Premium Brands Holdings Corporation (TSX:PBH)
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Sep 25, 2026, 4:00 PM EST
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Earnings Call: Q2 2018

Aug 13, 2018

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Casey, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, we'd like to welcome everyone to the Premium Brands Holdings Corporation second quarter 2018 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remark, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press the pound key. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to your host for today, George Paleologou, CEO of Premium Brands, and Will Kalutycz, CFO of Premium Brands. Mr. Paleologou, please go ahead, sir.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Thanks, Casey. Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to our 2018 second quarter conference call. I will be turning the presentation over to our CFO, Will Kalutycz, for an overview of our financial results for the quarter, after which I will make a few brief comments. This will then be followed by the Q&A segment of the presentation. Will?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, George. Good morning, everyone. Before discussing our results for the quarter, I would like to caution you that to the extent we make forward-looking statements during our presentation, our forecasts and assumptions are subject to change and actual results may vary. Please see our 2017 MD&A, which is filed on the SEDAR website, www.sedar.com, for details on some of the factors that could cause our actual results to differ from our current expectations. Turning to our results. Our revenue for the quarter grew by CAD 184.1 million, or 31.9%, to CAD 761.5 million. Acquisitions accounted for CAD 147.2 million of the increase, organic volume growth for CAD 37.9 million, and price inflation for CAD 3.9 million. These factors were partially offset by the effect of a stronger average Canadian dollar, which resulted in a CAD 4.9 million negative translation impact on our U.S.-based businesses revenue.

Our organic volume growth rate for the quarter was 6.6%. This was above our long-term targeted range of 4%-6%, but below our expectations, due mainly to temporary headwinds in several of our seafood businesses. These included supply chain disruptions resulting from a poor West Coast salmon fishery and challenging weather in the Gulf of Mexico that prevented fishermen from taking their boats out. Our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased by CAD 19.1 million, or 34.7%, to CAD 74.2 million. While most of this improvement was driven by our sales growth, an expansion of our margins also contributed to our EBITDA margin increasing to 9.7% as compared to 9.5% in the second quarter of last year. This expansion was despite inflationary labor and freight cost pressures, which many of our businesses were able to partially mitigate through improved operating efficiencies.

During the quarter, we incurred CAD 500,000 in start-up costs for two projects: the construction of a state-of-the-art 105,000 sq ft distribution and custom cutting facility in the Greater Toronto Area, and the reconfiguration of our production among our three artisan bakeries in the Vancouver Lower Mainland. Both of these projects will drive future growth in our earnings and cash flows and are expected to be completed later this year. Our adjusted earnings for the quarter increased to CAD 35 million, or CAD 1.10 per share, as compared to CAD 27.9 million or CAD 0.94 per share in Q2 2017, largely due to our top-line growth, partially offset by higher financing and amortization costs associated with our business acquisition activities. Looking forward, for fiscal 2018, we have increased our revenue and EBITDA guidance.

We are now projecting revenues of between CAD 3.01 billion and CAD 3.07 billion, and adjusted EBITDA of between CAD 278 million and CAD 287 million. This guidance reflects both our recent acquisitions of Yorkshire Valley Farms and Select Foods, as well as our revised outlook for our legacy businesses. In terms of financing activities, we were very busy this quarter. We raised CAD 345 million in new capital through the issuance of CAD 172 million of convertible debentures and CAD 173 million of common shares. We also issued a notice of intention to redeem our outstanding 5% convertible debentures, which resulted in CAD 22.8 million of the debentures being converted to equity and CAD 500,000 repaid in cash. At the end of the quarter, we had approximately CAD 168 million of unused capacity on our senior credit facilities and our total debt to adjusted EBITDA and senior debt to adjusted EBITDA ratios at 3.5:1 and 2.1:1 respectively

In terms of dividends, during the quarter, we declared a dividend of CAD 15.8 million, or CAD 0.475 per share, which on an annualized basis works out to CAD 1.90 per share. Our free cash flow for the trailing four quarters was CAD 135 million as compared to dividends of CAD 56 million, resulting in a payout ratio of 41.5%. I will now turn the presentation back to George.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Thanks, Will. As Will outlined in his prepared remarks, we remain on track to deliver another record year of top and bottom-line growth. 2018 will be the 15th year in a row that we deliver record year-over-year results. During this period, we have experienced competitive threats, rising commodity prices, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, trade-related issues, the Great Recession, and a myriad of other challenges. Our conviction to the vision that the future belongs to companies producing high-quality foods under strong, authentic local brands has never wavered. Today, we're more excited than ever about our prospects and how we're positioned to capitalize on the current consumer trends that are dramatically changing the food industry. We're also very pleased to be welcoming a number of new partners and their businesses to our unique ecosystem this quarter.

