All right, welcome everybody back from lunch. Good afternoon. My name's Peter Galbo. I'm from the food and beverage team here at BofA. We're delighted to be joined at the conference today by The Campbell's Company, $9 000000000+ revenue for this year, and a market leader in soup, pasta, and Mexican sauces, as well as salted snacks. Campbell's recently reported its fiscal second quarter with strong sales growth across both its meals and beverages business, as well as biscuits and snacks. Please join me in welcoming to the stage Mark Clouse, CEO, and Carrie Anderson, recently named CFO. Welcome to both of you. Thanks for being here.
Thank you, Peter.
Great. Good to see everybody. Right after lunch, perfect spot.
Mark, maybe to start off, I was just hoping you could give us a quick recap on the quarter, you know, results, anything coming out of the call you've been getting questions on, obviously very strong.
Yeah, it was a good quarter. I think, you know, I mean, from a numbers standpoint, it was, you know, kind of across the board, I think strong growth, double-digits on every metric, which is nice. I'm reminding my board periodically that they're not all gonna be double-digit growth numbers. I think what's more important is it was a good quarter to see a couple things continuing to build momentum. Probably most dramatic in the quarter, in my mind, was arguably the first time that many aspects of our Snacks business came together in the same quarter. Supply chain being kind of fully operational, good marketing investment, strong innovation, and healthy margins.
That I think, you know, to see the kind of growth, the share growth, even some of the businesses that might have been a little bit under pressure a year ago for supply chain to come back at the pace they did, I think was a really strong statement and hopefully a good window in to what we see as the potential for that Snacks portfolio, which is half of our business. Although Meals & Beverages had a really good quarter as well, but I think a little bit of the star of the show was snacking this time through.
We were able to raise the guidance for the second time in a year as well, the net sales guidance.
Always feels good.
A s well as the profitability guidance as well.
Great. Carrie, first off, welcome.
Thank you.
Maybe you could give us a little bit of just insight into the move, you know, your background and why Campbell's?
I will say Mark is a great salesperson, he was certainly one of the key reasons why I made the move. Don't have CPG experience, I have a lot of other variety of experiences. By training, engineering, manufacturing, lots of opportunity there. Did my start at General Motors, went to one of their spinoffs called Delphi Automotive, moved into more diversified and, you know, conglomerate type of industrial manufacturing companies called Dover. My last stint prior to coming to Campbell's was as CFO for Integra LifeSciences, a medical device company.
Again, lots of variety of experiences and very excited to see where, what Mark and the team have done over the last few years, but also looking forward to the strategies that are unfolding both for snacks and M&B and hope to be a great part of that as we move that forward.
Yeah. Glad to have Carrie join, for sure.
Mark, maybe you can talk about some of the other management changes. You know, Mick's move to run.
Yeah.
Chris on snacks.
Right. It was one of those, The dominoes a little bit began with the departure of Val Oswalt to Kodiak Cakes, which, you know, I mean, I think in the scheme of things, one is probably more proud of the fact that team members leave to go be CEOs or CFOs of other companies. I was thrilled for Val. I hated to see her go, but happy to see her step into a big role, and I know is gonna do a great job there. Mick and I, when Mick joined the company, we talked a lot about his future and his desire to really continue to build his broader skill set. This is one of those moments when you promise someone, you know, you gotta be ready to step up.
Although I didn't see this moment as exactly perhaps on the timeline I would've expected, it was a great opportunity for Mick to step into a commercial role. I think he's gonna be able to bring a lot of the business and commercial acumen, but really knowing the company and that division well is gonna be a great match. You know, what a luxury to have someone like Chris Foley on my team who is a, you know, had worked every aspect of the company, a lot of time in snacks, and just an incredible leader that, I think really helped bridge the gap of Val's departure. A little bit of moving chairs, but I think all with very seasoned and experienced players, that's been able to feel very much pretty smooth, I'd say.
Not a lot of disruption. Carrie certainly hit the ground running. Nothing like starting in the middle of board meeting into earnings into investor meeting.
Yeah.
It's good.
Yeah.
It's the way we like to do it. I know I'm not gonna scare her. If you're coming out of the automotive industry, you know, life still feels pretty good here in food.
Maybe just to touch on a couple of other changes, back in January, you announced you're consolidating, you know, the snacks offices in Charlotte and Norwalk.
Right.
Just, you know, the color around the decision, how it's been received.
