Welcome to the Dole plc third quarter 2022 earnings conference call and webcast. Today's conference is being broadcast live over the internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. For opening remarks and introductions, I would now like to turn the call over to Head of Investor Relations with Dole plc, James O'Regan.
Thank you, Elliot. Welcome everybody, and thank you for taking the time to join our third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today is our Chief Executive Officer, Rory Byrne, our Chief Operating Officer, Johan Linden, and our Chief Financial Officer, Jacinta Devine. During this call, we'll be referring to presentation slides with supplemental remarks. These, along with our earnings release, financial statements and other related materials, are available on the investor relations section of the Dole plc website. Please note our remarks today will include certain forward-looking statements within the provisions of the Federal Securities Safe Harbor Law. These reflect circumstances at the time they are made. The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.
Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied due to a wide range of factors, including those set forth in our SEC filings and press releases. Information regarding the use of non-GAAP financial measures may be found in our press release, which also includes a reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures. Our financial statements for the third quarter were also filed with the SEC earlier today and contain reported financial information for the quarters ended 30 September 2022 and 30 September 2021, and the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021. Our earnings press release and investor presentation also reference pro-forma comparative financial information.
This pro forma information illustrates Dole plc's results for the third quarter and first nine months of 2021, as if the merger, IPO and refinancing had occurred on January 1, 2020. This is consistent with the pro forma financial information presented in the Form F-1 filed with the SEC in connection with the IPO. With that, I'm pleased to turn today's call over to Rory.
Thank you, James, and welcome everybody, and thank you for joining us today. Well, we're very pleased that the group has delivered strong results for the third quarter. On a pro forma comparative basis, excluding the impact of currency translation and net M&A activity, revenue increased by approximately 5% as compared to the third quarter of 2021. Adjusted EBITDA of $73 million was ahead of expectations and significantly ahead of the prior year. The significant increase in adjusted EBITDA was driven by a strong performance in our Fresh Fruit segment, offset in part by the ongoing recovery in our Vegetables business and a specific challenge in our Diversified Americas segment in the quarter. Adjusted net income and EPS also increased significantly compared to the prior year, driven by the increase in adjusted EBITDA.
In the third quarter, we continued to have a strong focus operationally on cash flow, and we are pleased to announce today a cash dividend for the third quarter of $0.08 per share. This continues our commitment to return cash to shareholders. Turning to slide eight for our operational highlights. In our Fresh Fruit segment, we delivered a strong result for the quarter. North America and Commercial cargo operations continue to perform very well, with healthy demand, positive market pricing and good shipping rates. In Europe, high shipping rates and adverse currency movements continue to impact on performance. However, we are making good progress in managing these challenges. Supply and demand dynamics in the banana market overall have been unprecedented in 2022, and this remains a key factor as we work towards the end of this year and continue with negotiations for 2023.
Overall, with our diverse sourcing base, our leading customer profile, we believe we're well-placed to have a strong finish to 2022 and a positive outlook for 2023 in this division. Our Diversified EMEA segment continued to trade well on a like-for-like basis in Q3, despite increasing inflationary pressures in our core markets, again demonstrating the ability to price dynamically and benefit from product and geographic diversity. Our Diversified Americas segment was impacted by a specific issue at the end of the Chilean grape season in North America. Significant supply chain disruptions led to exceptional volume disposals that impacted profitability. The overall scale and range of activity in our diversified segments reduces the impacts of the Chilean grape issue when we look at our results on a full-year basis, demonstrating again the benefit of a wide range of products and geographies.
Our third quarter performance in Fresh Vegetables remained disappointing, and while we're making progress on our turnaround plan, it is slower than we would like. Category demand was softer in Q3 and ongoing inflation continues in important cost areas. In addition, we faced higher sourcing costs due to weather-related events in key California and growing regions, which impacted the entire industry. More positively, however, our detailed turnaround plan is beginning to yield benefits. From a volume perspective, we recently achieved a number of important customer wins as we look to build back up our volume base for 2023. In all major areas of operation, we have developed detailed profit improvement plans and we are monitoring these closely. We continue to explore all strategic alternatives for this segment and expect to see a recovery in 2023.
With that, I'll hand you over to Jacinta to give the financial review.
