SpartanNash Company - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the SpartanNash Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Kayleigh Campbell, Head of Investor Relations.

Kayleigh Campbell (Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning, and welcome to the SpartanNash Company Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. On the call today from the company are President and Chief Executive Officer, Tony Sarsam, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Jason Monaco. By now, everyone should have access to the earnings release, which was issued this morning at approximately 7:00 A.M. Eastern Time. For a copy of the earnings release, as well as the company's supplemental earnings presentation, please visit SpartanNash's website at www.spartannash.com/investors. This call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on the company's website. Before we begin, the company would like to remind you that today's discussion will include a number of forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements.

If you will refer to SpartanNash's earnings release from this morning, as well as the company's most recent SEC filings, you will see a discussion of factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Please remember that all forward-looking statements made today reflect our current expectations only. SpartanNash undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements. The company will also make a number of references to non-GAAP financial measures. The company believes these measures provide investors with useful perspective on the underlying growth trends of the business. It has included in the earnings release a full reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures, which can be found on SpartanNash's website at www.spartannash.com/investors. Now, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Tony.

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Thank you, Kayleigh, good morning, everyone. First of all, I thank our independent grocery customers, suppliers, and analysts who recently attended our largest-ever Food Solutions Expo. More than 2,000 industry folks gathered for three days of networking, educational sessions, model store tours, and auctions. Attendees got to sample our new Fresh &Finest upscale private label offerings. They saw a demonstration of our autonomous in-stock scanning robot, powered by Simbe Robotics, and we instituted a new awards program for our top suppliers. Those 10 companies were presented with a SpartanNash Impact Award for the ways they partnered with us to create a terrific customer and shopper experience. We also celebrate our fastest-growing customers and our customers who are going above and beyond to give back to their communities, and we did so with our new Vision Awards program.

Our vision of seeing a day when our customers say, "I can't live without them," really came to life at the Expo. Speaking of customers, you may have seen in our earnings release this morning that we are refreshing our go-to-market strategy. This plan builds on our signature strength of being the most customer-focused, innovative food solutions company. Along with providing our customers with enhanced service, the plan is expected to contribute $20 million in run rate cost savings starting later this year. I will get into these specifics of this program in a few minutes. Right now, I want to highlight the progress we are making on our strategic plan, which demonstrates our strong turnaround story. We are energized about how the plan incorporates long-term value creation through our transformational initiatives and related margin expansion opportunities.

These initiatives, our supply chain transformation, merchandising transformation, and marketing innovation, continue to gain momentum. In fact, we expect to realize more than 50% of the total gross benefits from our transformational initiatives by the end of this year. This progress gives us confidence in achieving our long-term target of more than 40% increase in adjusted EBITDA to over $300 million by fiscal 2025. Turning to the current year, I'm very proud of our team for delivering solid results in the first half of 2023. Jason will provide details on our full-year guidance later, I am proud to say that today we reiterated our bottom-line expectations. Now, let's pivot to highlights from our second quarter.

Compared to prior year quarter, our net sales increased 1.7% to $2.31 billion, and our retail comparable sales remained strong with a 3.9% increase. We also improved our throughput rate by 3% since last quarter, and most notably, we increased our adjusted EBITDA by 7% to $66.1 million. Another highlight from the quarter relates to our retail banner consolidation work. As we announced last month, we consolidated 3 brands representing 8% of our store base. These stores were remodeled and re-bannered as Family Fare, our flagship retail banner. Shoppers are embracing the enhanced store experience and new loyalty program. Our investments are accelerating growth and delivering bottom-line benefits.

Overall, our re-banners and remodels continue to drive double-digit sales growth, and although a small sample of our total, the upmarket stores that were remodeled last year continue to experience an average sales lift of 17% year-over-year. Banner consolidation is part of our long-term strategic plan, which leverages the strength and equity of our brands for growth and operational efficiency. As part of the plan, we remain on target to remodel or refresh 25% of our stores. Overall, for the quarter, we were able to maintain profitability despite the macro pressures that our entire industry is experiencing. We credit this success to transformational initiatives that our team continues to aggressively execute upon. In an environment like this, we are determined to provide solutions for our wholesale customers and retail shoppers. As I mentioned earlier, we announced changes to our go-to-market strategy.

