The Chefs' Warehouse - Q4 2022
February 15, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings, welcome to The Chefs' Warehouse fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Alex Aldous, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Government Relations Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Alex Aldous (General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Government Relations Officer)
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. With me on today's call are Chris Pappas, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, and Jim Leddy, our CFO. By now you should have access to our fourth quarter 2022 earnings press release. It can also be found at www.chefswarehouse.com under the investor relations section. Throughout this conference call, we'll be presenting non-GAAP financial measures, including among others, historical and estimated EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, as well as both historical and estimated adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share. These measurements are not calculated in accordance with GAAP and may be calculated differently in similarly titled non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. Quantitative reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures appear in today's press release.
Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our estimated financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Some of these risks are mentioned in today's release. Others are discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which are available on the SEC website. Today, we are going to provide a business update and go over our fourth quarter results in detail. We will open up the call for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Chris Pappas. Chris.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Thank you, Alex. Thank you all for joining our fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. Fourth quarter business activity continued the return to more normal seasonality heading into the year-end period as celebrations and event-related business continued to build upon emerging third quarter trends. We are extremely proud of our team's execution during the fourth quarter, especially their ability to overcome challenging weather across our markets in mid to late December. Our people continue to drive The Chefs' Warehouse high-quality product and high-touch service model to our 40,000-plus customers, and we are grateful to each and every one of them for contributing to a strong performance rounding out 2022. A few highlights from the fourth quarter as compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 include 22.7% organic growth in net sales.
Specialty sales were up 34.2% organically over the prior year, which was driven by unique customer growth of approximately 18.9%, placement growth of 14.5%, and specialty case growth of 19.1%. Organic pounds in center of the plate were approximately 15.2% higher than the prior year fourth quarter. Gross profit margins increased approximately 116 basis points. Gross margin in the specialty category decreased 91 basis points as compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, while gross margin in the center of the plate category increased 133 basis points year-over-year. Jim will provide more detail on gross profit and margins in a few moments.
As previously announced, during the fourth quarter, we are excited to enter the dynamic markets within the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman with our acquisitions of Chef Middle East. We look forward to supporting Steve Pyle and the CME team as we expand our capacity in the region, grow categorically, and leverage our combined strengths over the months and years to come. In addition to our expansion outside North America, during the quarter, we added a few key components to our East Coast markets with the addition of the Guaranteed Fresh Produce Company and Down East Seafood. Guaranteed Fresh is a specialty produce company located in Cape Cod of New England, serving primarily independent restaurants. We anticipate folding their operations into our New Bedford, Massachusetts, produce and specialty operation in the coming months.
Down East Seafood is a fresh seafood processing company located near our flagship The Chefs' Warehouse facility in the Bronx, New York. Adding fresh seafood in the New York metro market provides us with another key step in building out our growing center of the plate capabilities as we continue to add categories and customers in these key markets. In the southern New Jersey and Philadelphia market, we recently signed a lease for a 175,000 sq ft facility. This new building will consolidate service to the greater Philly area and the southern and central New Jersey parts of our business. Once fully operational, this will allow for a more efficient distribution model in the region and will provide additional capacity for growth in our New York metro area and Mid-Atlantic markets going forward.
Our new facility in Florida is substantially complete, and we expect to move in by the end of the first quarter of 2023. 2022 was a stellar year for our company, for our people, and for our customers and supplier partners. During the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, our teams continued to execute at a high level to ensure that we brought the highest quality products to the market and maintained a high-touch delivery for our customers. We kept the balance sheet strong. We got ahead of the labor constraints associated with the snapback and demand, and we restarted investment in talent and capital deployment to build out our L.A. and Florida expansion facilities.
In 2022, we started the process of mining these investments. Our teams delivered strong organic growth, complemented by adding key acquisitions to multiple domestic markets as well as our foray into the global specialty food distribution arena. As we continue to grow, Chefs' will remain the most unique food service partner to upscale independent establishment and the world's top artisan food producers. We will continue to enhance our business model as a family of brands and companies, laser-focused on the high end with an unmatched hybrid sell and service model. We will continue to make investments in facilities and market expansion, operational technology, and our customer facing digital platform to provide improving efficiency for all CW stakeholders. Our people remain our greatest asset and source of our differentiation from the rest of the food service industry.