Thank you, Rory. Good morning and good afternoon. Please turn to slide 10. As Rory mentioned, we delivered a strong performance for the third quarter when compared to the prior year. Revenue for the third quarter decreased marginally against the pro-forma comparative, driven by negative FX movements and the impact of M&A in our Diversified EMEA segment and lower volumes in our Vegetable segment.
On a like-for-like basis, revenue increased 5% driven by inflation-justified price increases. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter increased 26% to $73 million, with the increase driven by a strong performance in the Fresh Fruit segment. Similar to Q2, foreign currency translation impacted results by $4 million. Stripping this out, adjusted EBITDA increased 32% on a like-for-like basis. Turning to slide 11. adjusted net income was $13.5 million for the third quarter, significantly ahead of the prior year. The increase was driven by higher adjusted EBITDA, which offset an increase in interest expense. Adjusted fully diluted EPS for the quarter was $0.14 compared to $0.07 in the prior year, and $0.03 on a pro-forma comparative basis, again, driven by the increase in adjusted EBITDA.
I will now provide some more detail on each of the individual segments, starting with Fresh Fruit on slide 13. We continued to see good momentum in this segment, with revenue for the third quarter increasing 11.7% compared to the pro forma comparison. The increase was driven by higher worldwide pricing and commercial cargo at higher volumes of bananas in North America. This was partially offset by lower volumes for bananas in Europe and Latin America. Adjusted EBITDA increased 200% from $17 million to $51 million for the quarter, driven by higher revenue. Moving to Diversified Fresh Produce EMEA on slide 14. As with prior quarters, revenue in this segment continues to be impacted by foreign currency translation. On a like-for-like basis, revenue increased 4%, driven by a strong performance across the division and overall higher pricing.
Similarly, adjusted EBITDA decreased on a reported basis due to foreign currency translation. However, on a like-for-like basis, adjusted EBITDA increased slightly by 0.1%. Turning to Diversified Fresh Produce, Americas and rest of world. Revenue for the third quarter increased 5.8%, continuing the good momentum seen in the first half of the year. The increase was driven by higher overall average selling prices, particularly in North American markets for avocados, potatoes and onions. Our results in this segment were impacted by a difficult end to the Chilean grape season in North America, leading to a loss in the quarter. Finally turning to Fresh Vegetables. Lower volumes contributed to a 5% reduction in revenue for the quarter.
The segment continues to recover from the impact of the Value Added Salads recall and plant suspensions at the outset of the year, as well as lower category demand. Lower revenue, along with persistent inflation in input costs and specific industry-wide weather challenges in California growing regions, led to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $9 million for the quarter. Now turning to slide 17. Capital expenditures for the third quarter were $27 million, and we now have invested $67 million year-to-date, spread over reinvestments in farms and glasshouses in our growing regions, the acquisition of an additional farm in Peru and efficiencies in logistics, warehousing and processing closer to the market. We are now expecting capital expenditure of $95 million for the year, a reduction of $50 million from our previous guidance. The reduction follows a reassessment of capital projects within the group.
Working capital remains elevated, mainly due to the precautionary measures taken earlier in the year to build up inventories and also due to the inflationary impact of input costs. We expect to see this unwind due to the normal seasonal working capital intake at this time of year. However, we do still see a higher underlying level of working capital this year compared to prior years. Our net leverage at the end of the quarter was 3.4x. We expect leverage to decrease further in the final quarter of 2022, as seasonal working capital outflows unwind. Turning to slide 18. We also continue to focus on our disappointing share price and believe that our valuable strategic asset base is not being fully recognized.
To highlight this, we have included a slide in our investor presentation, setting out a sum of the parts valuation approach using a two-division structure. The asset division more than covers the total debt, while the operating division currently generates adjusted EBITDA of $230 million-$250 million on a debt-free basis after charging a proxy lease payment to service the debt. This is one example of the real value in Dole that we believe is not being reflected in our current share price. Now, I will hand you back to Rory who will give an update on our full year outlook and closing remarks.
Thank you, Jacinta. Well, the economic environment does remain dynamic as we progress towards the end of 2022, and we continue to see positive trends and some ongoing challenges. It's clear that the global economy is difficult, with inflation and interest rates continuing to rise. We remain highly focused on operating efficiencies, capital discipline and seeking price increases to compensate for cost increases. We believe we're well positioned with a broad portfolio of healthy and nutritious products in an industry that does continue to be underpinned by strong fundamentals. However, we now expect our full year adjusted EBITDA to be at the lower end of the previously guided range due to the ongoing challenges in our Fresh Vegetables segment, which have slowed its recovery, as well as the specific Q3 issue at the end of the Chilean grape season in North America.
