B&G Foods - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 was “in line or slightly above expectations,” with sequential improvement: net sales $551.6M, adjusted EBITDA $86.1M, adjusted EPS $0.31; GAAP EPS was -$2.81 due to $320M non-cash trademark impairments.
• Key mix: Spices & Flavor Solutions grew +5% YoY; Meals was essentially flat; Specialty declined on lower Crisco pricing (commodity pass-through); Frozen & Vegetables remained weak and generated negative segment EBITDA; base business net sales fell 1.9% YoY.
• FY25 guidance: sales $1.89–$1.95B, adj. EBITDA $290–$300M, adj. EPS $0.65–$0.75; mgmt expects a softer H1 with improvement in H2 (benefit from 53rd week and easing FX headwinds tied to the Mexican peso).
• Strategic catalyst: active review of Frozen & Vegetables (Green Giant) for potential divestiture to refocus the portfolio, target ~20% EBITDA margins over time and leverage near ~5x; dividend maintained at $0.19/quarter (announced Feb 24, 2025).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Spices & Flavor Solutions delivered +5% YoY net sales and higher segment EBITDA on volumes, price/mix; CEO: “The strongest sales performance was in our Spices & Flavor Solutions business unit”.
  • Margins improved: adjusted gross margin 22.2% (vs 21.9% LY) and adjusted EBITDA margin 15.6% (vs 15.0% LY), driven by productivity/cost savings and easing logistics; CEO cited “modest or no inflation” on most inputs with exceptions.
  • Sequential improvement: Q4 adjusted EBITDA rose to $86.1M from $70.4M in Q3 and $63.9M in Q2; net sales rebounded to $551.6M from $461.1M in Q3.

• What Went Wrong

  • Large non-cash charges: $320M impairment of core trademarks (Green Giant, Victoria, Static Guard, McCann’s) in Q4, in addition to $70.6M goodwill impairment in Frozen & Vegetables in Q1; drove GAAP net loss (-$222.4M in Q4, -$251.3M FY).
  • Volume softness persisted: base business net sales -1.9% YoY on lower volumes (-2.2% impact), only partially offset by price/mix (+0.4%); mgmt flagged January softness and expects H1 to be soft.
  • Frozen & Vegetables pressured by FX (Mexican peso), higher raw costs (corn/peas), trade spend; segment EBITDA negative in Q4 (-$3.3M) and down 65% for FY.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day and welcome to B&G Foods Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2024 Earnings Call. Today's call, which is being recorded, is scheduled to last about one hour, including remarks by B&G Foods management and the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to A.J. Schwabe, Senior Associate, Corporate Strategy and Business Development for B&G Foods. Please go ahead.

AJ Schwabe (Senior Associate of Corporate Strategy and Business Development)

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Casey Keller, our Chief Executive Officer, and Bruce Wacha, our Chief Financial Officer. You can access detailed financial information on the quarter and full year in the earnings release we issue today, which is available at the Investor Relations section of bgfoods.com. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of the discussion today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and, therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We refer you to B&G Foods most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our company's future operating results and financial condition.

B&G Foods undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. We will also be making references on today's call to the non-GAAP financial measures: adjusted EBITDA, segment-adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted diluted earnings per share, adjusted gross profit, adjusted gross profit percentage, and base business net sales. Reconciliations of these financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in today's earnings release. Casey will begin the call with opening remarks and discuss various factors that affected our results, selected business highlights, and his thoughts concerning the outlook for fiscal 2025 and beyond. Bruce will then discuss our financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2024, and our guidance for fiscal 2025. I would now like to turn the call over to Casey.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Good afternoon. Thank you, AJ, and thank you all for joining us today for our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 earnings call. Today, I will cover an overview of fourth quarter results. Bruce will cover more specific financial results, perspective on full year 2024 performance, guidance moving into fiscal year 2025, and an update on our portfolio shaping efforts. Quarter four results. The fourth quarter results showed sequential improvement versus prior quarters in fiscal year 2024. Fourth quarter net sales of $551.6 million and adjusted EBITDA of $86.1 million were in line or slightly above expectations. Excluding Crisco, whose net sales were impacted by lower net pricing to reflect a decrease in soybean oil costs, base business net sales decreased by only 0.4% compared to the year-ago period, an improvement from prior quarters.

The strongest sales performance was in our Spices & Flavor Solutions business unit, with fourth quarter net sales up 5% versus the fourth quarter of last year. Margins were also relatively improved in quarter four. Adjusted gross profit percentage for the fourth quarter was 22.2% compared to 21.9% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales improved to 15.6% from 15% in the fourth quarter of 2023. This reflects modest or no inflation on most input costs, with a few exceptions in black pepper, olive oil, etc. Margins are also benefiting from increased efforts on productivity and cost savings across our business teams. Fiscal year 2024 performance.