We are focused on adding, retaining, and developing the best culinary and operational talent in the markets we serve. Our teams have never been more excited to drive Chefs' Warehouse growth into 2023 and beyond. With that, I'll turn it over to Jim to discuss more detailed financial information for the quarter and an update on our liquidity. Jim?
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'll now provide a comparison of our current quarter operating results versus the prior year quarter and provide an update on our balance sheet and liquidity. Our net sales for the quarter ended December 30, 2022, increased approximately 41.8% to $791.3 million, from $558.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The growth in net sales was a result of an increase in organic sales of approximately 22.7%, as well as the contribution of sales from acquisitions, which added approximately 19.1% to sales growth for the quarter. Approximately 6% of year-over-year sales was due to the 14-week fiscal quarter in 2022 versus a 13-week fourth quarter in 2021.
Net inflation was 7.1% in the fourth quarter, consisting of 14.1% inflation in our specialty category and year-over-year inflation of 0.4% in our center of the plate category versus the prior year quarter. Gross profit increased 49% to $187.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2022 versus $125.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. Gross profit margins increased approximately 116 basis points to 23.7%. While year-over-year inflation was broad-based across most specialty categories, average pricing was up moderately at approximately 2% versus the third quarter of 2022. In aggregate, center of the plate pricing was essentially flat versus the prior year quarter.
Selling general and administrative expenses increased approximately 40.4% to $153.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2022 from $109.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. The primary drivers of higher expenses were higher compensation and benefits costs, facility costs, and distribution costs associated with year-over-year volume growth. Adjusted operating expenses increased 43.7% versus the prior year fourth quarter. As a percentage of net sales, adjusted operating expenses were 17.3% for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to 17.1% for the fourth quarter of 2021. Operating income for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $29.8 million, compared to $15.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2021.
The increase in operating income was driven primarily by higher gross profit, partially offset by higher operating costs. Income tax expense was $4.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to $3.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. Please note that our fourth quarter effective tax rate was 78.6% due to the nondeductibility for tax purposes of the $14.1 million debt extinguishment loss associated with the refinancing of a portion of our $200 million convertible notes due in 2024. Our GAAP net income was $1.2 million or $0.03 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to net income of $8.4 million or $0.22 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2021.
On a non-GAAP basis, we had adjusted EBITDA of $50.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to $30.2 million for the fourth quarter of the prior year. Adjusted net income was $18.8 million or $0.48 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to $10.2 million or $0.26 per diluted share for the prior year fourth quarter. Turning to the balance sheet and an update on our liquidity.
During the fourth quarter, we completed the issuance of $287.5 million convertible notes maturing in December of 2028. The proceeds of the notes were used to repay approximately $158 million of the $200 million convertible notes maturing in December of 2024, pay fees and expenses associated with the transaction, and we retained approximately $120 million in cash on the balance sheet. Interest expense for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $24.3 million compared to $4.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase was driven primarily by the $14.1 million loss on debt extinguishment, higher levels of outstanding debt balances, and higher floating interest rates versus the prior year period.
At the end of the fourth quarter, we had total liquidity of $294.6 million, comprised of $158.8 million in cash and $135.8 million of availability under our ABL facility. As of December 30th, 2022, net debt was approximately $507.1 million, inclusive of all cash and cash equivalents. Turning to our full year guidance for 2023. Based on the current trends in the business, we are providing our full year guidance as follows. We estimate that net sales for the full year of 2023 will be in the range of $2.85 billion-$2.95 billion. Gross profit to be between $684 million and $708 million.
Adjusted EBITDA to be between $180 million and $190 million. Our full year estimated diluted share count is approximately 45.2 million shares. We currently expect our senior unsecured convertible notes to be diluted for the full year, and accordingly, those shares that could be issued upon conversion of the notes are included in the fully diluted share count. Thank you. At this point, we'll open up to questions. 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 question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question is from the line of Kelly Bania with BMO Capital. Please go ahead.
Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning, and congrats on a great year. Just first housekeeping question for the model. The 6% top-line impact from the extra week, did that impact both organic and acquired sales by the same magnitude? Do you have an estimate on just the overall profit impact to EBITDA for the fourth quarter from the extra week?
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Yeah. Hey, Kelly. Thanks for the question. The 6% was just overall revenue. In that was both organic and any acquisitions that we had that we didn't have in 2021. It'd be the, you know, a similar mix of that. In terms of the second question, in terms of the impact of profitability, I think the fourth quarter was pretty much how we expected it to play out. The first part of December, the holiday season and the event season was just as strong as we had kind of indicated on our third quarter call, where we had more visibility into the bookings, et cetera. That played out.