Yeah
W hat you're expecting kinda going forward.
Well, I think always, you know, in mind was going to be how do we set up post-integration of Snyder's-Lance. You know, we had headquarters in Norwalk for Pepperidge Farm, Charlotte, and actually some folks in Hanover, Pennsylvania, which was the old Snyder's headquarters. The, you know, the intent was never to have three, you know, headquarters strewn out across the Eastern Seaboard. Enter COVID, and that was probably not the moment to start moving people around. Coming out of it, we took a hard look.
Honestly, in the world we're in today, I felt that it would be very compelling to have not just consolidate snacks, but to bring them to Camden, all of our talent under one roof, the opportunity to move talent more seamlessly in a very competitive world for talent, between the divisions, concentrating some centers of excellence that can be utilized by both businesses, while of course, taking the opportunity to drive efficiencies by shutting down some of the other prior snacks headquarters. What it does not mean is that in some way we've taken strategic optionality off the table. I've had a couple people ask me, "Mark, does it mean you'll never separate the Meals & Beverages and snacks?" That's not the plan today, for sure, but it doesn't change that.
Arguably, having gone through this with Mondelēz way back when, there's actually some distinct advantages to having all of your talent in one location. We feel great about that. I think we're gonna invest some money back into Camden and, you know, we've been there 155 years, 1 mi from where Joseph Campbell put the first tomato in a can. There's a lot of magic, I think, in that, in that Camden-Campbell's connection. We're gonna really live into that as a company in a, in a big way.
Great. I think you've quantified what the expansion's gonna kinda be from an out-output standpoint.
I mean, we're hoping to save about $10 million on an ongoing basis. A little more, but we're gonna spend some back on the, on the business as we, you know, kinda stand up, you know, Camden and bring a little bit of renovation to that building as well. Yeah. That, you know, that's good 'cause that's gonna help us on that margin roadmap we're chasing, and that's certainly built into that and part of that.
Great. Maybe we can take a step back, just high level, kind of starting off in the consumer. We've heard from just David Tinsley at lunch, we've heard from a lot of others today, just what you're seeing, you know, across the business with consumer behavior, elasticities this year so far, any major differences maybe between meals and bevs and snacks.
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the language of the day has kinda been this consumer resilience. I, you know, I will say, though, in fairness, that I'm not sure there's a immediate precedent that matches the environment that we're seeing right now. When we talk about lower than historical elasticities, although I would say that is, in fact, true, not a lot of data points that, you know, 20% pricing to determine whether or not, you know, we're seeing exactly what one might expect. I think at the end of the day, the healthy nature of the portfolio and the brands is really what we're focused on. You know, driving value and relevancy in the brands relative to both competition, but also more broadly within consumer choices, I think that has gone extremely well.
I think a big part of that is not what you're doing necessarily right now, but as much what you've done over time to invest in these equities and build the businesses. Having said it, I think we do, though, remain extremely vigilant. I do appreciate the, you know, tough economic environment. Over time, you know, you may see consumers, as they experience that for an elongated period, put a little more pressure on elasticities. I think we're well-positioned, but certainly, as we said in our guidance for the balance for the year, we want to leave a little bit of flexibility to address that if we need to.
As again, the goal in mind right now, this is probably the biggest message I'd say, is that this is a really important moment to try to balance both the growth, both dollar and volume, market share, margins, profitability. Trying to really kind of thread that needle of getting those elements positioned in the right way, to set us up for the future, right? Don't get too greedy and try to grab back too much margin fast. Don't try to chase volume downward or share downward at the expense of profitability in the category. You know, how do you really kinda, you know, put the fine-tuning on all those variables to get the best position, to not just deliver now, but really to kinda come through this with momentum?
That, I think, has been our goal, and I think we feel very good, about the first couple quarters of the year and the outlook for the balance of the year, even though a little bit tougher comps we'll have in the back half. I think, you know, overall, we feel really good about how we're driving that algorithm today.
Maybe if we just kinda dive in further into the segments, starting with meals and bevs. You know, soup is 60%-65% of that category sales. You've talked a lot about private label, you know, in broth, I think in condensed a little bit, but, you know, ready-to-serve has maybe been a little better. Just kinda give us the.
Yeah
L ayout of what's happening in soup specifically.