Fiscal year 2024 was a more difficult year for both B&G Foods and the packaged food industry, with consumers continuing to adjust purchase patterns in the wake of higher inflation in recent years and prices for food and other consumer goods that remain elevated. The exception has been our spices and seasoning business, which has shown positive trends in the last several quarters, influenced by the growth of fresh produce and proteins in the perimeter of the grocery store. In fiscal year 2024, base business net sales declined 3.3% versus fiscal year 2023, or approximately 2.5%, excluding the net effect of approximately $15 million of lower Crisco oil pricing to reflect lower soybean oil costs with no gross profit impact attributable to the Crisco commodity pricing model.

Adjusted EBITDA was down minus 7.1% versus fiscal year 2023, but down only 2%, excluding the approximately $8 million impact of the Green Giant U.S. shelf-stable divestiture in fiscal year 2023, and the approximately $8.5 million foreign currency impacts related to the Mexican peso in fiscal year 2024 relative to fiscal year 2023 on the Green Giant frozen vegetables produced and packed in Mexico and shipped into the U.S. Fiscal year 2025 guidance. We continue to see uncertainty in the near term on center store trends, with sales and consumption declines in January and February 2025 relative to last year, but we fully expect to eventually lap the impact of changing consumer behaviors in food purchases. For fiscal year 2025, we are projecting a net sales range of $1.89 billion-$1.95 billion.

This assumes some improvement in our base business net sales trend, with the bottom of the range consistent with the base business trend in fiscal year 2024. We expect that trend to be lower in the first half and improve in the second half as we begin to lap the consumer reactions to the inflationary food environment. Net sales will also benefit from the partial impact of a 53rd week in fiscal year 2025. Fiscal year 2025 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $290 million-$300 million, reflecting flat to slightly down net sales, the partial impact of a 53rd week, and the possible recovery of foreign exchange from the Mexican peso. Portfolio shaping. B&G Foods remains committed to reshaping and restructuring our portfolio to sharpen focus, simplify our portfolio, improve margins and cash flow, and maximize future value creation.

This is a very high priority for the company and critical to our future strategic direction and risk profile. The end game is to create a more highly focused B&G Foods, with Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales approaching 20%, increased cash flow generation, lower leverage closer to five times, a more efficient cost structure, and clear synergies within the portfolio, and ultimately to build a stable platform that can be the foundation for future-focused M&A growth. As previously discussed, we are finalizing the strategic review of the frozen and remaining canned vegetable businesses for a possible divestiture and sale of some or all of the assets in the Frozen & Vegetables business unit. Green Giant remains a strong brand with broad awareness and distribution, and the frozen vegetables category is on trend with health and dietary trends.

It may not be the right fit with B&G Foods focus and capabilities, particularly since there are no plans to add more assets in the frozen portfolio, given the opportunities in our core shelf-stable businesses and overall capital constraints. Thank you, and I will now turn the call over to Bruce for more detail on the quarterly and full year performance and the outlook for fiscal 2025.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Thank you, Casey. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As you can see, we had a reasonably strong finish to a challenging 2024 fiscal year. For the fourth quarter of 2024, we generated $551.6 million in net sales, a net loss of $222.4 million, or $2.81 per diluted share, Adjusted net income of $24.6 million, or $0.31 per Adjusted diluted share, $86.1 million in Adjusted EBITDA, and Adjusted EBITDA is a percentage of net sales of 15.6%. For fiscal 2024, we generated $1.932 billion in net sales, a net loss of $251.3 million, or $3.18 per diluted share, Adjusted net income of $55.7 million, or $0.70 per Adjusted diluted share, $295.4 million in Adjusted EBITDA, and 15.3% of Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales.

The company's net loss for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2024 were primarily attributable to pre-tax, non-cash impairment charges to intangible assets. During fiscal 2024, the company recorded pre-tax, non-cash impairment charges of $320 million related to intangible trademark assets for Green Giant, Victoria, Static Guard, and McCann's Brands in the fourth quarter, and $70.6 million related to Goodwill for the company's frozen vegetables reporting unit in the first quarter. More details regarding the impairments are included in our earnings release and 10-K. As a reminder, we divested the Green Giant U.S. shelf-stable product line in November 2023, and we are thus lapping a partial quarter of results for that product line in the fourth quarter of 2024. The Green Giant U.S. shelf-stable product line generated $15.9 million in net sales during the period of time that we owned it in the fourth quarter of 2023.

It generated net sales of $64.4 million and approximately $8 million or so in contribution for us in fiscal 2023. Net sales for the fourth quarter of 2024 decreased by $26.5 million, or 4.6%, to $551.6 million from $578.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2023. The decrease was primarily attributable to the Green Giant U.S. shelf-stable divestiture, a decrease in unit volume, and the negative impact of foreign currency, partially offset by an increase in net pricing and the impact of product mix. Our base business net sales, which excludes the Green Giant U.S. shelf-stable product line, decreased by $10.7 million, or 1.9%, in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. The percentage decline in base business net sales is an improvement from the trends that we had seen during the first three quarters of the year.

$12.4 million of the decline in base business net sales, or 2.2 percentage points of the decline, was driven by lower volumes, and $0.4 million, or 0.1 percentage points, were driven by the negative impact of foreign currency. These impacts were offset in part by the benefit of $2.1 million, or 0.4 percentage points, of positive net pricing and product mix. Net sales for our Crisco brand decreased $9 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 as compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, as a result of our commodity pricing model for the brand, which resulted in net pricing decline of approximately $5 million, largely to reflect lower soybean oil and canola oil commodity costs, as well as a decrease in volume of approximately $4 million.