I think what was different was generally in a normal year, the 52nd week of the year, which is usually the week of Christmas, is generally weak. People are generally celebrating at home. We model that in. The 53rd week, we had two weeks of that at the end of the year. We did lose a little bit of operating leverage, but it was still a very strong 4th quarter for us. A good December, except for that final 53rd week, which generally falls in the 1st quarter and is a fairly low volume week as well.
Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. That's, that's helpful. I guess there was the comment in the release about seasonality and that seems to be maybe getting back to more normal. I guess I just wanted to ask about the 2023 outlook and what you're thinking on seasonality, because the way that we think about 85% of the company EBITDA is generally generated in the last three quarters of the year. Just curious if you can comment at all on how you think about the seasonality today, if that historical pattern is maybe a good place to base expectation or if there's anything that's really changed with seasonality, particularly with all the recent M&A that's flowing through.
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Yeah. I would say I'll let Chris comment as well. In terms of, you know, for your modeling purposes, you're right about, you know, 15 or high teens type of EBITDA is generated in the first quarter 'cause that's usually our weakest quarter. You have, you know, the second quarter and the fourth quarter are generally our strongest, the third quarter is kind of the middle, you get that kinda 80%-85% of our, of our EBITDA generation is in the final three quarters of the year. I'd say the only change, it's not gonna be a material change to that, is that Chef Middle East has their strongest periods in the fourth quarter and first quarters. So basically our winter and our first quarter, which are the weakest, they have their strongest.
Because of their summer being so extremely hot, and people generally leave for a little while, their weakest periods are during our second quarter and our third quarter. That's the only change, but I don't think it materially changes the percentage ranges that you just mentioned.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Yeah.
Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)
Perfect. That's very helpful.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Yeah. Kelly, just a little color. I mean, I think you asked about, you know, coming into the first quarter, which is our weakest quarter. We actually, except for the first week of January, which is always, you know, one of our work week getting back to after the holidays. As Jim said, even though we had that extra week, you know, in last year's numbers, you know, that week to us is almost like a throwaway week because it's a week of travel, or it's a week of regrouping, and it fell in the fourth quarter, so we really didn't get much out of it. First quarter going into January going into February, pretty strong, you know?
You know, we're all looking at, you know, how does this year really start to shape up coming out of, you know, 2022 and no big surges of, you know, Omicron. We're really pleased to see that, you know, spending continued and, you know, a lot of events finally are happening, a lot of conferences are happening, and business travel is picking up. We're very pleased to see, you know, how the new year started.
Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)
Perfect. That's helpful. I just had one more that I wanted to go back to from the third quarter. I believe, Chris, maybe it was you that had made a comment about how the business has changed from a gross profit margin business to a gross profit dollar business. I thought that was very interesting because I think there's some investors who are just broadly worried about the impact of a lower inflationary environment and how that could impact profitability. I thought you could just maybe elaborate on that comment and how you're thinking about that. Obviously, we have your guidance, but just any more color on that topic I think might be helpful.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Yeah, sure. You know, the way this industry works is that, you know, as prices are going up, sometimes you can't pass along, you know, the increase for many reasons, as fast as you would like. There's sometimes a lag. The opposite effect happens on the way down. You try to hold on to price as long as possible. If you have a big shift, you know, if you have a deflationary environment, you're usually able to capture a little bit more margin. You know, my comment about, you know, look at gross profit, you know, in an inflationary environment, look at gross profit dollars versus margin, because that's really what counts, right? Is how much gross profit dollars and you're getting your leverage on your overhead.
I think that's what we did see during, you know, as we're experiencing inflation, you know, excess inflation, right? Usually, you know, 2%, 3% was inflationary times in this industry, never mind what we're seeing today. As long as you can capture those dollars, the margin becomes a little less important. Of course, if you were at 25% and you can keep 25%, you're making a lot of money, 'cause it's not really costing you more to move that box, now that it went from $30 to $40. I think that's what we're seeing since we're really not a contract company. You know, we don't go out with long-term contracts to customers and get locked into a certain, you know, dollar per box.