Our team has deliberately developed this plan, which improves both the efficiency and effectiveness of our organization. Our new go-to-market strategy involves, 1, realigning all associates who have contact with customers into the sales function and providing all customers with a single point of contact, so their support and service is highly coordinated. 2, focusing on operational excellence in our stores by expanding on training and brand standards. 3, executing on the value-added service we provide to our independent grocery customers to help them grow. 4, completing integrations from prior M&A activities and setting up an organizational structure that enables easier integrations for the future. These changes will help us to realize our signature strength to be the most customer-focused, innovative food solutions company. We have the right strategy, teams, and capabilities to execute on our long-term plan, and we are in a prime position to grow.

I will now turn things over to our CFO, Jason Monaco, to share more details about our financials.

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Tony, and welcome to everyone joining us on today's call. We are extremely pleased with the progress we're making. I want to highlight some of our key successes before jumping into the detailed results. One, our second quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 7% to $66.1 million from $61.8 million last year. Two, our reported net earnings were $19.5 million, an increase of 3.8 times compared to net earnings of $5.1 million in Q2 of last year. Three, we significantly improved operating leverage as a percentage of sales. Our reported operating expenses decreased 135 basis points. Four, our liquidity remains strong, giving us flexibility to support our strategic long-term plans, including both organic and inorganic investments. Our plan is working.

We are growing market share, we are driving results with years of growth ahead. Now, let's jump into the quarterly results. Net sales for the second quarter increased $39 million, or 1.7%, to $2.31 billion, compared to 2022 second quarter. This increase can be attributed to positive sales in both the wholesale and retail segments, which were favorably impacted by inflation trends. Gross profit for the quarter was $352 million, or 15.2% of sales, compared to $354 million, or 15.6% of sales, in the prior year's second quarter. The gross profit rate decline was driven by cycling and elevated inflation-related price change benefits in the wholesale segment in the prior year quarter.

This was partially offset by benefits as a result of the merchandising transformation initiative and higher overall margin rates in our retail segment. LIFO expense decreased by $13 million, or 58 basis points, compared to the prior year quarter. As a percentage of sales, our reported operating expenses improved 135 basis points from the prior year quarter, due primarily to, 1, lower incentive compensation, 2, a reduction in the supply chain expense rates as a result of efficiencies realized from our supply chain transformation initiative, and 3, lower restructuring and asset impairment charges. Interest expense increased $4.8 million-$9.3 million compared to the prior year quarter, due to the higher rate environment.

Turning to our segments, in the second quarter, net sales and wholesale increased $32 million to more than $1.6 billion compared to the prior year period. The 2% increase was due primarily to inflationary impacts on pricing. This was partially offset by demand changes from one national account. For a little more context, let's talk about our wholesale volume. We are pleased that we maintained core share during the quarter, and all of our customer channels achieved expectations, with the exception of Amazon Fresh, who addressed changes to its grocery business in its recent earnings update. We are working closely with them as they manage through format changes that resonate more with its customers. With that said, we believe its demand profile has leveled out at this time, and the bottom line impacts have already been built into our run rate expectations.

We strive to support our customers as they grow profitably. With the changes from our go-to-market strategy that Tony touched on earlier, we believe we have the right programs and teams in place to provide custom solutions for each customer, both now and into the future. We remain extremely encouraged that new customers and organic business will help us continue to grow share. Moving to the bottom line, the wholesale segment adjusted EBITDA totaled $40.7 million in the quarter versus 2022's second quarter adjusted EBITDA of $42.6 million. This was primarily due to lower gross profit related to cycling inflation-related price gains in the prior year quarter. These decreases were partially offset by better leverage of operating expenses, which include the benefits of our supply chain transformation.