Excluding the Crisco brand, our base business net sales decreased by $1.7 million, or 0.4%, in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Gross profit was $118.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2024, or 21.5% of net sales. Adjusted gross profit, which excludes the negative impact of $3.7 million of acquisition, divestiture-related expenses, and non-recurring expenses included in our cost of goods sold during the quarter of 2024, was $122.3 million, or 22.2% of net sales. Gross profit was $125.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2023, or 21.7% of net sales. Adjusted gross profit, which excludes the negative impact of $1.6 million of acquisition, divestiture-related expenses, and non-recurring expenses included in the cost of goods sold during the fourth quarter of 2023, was $126.7 million, or 21.9% of net sales.

While we have continued to see input cost inflation with regards to raw material costs across our basket of inputs and in our factories, the cost increases remain mostly modest in 2024. However, we are still seeing elevated costs and even inflationary pressures in some categories, such as black pepper, garlic, olive oil, tomatoes, and core vegetables, all of which are expected to remain elevated throughout 2025. Meanwhile, foreign currency, which negatively impacted costs at our Green Giant manufacturing facility in Mexico during the fourth quarter and throughout fiscal 2024, has begun to ease as the unfavorable U.S. dollar-Mexican peso exchange rate moderated during the course of 2024 and is now in line with its long-term historical averages.

Helping to mitigate these cost increases are continued favorability in some areas that saw the most extreme input cost inflation in 2022 and 2023, such as soybean oil and cans, more normalized rates for logistics, as well as our continuous improvement productivity efforts and cost savings initiatives at our factories. Selling, general, and administrative expenses decreased by $2.9 million, or 5.5%, to $50.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 from $53.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2023. The decrease was composed of decreases in consumer marketing expenses of $1.7 million, general and administrative expenses of $1.1 million, warehousing expenses of $0.7 million, and selling expenses of $0.2 million, partially offset by an increase in acquisition, divestiture-related, and non-recurring expenses of $0.8 million.

Expressed as a percentage of net sales, selling general and administrative expenses improved by 10 basis points to 9.1% for the fourth quarter of 2024 as compared to 9.2% for the fourth quarter of 2023. As I mentioned earlier, we generated $86.1 million in adjusted EBITDA, or 15.6% of net sales in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to $86.8 million, or 15%, in the fourth quarter of 2023. In the fourth quarter, our ability to deliver improved margins despite modest inflation and the negative impact of foreign currency relative to the impact in the year-ago period on our cost of goods sold for the portion of our Green Giant frozen vegetables that are produced in our manufacturing facility in Mexico allowed us to generate similar adjusted EBITDA despite the divestiture of the Green Giant U.S. shelf-stable product line and lower net sales.

Net interest expense decreased by $0.6 million, or 1.4%, to $39.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to $40.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The decrease was primarily attributable to a reduction in average long-term debt outstanding during the fourth quarter of 2024 as compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. This was partially offset by higher blended interest rates on our long-term debt during the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, as well as non-cash loss on extinguishment of debt during the fourth quarter of 2024 of $0.2 million net of accelerated amortization of deferred debt financing fees related to the redemption in full of our then remaining outstanding five and a quarter notes due 2025.

Depreciation and amortization was $16.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, which is in line with $17 million in the fourth quarter of last year. We had adjusted net income of $24.6 million, or $0.31 per adjusted diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2023, we had adjusted net income of $23.5 million, or $0.30 per adjusted diluted share. Adjustments to our EBITDA and net income are described further in our earnings release. I would now like to touch on the results by business unit for the fourth quarter. Net sales for Specialty decreased by $10.5 million, or 4.6%, in the fourth quarter of 2024 to $216.7 million from $227.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The decrease was primarily due to lower Crisco pricing driven by decreased commodity costs, coupled with modest declines in volumes across the Specialty business unit in the aggregate. Specialty segment adjusted EBITDA increased by $2.7 million, or 4.8%, in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. The increase was primarily due to favorable costs in certain raw materials, partially offset by a decrease in net sales. Net sales for Meals decreased by $2.4 million, or 1.9%, in the fourth quarter of 2024 to $122.9 million from $125.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2023. The decrease was primarily due to lower volumes across the Meals business unit, partially offset by a modest increase in net pricing and improved product mix. Meals segment adjusted EBITDA increased by approximately $0.2 million as improved margins offset lower net sales.

Net sales for Frozen & Vegetables, excluding the impact of the Green Giant U.S. shelf-stable product line divestiture, were down by $2.5 million, or 2.2%, in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Frozen & Vegetables segment-adjusted Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $4.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Approximately $3.5 million of the decline was due to the negative impact of foreign currency relative to the prior year period on our cost of goods sold for the portion of our Green Giant frozen vegetable products that are produced at our manufacturing facility in Mexico. Increased pack costs on core vegetable products, including corn on the cob and peas, contributed approximately $1.5 million to the decline. Investments in trade reduced segment-adjusted EBITDA by another $625,000.