It's a different part of the industry. It's huge. You know, it's a gazillion billion dollar industry servicing a lot of the chains and doing a per box kind of contract. That's not who Chefs' is, right? You know, we service mostly the independents, and our prices move. You know, in a deflationary environment, if we started to see some deflation, I think you would see the opposite of what's happening now. You'd probably see margin going up and keeping those gross pro-profit dollars kind of where they are right now. We were making, you know, we were making 25%, now we're making— I mean, that we're making 27% on a less expensive box. That's kind of our hedge to keep our profitability kind of equal.
Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)
Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Thanks, Kelly.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Alex Slagle with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Alex Slagle (Equity Analyst)
Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Hey, Alex.
Alex Slagle (Equity Analyst)
Wondering if you could just follow up on previous questions, comment a little bit more on the demand environment and what you've observed, you know, to start the year out from a high level perspective. It, I mean, it seems like the underlying traffic trends in the industry are holding up fairly well, but it's hard to read through kinda all the weather and the Omicron lap crosscurrents and if you could just offer a little bit more perspective there and maybe what you're hearing from customers, whether it's a sense of optimism or, are they getting more cautious, as they look out ahead?
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
You know, I think it's where you are and, you know, what markets you're in. You know, we're very pleased at what we've seen, you know. I think the better weather, you know, in parts of the country where usually have really cold weather, you know, I always say it can't hurt, but, you know, what we really realize, you know, a major snowstorm is very disruptive to the numbers, obviously. You know, January is January. It's, you know, people going back to school and people really busy with a lot of other obligations. Even with good weather, it's not gonna be a great quarter, you know, compared to the rest of the year, right?
There's not as much celebratory events going on. I mean, there are conferences. You just had Valentine's Day. You know, we always say, you know, the first quarter is the first quarter, but we're very pleased so far what we're seeing. You know, the consumer, the business traveler is spending. You know, we're optimistic that that does, you know, continue. I know in the press there's all this back and forth, you know, are we going into recession or are we? We are, you know, we are blessed with, I always say we service the top 10% of the earners in the world or the corporates that are, you know, traveling and entertaining. We, you know, we're not seeing anything, you know, as of this point, any change in behavior.
I think the good weather can't hurt. You know, January, February, no matter what is, you know, it's not like it's the second quarter or the fourth quarter.
Alex Slagle (Equity Analyst)
Okay. On the food cost and inflation, I mean, it looks like your two and three-year stacked inflation levels have been very consistent all through 2022. Curious if the current cost levels are holding into the first quarter and if you have a best guess on what the year-over-year inflation might look like here in the first quarter or the outlook for the year.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Well, as you can see that throughout 2022, the year-over-year has just got sequentially lower. We started out the Q1 with 22% year-over-year aggregate inflation, I think we're reporting 7%. I think sequentially versus the third quarter, inflation was low single digits, somewhere between 2% and 4%. I think what we're what we're starting to see is that the deflation in center of the plate has kind of leveled off. I know that prime prices have come down, but that's more seasonal, coming out of the holiday season when prime prices are high. Generally, you go into January and February, they come down, they follow more of a seasonal pattern.
You know, certain parts of the specialty categories have been, you know, extremely inflated, like eggs and certain dairy products. Those have started to somewhat normalize. They're still much higher than they were in, say, 2019. I think, you know, what you're starting to see is prices starting to level off. When you compare the year-over-years, you're just comparing to higher prices. Naturally, you would expect the year-over-years to start to moderate.
Alex Slagle (Equity Analyst)
Okay. Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Peter Saleh with BTIG. Please go ahead.
Peter Saleh (Managing Director and Restaurants & Food Distributors Analyst)
Great. Thanks, congrats on a great year. I wanted to ask about new restaurant formation or development, and what you saw during calendar 2022. Just if you could talk a little bit about your expectations for 2023, and maybe, you know, how your growth is coming to be. Is it more from existing customers, you know, further penetration, or are you seeing just a lot more development that you're able to pick up a lot new business?
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Yeah. I think it's starting to normalize, you know, kind of, you know, I think seeing our numbers, you know, the organic growth, the case growth, is kind of, you know, I hate to use the word normalize because I don't know what normal is anymore. You know, our really good customers, we were, you know, really reviewing this morning, and it's the good customers are really doing well, right? Again, if you happen to be in an area that just hasn't come back, unfortunately, you are suffering.