Our team did a solid job managing through a challenging macro environment as we cycled expected inflation-related price gains from 2022. For the quarter, inflation eased faster than we previously expected, with the pace of price increases moderating. Wholesale reported second quarter operating earnings were $21.5 million, compared to $12.7 million in the prior year period. Now, turning to our retail segment. Sales came in at $679 million for the quarter, compared to $672 million in the second quarter of 2022, an increase of 1%. Our comparable store sales momentum remained solid at 3.9% in the second quarter, due primarily to inflation-related pricing. Partially offsetting the strong same-store sales were lower fuel prices in the quarter, reducing net sales by 2%.

Retail adjusted EBITDA increased to $25.4 million from $19.2 million in the prior year quarter. The increase was due to, 1, the success of our marketing innovation, 2, strong returns on our store remodels and banner conversions, 3, higher gross profit rate, and 4, lower wages and benefits. This increase was partially offset by lower volumes, which are consistent with market trends and reduced pharmacy margins. Retail reported operating earnings of $14.2 million in the quarter, compared to a reported operating loss of $0.4 million in 2022's second quarter. Moving to our balance sheet, our ratio of net long-term debt to adjusted EBITDA improved sequentially by 10 basis points to 2.2 times compared to the first quarter of this year. Our liquidity remains strong, giving us flexibility to support our strategic plan.

In the first half of the year, we generated $49.7 million of cash from operating activities, compared to $28.5 million in the prior year period. In the second quarter, cash from operating activities was $52.4 million, driven by continued focus on delivering strong cash flow. This increase was due primarily to earnings and inventory improvements. During the first half of the year, we paid more than $15 million in cash dividends, equal to $0.43 per common share. We also bought back over 765,000 shares for a total of $18.5 million. As of the end of the second quarter, we have approximately $25 million remaining on our share repurchase authorizations. In total, the company returned $33.6 million to shareholders in the first half of 2023.

As our earnings release mentioned, we reiterated our full-year adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS guidance based on our operating performance to date and our positive outlook from the benefits we continue to realize from our transformation initiatives. We continue to expect that our adjusted EBITDA will be in the range of $248 million-$263 million, we continue to expect adjusted EPS to be in the range of $2.20-$2.35 per share. Today, we slightly lowered our full-year net sales guidance to $9.65 billion-$9.95 billion to reflect the demand changes from the national account that I mentioned a few moments ago. Despite this revision, we remain confident in our ability to maintain profitability.

To echo Tony's comments, we've launched and made significant progress on our transformational initiatives. We are advancing our long-term strategic plan with our go-to-market strategy. This step further bolsters our confidence in achieving our long-term goals. To see how the plan benefits are tracking, please refer to slide 8 in the supplemental deck, which is posted on our website. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Tony.

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Thank you, Jason. I want to close with a few thoughts about our turnaround story and the compelling growth ahead of us. In less than three years, we have built a people-first culture and recruited a talented team of leaders, developed and executed on a long-term strategic plan, and implemented key transformational initiatives. We've also grown share, we've won customers, and we've delivered record adjusted EBITDA. With this progress, we are accelerating our capability to grow. We have a highly scalable business model with a sustainable trajectory of profitable growth. At the center of all this growth is a continued focus on driving results to increase value for our shareholders. I'm so confident in the path we are on, and I'm optimistic about the days ahead as we continue to execute on our winning recipe.

With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to the operator to open it up for your questions.

Operator (participant)

If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. You'll be placed into the queue in the order received. Please be prepared to ask your question when prompted. Once again, if you have a question, please press star one on your phone now. Our first question today comes from Charles Cerankosky with Northcoast Research.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Principal)

Good morning, everyone. With the inflation rate abating, do you anticipate a return to more normal forward buying opportunities in the wholesale business?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Yeah, Chuck, this is Tony. We certainly, as we get leveled out here, we have, obviously the flurry of activity from last year with the extraordinary number of price requests. Those have been leveling off and coming down. I, I believe that we'll find, we'll find ourselves back in the situation where we might have been 2 years ago in a more normal, more normal situation in terms of the number of price requests and, and the pacing of those price requests. I think we're on our way to that place.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Principal)

What does that mean directly for the gross profit benefit in wholesale due to forward buying?