These declines were offset in part by improved performance in our Canadian operations of approximately $1 million compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Net sales for Spices & Flavor Solutions increased by $4.8 million, or 5%, in the fourth quarter of 2024 to $101.8 million from $97 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The increase was primarily due to higher volumes across the Spices & Flavor Solutions business unit, coupled with higher net pricing and product mix. Spices & Flavor Solutions segment-adjusted EBITDA increased by $0.6 million, or 2.5%, in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. The increase in segment-adjusted EBITDA was largely driven by a combination of increased volumes and improved net pricing and product mix, which were offset in part by increases in raw material costs such as black pepper and garlic.

Now moving on to our balance sheet. We reduced our net debt to $1.994 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to $2.05 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2024. And as we highlighted on our last earnings call, we also redeemed in full the remaining $265 million of senior notes due April 2025 back in October of 2024. As a result, we no longer have any near-term maturities, with our closest maturity now being our senior notes due September 2027. Approximately 35% of our long-term debt is tied to floating interest rates, or SOFR. A 50 basis points decrease in rates would reduce our interest expense by approximately $3.5 million on an annualized rate. 100 basis points in rate reduction would be expected to reduce our interest expense by approximately $7 million. We also continue to reduce our inventory.

Our inventory was $511.2 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to $618.1 million at the end of the third quarter of 2024 and $569 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023. And as a reminder, before we get into our fiscal 2025 guidance, we are still living in unpredictable times. Based on current information, we expect continued volume challenges for the industry and for us in the first half of 2025 and slow improvement with flat to modest increases in our volume during the second half of the year. We also expect a net sales benefit of approximately $10-$15 million in the second half of the year from a 53rd week in fiscal 2025, which will occur in the fourth quarter.

As Casey and I mentioned earlier, we had a tough 2024 with regards to foreign currency, primarily driven by movements in the U.S. dollar to Mexican peso exchange rate. This has largely reversed, but because we carry most of these costs in our inventory, we won't begin to see benefit until we begin to hit the second half of the year. Our model assumes that there are no major upticks in inflation. As a result, and as noted in our earnings release, we expect 2025 net sales of $1.89 billion-$1.95 billion, Adjusted EBITDA of $290-$300 million, and Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales to remain approximately 15%-15.5%. Based on this guidance, we expect adjusted diluted earnings per share to be in a range of $0.65-$0.75.

Additionally, we expect for full year 2025, interest expense of $147.5 million-$152.5 million, including cash interest of $142.5 million-$147.5 million, depreciation expense of $47.5 million-$52.5 million, amortization expense of $20 million-$22 million, an effective tax rate of 26%-27%, and CapEx of $35 million-$40 million. And now I will turn the call back over to Casey for further remarks.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Thank you, Bruce. In closing, B&G Foods is laser-focused on the few critical priorities. One, improving the base business net sales trends of the core business to the long-term objective of +1%. Reshaping the portfolio for future growth, stability, higher margins, and cash flows, as well as structuring key platforms for future acquisition growth. And finally, reducing leverage below 5.5 times through divestitures and excess cash flow to facilitate strategic acquisitions.

This concludes our remarks, and now we would like to begin the Q&A portion of our call. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your questions from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. The first question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks so much. Good afternoon, everybody.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Hey, Andrew.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Hey, Andrew.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

I guess first off, I'm curious what the impairment charge on Green Giant frozen either implies or doesn't imply about sort of the value, I guess, potential suitors may ascribe to the business now that you've kind of put it under strategic review?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Yeah. It's really driven by accounting, Andrew, and business performance as opposed to us highlighting what we think the expected value and a potential sale would be. We were carrying the value of this at something north of $600 million at some point, which obviously we're probably not going to achieve that in a sale.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

Yeah. Yeah. Got it. And then I think you said $10 million-$15 million benefit full year from a 53rd week. Typically, just by calendar math, it's usually closer to a 2% benefit on the top line. But I think the $10 million-$15 million is only like 0.6% or so. I'm just curious.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Yeah. I think for us, it's about three days.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

Okay. Got it.

Casey Keller (CEO)

And then based on the calendar. Based on the actual calendar.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

Yeah. On the calendar. Yep. Got it. Got it.

And Casey, just stepping back for a minute, from an industry perspective, I guess the packaged food industry over time has gone through plenty of cycles where there have been challenging headwinds. And the group has always sort of found its way back to a better place. And it takes some time, and there's always sort of winners and losers in all of it. But generally speaking, the group's been able to sort of pivot.

The way I think a lot of these food stocks are trading today, it sort of feels like investors are thinking that this time is somehow different and that the headwinds that the group's facing today are more structural or enduring. And I guess I know no one's being dismissive of the current headwinds, but I'm curious your take on that. Do you think the headwinds this time around are different and somehow more enduring, or that it may just take more time for the group to sort of figure out the way forward, if you sort of get my thinking?

Casey Keller (CEO)

Yeah. I mean, this is my personal opinion, looking at a lot of data, that I think we're dealing with a temporary reaction by consumers to higher prices that have remained elevated and people reacting in their budgets and making decisions about food purchases and sizes and trading down.