You know, if you are in a good suburb or, you know, in Florida or, you know, parts of Texas or even San Francisco, you know. A lot of the news is all about, you know, how, you know, many parts of San Francisco just haven't come back, right? People haven't come back to the office. The business has kind of moved around, but we're seeing major openings. I mean, we're seeing mega restaurants, high volume restaurants. Some of the highest grossing restaurants now in the country are opening. The appetite for, you know, consumers and businesses to always go to that, you know, new place, I think is stronger than ever, you know, especially coming out of COVID, where there wasn't a lot going on.
A lot of them have been delayed, and they're starting to open. I think they are opening as labor is coming back. I mean, it's not ideal labor situation, but I think there's enough labor coming back into the market, where we are starting to see a lot of openings. We're seeing you know, small openings in neighborhoods, and we're seeing the big ones, you know, where the volume is. You know, Las Vegas and Miami and Texas, even New York and parts of California, it's starting to drive a lot of our growth.
Peter Saleh (Managing Director and Restaurants & Food Distributors Analyst)
Thank you for that. Then just on the, you know, freight costs, I think last year there was a lot of discussion around, you know, freight costs really skyrocketing, and there was some waste associated with that. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing on the freight costs and your expectations for 2023? Have those prices really come down significantly?
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Yeah. They have, they have definitely moderated. I think, on the West Coast, they started to come down really mid-year last year. It was more from Europe that you're still seeing, in the back half of 2022, you're still seeing some of the elevated prices. What we're seeing now is that freight rates are coming back down towards you know pre-COVID levels. They're not completely there, but they definitely have moderated.
Peter Saleh (Managing Director and Restaurants & Food Distributors Analyst)
Thank you very much.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Thanks, Peter.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Andrew Wolf with CL King. Please go ahead.
Andrew Wolf (SVP)
Thank you. Good morning. Chris, I think this is for you. Wanted to ask about the small acquisitions you just announced in, I guess with Sid Wainer and joining Sid Wainer in produce with the Cape and then seafood in the Bronx. Could you maybe give us a little description of kind of the strategic, not just the purpose, but also the evolution? Like, you've done similar acquisitions, you know, over the last few years, and particularly in seafood and more recently in produce. You know, how are these working out strategically? Are they giving you the kind of synergies you wanted with, like, you know, getting the case on the truck that's already going to a customer, getting you new customers, expanding your penetration with existing?
Just is that sort of delivering kind of the impacts you had expected, you know, sort of on the, on the deals you've done in the last few years?
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Sure. Great question. You know, I think you've often heard me say that if we could do a tuck-in a day, I would do it because there's, you know, they're low risk. Creative 'cause basically what we're taking is, you know, the customer base, some of the sales team and any, you know, if they have some really expertise, obviously we're always looking for talent. You know, eliminating a lot of their trucks and facilities, a lot of that drops to the bottom line, even if you lose 20%, 30% of the business. You know, we continue to hunt for those type of small businesses that we can fold in. The case of New England, you know, it's a great business.
It serves an area that we have a lot of overlap, it's not far-fetched to model and say we can eliminate, you know, many of the duplicate routes and consolidate them. We can leverage the sales staff. We can take their sales staff and now, you know, give them the 50,000 items that flow through Chefs' Warehouse for them to sell. You know, it's a low risk acquisition with a tremendous upside. You know, that would be a typical type of fold in that we would do in a market, especially if we have the occupancy availability in the facility and why you see us building all these new buildings to accommodate what we think is gonna be a continued consolidation of the industry.
you know, the little seafood companies and other companies that we're acquiring, you know, an area like New York, Metro New York, you know, I always said New York's gonna be at least a $1 billion business for Chef. We still don't have a actual Allen Brothers Steak and Seafood. I think we're starting to take the steps of there's really nobody large for us to buy. you know, when the opportunity comes to acquire really good small businesses, we'll start to accumulate them and then eventually put them either in a facility we own or build a new one, and we'll consolidate them to give us enough volume where, you know, it makes sense to have the staff, the cutters, right, and part of the overhead to really attack a market.
I think, you know, Allen Brothers Steak and Seafood in New York is a half a billion dollar business. You know, it's kind of the first steps to kind of get going, 'cause right now we're feeding markets like New York.
Jim Leddy (CFO)
From facilities that are a little outside the area. You know, we have facilities in Maryland, we have facilities now in New England, it works fine. We ship stuff from Chicago that's more, you know, custom cut or from other parts of the country that where we do have these processing facilities that do something special. You know, long term, a lot of these markets need their own special, you know, processing centers. I think you'll continue to see us accumulating small businesses and then consolidating them and getting the leverage and getting the synergies.