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Hey, Chuck, this is Jason. The way I think about it is that we've got a wind down of the, the, the lapping of prior year inflation-related price gains, which we talked about last quarter. We continue to, to face that headwind on a benefit from last year. As, as the vendor community continues to ramp up promotional spending or promotional investments with weaker volumes across the entire industry, we expect that we'll continue to capitalize or have the ability to capitalize on those forward buy opportunities, buying into promotions, as we did prior to COVID in a more normalized environment. We see it as a, as a piece of the margin-enhancing programs going forward.

But as you think about it in total, we'll have a wind down of the price change benefits from last year and a wind up of the promo activities. It won't necessarily be a 1 for 1, but we look at the business in its entirety and look for opportunities to continue to drive profitable growth.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Principal)

so sort of a normalization. could you comment on what you're seeing in store brand sales, both in your retail segment as well as in wholesale?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Our, our own brands, yeah, our own brands outpaced national brands again for the quarter. We saw that a nice, a nice change every grower net positive, because national brands collectively were, were a wee bit negative on net basis. We continue to grow there, which is a nice vote of confidence for our, for our own brands of, of products as we, as we see that continued growth even after the really significant growth we had last year. We feel great about where our own brands and again, we're seeing a decent growth there versus the national brands.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Principal)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will come from Andrew Wolf with C.L. King.

Andrew Wolf (SVP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to start asking on the wholesale sector, the volume decline, and whether that was... I understand you, you know, you maintain core market share. Should we, the implication be that that was more driven by the national account, demand change at the national account, or is the rest of the portfolio sort of down with the market? I'm just trying to see if sort of on the margin or sequentially, if there's any improvement, you know, in the core portfolio of customers on the volume side, even if it's down, is it down less, for example?

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Good morning, Andrew. This is Jason. Yes, you've, you've drawn the right conclusion that the primary driver of the kind of the miss versus what we thought we would see was that, that national account. Outside of that national account, our wholesale business units were down marginally, call it less than 1%, which compares quite favorably to an industry-wide decline in unit volume of kind of mid single digits. When we think about it, we, we grew share in this, in the wholesale segment, in our core space, in our military space, and we were challenged with 1 national account customer.

Andrew Wolf (SVP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. The 1%, less than 1% down and the outperformance, I think in previous quarters coming into this quarter, you know, you could say a lot of that was the military still doing, you know, better than the grocery side. Is that still the case, or is the core grocery side, in any way, kind of improving, sequentially?

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, I'd characterize it as similar trends to what we've seen in the past with, with our military business. We saw a slight deceleration in the growth profile, particularly related to the export portion of that business, as, as the demand is repositioned globally. Then on the rest of the wholesale business, we've seen a stabilization of our, our independence. And we've continued to work, you know, from, from our standpoint, we, we see ourselves as a food solutions company, and we've worked closely with our customers, to leverage the, the strength of, of our own retail experiences to drive growth through that channel and to work together with those customers to help them win. And we've seen that, start to pay off along the way.

Andrew Wolf (SVP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Just one more on the wholesale business, and I might have missed this, so... Is this the, the toughest quarter for year-ago comparisons, or are we in that period? Like, when does that sort of begin to, to cycle off with the, you know, the holding gains from a year ago when, you know, inflation was still accelerating?

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, great question. They're all-- Naturally, they're all tough quarters because we had a record performance last year, and we expect to continue to build on that record going forward. Generally speaking, as, as we think about the price-related, inflation-related price change benefits from prior year, we had the biggest headwinds in Q1, and we expected a wind down through the middle part of this year and winding down further in the fourth quarter. If I, if I kind of step back and look at what we expected for inflation and how it's played out, inflation rates have declined faster than we expected. We, we've, we've seen what we thought would be coming probably in the later third quarter, coming in through the second quarter.

So the, you know, from a comparable standpoint, we're still facing significant headwinds in the second quarter. I expect more in the third and a wind down in the fourth.