These include Oberto, Concord Meats, The Meat Factory, Penguin Meats, Country Prime Meats, Frandon Seafoods, and Yorkshire Valley Farms. All of these companies have best-in-class management teams who share our values and vision for the future, and I have no doubt that they will thrive under our umbrella. Looking forward, despite our level of activity over the last few quarters, I'm pleased to report that we continue to enjoy an especially robust pipeline of opportunities and fully expect to add to our portfolio or specialty food companies in the near future. I will now turn the presentation over to Casey for the Q&A part of the presentation. Casey?

Operator

Great, thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Once again, that's star then one if you would like to ask a question. Your first question here comes from the line of Derek Lessard with TD Securities. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Derek Lessard
Analyst, TD Securities

Yeah, good afternoon, everybody, congratulations on a great quarter. Just wondering if you could shed some light about the specifics behind the slowdown in food service in Western Canada from your perspective. I guess along the same lines, when do you expect to get normalized margins on your Quebec meat program?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Yeah, I think in general terms, Derek, we have seen a slowdown in terms of traffic at some of our food service customers in Western Canada. A lot of it was in June. We had strong April and May. June was slower. We don't know if that's related to the slowdown in real estate, to the weather. Anyway, that's what happened, obviously, we are pleased with the progress we've done with respect to distribution to specialty retail. Food service was slower than we had anticipated.

Derek Lessard
Analyst, TD Securities

Have you seen that pick up again since June, George?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

July was similar to June.

Derek Lessard
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay. Maybe just on your margins, sorry, on your guidance, just to clarify, are you still expecting the 13% organic growth in the specialty food segment? Second, is the decrease in the top end of the EBITDA range tied only to food distribution?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. No, that's exactly it, Derek. Reflecting what's happened, again, the little bit of a slowdown in the food service segment and then the disruptions in the seafood supply chain.

Derek Lessard
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay. That longer-term 4%-6% target, how should we look at that in terms of revenue growth?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

In terms of the distribution group?

Derek Lessard
Analyst, TD Securities

Yeah, Will.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. The big driver this year was going to be in that group, the expansion of the new GTA facility. With that now coming online towards the end of the year and the challenges in the seafood group, yeah, we're probably looking at closer to be within that 4%-6% range.

Derek Lessard
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Newman with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead, your line is open.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Good morning, George and Will.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Hey, David.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Hey, David.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Just to frame this properly, I think your organic growth was 13% to begin with, then it was 10.5%. With the GTA facility now towards 2019, you said 4%-6% in PFD. What do you think the Specialty Foods could be by the end of the year in terms of organic growth?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

We haven't changed our look on the Specialty Foods.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay. Is this still kind of roll 10.5 overall is kind of what you're sort of assuming for the year?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah, I think that's roughly what it works out to, David. I don't have the math in front of me right now.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay. Very good. On the guidance, what do you sort of anticipate in sort of the margin outlook? Obviously, you saw lower wholesale costs, overall in terms of the commodities. When you bake that into your margins, how does that reflect through? I have to think this environment is conducive to you guys.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. The commodities were relatively neutral in the quarter, overall. There was some favorable pickup on some of the beef and pork commodity inputs, but seafood, our margins got hurt a little bit with the rapid rise in the cost there. Our guidance is based on a slightly favorable commodity environment overall for the balance of the year. We're hopeful that maybe that's conservative, that there does seem to be some deflationary trends there.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

In general terms, David, with a lot of the headline news on trade, of course, and tariffs, there seems to be more protein backing up in North America more recently, that's driving protein prices and commodity prices down.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Yeah.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