And I think we're going to lap that eventually. And if I look at kind of the trends and the categories in our business, I think we should lap that in the next several months, the reaction of that. Because I think people will react one time to these higher prices and make adjustments in their purchase patterns. But I think once they've done that, they've done it. And I think we'll eventually lap it. And so then we'll go back into a more stable pattern year over year. I'm not saying we're going to go back to where we were before the adjustments, but I think we'll go back to a more stable pattern. I don't necessarily see prices coming down a lot without some significant reductions in inputs. We'll do it on Crisco. We haven't really seen it in a lot of other products.

Soybean oil has come down, so we've dropped price on Crisco, but I think once consumers make these adjustments, they stick with them and they go back to normal patterns, so that's what I think. Our portfolio, I think, is more meals-based. It doesn't have a lot of the, I don't think it has a lot of the risk around excess snacking or anything else. I think we're really about meals, and so I don't see anything from the GLP-1 phenomenon that necessarily is a big watch-out unless people really dramatically reduce the consumption of calories in meals, which we haven't necessarily seen so far, so I think these are more temporary headwinds that we just need to get through lapping them, and that's what I see in our portfolio, and that's what I see in the, if I look at the year-over-year consumption data across the industry.

Andrew Lazar (Managing Director)

Thanks for your thoughts.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Michael Lavery (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good afternoon.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Hey, Michael.

Michael Lavery (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Just wanted to follow up on some of the top-line momentum. You said a couple of times, even in the response to Andrew's question, how it's probably mostly just a question of consumers adjusting. But a lot of the elevated prices have been in the market for a while. There's been, at the grocery level and across all food, something close to modest volume declines for over two years now. What drives that? How sure of an inflection point can you be? I mean, a little bit of just how you kind of mapped out the year from the consumer standpoint.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

I mean, I think what we're looking at is, what are we lapping. When do we see the consumption trends. When do we start lapping the negative consumption trends last year. Because we really saw it more pronounced, and I'm talking about dollars, so I'm not actually looking at unit volume because obviously, unit volumes, when the prices first went up, we had a little bit of decline in unit volumes, but I think then there was a delayed reaction from the consumer about how they continued to react to those, so I'm looking at when do we have consumption trends begin to go negative and we lap those a year ago period. We didn't actually have that in January. In January and December, our consumption trends a year ago were relatively stable, so we're just looking at that pattern and seeing when do we hit it to determine when we think we might have more stabilization on the top line.

Michael Lavery (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. And hard to know, just in the political regulatory world, there's not that much certainty these days. But it seems like just today or yesterday, Trump reiterated the Mexican tariffs set to go, and who knows if that happens or not. But can you just touch on what, if any, contingency planning you can do, how impactful that might be if you've run those numbers, and just how to think about what some of that might mean?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Yeah. So tough for us to predict what's going to happen in politics, especially on that topic. I think the big thing where we would look and have looked is in certain categories, are we different from the competition. So for example, if we're importing something from Asia and everybody's importing something from Asia, that's probably more of a macro than a B&G specific.

When we think about something like Mexico and our manufacturing facility there, there are probably offsets. It's hard for me to say with certainty that they're linear. But if there were a tariff, and I think you started to see this the day that we thought tariffs were going to go into effect, you start to see a pretty significant weakening in the currency. And so we might end up having tariff impact bad, currency impact better. And I think that's not getting too far into the politics. That's probably where the U.S. has some leverage. But I think it's a case-by-case are we impacted from an industry perspective and all of our peers or something unique to us. Hard to predict.

Casey Keller (CEO)

I mean, our impact would really just be Mexico because what we source and sell in Canadian products right now. So I mean, so we source our vegetables in Canada and sell them in Canada. It would be the vegetables that we grow and produce in Mexico and then send it to the United States. And I think it's less. We obviously are doing some modeling around what that could look like. Bruce has talked a little bit about what the offset in currency could be, some other things. So we have modeling on this, but I think it's really early to speculate on what's going to happen because last time it kind of pulled back, and I'm not sure that agricultural products will be in the tariff. So we don't know anything yet. We need to kind of watch it to see what the impact could be or what the resolution could be of this. But we are doing some modeling to make sure that we're prepared.

Michael Lavery (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

And as far as it ties to guidance, would there be any of these scenarios, or does that reflect just status quo as it is today?

Casey Keller (CEO)

Our guidance largely reflects status quo.

Michael Lavery (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Thanks so much.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Rob Dickerson with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Rob Dickerson (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks so much. I guess just kind of first question is around trade spend. Clearly, volumes have been pressuring the industry now for a couple of years. Feels like kind of what you're saying, your expectation would be still maybe a little soft over the next quarter or two. Just in terms of the relationship with the retailer, because I thought you had a comment in the prepared remarks around trade spend, and I kind of half missed it.