Yeah, no, it was a good opportunity, and I tried to take a little bit of a step back on the earnings call this time and say, "Okay, what do we really like, you know, what's good look like, or what are we trying to accomplish in this category?" Obviously, it's a very important part of our business. We kinda talked about three, you know, kind of focus areas of our strategy. The first is kinda this concept of win the fights that ultimately matter most. Essentially, where are the strategic parts of the business that we wanna make sure that we distort resources to ensure that we're on the winning side? That is things like our icons on condensed, right?
I don't want anybody ever eating another chicken noodle soup other than Campbell's or Forbidden to try tomato soup from anyone other than us. The idea is how do we really make sure that those four items, tomato, chicken noodle, cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, are really protected. For our customers, it's really important that they remain very visibly affordable in the retail environment as well. Even as we may see some pressure in condensed, if you look at our icons, we're still growing share on it. Another great area is ready-to-serve soup. I mean, the star of our soup business has really been Chunky.
I mean, we could probably do 30 minutes on that one alone, but it's just been a great example of a brand and a business that was really underappreciated. You know, we were kind of selling it for 10 for tens, kind of telling consumers this is not high quality. This is lower, you know, cost, value food. You know, lo and behold, we go out and do some blind taste tests, and it beats everything. Like handedly beats everything, primarily because the content of Chunky is, you know, 14 g of protein, substantial. We've pivoted that now. We're talking more about that. We're targeting younger males.
We, you know, are one of the primary sponsors of Madden Football, which I gotta be honest with you, when that came to me, I wasn't 100% for sure, but it has been lights out effective. I mean, we're up 35% over three years. We've added 2.5 share points. That brand is just a superstar. Part of the insight there is that, as life has evolved, lunch is a very powerful occasion for us, and Chunky works really well. Those are a couple of examples. Pacific I'd throw in there as well. Those are the strategic fights that we must win now to best position us for the future.
The second area is really what's a little bit magical about soup versus a lot of other categories is its versatility, and one of the primary places you see that is in cooking. When you think about the fact that we're more than 50% of the soup category, if we can continue to drive relevancy in that category, we're gonna win over time. That, you know, is heavily influenced by that behavior of cooking. You see us now doing a lot more to stimulate that behavior. Honestly, from a consumer-centric standpoint, both the prevalence but also the enjoyment or the engagement with cooking has never been higher.
I mean, honestly, you know, if you turn on a TV or you're looking at social media, proliferated with food, cooking, that behavior, that really does translate into the consumer engagement model. Like why my wife needs to take the picture of every plate of food that comes in front of me and then who's waiting to see it, I don't know. Apparently, there someone is because we do that at every meal. I think the point is that cooking in general is a behavior now that has really locked in, the more we can fuel that, the better it is for the category longer term. That's the second area. The third is really what's left.
Those are important, but honestly, we've made some conscious decisions and trade-offs, and what we wanna make sure is although those are coming in consistent with what we expected, you know, I certainly don't ever love to see any share loss, and I wanna make sure that we're continuing to not be satisfied there. These are things like Healthy Request or our kids, SKUs on condensed that we wanna make sure that we are making as relevant as possible. Clearly, those are some areas where we have felt some pressure. I guess my point was, you know, soup is coming in essentially where we expected. We're doing well in the areas that we really have prioritized. I think for the long run, that's where the focus is.
If I go back to 2019 when you had the Investor Day, that was kind of your first full swing. I mean, it's crystallized in my memory, full swing in soup, and a lot.
Yeah
Of it was around kind of these cooking soups.
Yep
You know, we've seen the creative. I mean, it seems like it's really kind of translating the way.
It is.
Maybe a little later than you would've thought, but.
Well, no, look, I honestly, I mean, it's, you know, I spend a lot of my, as you might imagine, day, pointing out to people that, you know, I, I certainly understand, some of the apprehension as it relates to soup as a category. Quite frankly, we probably, created some of that on our own based on historical strategy. What I would tell you is now what was, originally a COVID, oh, they're eating soup because they have to, oh, well, wait a minute, now there's it's all pricing. Oh, hold on, it's the economy. I mean, it's been four years now of growth in this category. You have It is integrated into consumer behavior in a level that is just dramatically different.
As I remind people, if you go back over the last 20 years of soup, the biggest indicator or correlation to performance has been whether or not we're investing and supporting. Even in the past, where you might argue soup did not perform consistently, and I would agree, much of that was because we were not supporting the category at the level that we want. I've had a lot of bad categories in my career. I'll take soup every day of the week. It is a, it is a good category. It has high relevance, and the team has done just a fantastic job with it.