In conclusion, we remain positive on our medium- to long-term outlook and are intensely focused on our short-term priorities for the remainder of 2022 and into 2023. Our principal priorities are clearly the turnaround of our Value Added Salads business, focusing on cost control and operating efficiencies across all our businesses, including the ongoing synergy projects, continuing with the disciplined approach to capital. Before I conclude, I would like to highlight that in the first nine months of the year, three out of our four segments have performed well, especially considering the complex operating environment, and we're very focused on the turnaround of our Fresh Vegetables business. I wanna finish by thanking again our committed team for their ongoing efforts to drive our business forward, and also by thanking our critical partners and customers for their ongoing support, which allows us to look to the future with great confidence.
With that, I'll hand back to the Operator, and we can open the line for questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from Adam Samuelson from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Morning, Adam.
Morning. I guess first question, as we think about kind of the performance in the quarter and the outlook in Fresh Vegetables, can we maybe talk about from where we are in ending the third quarter at the EBITDA loss and help us think about the trajectory and pathway and what has to happen for that to be a positive EBITDA contributor, if not in the fourth quarter and certainly in calendar 2023?
Yeah. Maybe I can take that one, Rory. We are very happy with the work that the division is doing right now. We are focusing on servicing the customers and because we know good service in the end leads to new customer contracts and much easier pricing discussions. We are focusing and doing good progress on our turnaround plan. We're executing on that plan. There is a lot of different facets to that plan. It's about reviewing all the costs that we're having. It's reviewing all the pricing that we have with customers. We're looking at our SKUs. Do we have the right SKUs considering that we are potentially entering into a recession? We know it's high inflation out there, so people are looking for more value, high value or affordable products.
We're looking at discussion with the customers to see if we can increase some of the volumes. We're also looking at the structure, including our own capacity. What has happened in the end of Q3 and which will impact Q4 is that there has been a complete crop failure in the industry. This is not a Dole isolated incident. This goes across the whole industry, where almost 30%-40% of all the iceberg and romaine has failed. That is due to an extreme heat that we had in the beginning or late summer, beginning of the fall, followed by rain. That crop failure, combined with market being somewhat soft for Value Added products, Value Added is a little bit higher, has put the quarter to become challenging. This doesn't change how we look at 2023 going forward.
Okay. Just to be clear, and I know you're not giving guidance, but can you help maybe give some parameters on how you would be thinking about 2023?
No, I don't think we.
I-
Go ahead, Rory Byrne.
I think, yeah, it's a little early to give a more comprehensive update on 2023, Adam. I think what we'll do is, as we finish out the year, we'll be more logical and sensible from an investor perspective to give a more comprehensive update in the next quarter on where we see 2023. On an overall basis, as Johan says, you know, we're just getting a run of bad luck in this division, and certainly the current production issues out in Salinas and California have been very unhelpful.
You know, a very good management team and that they just need a little bit more impetus and help to get over the hump at the moment. We're making good progress on all the profit improvement plans, and we'll update on the next call what our view on 2023 is.
Okay. If I could just ask a separate question, 'cause in the slide deck, you did introduce this kinda asset-light, kind of sum-of-the-parts. Is a sale-leaseback type transaction or is that some sort of corporate split to effectuate that kind of earnings profile under serious consideration at this juncture? If not, just help to think about what would get you to that point, probably.
Yeah. I mean, it's really just to illustrate to investors the very valuable long-term assets that we do have in this business. We see them as integral to our existing business. We don't actually have any plans to separate them or do a sale and leaseback of those assets. They are very important to us. You know, you look around at some of the farm REITs, particularly in the U.S. farm REIT space. You know, they have very high valuations, and people are seeing the value in long-term farming and other assets. In this slide, we're just, you know, at a micro level, just setting it out for investors. Look, this is what you own.
You have some good net assets in the long-term asset division, and you've got some asset-light debt-free EBITDA of a significant amount, and it should attract a significantly greater value. In the short term, we're not actually thinking about splitting the company. We like having the two pieces together, but you can actually look at them as two separately valuable businesses under the one ownership structure.
All right. That's all really helpful. I'll pass it on. Thanks.
Thanks, Adam.
