Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Campbell Soup Fourth Quarter 20 16 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host, Ken Gosnell.
Please go ahead.
Thank you, Stephanie. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the 4th quarter earnings call for Campbell Soup's fiscal 2016. With me on the call are Denise Morrison, President and CEO and Anthony D'Silvestro, CFO. As usual, we've created slides to accompany our earnings presentation.
You will find the slides posted on our website this morning at investor dotcampbellsoupcompany.com. This call is open to the media who participate in listen only mode. Today, we will make forward looking statements, which reflect our current expectations. These statements rely on assumptions and estimates, which could be inaccurate and are subject to risks. Please refer to slide 2 or our SEC filings for a list of factors that could cause our actual results to vary materially from those anticipated in forward looking statements.
Now I'd like to remind you about items impacting comparability. As we said in this morning's news release, the current quarter results reflect a non cash impairment charge, pension and postretirement mark to market losses and charges related to cost savings initiatives. The prior year quarter included pension and post retirement mark to market losses and charges related to the implementation of the new organizational structure and cost savings initiatives. The adjusted results exclude the impact of these items impacting comparability and our comparisons of the full year 2016 with 2015, we'll exclude these and previously announced items. Because we use non GAAP measures, we have provided a reconciliation of these measures to the fiscal 20 seventeen's earning states, we plan to release earnings on November 22, 2016, February 17, 2017, May 19, 2017 August 31, 2017.
With that, let me turn the call over to Denise.
Thank you, Ken. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 4th quarter earnings call. Today, I'll offer my perspective on our performance with a focus on how each of our divisions are performing against their portfolio roles. We finished the year in line with our guidance and with strong profit performance however, Our results this quarter certainly did not meet my expectations. I am particularly unhappy with the short term executional issues that have led to the poor performance I'll spend the majority of my time this morning addressing this topic.
While sales for the year including Garden Fresh Gourmet were up 5% Organic sales declined 4% in C Fresh. In the 4th quarter, organic sales were down 12%, driven by declines in both CPG And Farms. This performance is unacceptable. I expect far more from the Campbell Fresh business. It's clear that we But first, I want to step back and look at the big picture.
First year of operation of Campbell Fresh. This division, which accounts for approximately $1,000,000,000 in revenue, or about 13% of our total sales, combines Bolthouse Farms, the Garden Fresh Gourmet acquisition, and our refrigerated soup business. Strategically, C Fresh positions Campbell to benefit from the growing health and well-being trend as well as the growing demand for is to deliver full force growth While disappointed in our execution, I remain confident in our C Fresh strategy. We have strong popular brands that are on trend with the changing nature of consumers eating habits. We're well positioned in the produce and daily section of stores with an eye on expansion into other categories such as dairy.
We have a robust innovation pipeline and we're enhancing our approach to long term innovation. I'm going to spend some So what went wrong? There were 2 issues that were the primary drivers of the C Fresh results in the quarter, the Bolthouse Farms in the Bolthouse Farms recall and related production outage. As previously announced on June 22, we voluntarily recalled 3,800,000 bottles of Bolthouse Farms protein plus beverages due to possible spoilage. The protein plus lineup accounts for approximately 15% of the Bolthouse Farms beverage business.
In addition, the same manufacturing lines are used to produce our cafe drinks, which account for another 10% of the beverage business. Our examination into the recall identified as the primary cause of the spoilage. We have corrected these problems rigorously tested the product and started shipping again. However, production has not returned to the pre recall levels due to new operating procedures that we've to ensure the product meets typical production run for these products would have been 72 hours. Today, a production run is 24 hours.
Unfortunately, the shorter run significantly reduce our capacity. We are examining various ways to increase capacity including commissioning other production lines, but we currently anticipate these will take time to implement and expect that supply Now turning to farms. Let's take a look at our second issue, our carrot business. In July at our Investor Day, we discussed some weather related problems and a customer issue in our Carrot business. As we reviewed these issues further, we learned the problems were rooted in several decisions that had compounded one on another and therefore were broader than we understood at the time.
Specifically, there were some planting, harvesting and commercial decisions made earlier in the calendar year that exacerbated the weather problems. In an attempt to meet customer demand. Ultimately, this resulted in a spring crop that yielded smaller carrots, which led to improved, and we're actively addressing service issues with customers. However, it will take us time to regain the lost business. As a result, we now expect fiscal 2017 carats sales to be comparable to A final point of context.