Maybe just to round out soup, you know, one of the big strengths so far this year has been supply chain improvement, particularly on the food service side. You know, it's been a big driver, at least in the first half. Just how are you thinking about that over the balance, you know, of the year?
Just to comment a minute on supply chain. I think, you know, this is one of those things that was probably, you know, a little bit of kind of a good and bad. You know, unlike maybe many of our peers, when COVID started to really put pressure on supply chain, our supply chain was not in the best of positions. In fact, I think I even said this a few times publicly, I would say that our supply chain, certainly was lagging what I would expect of a company of our size, maturity. We just weren't where we needed to be, and there are a lot of good reasons why. At the end of the day, it forced us to take action during COVID, right?
We couldn't just sit back and say, "Look, we're gonna weather the storm, and then we'll get back onto the strategic path later." We had to dig in and try to fix it then. That was adding capacity, new technology, processes, people. The good news is though, you know, now flash forward two years later, I honestly can say that I see our supply chain as a bit of a competitive advantage right now. You see that in our service levels and the consistency of our execution. That has been a huge pivot in the company that's created some of the more recent results that you've seen.
I think as it relates to a business like food service, you know, those were businesses that in the triage of supply, because a little bit lower margin business, ended up being, you know, kind of lower on the list. As that supply chain has kind of come back to full strength, you know, we're able to bring, you know, the full support to that business. Although a lot of it, I would say is recovery, it's been nice to have that as a tailwind.
We'll continue to see that, maybe not to the full extent that we did in the first half, but, it'll continue to be, a tailwind of support, as is, Canada, which also kind of suffered through a little bit of the arbitrage of, where are we gonna put the limited supply we had, a year ago now, I think is gonna be beneficial for them as well. They're doing a great job.
I told you I was gonna ask you about SpaghettiOs. What about some of the tail brands, you know, that have been kind of out of service.
Who does not love SpaghettiOs? Come on.
You know, the market shares, right? The numbers have been great, market share just. Are you fully back in stock on the tail brands as well?
I mean, we feel really good. Most of what you'll see now if you were to kind of compare our distribution to where it might've been three years ago, most of what's left that would be a gap is gonna be things we've chosen to rationalize. For all of our sub-brands, SpaghettiOs, you know, absolutely crushing it right now. Again, you think about the lunchtime behavior, where does SpaghettiOs fit in that? It actually, you know, it's again, one of those brands that we probably lost interest in a lot quicker than consumers did. As we breathe life back into it, we'll get some news and excitement coming there as well. is great to see. And look, those supporting cast members, highly efficient, right?
Riding the same scale and supply chain that we have. Good to see them contributing. Yeah, we feel pretty good about the flankers now and where we are. Now more about continuing to drive that consistently.
Maybe we'll just take a pause if there's any questions in the room.
Yeah.
Brian.
Mark, can we just come back to the soup consumer? Given some of the gains that private label is making, do you think it's an existing soup consumer that now that private label's back, they're just trading back down, or is it a consumer that's still coming into the category?
Yeah.
An incremental consumer.
Yeah.
jumping right to private label? Trying to figure out the mix.
Yeah. It's a great, it's a great question. I would say that for the most part, you're right. There was a period where supply was limited even more so on private label than some of the other categories. I think that's fully cycled now. What you're seeing and what we're watching relative to consumer movement between private label and us, it tends to be, and this is very consistent with history, it tends to be a consumer, usually in an older bracket that has a very specific fixed income. They don't want to not buy Campbell's. If they have $1.25 to spend on a can of soup and we're $1.45, then they'll rotate out. As prices normalize, they tend to come right back too, though. They're not.
It's not the worry of, "Oh my gosh, let's not let anyone try private label condensed soup 'cause then they won't come back." I'm a little more worried about that honestly on broth than I am on condensed soup. For soup, it tends to be that older consumer of a little bit more fixed budget. They just, you know, they can't pay that price point. That's where we've gotta really understand, you know, for example, if it is $1.25, what about $1.35? Could it work? You know, that's what we're continuing to learn. We're not seeing like a lot of the new consumers that we've been bringing into the franchise, right? Younger consumers or those that may be trading out of other categories in, they don't normally trade into private label.