We don't know where that's going to go. Again, from the visibility we have right now, it's probably flat to deflationary on the commodity front.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Yeah. At the same time, I'm looking at the value-added products that you provide. I have to think, you're seeing no signs of a slowdown in terms of your growth on your Specialty Foods side. It seems to be that would be sort of margin-enhancing.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Well, certainly if the trends continue, that would be the case.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay, the final one for me, guys. Just on the seafood side, are there any actions that you guys are taking on supply chain, or is there anything that you can do to sort of mitigate this and sort of maybe just some color on that?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Well, again, I think that there's not much we could do on some of the fisheries. What we've always talked about is that we just love the demand dynamics of seafood. There's a lot of demand for seafood, and we can move a lot of seafood. A lot of times, the supply chain is challenging for various reasons. We've invested a lot of time and effort in trying to find new supply chain sources. We've basically gone global with respect to our supply chain for seafood. We're really excited with some of the initiatives we have in place. There's not much we could do if the Barkley Sound fishery doesn't come in this year. There's not much we could do about that.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay. Let's just squeeze one more in. I saw the Select being rolled into Buddy's. I thought that was kind of intriguing. Any update on trays, other QSR pilot projects or airline and C store, a lot of the other avenues beyond your main customer that you're looking at?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

We're very excited with what we're doing with our sandwich group. Our sandwich group had a very good quarter overall. We've made progress on many fronts there. The Select Food acquisitions, we basically bought a book of business and moved it into a Buddy's facility that was underutilized. Also Select Foods was a large player in private label, so this gave us another channel to sell through. We brought some good people on board from Select Foods that have a good background in private label. That gave us another channel to go along with airlines and C stores and retail, of course, and QSR. We're very pleased with that transaction.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Excellent. Thanks, guys.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Thanks, David.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Leon Aghazarian with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Leon Aghazarian
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Hi. Good afternoon, guys.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yes.

Leon Aghazarian
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Just to follow up on an earlier question, you mentioned the food service distribution out West. It was slowed down in June, seems to be a little bit in July as well. Can you talk to us a little bit about what kind of clientele that was? Because all the numbers that we're seeing from some of the restaurant guys, the public ones anyway, seem to indicate a pretty strong presence in the West. Are you talking about larger restaurant chains or smaller guys? Just kind of some color there, please.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

I think overall, Leon, the restaurant industry has gone through a time where a lot of our costs have been inflationary. For example, they had to give increases in terms of wages due to minimum wage. I think that there seems to be a little bit of a sticker shock with respect to the fact that they've had to increase prices on their menus. I think maybe some of the dollars are there, but not necessarily the traffic there. The traffic has been impacted. Now, it might be the summer, it might be the World Cup, it might be other factors that have impacted the slowdown, but there's definitely been a slowdown in traffic.

Leon Aghazarian
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Okay, fair enough. Kind of digging into that a little bit more, you mentioned the fisheries being one factor and then some of the distribution to the restaurant chains. Can you quantify that a little bit for us, maybe, Will, in terms of which one in order of magnitude was the most important?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

The seafood was definitely the more dramatic impact on the quarter.

Leon Aghazarian
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Just to be clear, that was just because there wasn't enough supply.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Well, yeah. It was a combination. It was sort of a perfect storm. We had weather issues in the Gulf of Mexico, which supplies a variety of species that we sell across the eastern part of the country. We had a poor initial sockeye salmon run on the West Coast, we also had a poor tuna fishery. It's quite rare for all three of those. Now, unlike the food service that George mentioned, that the softness seems to be continuing into the third quarter. We have seen the West Coast sockeye salmon fishery seems to be going very well, the second round of it in the Johnstone Strait. The fisheries on the Gulf of Mexico have picked up dramatically. It seems to have been a very unusual set of circumstances that are temporary, that shouldn't carry through to the third quarter.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Just to be clear, Leon, as I said earlier, this is not an issue of demand. There's plenty of demand for our seafood. It's an issue of supply. If you don't have the supply, you can't sell it. That's the major issue. If a fishery is poor, then obviously we don't have much to sell. The demand is very robust when it comes to seafood.

Leon Aghazarian
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Okay. I think that's clear. Just a couple questions on some of the initiatives on the factories that you guys have. Number 1, on the Phoenix sandwich plant. You mentioned as well that in this segment, your sandwich business did well. Just want to see where you are in terms of the ramp-up at Phoenix. Do you also see that you're increasing another line here, with a project expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2019? Can you maybe give us some color there as to what the ramp-up looks like?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Yeah. Phoenix has eight lines going now, and they're in the process of installing two fully automated lines. Again, what was the second question, Leon?