Carrots are a relatively low margin business. However, It serves as a chassis for our higher margin value added CPG business. Carrotz provides a scale for the refrigerated logistics system that we leverage for distribution Over the last several weeks, we made major organization changes under Jeff Dunn, the President of Campbell Fresh. Several senior managers are no longer with the company including the President of Bolthouse Farms. Additionally, we created Previously, we had 2 operating units.
Bolthouse Farms functioned as a distinct unit and Garden Fresh Gourmet was combined with fresh soup. Now we have 3 operating units reporting directly to Jeff CPG, which integrates Bolthouse Farms beverages and salad dressings with garden fresh gourmet salsa, hummus and chips, along with fresh soups. Farms which consists of carrots and carrot ingredients and the long term innovation unit we discussed at Investor Day in July. In addition to the 3 and with Campbell. In particular, we have strengthened the integration and oversight of the Campbell Fresh supply chain.
We have also bolstered the Campbell Fresh leadership team by adding more senior finance, human resources, and sales executives. This new team is experienced executives recruited from food startups and major industry players. I believe that this newly structured team will lead this business back to the growth profile mandated by its portfolio role. In the first half of fiscal twenty seventeen, the new management team will take steps to stabilize 2nd, we plan to continue to increase capacity as we rebound from the protein plus recall and related production outage And third, we'll stabilize the carrot business through improved quality and customer service. Our plans call for C Fresh sales to be down slightly in the first half and return to growth consistent with its portfolio role in the second half.
Putting it all together, we expect sales growth to be in the low single digits for fiscal 2017. And we will keep you updated on developments as we go. While disappointed in the near term performance of C Fresh, I remain confident in the strategy we are pursuing, the package fresh platform we're building and the growth potential of this business. Now, let me shift gears to the progress we've made in other areas during As I said earlier, when This was driven by our America simple meals and beverages and global biscuits and snacks divisions. We delivered double digit adjusted earnings growth with solid operating performance, including expanded gross margin significantly improved supply chain performance and better than expected cost savings.
We also advanced establishing Campbell as a leader in this area. However, we continued to face challenges on the top line. We recognize that we divisions have performed largely in line with their portfolio roles. 1st, America Simple Meals And Beverages. Things are moving in the right direction here and I feel good about what we've achieved this year.
We made important strides in fiscal 2016. The team drove significant gross margin expansion through a combination of net price realization and major improvements in our supply chain. This resulted in a 13% increase in operating profit. Our Simple Nails brands delivered sales growth behind Crago and PACE and Plum delivered double digit sales gains through increased distribution and innovation. And we advanced our real food agenda changing many of our recipes including While we've accomplished much in the Americas division, sales remain inconsistent.
Organic sales declined 1% for the year. Many of our brands are performing in line with the categories in which we compete. However, portions of the portfolio are underperforming their categories, in particular, beverages and ready to serve soup. We're taking steps to address this and expect improved performance in these areas and modest growth in the division in fiscal 2017. Looking ahead, the Americas division will continue to concentrate on getting more from our core brands and improved marketing, while increasing margins.
We have plans in place to drive continued margin expansion through supply chain efficiencies. In fiscal 2017, and better performance from Tunky brand and the mid year launch of the new Welles clean label soup line. We also anticipate better performance from V8 beverages, driven by the continued success of veggie blends and V8 plus energy, as well as a renewed focus on tried and tested marketing that re engages build brand relevance and drive demand, we're investing in 4 integrated marketing campaigns in the Americas including a new NFL theme chunky campaign featuring 6 popular players. For the year, our global biscuits and snacks division made progress in performing against its portfolio role. Organic sales increased 1% and operating earnings were up 10%.
Pepperidge Farm delivered strong performance and our Asia Pacific team drove solid sales results in a highly competitive and concentrated trading environment. The emphasis on growing our ICON brands, Goldfish, Tim Tam and Milano, as well as revenue management initiatives and improved supply chain expanding in both developed and developing markets, while improving margins. In the United States, we have higher levels of investment to drive sustained Goldfish growth, continued momentum for Milano, expanded Tim tam distribution, and increased innovation in our fresh bakery business. In Australia, we're focused on strengthening our Arnott's brand through integrated marketing and relevant consumer driven innovation. In developing markets, we expect continued growth in Malaysia and improved performance in I have a pragmatic outlook.
Our plan calls for modest growth driven by reinvesting some of our cost savings back into the business We're confident in the C Fresh platform and we're acting with urgency to address our execution to get the beverage and carrot business back on track while continuing to drive sales on salad dressing, garden fresh gourmet salsa, hummus and fresh soup. We expect America Simple Meals And Beverages And Global Biscuits And Snacks to continue to live into their portfolio roles. We remain focused on delivering our 3 year cost savings target and we are looking for more opportunities to drive effectiveness and efficiency. And improved marketing on through our 0 based budgeting efforts. These are reflected in our annual guidance, which Anthony will take you through in a few minutes.
