating really well. Our salty business has performed incredibly well, and we think that will continue into next year. The challenge we have seen is really on our hot snack business.

That is what has driven the deceleration that you are seeing in Snacks. As I have talked about before on hot snacks, one of the main drivers of that with Totino’s is that we did a price pack architecture conversion. We moved from a bag to a box, and in today’s economic times when the consumer is stressed, they did not see any value in that box, and we saw sales decline significantly. We are in the process of converting that back now. The retailers have been really supportive.

We think we have got the price right, and we have really got to up the product quality and how we are talking about the product to consumers, which you will see going to marketplace this year. That is our main focus for Snacks going forward. On our grain snacks and our fruit snacks, it is about making sure we taste great and we have enough better-for-you innovation with protein and fiber, which we really do. We are leaning into the Annie’s business in our snacking categories, which we also think will work incredibly well for us.

Robert Moskow: So ex-Totino’s, are Snacks stable, or can you tease it out for us?

Dana McNabb: Ex-Totino’s, Snacks overall for us would still be down slightly. That is driven by our grain business. Our Nature Valley business is performing pretty well. Our proteins are doing really well, our wafers business is doing really well, and actually Fiber One is on the comeback with GLP-1 users, but it is still down. In Grain, consumers are moving towards more performance nutrition. That is why you have seen us ramp up this Ghostar innovation that is performing really well—high protein, low sugar. We are going to scale that nationally right now.

We will continue to lean into everything that is working well on Nature Valley, and we will double down with GLP-1 users on our Fiber One and Protein One business.

Jeffrey Harmening: As Dana said, the biggest challenge really is Totino’s, and a little bit in bars as well. Bars is about innovation; we think we have a good story there. Unlike what you might have heard from others on salty snacks, our salty snacks business was up double digits in the third quarter. I am really pleased with what Dana and her team have done in salty snacks. We have really good price pack architecture, Chex Mix is flying, and our fruit retail sales are flat. If you decomp the whole thing, we are really strong in salty snacks and home meal and fruit. The job to do really is primarily on Totino’s, with a little bit of bars as well.

Robert Moskow: Got it. Thank you.

Operator: Next question comes from Scott Marks from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Scott Marks: Thanks for taking our questions. First thing I wanted to ask about is some of the retailer inventory adjustments that you called out. Could you help us understand what parts of the NAR and Pet business were impacted, and how we should be thinking about the reversal in each of those segments for fiscal Q4?

Dana McNabb: Thank you for the question. We have definitely seen some quarter-to-quarter fluctuations as it relates to retailer inventories. From a NAR perspective, we typically see our net sales and our retail sales trends track relatively consistently. They were a little bit off in Q3, and we think that will revert back in Q4. It is Pet where we see the more significant gap. That is about three points. As we look to Q4, our current guidance does not really contemplate a headwind or a tailwind from Pet in Q4.

Historically, it has been really hard for us to predict shipment timing and retailer inventory in Pet, so we think the best planning assumption is to assume that it is going to be neutral in Q4.

Scott Marks: Understood. Then I wanted to ask a little bit about the guide. Holding the guide implies maybe a fairly wide range for Q4. Can you help us understand the swing factors that could push results towards one end or the other?

Kofi Bruce: Sure. The guide on profit is maybe even appreciably wider than on the top line. On the top line, as I referenced earlier, we are expecting the mechanical factors of the retailer inventory reset, which we expect to improve our organic growth rate about 200 basis points over Q3—so about 50 basis points in the quarter—and then our trade expense timing to carry the rest on the top line. On the bottom line, as Dana referenced in her remarks, we saw some additional pressure on top of things we had already anticipated going in. Specifically, going into Q3 we would have expected remarkability investments, divestiture headwinds, and trade expense timing comparisons to be a drag.

Those accounted for about two-thirds of the decline in Q3. The other remaining factor that was frankly still variable and wide as we came into CAGNY and reset guidance was around shipment timing and the weather-related factors that impacted shipment timing and supply chain disruptions for us. Those added additional pressure to the results and largely account for the width of the range on profit. Our ability to recover fully from some of the cost overhang from the supply chain disruptions—we are making progress, but at the low end of our guidance, we might not be able to fully recover.

At the more positive end of our guidance, we would see a more full recovery in those costs, as well as the factors around trade, supply chain, and retailer inventory flipping to tailwinds in the quarter. The last thing I would leave you with is a reminder that we do expect to see a significant contribution from the 53rd week in Q4, and that is baked into our guidance as a mechanical factor. But really the variability around supply chain and retail inventory recovery would account for the width of the range on profit.

Scott Marks: Understood. Thanks very much.

Operator: Our next question comes from Peter Galbo from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Peter Galbo: Kofi, back to the question around inflation for next year. I know it is probably still a little too early to know fully, but a couple of your peers have called out freight as a potential headwind, and I think freight even outside of what has happened in diesel. Can you comment on what you are seeing in terms of driver tightness or anything that might be a potential hiccup on that side?

Kofi Bruce: Broadly, I do not know that we would call out different factors. We are tracking those. We are not done with our fiscal year, so we do not expect those to be material in this year given we are largely hitting at our contracted rates. It is a variable that we are factoring into the range that I gave you earlier in the call on our expected inflation for next year. We will be prepared to give you a more full picture in two more months as we close the quarter and the year.

Peter Galbo: Okay. Fair enough. And Jeff, maybe this did not get a lot of air time, but the decision on Brazil—I do not think it comes as a huge surprise. Can you provide a few more details into the thinking to exit the market and what drove the decision this time?

Jeffrey Harmening: It stems from our strategy to really focus on our core global brands outside the U.S. There we have a great right to win with our core global brands. They are fast-growing and quite profitable. As we looked at our Brazilian business, our Brazilian team has done a really nice job, but the challenge for us in Brazil is that not only are we under scale, but also our portfolio there is not really our global brands. It is some good local brands. The combination of having these local brands as well as not having the scale means that our Brazilian business has not been very profitable for quite some time.

The idea to divest our Brazilian business is really a factor of our focusing on our core global brands, which will enable us in our International segment to improve our margin profile—which we have done a really nice job of this year, but there is another step change to go—and the divestiture of this business will help us do that while maintaining our growth and increasing our margin profile. In doing that, we will be able to shift our resources to places where we think we have a longer-term right to win that will be more profitable for us.

Peter Galbo: Okay.

Jeff Siemon: Thank you very much. Julianne, I think that is all the time we have this morning, so we should wrap there. Thanks, everyone, for the good questions and discussion, and we look forward to speaking with you over the course of the coming quarter.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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