I'm just curious, as we think about 2025, are there any other—or let's say any other cost that you're kind of absorbing or you need to deploy, right, to try to kind of keep velocities going, and I'm speaking not just to marketing dollars or innovation or what have you, but just kind of anything that's kind of broadly happening kind of with your overall retail customers that you're trying to support?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

So I think our lever, for the most part, is trade to move volumes, right? It's all part of pricing. Crisco, as we've talked about, is one of the few areas where we actually lowered the list price per se, but it's really this combination of trade and list gets you your net pricing. Some of the trade looks wonky as we've moved around some of the list pricing for Crisco.

And then for us, if you think about the cadence, and we talked about this during the course of most of the quarters last year, we took price down through trade, beginning really in the fourth quarter of 2023. And so as we were lapping the first three quarters of 2024 against 2023, it was higher trade. And then fourth quarter was kind of like for like because we had already moved. It's very different on a brand-for-brand basis. But there's some give and take there. And then, obviously, in some of our other areas, historically, when we've seen price increases on black pepper or garlic, we've moved price. And when we've seen price decreases, we've moved price. But generally speaking, it's trade that we're moving price around with, not necessarily list.

Rob Dickerson (Managing Director)

Right. Okay. Okay. Perfect. That's helpful. Then I guess just in terms of price, maybe I just have two kind of qualifying questions. The first one is for the year in terms of organic sales growth, when you're speaking to the improvement and back half maybe a little bit better than first half, should we be kind of assuming flat-ish pricing, right? I mean, it's kind of more of a, these are more comments clearly around volumes.

Casey Keller (CEO)

I mean, I think it's flat to just slightly up. We do have a couple of areas where we've got some input cost increases. But I think for the most part, we expect to use productivity and cost savings to offset any modest inflation of kind of maybe 1%. And that 1% would be skewed towards a couple of categories where we've seen increases like black pepper, garlic, olive oil.

We may or may not use pricing there, but we'll also use productivity and cost savings to help offset. I think we're back to kind of a low inflation environment where you try and cover a good deal of inflation with productivity.

Rob Dickerson (Managing Director)

Yeah.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

The other call-out when we're talking about price and trade and inflation, we've seen with Crisco now in the four going on five years since we've owned it, we have managed that business for margin. When costs skyrocketed, we were able to take pretty astronomical price increases. It wasn't perfect on a monthly basis, but on an annual basis, it worked. As input costs came down, we took price down. Over the course of 2024, it was relatively stable compared to the moves that we had in 2023.

And then, like I said, we would manage that business for margin like we have. Actually, for gross profit dollars. Margins would move up and down, but we would manage to maintain gross profit dollars from the, yeah. And that's how we would do that again if price moved up or down. It'd be great if we get continued relief there, and consumers would love it.

Rob Dickerson (Managing Director)

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All makes sense. And then just quickly, look, sales, I think, kind of came through maybe a little bit better in Q4 than maybe some had thought. It kind of feels like kind of what's implied in the guide and the commentary that maybe Q1 could be a little bit down versus Q4 before it gets better. So I'm just curious kind of what you've seen so far in Q1, given your March quarter end.

And also, kind of given we heard a number of companies speak last week, where it kind of felt like maybe January and kind of the kickoff of the year was just a little bit maybe softer coming out of the holidays. And that's all. Thanks so much.

Casey Keller (CEO)

I think that's how we see it too. We're not obviously through the Q1 period, but we know that January was a little bit softer than we anticipated, just like the rest of the industry saw. I mean, I think we know some retailers took down kind of holiday and seasonal merchandising faster. So we think January was a tougher month. January was a tougher month. And so that's kind of how we see Q1 shaping up, although we expect to see some improvement as we get out of there. But just like the rest of the industry, January, we saw lower shipments than we expected in January.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Yeah. And I would continue to remind folks to look at the consumption data as it comes in. And we're generally pretty close to where consumption comes out, absent something that happens either in Canada, food service, or we do have a partner brand with a leading club store. And so we think about last year, we probably underperformed in food service in that first quarter. We probably had pretty good performance in the fourth quarter for food service for Canada and for some of our partner brands. But by and large, if it's a tough consumption environment and you see that in the tracked channels, that's going to dictate reality. We're optimistic that that turns, but I was wrong every quarter last year.

Rob Dickerson (Managing Director)

It's okay, Bruce. Thanks so much, guys. Really appreciate it.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of William Reuter with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

William Reuter (Managing Director)

Hi. Good afternoon. Not asking you to predict what's going to happen with tariffs, but what is the dollar amount of vegetables and other products that currently are shipped from Mexico to the US?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

We haven't disclosed. But generally speaking, the products that are manufactured or produced and packed in Mexico, it's Green Giant frozen. It is largely our core frozen vegetable offering. You should think about bag-in-a-box and bag, and some frozen IQF that's used in other parts.

William Reuter (Managing Director)

Got it. That's helpful. And then in terms of your conversations with your retail partners, were there any changes in shelf space recently, or have there been any changes in their interest in private label? I know you compete a lot with private label. Whether you're seeing any changes there?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

I mean, from a B&G overall standpoint, the answer is probably not really. If you went across 50 brands, I'm sure we could think of some positive examples and some negatives. But no macro trend that we've seen necessarily.

William Reuter (Managing Director)

Got it.

Casey Keller (CEO)

In our major categories.