Clearly, we have some challenges ahead of us, but we know what's working and what's not and we're taking action to improve our sales performance in every division. I remain confident in the strategic imperatives that we're pursuing and that they provide a compelling prospects and the strong profit performance this year, our Board of Directors declared a 12% increase in our quarterly dividend. Thank you. I look forward to answering your questions in a few minutes. Now let me turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer Anthony D'Silvestro.
Thanks, Denise, and good morning. Before getting into the details, I want to provide my perspective on our results and guidance. As Denise stated, we are disappointed with the performance of our C Fresh division in the fourth quarter, which was the key driver of a 1% decline in organic sales of the company, reflecting the recall of Bolthouse Farms protein drink and to clients in carrot. At the EBIT line, The negative impact of the C Fresh performance was offset by lower incentive compensation accruals relative to our expectation In the fourth quarter, our adjusted tax rate was negatively impacted by a $13,000,000 correction for deferred taxes, The correction had a negative impact on EPS of $0.04 per share. And as a result, our full year tax rate finished above our previous expectations.
Moving onto the full year, while adjusted EPS of $2.94 was within our guidance range, we finished at the lower end due to the tax correction. We are pleased with our gross margin performance, which on an adjusted basis, increased by 170 basis points in line with expectations, driven by significantly improved supply chain performance, cost savings and net price realization. We continue to make very good progress against our 3 year cost savings target of $300,000,000 delivering about $130,000,000 of incremental savings in fiscal 2016, bringing the program to date total to $215,000,000. As part of our annual review of intangible assets, we recorded a non cash impairment charge of $0.41 per share in our GAAP results, on our Bolthouse Farms carrot and carrot ingredient business, reflecting reduced expectations for future cash flows. I'm very pleased with and our board has approved a 12% increase in the quarterly dividend.
Looking ahead to fiscal 2017, although below our long term target, We plan to improve our sales performance compared to 2016 and make investments in the business to support key brands launch new products, drive long term innovation and build capabilities in areas like Digital And E Commerce. Now I'll review our details sorry, our results in more detail. For the 4th quarter, net sales on an as reported basis of 1,687,000,000 comparable to the prior year. Excluding the negative impact of currency translation and the favorable impact of the Garden Fresh Gourmet acquisition Organic net sales declined 1%, driven by declines in Campbell Fresh, partly offset by gains in Global Biscuits and Snacks. The negative impact from the Bolthouse Farms recall and related production outage was approximately 1 percentage point on total company sales.
Adjusted EBIT declined 2 percent to $253,000,000 as higher advertising and consumer promotion expenses and a lower gross margin percentage were partly offset by lower administrative expenses, reflecting lower incentive compensation accruals. Adjusted EPS decreased 6 on the Bolthouse farm to recall and related production outage, consistent with our expectations, as well as the $0.04 per share negative impact from the tax correction. For the full year, as reported and organic net sales both decreased 1% compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBIT of $1,467,000,000 and adjusted EPS of $2.94, both increased by 11%. Earnings growth is being driven by our improved gross margin performance and the benefits from our cost savings initiatives.
Breaking down our sales performance for the quarter. Net sales was comparable to prior year. Organic sales declined 1% as a 2 point negative impact from higher promotional spending was partly offset by a 1 point gain from volume and mix. Gains in volume were driven by growth in all night biscuits, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers, and Preco pasta sauces, which benefited from the launch of the new Fargo Farmers Market product line, partly offset by declines in seafreight due to the Bolthouse Farms protein drinks recall and volume declines in Carriage. Increased promotional spending across our three segments includes higher spending in Arnott's as we're lapping in an unusually low quarter which was impacted by product availability, higher spending in Bolthouse Farms to remain competitive and support the launch of 1915, and higher spending on Prego And PACE.
With the exception of C Fresh, increased promotional spending drove gains in buying. Completing the bridge, a 1 point negative impact from currency translation was offset by the 1 point benefit from the acquisition of Garden Fresh Gourmet. Our gross margin declined 90 basis points in the quarter to 36.1%. Looking at the drivers of the decline, cost inflation and other factors had a negative impact of 270 basis points, driven primarily by cost inflation, which on a rate basis increased by about 1.5%. The recall and related production outages of both as far as protein drinks and higher carrot costs from unfavorable crop yields.