Andrew Wolf (SVP and Senior Equity Analyst)

One more question, if I could. It's a follow-up on your answer on inflation. You know, if you look at wholesale versus retail, since you're in both segments, is the, you know, disinflation in some items and deflation, you know, in commodities for, you know, chicken and other things, poultry, chicken, dairy, is that, you know, more helpful to retail because of sticky pricing? You know, they might get a little better unit contribution in that transition phase. Or, you know, could you give us a little sense of whether there's, you know, the, the impact of slowing inflation and/or deflation has a different impact on, on your two segments?

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, from a demand standpoint, it hasn't really changed. There isn't really a big differential between the two segments from an inflationary standpoint. Inflation in general, as, as I look across both of our segments, was pretty close. It was in the kinda high 7s%, low 8s% as we exited the quarter. We've seen what you, what you've seen in the public filings and public data, a, a wind down of inflation rates from the beginning of this year, where we were sitting in the kinda low to mid-teens% to the end of this quarter, where the end of last quarter, where we were in the mid to high single digits%.

We're seeing the pace of price increases slow, and we're seeing that price pass through to our customers as we provide as compelling an offer to our shoppers and our customers as possible, to help drive volume and performance in our stores and our customer stores.

Andrew Wolf (SVP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you. I'll, I'll pass it along.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will come from Scott Mushkin with R5 Capital.

Scott Mushkin (Founder and Managing Partner)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and thanks for having us out there a few weeks ago. It was a great event. I wanna talk about a little bit about the climate that you guys are facing. A fairly large supermarket company, I think, shocked us by actually uttering the D word, deflation, or someone on the call did, and they didn't knock it down. Remind us how your business would perform if we get to a place where there are just no price increases.

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Hey, Scott, great to have you out, a couple of weeks ago. Thanks, thank, thank you, and I appreciate having you here at our expo. How does, how does our business perform? We see ourselves as resilient in both up and down market environments. We've seen in, in the current environment, this notion of disinflation and even deflation on some commodity goods. As you know, you know, being around the industry a long time, deflationary cycles aren't particularly unusual in, in fresh products and in the perimeter areas of the store. In fact, they move quite, quite quickly.

We're, we're quite accustomed to managing through those ups and downs, ensuring that we have the right price points and the right value equation for our shoppers and consumers, and, and getting the right, the right value, for our, our customers, who, who buy through our wholesale segment.

Scott Mushkin (Founder and Managing Partner)

I think that was Jason answering that. What are you seeing in the climate? You know, we're seeing, you know, more pockets of competition, kind of, in, in certain parts of the country. Certainly promos coming back from CPG, but also it looks like some retailers are putting their own PNL, you know, at risk or investing. You know, what are you guys seeing?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

I think, yeah, what you're seeing, this is Tony. There, definitely, we're seeing there's more promotional activity. We took more promotional activity in the quarter as well and have had more promotions in, in the second quarter than we did in the first, that has been continued growth, as we're, as we're looking for ways to get our consumers excited about about our, our offering, as well as offering them some, some keen opportunities to, to stretch their dollar a little bit more. We, we see those, those as really important ways to drive foot traffic and get folks into the store, then get them into, into, you know, all the other, all the other items that obviously aren't promoted. That worked for us reasonably well last quarter.

We saw with the extra promotions, we actually saw, you know, we had a little bit better unit pickup versus versus the previous quarter. We think that's working. It wasn't, it wasn't a, you know, a landslide of more promotions, but it was definitely more. The work we've done with our digital marketing and other tools to get people informed and involved in those promotions is also working really well. I think we're, we're seeing that similar, but appears to be that similar activity going on with our competition. I guess that that's a natural outcome of where we are right now in the overall environment.

Scott Mushkin (Founder and Managing Partner)

Thanks for that. I just have 1 last one. I think you guys both talked about, lower incentive comp, but also lower wages and benefits in retail. I, I was just wondering, you know, what's, what's driving that and how repeatable that is? I mean, obviously, wage rates continue to climb overall and, you know, across retail.