Our next question comes from Roland French from Davy. Your line is open.
Thank you. Uh, hi, everybody. Hope you're keeping well. Um, I have a couple of questions as well, if I could. Um, maybe just starting on the banana business, um, and maybe an update on, uh, in terms of color around contracting since we last spoke, um, i.e., I guess, how have interactions gone across Europe and North America, as well as, um, maybe just some color around the supply situation. Has it, uh, has it gotten better, uh, worse? Has it remained the same? Uh, so that's the first question on banana contracting. And then maybe just on the cost environment. I know in the outlook you talk about currently seeing some positive trends and I guess you caveat that with some further challenges. Just maybe kind of breaking that out in context of some of your key, uh, cost buckets.
Finally, and somewhat related, just on the supply chain, I know there's clearly been friction over the last 12, 18, 24 months, to generally how the supply chain has improved or disimproved since we last spoke.
Maybe, Johan, you take the first, and I'll pick up the other two.
All right. When it comes to bananas, it's been an absolutely interesting year. We started out having one view on how the year would develop, and everything changed when Russia decided to invade Ukraine. What happened then is that we had a lot of demand destructions. Demand fell off. We had to readjust supply. Cost for important input materials went up. Fertilizers, but actually also paper, the box that we are using, and FX collapsed, the euro collapsed. Although taking this backdrop, we've been performing very well within the division. We're now entering in the most intense negotiation period when we are negotiating with the customers.
As we said on the last call, we expect the supply situation to become tight, and it has become tight. Supply has come down, probably even a little bit further than we have expected. Right now we are in a situation when we're going out to meet customers, when we feel relatively comfortable that we will be able to pass on the cost increases that we have, just because of the tight supply situation. Of course, this is also, to a certain extent, complicating the negotiations that we have with our suppliers, but I think if you put them all together, we're ending up in a good position here looking into the next year.
Just following on with your other couple of questions, Roland, I mean, on the cost environment, you know, it's very hard to call whether, you know, inflation has peaked or not peaked. We've seen even this week, some of the European countries' inflation rates were slightly down. On the other hand, the U.K. rate of inflation was considerably up at something like 45-year highs, as you will know. I think in some of our segments, we are seeing some easing of inflation, but it's a little bit early to call.
And in terms of the supply chain, I mean, obviously, you know, at the end of the second quarter, we had just some really strong impact because of port congestion that had, you know, an unfortunate and big impact on our Chilean grape business, where ships were parked off the ports for really just too long to hold the quality of the fruit and discharging it. They weren't suitable for supermarket programs and lots of knock-on consequences. We're seeing some easing of port congestion, particularly in some of the areas of the U.S. And then fuel's a little bit better. And shipping, there are some evidence that shipping rates are maybe coming off their highs, but we've yet to see it come through in a material way.
So it's just a little... I mean, I think, I think supply chain is better than it has been, and hopefully it'll settle down. And cost are probably a little too early to call whether we've hit the peak or not.
Okay. Great. Maybe just a quick follow-up. How seasonal is the Chilean grape business?
It's very seasonal.
Great.
It runs for a number of months, really from, you know, the early part of the year.
Gotcha. Great. Thanks very much. Best of luck.
Thanks, Roland.
We now turn to Ben Bienvenu from Stephens. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks so much. Morning.
Morning, Ben.
I wanna ask about the comment you made on pricing. You noted that you expect to make continued pricing increases as we move forward, and I'm curious, are there categories in which you feel like you have more opportunity to take price versus others? What are you seeing so far with respect to consumer reaction to pricing increases you've taken?
Yeah. I mean, obviously you look at our most important category being bananas, and it's starting from a low base. You know, I think there's a willingness to, you know, acknowledge cost increases, which can then get reflected in price increases to the consumer. You know, there's been some ups and downs, as Johan described, in terms of availability, supply, but I don't think we're seeing any fundamental change in consumer demand. I think pricing in some of the other higher priced categories, you know, you look at mangoes, papayas, organics or products like that, it can be a little bit harder to get through significant price increases without affecting somewhat demand in those categories.
We stand back from it, though, and we don't, I mean, there can be ups and downs and it, you know, varies quite a bit across all of the different markets. Even within Europe, there are different supply, demand and consumer demand. If you look at Spain versus Sweden or Ireland versus Holland, it does vary a lot. Standing back from it, we do not see any fundamental shift in the consumer desire to eat high quality fruit and veg that we supply.