Reflecting the increased promotional spending on the businesses I mentioned in the sales discussion, The higher promotional rate had a negative impact of 110 basis points on gross margin. This was partly offset by list pricing gains of 20 basis points from previous pricing actions in global biscuits and snacks. Mix was slightly favorable, also adding 20 basis points. Lastly, our supply chain productivity programs which are incremental to our 3 year cost savings program contributed 250 basis points of margin improvement in the quarter. Looking at this another way, not on the chart, the weak performance of the Campbell Fresh segment accounted for 70 basis points of the total decline of 90 basis points, including the protein drink recall, which accounted for 50 basis points.
Adjusted marketing and selling expenses decreased 14% in the quarter, primarily due to higher advertising expenses in Pepperidge Farm to support Goldfish crackers and the fresh bakery business and increased support of Prairie Gopassos office. Adjusted administrative expenses decreased 19% primarily due to lower incentive compensation costs, which account for about 2 thirds of the decline, as well as the benefit from our cost savings initiatives. For additional perspective on our performance, this chart breaks down our EPS change between our operating performance and below the line items. Adjusted EPS decreased $0.03 from $0.49 in the prior year to $0.46 per share in the current quarter. On a currency neutral basis, declines in adjusted EBIT had a negative impact on EPS of $0.01.
Our adjusted tax rate for The increase in the tax rate reduced EPS by $0.02 as the impact of the deferred tax correction was partly offset by the benefit of geographic mix. The impact from share repurchases under our strategic share repurchase program reduced our share count slightly, but due to rounding shows no benefit on EPS in as the impact Currency translation also had no impact completing the bridge to $0.46 per share. Now, turning to our segment results. In America's Simple Meals And Beverages, organic sales were comparable to prior year at 842,000,000 driven by double digit gains in Pareco pasta sauces, including the benefit of the launch of Pareco Farmers Market and also by double digit gains in plum products. Offset by declines in VA beverages and ready to serve soup.
Operating earnings increased 4% reflecting a higher gross margin percentage driven by productivity improvements, partly offset by increased marketing expenses. As we've increased support behind Prego and V Eight beverages. Within U. S. Soup was declined 2% in aggregate, condense declined 1% and RTS declined 6%.
These declines were partly offset by a 7% gain in swans and bra. Estimated changes in retailer inventory levels did not meaningfully impact soup sales in the quarter. As we previously stated, while we will discuss the key drivers of suit performance as we do with our other businesses, This is the last quarter we will provide detailed subcategory sales performance. Here's a look at U. S.
Wet suit category performance. Our share results as measured by IRI. For the 52 week period ending July 31, 2016, The category as a whole declined by 2.7%. Our sales in measured channels declined 3.8% primarily driven by weakness in ready to serve partly offset by strength in broth. Campbell had a 59% market share for the 52 week period declining 70 basis points.
Private label grew share by 10 basis points finishing at 13%. All other branded players collectively had a share of 29 percent, up 60 basis points, reflecting share gains by smaller brands. In Global Biscuits and Snacks, organic sales increased 2% with double digit gains in Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers supported by increased advertising and growth in Arnaziscuits in Australia and New Zealand, driven by increased promotional activity. Operating earnings increased 5 percent to $81,000,000 as lower administrative costs were probably offset by a lower gross margin percentage. Within gross margin, the impact of cost inflation and increased promotional spending was partly offset by productivity improvement.
In the Campbell Fresh segment, organic sales decreased 12%, reflecting declines in Bolthouse Farms Premium refrigerated beverages due to the recall of protein drinks. Sales for the CPG beverages and salad dressings business declined 10% in the quarter. Sales of care is also declined as we experienced quality issues in the 4th quarter which led to customer dissatisfaction and the loss of business. These declines were partly offset by gains in fresh soup. Operating earnings declined by $13,000,000 or 62 percent to $8,000,000, primarily driven by the average impact of the voluntary recall on both house farm protein drinks and related production outages as well as higher carrot costs and lower sales of carrots and carrot ingredients Gourmet was acquired on June 29, 2015, and we have now wrapped the acquisition date.
As a result, there is 1 month of operating results from Garden Fresh Gourmet now included in organic sales. We had very strong cash flow performance in fiscal 2016. Cash from operations increased by $281,000,000 to a record $1,463,000,000, driven by significantly higher cash earnings and lower working capital requirements reflecting reductions in inventory level. Capital expenditures declined $39,000,000 to $341,000,000. We paid dividends totaling $390,000,000, reflecting our current quarterly dividend rate of $0.32 per share.