William Reuter (Managing Director)

Great. That's all I had. I'll pass to others. Thank you.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Robert Moskow with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Robert Moskow (Managing Director)

Hi. Thanks. Good evening.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Hey, Rob.

Robert Moskow (Managing Director)

Hi. I was wondering if you could comment on free cash flow in 2024. I didn't hear it, and I don't think the cash flow statement's out yet. So how did you end up for the year? And how should we think about 2025? Is working capital a use of cash again in 2025 or not?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

You actually can find the cash from operations on page 13 of our press release. We don't have the full statement, but we do have the line item. Uhm.

Robert Moskow (Managing Director)

I didn't see that.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Yeah. We probably had a, if you look just in the fourth quarter, pretty comparable to what we did in last year's fourth quarter. 2023, our cash from operations were turbocharged because we brought inventory down so much. 2024 wasn't going to replicate that. 2025 isn't going to replicate that. I'd like to think 2025 could be comparable to 2024, maybe a little bit better. Part of the 2023 was the venture of the canned vegetable business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Moskow (Managing Director)

Okay.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

And so just think about big inventory moves are going to boost us in the cash from operations. We're right now, without the canned business, not as extreme from an inventory build in the third quarter or that quarter being not a great cash from operations quarter. But there still is a fair amount of seasonality just with some of the other pieces of the business, whether it's the frozen Green Giant or whether it's things like Crisco and Clabber Girl that participate in the bake season or Bear Creek in the soup season. So we generally generate a fair amount of cash in the fourth quarter.

Robert Moskow (Managing Director)

Okay. But at the end of the year, Bruce, debt was kind of the same as it was at the end of 2023. So was that. I thought there'd be a little more left over after the dividend to pay it down. Or am I doing the math wrong? Is that pretty much where you expected to be at the end of the year?

Casey Keller (CEO)

From a leverage standpoint, we are not as low as we expected to be when we began 2024 because we expected much higher EBITDA. From a net debt standpoint, we are probably down $30 million during the course of 2024 from where we started the year. Would have liked that number to be $50 million-$60 million. So down, not flat, but probably not as down as much as we'd like.

Robert Moskow (Managing Director)

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of David Palmer with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Thanks. Just have a question about your segments, your three focus segments going forward: spices and specialty and meals. I'm wondering how they're all fairly healthy EBITDA margin businesses, all in the 20s, a little higher for spices, for example.

But how are you going to manage these businesses differently? How do you think of them in terms of a focus on your growth spending or the potential to respond to growth spending? Ones that you might not even really manage to the top line very much. I would imagine the Specialty segment that has Crisco, you might be thinking about managing to EBITDA on that segment, but maybe not so much managing to EBITDA on the others. So any color about how you're thinking about that?

Casey Keller (CEO)

Yeah. I think we've talked about this before, but I think the Spices & Seasonings or Spices & Flavor Solutions business unit, we see good trends there.

We see some tailwinds with the growth of the perimeter of the store where the seasonings and flavorings are actually enhancing the fresh proteins and vegetables that people are buying and the growth of the perimeter store. So that's a business with strong margins, a good market position. And we would look at that as a business we would expect to grow a couple % in line with a category of 2%-3%. So we would do some investment there to grow. We want to make sure we have the right capital structure, the right assets, the right capacity. We're doing some things with our brands. We've launched some licensing brands to get into different segments. So that's a business that we expect growth from longer term. And we are getting it. We are getting it in 2024.

The fourth quarter, we were up 5% in that business unit. So I feel like that one's where it needs to be. I would also expect some growth in our Meals business unit, which is essentially two things. One is Mexican taco categories. So Ortega brand, Las Palmas, enchilada sauces. We think those categories continue to grow behind Hispanic meal trends. We would expect to grow there. We've invested in excess capacity in our taco sauce production. We're starting to do a little bit more with the consumer on those businesses. There's also hot breakfast, which for a while really kind of took off after COVID, but probably has settled down a little bit. But we still see that business as a good business with our McCann's Oatmeal, Cream of Wheat business. Those businesses have performed pretty well.

So I would expect to get at least 1% growth longer term from that business unit given the categories that it's competing in. The Specialty business, which is largely baking staples, you correctly identified, we kind of see that as flat over time. And we would want to manage that business for margins and cash flow and EBITDA. And so we do look at those businesses. They're not categories that we expect to grow: shortening, oil, baking powder, molasses. I mean, these are businesses that we want to maintain good, strong financial performance on, but not necessarily top-line growth. And they also have very strong margins. So just maintaining those margins, maintaining that EBITDA cash flow is important. Green Giant is a little bit more of a struggle.

We struggle with high costs in that business because we don't have a lot of infrastructure in frozen, and we're not planning to add any more frozen assets. So that has been a business that we do invest behind innovation on things because you need to do that in the frozen business. But it's our lowest margin business in the portfolio, as you can see. And it hasn't been the place that we would want to put the most investment in. And it's probably not—it's under strategic review. So we're looking at whether or not that's really part of our future portfolio.

David Palmer (Senior Managing Director)

Of the three that are not under review, is there one that you think is going to get the most improved award in 2025 that you think is—you look back at 2024 and you left something on the table, or there's trends that are—or innovation that you think is going to get that segment going more than the others?