Andrew Wolf (SVP)
Thank you. That was really helpful. The other question I wanted to ask on the cost structure. It did contract year-over-year. Obviously, a lot of inflation in there, you would expect that. To what extent did the extra week, you know, with kinda low sales kinda negatively impact, you know, operating expense, you know, the expense ratio? I guess more generally, like, you know, how are you feeling about your labor productivity trends and the metrics there as, you know, as we head into 2023?
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, Andy. Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I think our adjusted operating expense was maybe a couple of basis points higher than the prior year. Part of that was that, you know, 53rd week and the lack of leverage on it. Once again, I just go back to it was a very strong quarter and a strong December. It just so happened that that fiscal week fell into there. We also had some kind of excess expenses related to our self-insurance programs that are not, you know, usual. We've had that before. When you have self-insurance programs, from a medium to long-term perspective, they're more economical than full insurance programs, but you have a little more volatility and lumpiness. We had some of that in the fourth quarter.
You add those two things together, they were the main reason that our, you know, our EBITDA margin wasn't closer to 7%, it was more closer to 6.5%. That flowed through mostly on the OpEx side. Overall, a very strong quarter, really good top-line, and, you know, a good year. Good quarter to round out the year.
Andrew Wolf (SVP)
Okay. Just on the kind of the metric side, I mean, how are your operations people kind of... What kind of numbers are you seeing on the metrics in terms of, you know, sequential or however you guys are looking at, you know, kind of, you know, meat and potatoes, you know, picks per hour type of metrics and that kind of thing. How do you think that's progressing?
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Yeah
Andrew Wolf (SVP)
... as your new employees get trained up? I guess you're adding new employees from acquisitions who may not know, you know, may not be as productive, I guess, is kind of maybe a little complex. Just overall, you know, how are the operations progressing as, you know, the, hopefully the supply chain is continuing to normalize?
Jim Leddy (CFO)
I think we've been progressing very well. I think you've seen a lot of productivity improvement from us and from other companies in the industry throughout, you know, the comeback out of COVID. Everybody's doing more with less. I know, you know, we have a great operations team. We're constantly implementing new loading and picking and warehouse technology process. We're constantly improving our distribution software and technology. We have an operations team that travels around the country educating and implementing our operators on these improvements. We've already started to work with our new partners in the Middle East on various pieces of their operations. You know, Chris talked about the facilities and building new facilities and doing tuck-in acquisitions.
We get leverage as we grow by consolidating companies into our facilities, consolidating routes. That allows us to leverage our fixed cost, you know, corporate infrastructure, you know, as we bring those companies onto our backbone, from a, you know, systems perspective, from a all of the support functions perspective. We get to leverage that as we grow as well.
Andrew Wolf (SVP)
Got it. Thank you.
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Thank you, Andy.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Todd Brooks with Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.
Todd Brooks (Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, thanks. Good morning to you both, and congrats on a strong finish to a good year, so.
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Thank you.
Todd Brooks (Equity Research Analyst)
You're welcome, Chris. A couple quick questions. On the M&A side, one for Jim and one for Chris. Jim, now that you guys announced Guaranteed and Downeast with the call here, can you give us a sense for what you're carrying into fiscal 2023 as far as incremental revenue growth from acquisitions that have already been completed?
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Yeah. I think the RAP impact of the acquisitions are roughly about $200 million. That may not be exact, but that's a kind of a rough number. I think the full, you know, the full annual impact of all the acquisitions that we did in 2022, that's including Capital Seaboard, because we did them on the first fiscal day of 2022, was roughly between $400 million-$500 million. It's not a little less than half of that.
Todd Brooks (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Thank you. Chris, just your view on, I always love to hear your take on the M&A pipeline out there. Is there anything changing as far as pace of deals unsticking or maybe magnitudes of deals that are in the pipeline now as you're looking ahead, maybe the next 12 months?
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Yeah, I mean, as, as predicted, coming out of COVID, it's the Wild West. You just have to make sure you don't walk into that, the wrong little town where you get shot you know, in the back. It's, it's a industry that's gonna keep consolidating, you know, for many, many reasons, right? The cost of new warehousing is very expensive. A lot of these businesses, you know, are second, sometimes third generation, and, you know, they don't see, you know, where they'll continue to grow. They'd rather diversify, you know, their wealth and they're selling.