And as announced this morning, we will be shares in fiscal 2016, $100,000,000 of which were under our strategic share repurchase program. The balance of the repurchases remained to offset dilution from equity based compensation. Net debt declined by $592,000,000 as cash from operations was well in excess of capital expenditures, dividends and share repurchases. The company expects sales to grow by 0% to 1%, adjusted EBIT to grow by 1% to 4% and adjusted EPS to grow by 2 percent to 5 percent or $3.09 per share. This guidance assumes based on current exchange rates that the impact from currency translation will be nominal.
While not to the level of our long term sales growth target of 1 3% sales performance is expected to improve relative to 2016 as we address those businesses, which have underperformed. While we expect to achieve further EBIT margin expansion in 2017, growth in adjusted EBIT is slightly below our long term target as we will be making investments and to build capabilities in areas like digital And E Commerce. These investments are designed to improve our growth profile over the long term. Our range for growth in adjusted EPS is ahead of EBIT as we plan to increase share repurchases and benefit from a slightly lower tax rate. Partly offset by slightly higher interest expense given our expectation of rising short term interest rates.
While we don't give quarterly guidance, I will say that we expect as we work through the issues we're currently experiencing in C Fresh and as we wrap lower levels of marketing support in the first half of fiscal twenty sixteen. Turning to some of the key assumptions underlying our We expect inflation and cost of products sold of approximately 2%, including higher wage and ongoing benefit costs, and the lagging negative impact of a stronger U. S. Dollar on the input costs of our international businesses given the timing of our foreign currency hedges. As we've successfully delivered in the past, we expect ongoing supply chain productivity gains, excluding our ZBB initiative, of approximately 3% of positive products sold.
We expect our gross margin percentage to improve slightly with productivity gains exceeding inflation The effective tax rate is estimated to be approximately 32%, slightly below the 2016 adjusted rate of 32.6%. While we are not prepared to provide a specific amount, we currently plan to significantly increase share repurchases unless needed for other uses including M And A. Our EPS guidance reflects the favorable impact of these anticipated repurchases over the course of the year comparable to fiscal 2016 levels and in line with our historical spending levels. And under our cost savings program, We expect to deliver incremental savings of $50,000,000 in fiscal 2017 and are on track to achieve our $300,000,000 goal by 2018. That concludes my remarks and I'll turn it
back to Ken for the Q And A. Thanks, Anthony. We will now start our Q and A session. Since we have limited time out of fairness to the other callers, please ask only one question at a time. Okay,
Thank Our first question comes from Ken Oldman with JP Morgan. Your line is open. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for
the question. Hey, guys. Wanted to get a bit of a better understanding of the carats business longer term from here. I do understand in these that there were some execution issues. I think that indicates that perhaps a lot of the problem is fixable.
You also talked about carrot yields, which suggests that's fixable too. On the other hand, you just took a big write down and I would look at that as maybe an indication that the business is never going to be as strong as it once was or at least in management's mind. So I really just wanted to get a better sense of maybe how to balance those two data points, I guess, as we think about, not just 2017, but beyond for the Carrick business.
Yes. I think that as we as we indicated, the Carrick business is right now going through a short term issue and fortunately, it is a short term crop and the crop we're harvesting now is much better. So we believe we will be back in business at pretty normal levels by about the second half of the year. We've got a lot to do there. I mean, we've got, customer issues to address and we are actively doing that.
Going forward, I think as we looked at the business, based on the growth rates in sales and earnings that we saw when we bought the business, We believe that the growth rates are going to be about flat to up slightly. And that's, that is a little bit more conservative than when we first bought the business.
Yes, if I could just add to that, as part of our annual testing of intangible assets, which we performed in the fourth quarter. We do a detailed discounted cash flow analysis. And as we performed that on the carrot and carrot ingredient reporting unit, we certainly reflected the current year performance and our expectations for future cash flows. And while we expect the performance to improve over time, it's not to the levels previously anticipated and consequently it's led to the impairment charge.
Okay. That makes sense. Can I ask one quick follow-up? Denise, you mentioned that maybe I heard you wrong that you wanted to get C Fresh into other areas. And I think you mentioned dairy I had always thought the goal was maybe to get into dairy alternatives, not necessarily dairy itself.
I'm just curious if there was a change at all in your thinking there.
Yes, Ken, that actually, is related to what we talked about at an Investor Day with our, in our long term innovation group working on the new pea protein beverage. So it's plant based beverages, but they would be situated in the dairy part of the perimeter of the store.
Our next question comes from Brian Spillane with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Hi, Brian.