Casey Keller (CEO)

I think our spices business has been performing. So I think it's where it needs to be from a top-line performance standpoint. I think our Meals business unit is probably the one where I see good innovation coming in our Mexican platform. And I think we're poised to get back into growth on that one by the end of the year. So that one is the one I'm encouraged by the plans. We put some additional stuff in place. We've got innovation. We've got additional marketing.

I think that's a place that we would expect to see a little bit of growth instead of a decline like we saw in 2024. I think the Specialty area, we just want to get that more flat. I mean, as Bruce said, a lot of the impact was from the pricing from Crisco because we had lower oil costs. We reflected that through. We're happy with the performance of that business in 2024. But most of the decline in the sales was due to the pricing impact in the Crisco pricing model. I mean, we've been pretty clear that our long-term algorithm for particularly the three businesses that aren't under strategic review is that we want at least 1% growth. We said 1%-2%, but 1% growth on that group of assets. And we think we can get there.

Once we get through kind of the consumer reaction to all the inflationary environment, consumer purchasing behavior changes, we think we've got a portfolio that should be able to drive that kind of low growth. It's not huge expectations, but at least growth and a stable platform that we can build on.

David Palmer (Senior Managing Director)

Thank you.

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Karru Martinson with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Karru Martinson (Managing Director)

Good afternoon. When you guys talked about consumer spending shifts and sizing and so forth, is there any thought or changes when we look at the guidance here of package size shifts for you all?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

I don't think there'll be package size shifts. We may emphasize different sizes in the portfolio in terms of what we're different sizes, containers to just where we promote, what we promote. But we don't have any specific plans now to downsize.

We did a downsizing on our Crisco business about a year and a half ago, I guess, where we moved from 48 ounces to 40 ounces when the price of soybean oil skyrocketed. That was one we made a deliberate move. And I think some of our competition has followed that. But we don't have plans to do that necessarily on other businesses right now.

Karru Martinson (Managing Director)

Seems like a lot of that was in that 2022, 2023 time period. But as Casey said, no major plans across the portfolio.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Yeah.

Karru Martinson (Managing Director)

But we will look at the smaller sizes in our portfolio. How do we emphasize those for consumers that might be looking to trade down? And then when you look at cost and productivity saves, is this more of just kind of the continuous improvement, or is there a target of what you want to achieve in 2025?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Yeah. We've set targets for each of our businesses to get between 2%-3% productivity or savings on a COGS basis. So they're actively working on kind of a 3% target.

Karru Martinson (Managing Director)

All right. Thank you very much.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

On our COGS. Yeah.

Karru Martinson (Managing Director)

Appreciate it.

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Hale Holden, Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hale Holden (Managing Director)

Thank you. The first one I had is just to circle back on tariffs. The exposure to maple syrup or syrups from Canada, is that something we should think about as just not material enough to be a driver if that comes into play?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

I think sales on that business overall are probably something around $70 million. So could there be an impact? Yeah. Do we want there to be an impact? No. But think about it in that context.

And then, as Casey mentioned earlier, when we think about our Green Giant Canadian business, that is a largely sourced in Canada and sold in Canada business. And so there really wouldn't be any tariff on that business that could be material in any way. That business, we've got currency risk at translation, but not really transaction. It's kind of a margin neutral from those things.

Hale Holden (Managing Director)

Great. Thank you, Bruce. And then the second question I had was not to ask another political one, but do you have any examples of how the portfolio does if there's material reductions to SNAP or any thoughts at a very high level if that materializes, how much risk that could cause for you?

Bruce Wacha (CFO)

So we probably don't have as good SNAP data as some of the retailers have it because they get it direct. We believe, and I've seen it in some of the public research out there, that we've got less exposure to SNAP than some other businesses. I mean, at the end of the day, if it's a low-end consumer and you're reducing their cash to spend on things, they've got less money. So wouldn't be naive and say no impact. I still am of this belief that in a challenging environment, center store packaged food companies do well, will eventually do well. As I said earlier on the call, I was wrong for four straight quarters when we were in an inflection point. But typically, our industry does well in modest inflation, soft economies. We are a mass-oriented buyer or seller of products.

Casey Keller (CEO)

I mean, the only other thing I'd say about SNAP is I don't think we have a lot of risk around that we would be targeted in terms of being excluded from SNAP because our portfolio is really about traditional meal preparation. I don't think that we would be viewed as excess calories or "junk food" under the MAHA movement. So we're probably not—we don't have a risk from that, from SNAP benefits being kind of more directed towards certain categories. We'd probably be fine. Yeah. If the overall level of SNAP comes down, probably there's some impact. There's some impact. But if it becomes targeted against certain categories, then I don't think we'd be in there.

Hale Holden (Managing Director)

I was trying to spin MAHA in my head to make B&G great again, but I will.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry.

Hale Holden (Managing Director)

Cross my fingers for you guys for this year, but thank you.

Casey Keller (CEO)

I've been reading too many newspapers.

Hale Holden (Managing Director)

Fair enough. Thank you.

Casey Keller (CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.