Leon Aghazarian
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Just in terms of that line itself. Those two lines are the ones that you're referring to that will be completed in the first quarter of 2019?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

That's correct, yes.

Leon Aghazarian
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Okay. Then one final one for me would just be on the Toronto one, on the GTA one. You expected that to be completed by the end of the year, and then being more operational in 2019. I know it's obviously very early, but what are you expecting in terms of that facility once that's up and running in 2019? Can you give us maybe an indication as to what type of ramp-up we should be expecting there?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Well, it depends on a number of scenarios, Leon. Again, as we've done in other situations, we move into a market. We obviously have organic growth initiatives, but we also have acquisition targets as well. Unfortunately, I can't comment on that. We are very excited with what we see in that market. We've made a number of acquisitions at this point that will benefit the speed of the ramp-up in that facility. We're also looking at other acquisitions that will bring some critical mass to that facility sooner rather than later.

Leon Aghazarian
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Thank you. I'll jump back in queue.

Operator

Your next question comes from Stephen MacLeod with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Thank you. Good afternoon, guys.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Hi, Stephen.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Hi. I just had a couple of follow-up questions here. Just on Western Canada. I guess you just mentioned that the fisheries business shouldn't carry into Q3. I assume when you think about some of these issues lingering, it's mostly related to the distribution side in Western Canada. Is that right?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah, correct. Western Canada, it was more of a story of sales being flat versus down, versus in the seafood group, we actually did see contraction because of the supply chain disruption.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Oh, okay. That's helpful. Then you mentioned in your prepared remarks or the commentary from the press release just around the opportunity over the long term for several of your business segments to reach the billion-dollar mark. Can you just talk a little bit about which ones you view as the most attractive or most likely to get there, and how much of it is organic, how much of it would be M&A?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

In terms of organic and M&A, Stephen, again, the answer is both. As you know, we're very acquisitive. Everything we own today, we acquired at some point. Will and I acquired at some point, from when we founded Premium Brands back in 2001. We really like what we see in seafood. We believe that our seafood platform could become a CAD 1 billion platform. Our protein group, which includes meat snacks and dried cured meats, and now Italian meats with the acquisition of Concord Meats, could become a CAD 1 billion platform. Our distribution group. I think that our distribution group continues to grow, and we see our way to CAD 1 billion as well.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Yeah. Okay. When you think about the distribution side potentially getting to CAD 1 billion, would that entail expanding outside of Western Canada?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Our distribution group is across Canada, coast to coast. There's a few gaps that we have that we need to fill. Again, the Expansion in Ontario is a very exciting project for us, and as I mentioned earlier, we are looking at supplementing that project with some acquisitions. We are very strong in Quebec, of course, with CSC and the Maritimes. We are across Canada today, but we are looking at opportunities to fill in some gaps.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Right. Okay. Then just finally, we're sort of early days or a couple of months into the Oberto acquisition. I'm just wondering if you can give an update on how that acquisition is performing, particularly with respect to some of the top-line synergies that you were hoping to achieve.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Yeah. Oberto, as well as Concord, were very significant acquisitions for us and very transformational to some of our platforms in general. Oberto is a 100-year-old brand. It's an iconic brand based in Seattle. It's a national brand. It has distribution all across the U.S., and I'm extremely pleased with how things have gone so far. As you know, we're not necessarily driving things through cost synergies. We drive things through growth synergies. There's been a number of discussions with the Oberto management team in terms of how to leverage some of the know-how we have in some meat snacks, including sticks, and how to leverage that know-how in terms of launching high-end sticks into the U.S. market. We've also had discussions as to how to leverage our Italian platform to launch an Italian line under the Oberto name. Oberto is a 100-year-old Italian brand.

There's a lot of discussions, a lot of opportunities there. We're really excited, and we believe that Oberto will become a very key part of our strategy to grow our meat snacks platform in the U.S., very much like the way that SK was in sandwiches.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Okay, that's great. Just one final one, if I could. You mentioned there's certainly no end in sight in terms of your acquisition pipeline. I assume there hasn't been any change to your acquisition strategy in terms of the segments of the market you're pursuing.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

No. We have a number of platforms, obviously, and we're always trying to grow them geographically, and also to strengthen them by acquisition. We're not going to expand outside of those platforms.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Great. Okay, thank you so much.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Thank you.