Just to follow-up on Campbell Fresh I guess as we look at Bolthouse, going into 2017, just two two points, I guess, I'd like to get some clarification on. 1st, in terms of the profitability there for this year, I guess it sounds like it'll be somewhat impaired or below what a normal run rate would be as you sort of rebuild your production capacity and you get rebuild the customer base and carrot. So I just want to make sure that that's one of the things that will hold it back this year, maybe relative to what we should in 2018 2019 is just simply there's a little bit of rebuilding that has to go on. And then as a follow-up to that, just does the sort of adjustments you're making in production runs and run times. Sounds like maybe even considering new production lines.
Does that at all slow the pace of new product innovations like the P protein drinks and Just trying to understand if whether there's sort of a step back before you can step forward as you get the supply chain straightened out. Thank you.
Brian, on the first part of that question, Denise mentioned 2 factors that will impact at least our first half performance in 2017. One is the supply constraints on protein drinks given the production, the run time 24 hours versus 72. And the other thing is given some lots of customers on carriers, it will take us a little bit of time to reacquire that business. And so as we look at C Fresh for the full year, we expect top line growth low single digit typically, we would look for high single digits. So obviously that's impacting our 2017 outlook.
And as far as innovation, I don't think the issue on this particular line has an impact on our innovation agenda.
It is not. I would say though, in the first half, the team will be very focused on the fundamentals So the new product innovations will most likely go to market in the second half.
Thank you. Our next question comes from David Driscoll with Citi.
I wanted to ask a little bit about the cost savings and the reinvestment strategy. So kind of back at the beginning, I think Denise, the plan was to take about half of the big costings that were coming in and reinvested back in the business. But then you had kind of like wonderful event of the cost savings tumbled in faster and larger, all these like good things that happened in the year. But it brought up the as to when would all this reinvestment occur? So if we're still looking for something like $150,000,000 of reinvestment Will most of that occur in fiscal 2017, or can you give us some guidance on how the reinvestment plan lays out
Yes, I'll take a try at that. So when we first announced the cost savings program, we were targeting $200,000,000 of savings and we talked about half of that going back to reinvestment. I think as the savings level went up, I think we kind of held the reinvestment amount. So I don't think we're would estimate that I think I'd estimate that less than half is now going back in the business. We're not going to give a specific dollar amount terms of reinvestment in 2017, but it is significant.
And it is in a number of areas. We're going to support new product launches, things like Pregos Farmers Market, well yet to Plumbing and Formula, the Bolthouse Spring Innovation, Tim Tan, the expansion in the U. S, Gulfish made with organic wheat. So we have a number of product launches going on. We're also going to invest in new capabilities around things like digital.
And e commerce. We're going to make investments in our real food initiatives. So these are things like improving our can aligners continuing the removal of BPA, improving the product and more clean label, those types of ingredients, which tend to be a little more expensive. We're going to invest in longer term innovation, things like our Acre Investment Fund. And also, Denise mentioned, long term innovation in Package Fresh, We're also going to invest and add resources to expand our sales and distribution in China through our Kelson business.
So we have quite a list of areas we're looking to reinvest in the P and L, we have a significant allocation of funds.
And David, our profit is strong. Our challenge is topline growth. So these are really vital to the long term
but will also happen in F 'eighteen and beyond? I think that's what you're trying to tell me. Is that right guys?
Well, certainly at 'seventeen, I'm not commenting on F 'eighteen at this point, but
One clarification and apologies for this, but I got to ask this. The pacing of the quarterly earnings, so that there was amazing growth in Q1 and Q2. You didn't really say this in your prepared comments, Anthony, but will you actually be at or above the year ago 1Q and 2Q numbers? I mean, is there any chance that these are below those year ago numbers just because of how tremendous do you want to Q2 word last year?
Well, we did said the majority of growth will come in the second half. And as you point out, there's just two reasons for that. We're lapping a relatively low marketing Q1, Q2, and we have these lingering issues on C Fresh. So that'll tend to suppress our first half performance, but we'll see it come back in the second half.
Yes, we have a much stronger marketing investment in the first half particularly in the America Simple Meals and beverage with 4 really big campaigns.
Our next question comes from Jason English with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Thank you for the question. I've got 2 quick questions. First, I'm not really sure what you meant when you answered Dave Driscoll's question in terms of cadence. So I'll ask you a little more directly. Do you expect earnings to be down year on year in the first half of the year?
We're not going to give specific guidance, but I would say we expect relatively weaker performance in the first half and stronger performance in the second half.