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, Scott, the way I think about it is this is, this is variable comp. Last year... When you, when you look at the year-over-year, last year, variable comp was running above plan. This year it's not, and as a result, you're seeing some positive comps in those figures. Even the labor and wage component that we referred to in retail relates to the variable comp component that we cascade through our organization.

Scott Mushkin (Founder and Managing Partner)

Does that mean you're a little bit below your plan, or is it, you know, what's the, what's the reason for it to be coming in better, you know, on the variable?

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, it's both. It's both a combination of last year being above and this year being a little bit below plan.

Scott Mushkin (Founder and Managing Partner)

All right, guys. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Kelly Bania with BMO Capital Markets.

Ben Wood (Equity Research Associate)

Hi, good morning. This is Ben on for Kelly. Thank you for taking our questions. Just hoping you could provide a little more clarity around a couple of comments to start. The demand changes from Amazon, what, what generally is your visibility or, or lead time to those changes? How does Amazon fit into your long-term sales guide? Trying to determine how you're, you're thinking about the risk going forward, or, or is there upside to the Fresh agreement?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

As far as lead time goes, you know, we work pretty closely with Amazon to get a forecast of their business. They are, as you know, as best we can determine together, they're learning about what's going on with them, what the plans they have to make. It's not an extraordinary lead, lead time. We have great tools in place to make sure that between us, that we get and we get the product right with them. We have, you know, we have a way of servicing them and getting the fill rate right, and not getting, not obviously getting in a situation where we have too much inventory.

I think all, all those things work well between us and Amazon as we're sort of learning together on their business. They're, they're, Amazon's a great customer, and so, we're, we're gonna continue to work with them to make sure their business can, that we can be a productive part of their business and their business plans. As they've announced recently, their business plan is a little bit in flux, so they've also doubled down and said they want to make sure that, that they are, they're gonna be a player in grocery, and, we're gonna be a, we're gonna be a great partner for them in their journey.

Ben Wood (Equity Research Associate)

Okay, that's, that's helpful. On the refreshed go-to-market strategy, what, what drove the decision behind that? Where should we expect to see that kind of in the P&L? Just a clarity on that $20 million in cost savings. Was that in the previous plan, or is that incremental to the $20 million-$30 million of supply chain benefits I think you guys outlined maybe last quarter?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Yeah. half a question there. First of all, the overall strategy we've been working on for quite a while, and it's a combination, as, as mentioned earlier, of, you know, taking a look at some of the ways we were structured in the wake of some M&A activity. You know, where, where, you know, from the past, where we had an opportunity to sort of combine forces on some, on some functions and make them more, more efficient and more effective. And largely, it was an e-exercise in getting our organization streamlined so that we could be really laser-focused on serving our customers. And that's why the focus, as we mentioned earlier, was so heavily on go-to-market.

We want to make sure that with the, the folks who are, are, are serving our customers in all, in all ways are part of that, that, customer team, our sales organization. So we have, we have simplified the points of contact with our customers, and we think that's gonna really, really work well for us as we get information passed along more efficiently. We get, again, we find ways to actually, serve and provide great innovation for our customers moving forward.

It was, it was both an element of, of sort of a right-sizing with some from previous M&A, as well as, really thinking through the entirety of the go-to-market team and between sales and merchandising and marketing and retail, make sure that's right for the kind of growth we expect to get from that, from the overall organization. As far as the savings, it was fully contemplated in the previous long-range plan that we talked about. It wasn't, it wasn't discreetly part of the supply chain and necessarily a transformation, but it was, it was part of the overall build for our, for our 2025 plan of $300 million.

Ben Wood (Equity Research Associate)

Great. That's helpful. Then just one, one more, if I may. Just retail profitability was, was strong, and you called out higher gross margins. Wondering what drove that, kind of help us understand the strategy at, at retail and the sustainability of the progress, maybe beyond some of those, you know, real estate remodels you guys have outlined? Then kind of following up on just the promotional commentary earlier, how, how is the promotional environment tracking relative to your expectations, and, and what was your expectations, or what's in the plan going forward?