Okay, great. My second question was just related to M&A. Can you talk a little bit about what the environment offers you? Are there particular opportunities that you're looking at that you're excited about or focused on? You know, if you could kind of characterize the robustness of the pipeline that you have ahead of you, that would be helpful.
Yeah. I mean, obviously with the year that we've had, a huge and overwhelming focus of the entire management team is to try and get the veg division turned around. We keep an eye on what's happening in the M&A world. We, you know who the interesting companies are in the different segments, whether that's, you know, berries or bananas or distribution or avocados. We've got a very good database. I think one of the interesting things about M&A is, you know, if you look at the three divisions being Fresh Fruit, they're diversified in Americas and diversified in Europe. Pretty much all of our competitor companies are performing similarly well.
You know, we're not seeing any fundamental change in the value of those companies, so we're not seeing any fire sales or anything, or any great opportunities to buy any companies cheaply because the sector is actually doing well, and it's a little bit unfortunate for us. We've got the one division that we've got more work to do to fix. You know, we're keeping our eyes open on the opportunities that are out there. Short term, we've got probably some different priorities in terms of just getting, you know, more confidence with investors, delivering the numbers, getting the veg business back on track. You know, we have ongoing discussions with our M&A pipeline, and at appropriate time, we think we can add in interesting pieces to the group.
Great. Thanks so much.
Thank you, Ben.
Our next question comes from Christopher Barnes from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks for the question. Rory, I just wanted to pick up on a line that you just mentioned on the consumer. With recession risk still palpable, inflation still high in absolute terms, are you noticing any, like, shifts in consumer behavior, whether that's trading down, shifting the shopping channels that they're in? I think you mentioned that there's still a propensity to consume, which is great, but has there been any shift, whether in North America and Europe, that's concerning you from a consumer behavior perspective?
You know, I mean, obviously all of the points you make, Christopher, are absolutely right. I mean, inflation, nervousness, lack of disposable income. I mean, thankfully, fruit and veg tend to be low down the list of discretionary items that people stop buying them. It's actually difficult to measure it, but I mean, we haven't seen any material change in consumer behavior. You know, some of the higher-priced categories that I mentioned might be under a little more pressure, but it's not a material shift in demand where consumers are not continuing to buy things like mangoes and papayas that might be a little bit higher priced per kg.
You know, we look back, you know, some of the businesses have been around long enough, you know, have seen, you know, periods of difficult economies in the past. You go back to the European financial crisis back in the end of the 2000s, with some short-term dips in some demand from consumers. You know, maybe some of the discounters who, you know, offer a narrower range. You know, the people do think about them a little bit more in this period. We're not really concerned that there's any kind of fundamental shift in consumer behavior towards fresh fruit and vegetable consumption.
Okay, thanks. That's helpful. I know you're not guiding to 2023 just given where we are. Just since it's mid-November, is there anything you can share on performance like quarter to date across the divisions? Like, it sounds like Fresh Vegetables is gonna be a little bit weaker than you'd anticipated. Like, how should we think about the other businesses just into 4Q, just considering the range that you've guided?
Yeah, we're pretty happy with the other three divisions. You know, obviously, we look at our European business, and the biggest impact is really the FX rates. You look at things like our currencies, like the euro, 11% year-over-year depreciation. The Swedish krona, which is important to us, 17% year-over-year movement against the dollar. When you're retranslating and reporting in dollars, that has quite a material impact on your numbers. I guess even on a day-to-day trading basis, when you're importing, as we do into, you know, euro markets and SEK markets, you know, with a currency that's significantly weaker and adding in inflationary pressures, it does put a little bit of pressure on those business, but nothing material.
We're pretty happy with our diversified businesses. Our Fresh Fruit business, you know, we've got a really, really strong position in the banana and pineapple business. You know, number one guy in North America. We've got an A-list customer base. We're really appreciative of support we get from our customers. We work hard to make sure we meet all the service levels and requirements, and we've done that right through COVID times, right through supply complication times. You know, our customers, I think, appreciate that and work hard with them then to make sure that the cost chain items are appropriately reflected on the price. With the exception of the vegetable business and foreign exchange, we're feeling pretty good, you know.
Okay, great. Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Our next question comes from Ken Zaslow from Bank of Montreal . Your line is open.
Hey, guys. How are you?