It's normally into a branded player 'cause they're coming from a more expensive category like frozen meals or, you know, refrigerated prepared meals, and they're making a trade into canned soup. It's usually more into a Chunky or more into a Campbell's.
Okay.
Yeah.
Just on the consumer, some of the pressure that we've been hearing about, are you seeing any consumers that you wouldn't have seen otherwise? Any signs that the consumer is feeling that pinch and moving into the soup category?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, Meals and Beverages in general, right? If you think about the portfolio, we've got some of the most affordable, you know, kind of landing spots if you're trading down into categories that are more efficient, whether it's Prego on pasta sauce or whether it's a quick condensed soup meal or even Chunky soup. We are absolutely seeing or are benefiting to some degree from the trade. That's why, you know, again, I don't ever wanna lose share, if the soup category continues to grow mid to high single digits and we may be pressured at over 50% of the category, even if we're pressured a little bit on share, the net of that is still a pretty strong positive for the company.
Maybe that's, maybe that's a good segue actually on to Prego, because you mentioned, you know, you've talked about wanting to move more into the premium.
Mm.
pasta part of the market. There's certainly no shortage of competitors on shelf. Just how do you view the competitive landscape, particularly at that more premium end?
Yeah.
How do you get there organically or through M&A?
There's not really, as strange as it may sound, there's not really a high degree of interaction between the more premium space and the mainstream pasta sauce. You don't have, like, a lot of trading between a Rao's and a, and a Prego. What you do have is a lot of growth in that premium segment. I mean, pasta sauce in general, you know, as I remind people, that was a category that was growing before COVID, grew during COVID, and I suspect will continue to grow, and that's both mainstream and premium. It was a very strong category. I think it's fair to say that the more super premium, subsegment has really been driving outsized growth. I continue to see that as an opportunity.
If you think about the gaps in our portfolio, that would be very high up the list, and I think it, you know, I don't know that an organic solution to that is really the best answer. I've always found stretching mainstream brands in the premium have not I can't remember it ever being successful, and I've tried it a few times. At the end of the day, I think what that probably represents is an opportunity for M&A for us. As I think about the future, and again, we're gonna be super disciplined, we're gonna, you know, very focused on things that are well within our capability set, but that's one that fits pretty well.
I would say Mexican sauces is also an area where you're seeing a growing premium subsegment that over time I think represents opportunity for us on Meals & Beverages. You know, I do think we're keeping our eyes open and, you know, we have a balance sheet that's probably as strong as anybody. Our debt level's 2.5 x right now, I think we're in a great position to execute something if the right option comes along. Nothing major or giant, but complementary, I think it's could be a good moment for that.
It's funny you bring up Mexican sauces. I mean, you've had some crossover, I feel like, from Late July. Now there's Late July salsa. Just are there other opportunities to do more.
Yeah.
With snacks and the Mexican sauce portfolio?
I think so, right? I would even include, although not Mexican in nature, but hot sauce is a adjacency. It's an interesting category as well. I like that area, and I think that, you know, Pace. Interestingly, Pace plays this really unique role in salsa, where it's far and away the top salsa for cooking.
Mm-hmm.
It's kind of emerged as this ingredient as much as it is as we would think about it for snacking. That, I think, has continued to open the door. That was one of the brands we had a real challenge on supply with that we're now back in full strength. We've got some great innovation coming. I tried a Ghost Pepper habanero. If you haven't tried the Ghost Pepper Chunky Soup, you should try that. If you haven't watched the guys on Yahoo Finance try it online, that's really funny to watch. I've never seen anyone so more uncomfortable trying to get through it. Look, it's, you know, spice is king right now, and I think our ability to bring that through Pace is exciting as well.
Great. And maybe just to wrap up on meals, and Carrie, would love to get your perspective on this as well. Just thinking about the margins, you have a long-term, you know, operating margin target of 21% or so. Doesn't call for a ton of expansion from here, maybe, you know, a couple 100 basis points. Just wondering, if we break that down from a gross and operating standpoint, how are we, you know, viewing that? Is it all gross margin expansion and you're reinvesting? Just help us frame that.
Yeah. I think, in terms of some of the structural pieces of what's happened with COVID, there's some transitory headwinds that I think will come back, and that's probably a couple 100 basis points as we look at overall margins for the company. I do think that we have the opportunity to move closer to where we were pre-COVID, and I think that's gonna come through continuing to work network optimization opportunities, productivity initiatives, innovation on the net sales side, on both sides of the division. I do think there's opportunity to get close to that pre-COVID level, as we kind of get more clarity on the macro backdrop.