Okay. I had to try. My second question, relates to promotional spend Early last year because you kind of went into the year. You talked about some opportunities to rationalize the spend. There were glimmers of hope to the 1st of the year as that promotional line in the American Consumer deals.
The beverage division actually went positive we've given that back in the back half of the year. So can you kind of update us on how you're thinking about your promotional posture, your promotional spend and what caused the setback as we progress through the year?
I guess we look at it a little bit different than that. We are very focused on improving our gross margin performance and expanding margin. Within that, we look to net price realization productivity improvements to exceed inflation. On the net price realization, we feel really good about what we've been able to accomplish in 2016. In fact, 40 basis points of our 170 basis point gross margin improvement is driven by net price realization And within that, and it gets a little distorted on the sales variance, but we've made meaningful reductions in trade spend in soup given the promotional pricing we've taken on RTF and that although it's impacted volumes, it had contributed significantly to margin expansion.
Now we were up a little bit in the 4th quarter. It's a non seasonal quarter for us. Most of our dollar increase in trade in the 4th quarter relates to our Arnott's business in Australia. Who were lapping a period of supply constraints. So we had to pull back on our promotional activity.
So we're wrapping that. But as I look at the whole year, we accomplished what we set out to do in our plant and have made meaningful progress, especially in soup, which is very critical to our agenda going forward.
Yes, let me build on that that we also, as part of the setup of our integrated global services, have made investments in our revenue management and advanced analytics. And we're continuing to look for ways to manage the debt and frequency of our trade programs to maximize profitable volume. We have to take into consideration competitive activity and customer programs and consumer response, but this is definitely a point of focus for us.
Very good. Thank you so much for the time. I'll pass it on.
Our next question comes from Robert Moskow with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Hi, Rob.
Hi, this is actually Robert Connor on for Rob Moskow.
Okay.
So we just had a question. So it looks like some of these smaller organic brands are more vulnerable to weather disruptions and kind of like the stability of the product on the shelf is shorter You know, it seemed like WhiteWave with their Earthbound Farms brand, they had supply chain issues. And, obviously, you guys are having issues kind of with the Bolthouse brand supply chain. So does it raise any concerns in your mind about kind of putting most of your growth in the fresh part which has kind of more volatile supply chain and lower margins?
It all starts with the consumer and the consumer trends are very strong in terms of health and well-being and particularly in fresh food. Some of these issues are part in parcel to running a fresh food business. But in our case, these were execution issues and we can do better there. So we're really confident in the strategy to pursue fresh food in addition to the strong core brands that we have.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Matthew Grainger with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks.
Hi, Matt.
Hi. Anthony, I just wanted to ask a little bit more about the inflation outlook and apologies if I missed this earlier, but did you mention what inflation was here in the fourth quarter, the gross margin headwind seemed to step up quite a bit versus what we've seen year to date. So I'm not sure how material the other portion of that was related to Bolthouse issues. And if you could give us any color on kind of the shape of the inflation curve, as we kind of move forward sequentially?
Sure. I think the best way to explain our gross margin performance, which was down 90 basis points in the 4th quarter, is to parse out the impact of the C Fresh division So C Fresh division in aggregate had a 70 basis point impact out of the 90 basis points. So basically, most of our gross margin decline is attributable to the 2 issues inside of C Fresh, the recall, which was 50 basis points and the decline on carats, which has an impact on the margin as well. And looking at the rest of it, inflation was not that great in the 4th quarter. As we talked in the bridge, the higher promotional expense was the key swing relative to prior quarters.
But most of the decline as we said, attributable to the C Fresh performance.
Okay. That helps. Thanks. And just one other quick clarification from a guide standpoint. Incentive, obviously, you delivered 11% underlying EPS growth this year, but there was a, I guess, perhaps an accrual correction on incentive comp here in the fourth quarter, which resulted in a year on year decline there.
As we kind of think ahead to 2017, does incentive comp end up being a headwind or a tailwind or are you kind of essentially at a normal run rate at this point?
Yes. So we had some ups and downs obviously in 2016. We ended up with a $0.02 headwind in 2016 versus 2015. And looking forward, our short term incentives are close to target. The long term incentive will go up a little bit all in, we have about a $0.02 negative impact in 2017.
Next question comes from John Baumgartner with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Good morning. Thanks for the question. Denise, I'd like to ask about M and A. In that in addition to the chassis you feel that you have with the carrot business, it also seems that you have a fairly nice chassis with your distribution model at Pepperidge. So how do you assess the ability for M And A to maybe accelerate growth more broadly in U.