It's just really being very picky for us and, you know, companies that fit our culture and fit into our long term, not just our short term, you know, to get a spike. It's extremely frothy. You just have to be very careful because, you know, coming out of COVID, the numbers are a little, you know, they're not typical, you know, where you see a company growing at 2% or 3%. You know, some companies have had tremendous growth for many reasons with inflation. You, you gotta somehow see the forest through the trees. Thank God we have tremendous amount of experience, you know, in having done over 40-plus acquisitions in the last 10 years.
We're just being very diligent and careful, you know, who we bring into the Chef family portfolio.
Todd Brooks (Equity Research Analyst)
That's great. Following up on that, you've owned Chef Middle East now for a number of months. You've been through a major event in the region, obviously with the World Cup. Just excitement for maybe what the Chefs' Warehouse is going to bring to that property as far as revenue synergies and unlocks and what you think that business can be. I think it was kind of at the midpoint, maybe around a $150 million type of business when you bought it. What, what's that asset worth now that you're getting to know it better and what you can bring to bear to really start to grow that business?
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Yeah. again, it was a very bold move for us to, you know, to buy somebody so far away, you know, when we have so much, you know, opportunity and so many things to do here in North America. It really was one of a kind. It was a company that had great pedigree, great management, culture that really fit, you know, right along with who CW is and an appetite to really grow. You know, we had a great management team that wanted to grow. They were set up for growth, and they just needed, you know, the backing. You know, I call it a partner that believed in their vision. they're not a not a processor.
We think Allen Brothers Steak and Seafood is gonna do great in that marketplace. We think there's lots of room for them to continue to grow and expand. You know, our portfolio of companies, we bring, you know, so many new suppliers to them. We bring, you know, a whole company that's been in this business for so long. We think, you know, that they do need space. They're kind of maxing out in their, in their major facilities. We're gonna continue to add to their building. We feel very confident that they will double that business in the not so distant future and be a great Chef's Warehouse.
Todd Brooks (Equity Research Analyst)
Great. One last one, and then I'll jump back in the queue. Jim, when you provided the initial guidance for fiscal 2023 at during the ICR Conference, I think you said when you were contemplating the revenue guidance, you were baking in an assumption for deflation of 5%. Given we've passed another quarter here, given maybe some of the news out about the herd sizes in the U.S. and what it may mean for beef prices, how are you feeling about that 5% type of deflation? Are you feeling more confident potentially that the setup is there to maybe beat that in fiscal 2023? Thanks.
Jim Leddy (CFO)
You know, I don't know. I think, Todd, in this environment it's very difficult to predict inflation. I think what we actually said, which kind of mirrors your comments, at ICR, was that, you know, we had risk-adjusted our range, you know, in case there was, you know, kind of that mid-single digit type of deflation. You know, I think I think right now, where we see, you know, January and February playing out, I would say that, while we're not changing our guidance, we're definitely trending towards the upper end of the guidance. You know, definitely too early in the year to, you know, to update it based on that. In terms of inflation, you know, I'll just go back to my comments earlier.
We kinda see it more normalizing as we go through 2023. Now, what that means from the year-over-year comps all depends on, you know, what it's comparing to in 2022. You saw higher prices, you know, in the first half of 2022 and then kind of moderating in the back half of 2022. Year-over-year numbers will depend on that, I think more than significant changes in current pricing. I think you'll start to see, you know, kind of more mid-single-digit type of sequential or low-single-digit type of sequential changes in aggregate. I think there are certain categories, like I mentioned earlier, like eggs and dairy that dairy products that have recently gone, you know, through the roof because of things like the avian flu. I think those type of categories will start to moderate.
In general, I think we've seen a resetting higher and you'll start to see more normal inflation dynamics going forward.
Todd Brooks (Equity Research Analyst)
That's super helpful. Thanks to you both.
Jim Leddy (CFO)
Thanks, Todd.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. As there are no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Chris Pappas for closing comments.
Chris Pappas (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)
Sure. Well, we thank everybody for joining us on our earnings call. We are very excited about the opportunities in 2023, and couldn't be prouder of the Chef team. They've really executed in 2022, and we look forward for them to continue to do great things for our shareholders and for many years into the future. Look forward to talking to you again on our next earnings calls. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.