Jason Monaco (EVP and CFO)

Hey, Ben, this is, this is Jason. Thanks for the question. What's driving performance in our, our, our retail segment? Well, a number of things, I'll, I'll start with the, the work we've done on, on the remodels, I'd be remiss if I didn't also highlight the banner conversions. We converted seven stores in, in the Omaha market, we've seen just terrific results. The team did a fantastic job of building a 360 marketing plan, establishing improved loyalty and engagement with our customers and our shoppers, it's driving double-digit growth. We feel really good about the banner conversions and the investments we've made in those, in those stores and in those communities.

In addition to that, we've, we've worked hard to ensure that we have the right assortment, the right price points, the right promotional activities in our stores, and, and of course, balanced it from a margin standpoint. You heard margin improved. Margin improved because we, we, we have a winning proposition, and we're delivering the right service in our stores, the right assortment, the right price points, which collectively has led us to, to, to see improved or better-than-market shopper traffic. In our markets, we see our shopper traffic significantly outperforming the rest of the market and getting those shoppers in the store, filling their baskets, and, and being very pleased with the, the experience they have is creating a winning proposition for us.

You pair that together with the, the, the capital investments, the rebanners, the store remodels, all of that is, is contributing to improved margin structures and, frankly, solid performance from a, from a, growth standpoint in a, in what's a tough market.

Ben Wood (Equity Research Associate)

Great. Thank you.

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

We'll move next to Peter Saleh with BTIG.

Peter Saleh (Managing Director and Restaurants and Food Distributors Analyst)

Great, thanks for taking the question. I want to come back to operating expenses, which were, you know, much better than what we were anticipating this quarter. I think you guys outlined three buckets in terms of lower incentive comp and supply chain initiatives and the, and the restructuring. Can you just help us unpack that and, and how much really was in each bucket on a year-over-year basis in terms of the savings? How should we be thinking about that going forward in the second half of the year?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Pete, thanks for the question. As you start to unpack that, we have a commitment, and we're standing behind that commitment on supply chain transformation. We expect to deliver $20 million-$30 million of annualized benefit this year from supply chain transformation, and we're well on our way on that front. We're run rating at that level, and that's playing a significant role in our improvement in OpEx. The second piece is the variable comp that we mentioned earlier in the call. Together, we see those things as playing a significant role in our overhead expense management. Last but not least, on the go-forward basis, Tony talked a little bit about our go-to-market strategy and the changes that we've made there.

Collectively, that, that run rate of $20 million will be there by the end of the year, but we expect to see a little bit of a pickup in OpEx as we roll into the fourth quarter.

Peter Saleh (Managing Director and Restaurants and Food Distributors Analyst)

Great. Okay.

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

By pickup, I mean, reduction.

Peter Saleh (Managing Director and Restaurants and Food Distributors Analyst)

Understood. Okay, and then just wanted to take your pulse on the, you know, the long-term guidance by 2025. I think you guys reiterated that this morning, $300 million of EBITDA. Just wanted to get your sense and your confidence there, you know, given the more modest top line. I mean, if we get another step down in, in, in the top line, can you still get to that EBITDA number? How are you guys thinking about that? Thank you.

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Well, it, it's certainly, as you pointed out, these are challenging times, in terms of the overall environment, but we still feel great about our overall plan. Our plan was not built on just the macro environment's movement, but a lot of really important work in these transformations, and all the ones we talked about, the transformation we've done, the supply chain that Jason just mentioned, the merchandising transformation work, the innovation work we're doing in marketing, as well as these other moves in, on go-to-market. We see all those as being supportive elements that help us to be more resilient, even in tough macro times. We said we're gonna be there, and we feel really good about that.

Peter Saleh (Managing Director and Restaurants and Food Distributors Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will come from Krisztina Katai with Deutsche Bank Securities.

Jessica Taylor (Research Associate)

Good morning. This is Jessica Taylor on for Krisztina. I wanted to ask about your units per transaction for your retail business. Just wondering, as you see inflation falling, if you're seeing a corresponding increase in units in the basket?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

What we've seen is improvement in both foot traffic and in performance in the size of the, the basket from a dollar standpoint. As I look back to the second quarter, baskets continue to grow together with inflation, and we've been pleased with the result.