Operator

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Sabahat Khan with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Sabahat Khan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

All right, thanks. Just on the premium food distribution segment, just given that, I think the earlier commentary around keeping guidance flat for the year, I guess, are you assuming that those headwinds in Western Canada are kind of largely just a one-H event and you're expecting a recovery in the back half? Is that fair?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Well, again, no. We've built into our expectations a flatter sales curve for Western Canada than we originally expected. The seafood segment we expect to pick up again to get back on track. On Eastern Canada, the GTA facility should hopefully provide a little bit of pickup at the end of the year. The Western Canada, we are expecting to stay relatively flat, or at least at this point, that's what we're seeing.

Sabahat Khan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. On the Phoenix sandwich facility, is the plan still to ramp that up over the three and a half year period, or are you looking to maybe extend that ramp-up timeline given that you're using some of the capacity at your facilities that's required?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Well, again, our plan is to get to 10 lines at this point. As you know, we purchased a number of plants more recently with the acquisition of Raybern and Buddy's. We do have the luxury today of having extra capacity in our system, and obviously we're assessing the opportunities we have in the pipeline and deciding where we will do what. I can't give you an answer right now, but we are very pleased that we have an utilized capacity in the system. This is the first time in the history of our sandwich group where we have some extra capacity to deal with growth.

Sabahat Khan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Just on the sandwich business, are you expecting or sorry, on the seafood business, are you expecting that kind of once the supply chain issues clear up, that business should do better, or do you kind of need to see demand pick up from your customers as well?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

No. We expect that once the supply chain issues are resolved, that we will continue our growth path that we've been on with that platform because we like that platform and we've been doing very well there.

Sabahat Khan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Just one last one, I guess on the commentary around acquisitions, you indicated that you could complete some more in the near to medium term. How do you think about your balance sheet capacity and financing those acquisitions, call it over the next six to 12 months?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

As I mentioned in my comments, right now, we have lots of room in our current facilities and the ability to extend those facilities. Certainly outside of a very large transaction, we're very comfortable with where we are today.

Sabahat Khan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

All right, great. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from John Zamparo with CIBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

John Zamparo
Analyst, CIBC

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon, guys.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Hey, John.

John Zamparo
Analyst, CIBC

Most of my questions have already been addressed. Just a couple left. The timeline for the Toronto seafood facility now at the end of the year, can you talk a bit about that construction project? Is there anything in particular to be aware of causing those delays?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

It's just normal stuff, John. The project itself is on budget. There's no change in our guidance in terms of the capital cost of it. It's a tight market for trades and sometimes negotiations take a little longer. The team there that's heading that project are feeling pretty good that they're over the last hurdle now and they're on the downhill trend to getting this finished. They're feeling pretty good that this is it. We should hit this deadline.

John Zamparo
Analyst, CIBC

Okay, great. Freight costs are an ongoing topic in the space. You mentioned it in the quarter. I assume it's in your outlook for the year, can you share your thoughts on 2019 and how that might look for freight rates and then maybe labor costs as well?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. Labor and freight, it's an interesting one for us. From a Premium Brands perspective, there was no sort of single material cause or impact. When you add it up across all of the business, it was probably about a CAD 1 million-CAD 1.5 million impact across all the business. Different businesses are dealing with a different issue in different ways. Some of them on the labor side are finding new efficiencies, investing in automation, just pursuing a variety of ways to replace labor with alternatives. On the freight side, some of our businesses are putting through selling price increases to deal with it. Our distribution businesses are using surcharges. Again, it's an issue. It's being actively managed. Could there be some impact in 2019? Possibly.

We don't expect it to be a material one as long as sort of the current environment continues as it is.

John Zamparo
Analyst, CIBC

Okay, great. Lastly, I appreciate the commentary on the evolution of the various platforms into billion-dollar businesses. I am trying to get a sense of how you think about that. The capital that you invest in those platforms, do you base it on the dietary trends and where you think those are going? Or is it multiples in the space? How do you look to prioritize each of those platforms?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Again, John, we've built the business of Premium Brands from day one by focusing on what we believed were the long-term emerging trends. Part of our success is because of that, right? We like our platforms. We believe that all of them are competing in the space that is generally growing from the point of view of consumer demand for various reasons. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, people out there are looking for better, cleaner food. Again, those are the themes that we talk about every day, and those are the themes that we invest in, either organically and by acquisition. That's not going to change.