I still think there is still some headwinds there this year for sure, but I think as we move past and we get more clarity on that, I think there's certainly opportunity for margin opportunity there.
Yeah. I do think, look, one of the things that's unique about Campbell right now is that we do have in our outlook for the, for the next several years. The opportunity to generate outsized margin expansion for snacks, that's really, you know, if you think about the algorithm for the company and you're looking for, you know, compelling proof points, that self-help opportunity of having that margin gap that we believe we can reduce is I think something that, you know, for some of my peers, you're gonna have to kinda engineer what that next catalyst is. It's nice to have that within the company. Again, everything that we've been executing and doing, we continue to feel very confident that path is there.
Maybe that's a good place to switch over to talking about.
Snacks.
You know, snacks. Mark, you know, it was a great two Q for snacks, particularly on the salty side. You know, why is the momentum there? How is it sustainable? Do you see it going forward?
Yeah. I mean, Well, look, I think as I said earlier, it was a great quarter to have kinda all the, you know, pistons firing, if you will, right? We've always had, like, this kinda, you know, it's all great but or, you know, that qualification of opportunity. This was a quarter where we really had all the pieces together. You know, when I step back and I think about our snacks portfolio, right, 50% of our business, we play in almost every major snack segment, but we play in it with a differentiated, somewhat more premium offering. That I think is what makes us unique, right? We're in potato chips, but we're in with kettle potato chips. We're tortilla chips, but we're Late July for organic and GMO-free. You're cookies, but we're Farmhouse, Milano.
Cracker, but you're Goldfish, right? You just go right down the line, every one of those categories, and to have that, we call it elevated, but that elevated experience, which is where ultimately consumers are moving in snacking, it gives us, to me, a very, and probably underappreciated, at least from my standpoint coming in, I think a bit underappreciated how compelling that portfolio really is. Even in places where we're, you know, arguably a bit more mainstream, like pretzels, you know, there's been significant category drivers that we're taking advantage of, that's making those categories, or Lance sandwich crackers, opportunities to really be, you know, pretty complete, at least in our power brands, right? We talk about eight brands. That was growing 20% in the last quarter.
I just think a very. You pair that again with the self-help story on margin, you know, I think you can make an argument for being one of the more attractive snacking portfolios that's in the marketplace today.
Can we talk a little bit about, you know, one of the questions we field a lot is the promotional environment and maybe more on salty than anything. You've spoken at length about this in the past, but just how do you see it? Do you see it as a more seasonal cadence around holidays? I mean, how should we be thinking about that?
Look, I think that if you were out of supply, and, you know, again, I'm very careful here. Last time I spoke on this, I think, the stock went down 7% in, like, five minutes. I mean, I don't know why it's so complicated to get, but I'll let me take another swing at it. Someone watch the stock and make sure it doesn't start down. The short answer is, when we weren't supplying the businesses, we weren't supporting them. I don't care who you are, what brand it is, you're gonna have support in snacks, right? It's a category that requires a level of promotion. We're not gonna chase it down.
We're actually, I think, going to be more efficient than we were historically because inevitably, you have things that get built into your history that aren't always the most efficient. When I think about promotional support for the business going forward, I think of a normalized level, arguably favorable to where you would have been in the past, but present. If you're in the snack business and you're suggesting that you're not gonna need to ever promote the business, good. I hope those are the big guys saying that because that's just not the way the category ultimately works. So I think there's a balance here that I feel very good about. If you watch the last two quarters, like in Q2, we drove that growth on snacks while growing margin at the same time.
Hopefully that feels like good, strong, compelling evidence to the pragmatism that I'm describing, not an irrational chase to the bottom.
Great. We just wanna do another check for if there's any other questions in the room. Brian.
Brian. Last.
From the back.
Yeah.
Two questions. One, Mark, on the last point, just on promotions, and you don't have to answer this specific to Campbell's and snacks, but just more broadly. As we go into the summer holidays, do you expect to start to see a more normal promotional cadence as we move into Memorial Day, July 4th?
Yep.
It's been really abnormal.
Yeah.
That's the first question is we're observing it from the outside. Should we expect that, you know, retailers wanna kinda get back in the box?
Sure, yeah.
Merchandise?