S. Snacking? Maybe even outside of C Fresh, And how much more could you be doing at Peppers to leverage your out to market there?
Yes. I wanted to clarify that we look at, we do look at M And A more broadly than just Campbell Fresh. And each one of our divisions has, mapped out specific targets that they're interested in that are a good strategic fit for their businesses. And so we are highly interested in, in other consumer behaviors like health and well-being, like snacking, like simple meals that that we can pursue not only from an organic growth standpoint, but also from an M and A standpoint.
And you feel that you're out to market with the Diet beverage allows you to kind of go and do that and accelerate growth with kind of a bolt on?
I'm sorry. I didn't understand the question.
You feel as though your route to market at Pepperidge through kind of the DSD network would allow you to kind of buy a smaller artisanal brand, just being more health and wellness space and really kind of accelerate?
Absolutely. I mean, Plumberganics is a great example of a smaller brand that we bought, we were able to integrate that into the America's Simple Meals And Beverage business and capitalize on things like their sales force and supply chain.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from David Palmer with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. A question on a couple of areas that I know that you'd like to improve was ready to serve soup and chunky in particular. And then also V Eight, your new marketing campaign for chunky it looked promising and your comparisons will be on your side realistically speaking, do you think that that's the business that has the best chance for improvement among the areas that you cited that you think will improve in fiscal 2017? And then perhaps you can dimensionalize what you think would be a successful step in the right direction could you get back to flat for that business in ready to serve, for instance?
Yes. We definitely have, some bright spots in soups this year. We basically stabilized condensed and broth is up for the year. But the issue we've had has been RTS Soup. And as you indicate, with brand chunky, we are, we have the price realization behind us.
We have improved chunky marketing going into 2017, we had a label execution issue in the 1st and second quarter last year that we are cycling. And, and then we can't control the weather, but that was definitely an impact in 2016. So we believe that the chunky brand will have improved performance in 2017. In addition, we are launching well yes mid year, which is a great tasting clean label ready to serve soup that we believe will have disruption in the soup bile and capture the hearts and minds of consumers. The other thing we have going for us in soup is slow kettle and organic soups continue to do very well.
And we just came out with new stackable cans in our RTS soup, which has been received really, really well from the retailers for merchandising purposes. So We've got a lot more going for us this year than last year, and we expect soup to grow modestly.
Great. Thank you.
Our final question comes from Mario Contreras with Deutsche Bank.
Hi, good morning.
Hello, Mario.
So actually just following up on that, the previous question, I think there was also a question on V Eight. So I just wanted to to add on to that. So that's been an area of investment. You mentioned some further investment in terms of marketing and advertising but sales continue to be a headwind there. So can you just talk about the results that you're seeing from some of those investments?
Are we adding an inflection point where that's starting to improve?
Yes, thanks for that reminder. We continue to be challenged in our shelf stable beverages particularly on our, our products that contain sugar. So VVFusion for example. And this year, we actually did have some declines on our VA RED. Our new veggie blends, which we supported with some good marketing support continue to grow and our VA plus energy is growing really nicely.
What we have done is we've developed a brand new campaign, but also we've increased our support around our VA red juice. So instead of just promoting the new parts of the business. Our marketing against the core VA RED as well as the new veggie blends and the VA plus energy. And we believe that that is a much better formula for success. We don't expect beverages to grow next year, but we do expect improved performance.
So.
Okay. And just a clarification, I think going back to the to your Analyst Day, you mentioned something about shifting some consumers from Vfusion to veggie blends, should we read into that that you're looking for Vfusion to eventually maybe not be eliminated, but just become much less significant? Or I guess what did you mean by that specifically? Thanks.
We have we do have top selling varieties in the VFusion line, such as strawberry Banana or pomegranate Blueberry, and some others. And we'll continue to include them in the VA line, but we the consumer will take us to the flavors that they like and will repeat. So, that's basically how we're playing it.
Okay. Thank you very much.
And that concludes the Q And A session. I will now turn the call back over to management further remarks.
Thanks, Stephanie. Thanks everyone for joining our fourth quarter earnings call and webcast. A full replay will be available about 2 hours after our call concludes by going online or calling 1703-925-2533. The access code is 1673833. You have until September 15, 2016 at midnight, at which point we move our earnings call strictly to the website.
Just click on recent webcasts and presentations. If you have further questions, please call me. Ken Gosnell, 856-342-6081. If you are a reporter with questions, please call Carlo Virgato, Director of External Communications at 856-342 3737. That concludes today's program.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That does conclude today's conference. You may all disconnect and everyone have a great day.