Good, Ken.
Just two questions. My first one is, when you talk about the Chilean grape crop, and then you talked about the extreme heat on iceberg, you said that it contained to this quarter. Does it not impact next year on the lettuce side? You said it, you know, your outlook for 2023 would not change on that. Is there a reason why a 30%-40% change, is it seasonal? Is there something to think about? It sounds like Chilean crop is seasonal. I have a second question.
Okay. On the Chilean one, it was actually nothing to do particularly with the crop, but the logistical issues that we had, which meant that ships and large volumes of products couldn't get discharged in the right time. Obviously you're dealing with a perishable product, and then it gets delayed, and then the subsequent season product starts to arrive into the market at the same time. We're working on it. It was just exceptionally unusual this year. We're working on the basis that those supply chain disruptions going into 2023 will not reoccur, and we don't expect them to reoccur. You know, we're looking at how we manage that to avoid the same magnitude of problem or problems that we had at the end of the season.
The iceberg situation and the lettuce situation, I mean, it is a very unusual situation in terms of the crop failure that Johan has described. You know, we haven't seen such a dramatic one in quite a while, but I think, you know, it's an unusual set of weather circumstances that's been partly responsible for it. We, you know, see some other areas of production that can compensate for that or that you don't repeat that crop failure going into 2023. I don't know if there's anything further you want to add on that one, Johan, that might help Ken understand a little better.
Yeah, no, the crop failure was at the tail end of the California season, and we're now moving into the Arizona or we are in Arizona. It will have a little bit of an impact on our Arizona season just because we were starting then a little bit earlier than expected, but we should have cycled out of that coming into January 2023.
Okay. My second and far more important question is, I hear you on the asset value and how you think about it. My question is, if you were to look back a year and now, and look forward three years, do you think your earnings power has changed based on the environment that we're in? Do you think it stays where you would have thought it would be? Can you give the pluses and minuses of how that will kinda emerge given your opinion?
Yeah, I think if we look back over the last year, as I said a couple of times on the call, our three segments from Fresh Fruit and our two diversified businesses, you stand back and you say, "Look, they've performed pretty solidly." You know, you look at a European business on a like-for-like basis, we're pretty happy with it. A few ups and downs here, but they're balancing out. Against the backdrop of, you know, the most unusual economic environment pretty much all of us on this call will have lived in our lives. You know, the war in Europe, you know, with the Russian-Ukrainian situation, the disruption to logistics caused by COVID and still enduring. I think with that backdrop, we performed well on our Fresh Fruit business.
Given our market position and given our diversity of sourcing, our shipping capacity, our infrastructural capacity, our management capacity within that division, I think, you know, we're feeling pretty good that those three divisions can continue to perform and we can hopefully build our profitability by bringing even more so the two legacy groups together. The big problem has been the Vegetable division, and we're really focused on the turnaround plan. I think Johan described it recently. We just can't catch a break at the moment on that division. The unfortunate crop failure situation where you've got lower volumes going into plants that depend on higher volumes to cover fixed costs and things like that just make our turnaround plan, it delays the implementation. We're doing well. We're, you know, picking up volume.
We've got some great work going on in terms of all different aspects of the business, from operational efficiency to cost efficiency to management to food safety. All, every single area is under the microscope. You know what? I'm feeling that we're, you know, given the business backdrop and the world backdrop, you know, all we need is, you know, maybe the exchange rate moves a little bit between the euro and dollar. If we got really lucky, maybe somehow or other Russia can be convinced to step back from the Ukraine. I think even from a psychological point of view, if somebody could do that, it, you know, would change just economies just from, you know, people feeling a little less nervous about where the world is.
Some of those macro effects, obviously they're outside of our control, but overall, you know, we're not feeling bad about life. You know, we're looking forward to the future pretty positively.
Great. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Ken.
This concludes our Q&A. I'm gonna hand over to Rory Byrne, CEO, for final remarks.
Okay. Thank you everybody for joining us today. You know, I think it's, you know, good Q3 numbers for us. A huge improvement on the prior year. Three out of our four divisions performed very well. A little bit unlucky in our Fresh Vegetables division, but we'll get there. I think, you know, we've just got to take a more medium to longer term view on it. We've got a great business with some really fantastic product market positions, some really fantastic geographic positions, and we look to the future with confidence. Thank you very much.
Today's call is now concluded.