John Zamparo
Analyst, CIBC

Got it. Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Thanks, John.

Operator

Your next question comes from Alex Diakun with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Alex Diakun
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. Just on the line here for Derek Dley. Just a couple things that were already touched on, we talked about the sandwich production facility. I just want to see if, roughly speaking, are you able to quantify what the excess capacity is right now on the sandwiches business?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

As George mentioned, Phoenix currently has eight of its 12 potential lines. We've got two fully automated lines going in there, and then capacity for another two lines. In terms of a percentage basis, I can't give you a specific number because we move products around through different plants, certainly there's capacity to support our growth for the next one to two years.

Alex Diakun
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Just other than sandwiches, you called out a couple other items that were kind of driving the organic growth at Specialty Foods. I was just wondering if you might be able to give us some more insight into what's going on in some of the other product lines there, like meat snacks, cooked protein products. Is it customer wins? What's going on there?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Well, again, it's a number of factors, again, driven by consumer trends and demographics.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

We're really excited with what we see in meat snacks, for example. Meat snacks are growing faster than the rest of the food space. They have been. The meat snacks at the high end of the spectrum are growing even faster. There's a lot of meat snacks that are not the best quality, so consumers are looking at the ingredient decks and the nutritional decks and making their decisions. Consumers are looking to eat more protein as opposed to sugary snacks. We like those type of trends. We like the cooked protein trends as well, the concept of cooked, minimally processed protein. This is an area where we've invested a lot of capital in and a lot of effort in. Again, millennials seem to want the convenience of being able to consume good protein without bringing the pathogens home with raw meat.

We have a lot of very exciting initiatives when it comes to cooked protein. I think today we are the largest manufacturer and seller of cooked kebabs in North America. We like that area. Again, similar trends to what I mentioned in terms of cooked protein. Finally, seafood. I think that aging baby boomers seem to want to eat more seafood, include more seafood into their daily diets, and that's one of the reasons why we like that space. There's a lot of very positive trends that are driving our growth, and this is why we're in these segments to begin with.

Alex Diakun
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Okay, great. It sounds, I guess it's fair to say that this is more of an increase in velocity from the sounds of it, as opposed to distribution wins, stuff like that?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

I would say that's both.

Alex Diakun
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Okay. Thank you. That's all for me. I appreciate that.

Operator

Your next question comes from Derek Lessard with TD Securities. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Derek Lessard
Analyst, TD Securities

One last one for me on the Select Foods acquisition. I think you talked about buying a book of business. Just wondering how their asset looks in terms of quality and are there plans in the sandwich business in particular to keep all of the asset or is there an opportunity at some point to extract some cost efficiencies even though that's not what you typically do?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Derek, Select Food Products, we always talk about Premium Brands acquisitions and then our specific groups doing sort of bolt-on acquisitions that strengthen their unique or specific business. This was a bolt-on acquisition by our sandwich group, so we did not buy a plant. Like George says, it was just a book of a business. The equipment was purchased, moved over into Buddy's Kitchen Lakeville facility. It was done on a weekend. Monday it was up and running, and that has gone extremely well and we're very excited about the synergies of just rolling this business into a plant that had some excess capacity.

Derek Lessard
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from David Newman with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Hi, gentlemen. Just a quick follow-up, housekeeping side. If you look at the SG&A, do you anticipate you might be able to get some SG&A leverage in the second half? I'm just sort of thinking of both FX might start working your way and weather, and I know the comps get a bit easier, but maybe just sort of the SG&A, are we at the high watermark right now?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Yeah. We should be. Certainly we invest in a lot of additional infrastructure there in a number of businesses, and that kind of started early last year, second quarter last year. Year-over-year comps should be starting to feed through in the third quarter. Whether it's the third quarter or the fourth quarter that that starts making a noticeable difference, I can't comment, but on the second half as a whole, yes, you're correct.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Definitely you've got some projects coming to fruition here, and that should help as well, right?

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Yes. Well, again, GTA is the big project in the distribution group, and that's not going to start contributing until towards the very end of the year.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Right.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

On the Specialty Foods Group, yeah, you're right.

David Newman
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Very good. Thank you.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

Thanks, David.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Mr. Paleologou for closing remarks.

George Paleologou
President and CEO, Premium Brands

I'd like to thank everybody for attending today. Thank you very much.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.