I think so, right? I mean, I think the summer holidays are always, you know, a really important time in the snacks world. I think you'll see a fairly competitive environment. You know, I've talked a lot about the fact that my sense is that, you know, you'll probably see that in a more judicious way. Like I said, I don't think anybody's gonna wanna rush back to dysfunctional pricing or things that are gonna look like, "Oh my gosh, I'm down a share point. I'm gonna buy it back in this holiday." I do think you're gonna see an environment that feels more normal. I, you know, I think depending on where you might have been through the journey will depend how much incremental or balance you may make to investment.
I've said for us as a company. Look at the whole year, maybe it's a 200 basis points out of our net pricing that one might imagine being in promotion. We did a little better than that actually in Q2. I think that's probably not an unreasonable expectation. Certainly we're preparing for that to be more of a category dynamic than something that we're, you know, doing on our own.
Normalcy, right?
Normal. This is not. I mean, again, I'm not sure what the catalyst would be other than if you're really losing on volume and share. You know, even then, I mean, taking the profitability out of the category is certainly none of our objectives. It's like we're getting pressure to do that. You know, I think customers as well, you know, are expecting us to support our businesses. At the end of the day, I think everything that we've been part of has been very constructive in nature.
Pete mentioned that the Analyst Day in 2019 and, you know, there's obviously been a lot of success in the journey you've had in meals. Can you just, like, what inning are we in now in snacks, right? In terms of.
Yeah.
kind of where you wanna be.
Uh-huh. Yeah.
Just give us a perspective on that.
What inning are we in? Well, I think, you know, the part that's the hardest, I think, for people to see, in fairness, is the progress that we've made on the margin, right? I think there is some, you know, more of an environmental obscuring of the things that we've actually done and executed. That's why we feel like, as things normalize, you've probably got 200 basis points of the journey that's already there, that we think we'll be benefiting from over the next year or so, two years maybe at the most, that ends up becoming a, I think, a proof point.
On the top line standpoint, when it, when it relates to innovation, capacity, supply chain, I'd say probably more like, and route to market I'd throw in there, I'd probably say something more like the sixth inning, right? I think we're around the corner. I think we're ready to compete on a relatively level playing field. I feel great about the innovation pipeline we have and the execution of our business. I think there's still some things we can do in the independent distributor world to really make DSD as effective as it possibly can. I think there's some logistics pieces that are still efficiency plays that we can drive. Wanna get the whole headquarters together, right? I feel like that, you know, that you're not complete until you've got that done as well.
I feel like we're in a position now where from a growth standpoint, you should expect to see sustained strength there, and start to understand where do we really sit in the pecking order of snack companies. You know, my ambition for us is to be the fastest growing. I really think we can be. Given the positioning of our businesses, how well we've cleaned up the portfolio. If you remember, Brian, three years ago when we started talking about this, we had this big partner brand headwind that we were dealing with, like, every quarter. You know, in the last quarter, I think that was down to 4% of the business. If you remember, it was over 10 when we started. We've done a good job now. I think what we have left is what we want.
I think we're in a really good position as it relates to growth to drive it.
Is, is the opportunity as we think about being the fastest grower, is it channel? You know, is it.
Yeah. I mean.
Is that really?
Part of it, when I say that, it doesn't mean we've captured all the opportunity, right? One of the things that has been a fact about this business is we didn't have really the packaging flexibility to go after, even something as simple as multi-packs, right? You go in and you look at the competitive landscape in snacking, and there's some of our competitors who've got 30, 40 variety packs. We just couldn't do it. Now we're able to do it. That also opens up convenience, which if you were just to take a fair share of convenience based on our retail share, it'd be worth $100 million.
Even simpler than that, brands like Kettle are still primarily, although I would argue one of the strongest brands we've got in the portfolio, it's still really a Western-based brand that has national distribution opportunity that's worth significant growth. I just think we're now in a position to go after those. We haven't done that yet, but I think that's gonna give us a lot of, and should hopefully give people a lot of confidence in the ability to grow the business.
Thanks, Mark.
Great. Well, if you haven't tried the Kettle Air Fried Chips.
Yeah, very cool.
I'll plug those 'cause they went in, like, two seconds.
Yeah, I know. We're making as fast as we can.
We're at time. Mark and Carrie, thank you both so much.
Thank you.
Really appreciate it. [crosstalk]
Thanks, guys. Yeah, appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. Always good to see you guys.
Thanks.