Jessica Taylor (Research Associate)

Okay. Then just another question on your fill rates. Can you talk a little bit about where your inbound and outbound fill rates are right now? You know, are they hitting what you expected, and are they back to the levels that you saw pre-COVID?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

All right. Our fill rates are, are performing better than our expectations right now, both in terms of where we are. Right now, we're probably running 400 or 500 basis points ahead of our what our plan was, or what we believe to be the fill rates we get from our inbound from our suppliers. To be clear, they're, they're, they're still not great. Your question about when do we see them coming back to where they were in before the pandemic? It's you know, they're ahead of, ahead of where we thought they'd be right now, but they're way behind. And those fill rates are running in the, you know, in the mid-80s right now.

We're getting fill rates that were in 2019, for example, would have been in the high 90s, you know, 97, 98, 99. It's been a slow, slow road back for the supply group. Our team here has done a terrific job of sort of mitigating that and making sure that our customers, as best we can, are shielded from that experience. What we see in the stores is a great fill rate on the shelves, our outbound, one of my favorite stats are outbound delivery in terms of on-time delivery. Our inbound on-time delivery is still coming in to 60%, 70% from our suppliers, but what we ship out is in the high 90s. We've our team does what they're supposed to do.

They shield some of those effects from our customers, so we feel good about that progress. We feel good about the fact that we're ahead on the fill rate where we expect it to be at this point. Still a long way to go to get back to where we were in 2019.

Jessica Taylor (Research Associate)

Thank you. Then just finally, like, in terms of promotions, are you seeing that the CPGs that you work with are funding more promotions these days, or are you seeing any changes there that you can speak to?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

That was a central element of our merchandising transformation, is to get the right price and the right kind of exciting price points for our for our customers and for our shoppers. The, our supplier community stepped up big on that. We are seeing a lot of enthusiasm for getting those right those right price points out in the marketplace. I'd say there are, as I mentioned a moment ago, they are they've been, they've been stronger this quarter than they were last quarter and stronger last quarter than they were the quarter before that.

It's been a natural movement, we, we believe, but we've had great partnership with our suppliers on that, and I think we'll continue to see that and see that as we try to get more and more energy into the, into the grocery store.

Operator (participant)

... Thanks so much. I'll pass it on. We'll now take a follow-up question from Charles Cerankosky with Northcoast Research.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Principal)

My follow-up involves your independent retailers. How would you gauge their health, as some of the bigger competitors have gained market share, such as the Club Channel and Walmart? How do you view them in terms of M&A opportunities to expand Spartan's retail segment?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

I, as far as their overall health, our 2,100 independent grocers are a very resilient group, and they've done tremendous work in these last few years. They continue to perform well. I was just with one of them yesterday. It really is inspiring how they have really, they really understand their communities, and they understand what matters to those communities. They're gonna do fine. They continue to do fine. As far as... Chuck, what was the second part of your question? I'm trying to unpack that a little bit. You said something about, about how that impacts our retail team. Can you go a little further on that?

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Principal)

Yeah. Well, is part of Spartan's strategy still to be the, the acquirer, in case they want to sell out? Are you still looking to grow Spartan's retail segment through M&A?

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Got it. Yeah. If you think about our overall growth, we, we are very focused on the growth of the business and, and gonna be much more aggressive in that pursuit. That includes growing more customers in terms of growing share of our wholesale business. It includes growing more with our current business, meaning growing our current stores faster and taking share there, growing, and providing great solutions for our current customer base so they can grow and we can grow together. It will include M&A. All those things have to work together for us to grow and to grow the way we plan. You'll see all those things working, including the M&A that you just mentioned.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Principal)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

There are no other questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back to Tony Sarsam for closing remarks.

Tony Sarsam (CEO)

Technical difficulty. Great. That wraps up our call for today overall. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all for your interest and your great questions. I wanna thank everyone for the participation today. From our families to yours, we'd like to offer you a very pleasant rest of your day.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for attending.