All right. I think we're ready to go. Welcome, everybody. Good morning. I'm Steve Powers. I'm the head of Deutsche Bank's US Consumer Staples franchise, and I am thrilled to welcome back McCormick & Company to the Deutsche Bank Consumer Conference. With us today are Brendan Foley, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. There is no presentation today. We're just gonna have a little chat, run through some of the key aspects of the business and go from there.
I will note that McCormick is in a quiet period, so we will, you know, refrain from going too deep into current trends as they're scheduled to report earnings in a few weeks. Let me start off, Brendan, with you. It's been, I guess, nine months now, almost exactly, since you officially took over as CEO. I mean, as you reflect back, again, what would you say your key learnings have been? And is there any nuance as to how you perceive the strategic imperatives facing McCormick today versus when you first came into the seat?
Thanks, Steven. Hello, everybody. You know, I guess maybe just to start out, McCormick has a really, a long history of just really strong performance, I think, in the market, and especially in delivering volume growth. And when I did, you know, kind of come into the role about, you know, nine months ago, I mean, there are certain things that we were gonna be really consistent with. I mean, the strategic imperatives of growth, performance, and people remain the same in terms of how we think about our business. We operate in great categories with, you know, certainly great, nice long-term tailwinds, and so, you know, that remains the same.
But we certainly took a look at the business and said, "You know, we really want to make sure we get back to that history of volume growth, you know, overall in the business." And so, you know, that was important, I think, to make sure that we established that. But, you know, looking back nine months ago, we also said, "Hey, this is a different time." The environment, you know, in terms of how to operate, is a lot different than it was pre-pandemic.
And we felt like. We decided we need to just really put a lot more investment into our business to make sure that we were getting back to that long-term, high quality, you know, high-quality growth. And it was a lot about focusing our execution on these really core important basics, particularly in our core categories. And so, you know, that was a really important element that I'm, you know, I'm glad that we really thought through. Reflecting back on that...
Mm-hmm.
If I were to say, okay, over nine months now, after we've put that in place, you know, how do we feel about it? We really believe our business is headed in the right direction. You know, we certainly saw that, you know, kind of reaffirm itself in the fourth quarter and in the first quarter, and so we feel pretty good about that. And, you know, as we thought, the consumer remains pretty challenged just due to the compounding impact of inflation, and we feel like we made the right choice to really invest in meeting where consumers, where they are. And that was an important element, I think, of our narrative back then, about nine months ago, and I think it's still playing out true today. And we start to really...
We're seeing in our programs the right, the right business results start to yield. So we feel pretty good about the direction that we're heading in, you know, based on the way we looked at everything about nine months ago. We continue to refine our plans. We continue to look at our investments to make sure we're putting in the right areas to drive that long-term growth. But as we look at the year, we still have a lot of confidence as we go into the back half of the year. It's gonna set us up from a volume growth standpoint, particularly going into 2025. And so that remains pretty consistent with the way we think about things. I would say the other, the other area, just reflecting back in the kind of the context of your question, is just from a people perspective.
You know, first, from a leadership angle, you know, I took a hard look at how we were really organized from a leadership perspective, and what I chose to do was expand the Operating Committee to include other functions like Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Chief Science Officer, and IT. That was a little bit of a shift for us, but I really felt like that was gonna be important to really accelerate those voices to the table as we think about the effectiveness of our decision-making and the speed at which we're gonna move. Looking back, I feel really good about that, too, only because it really has only made us, I think, a little bit more effective. We're just more agile as a management team, you know, because we've done that.
The other element of it, we're putting a lot more time into communicating and cascading the organization's strategies through the organization. I made it a big priority just to be visible in every region throughout the year, and I think that's paid off. I'm doing that with our team. We're making sure that we get out to every region, every market, and talk about the strategies. And, I think spending that amount of time is also really paying off because we just like people more empowered and more aligned with what we're trying to get done, you know, for, you know, our year.
So, you know, when we thought about, you know, a question like this, I mean, those are the big things that came up: people, and are we making the right decisions at the front end of that first nine months? Do they feel like still the right decisions today? I think in a lot of ways, they do. When we think about our long-term growth algorithm, the organization's excited. You know, it elevated, I think, the energy level and our leadership team is really confident about our ability to hit that long-term algorithm over time. So this is where we stand today.
Okay. Great. You touched upon this, but there's a number of priorities for 2024. You know, the first of them is to strengthen the leadership position in your core categories on a global basis. If we drill into that a bit, you know, and give us some sense of how you're doing against that objective, how you're measuring that leadership strength, and ultimately, how you rate early success.
I think the first thing to call out is, you know, let's recall, we operate in great categories, so, you know, our, our foundation begins there. And I think that's a, you know, important element to, to just remember, 'cause not everyone gets to operate in great categories, and we do. And it's something I think we're really, you know, making sure that we are not taken for granted. That top priority was to really establish even stronger leadership and differentiation in, in those core categories in which we operate in. And, but, but I would say the nuance was to do so, though, with a lot more competitive edge and investment in those core categories.
And, you know, that's just sort of been a familiar narrative and theme as we've been talking, I think, you know, externally, is to make sure that that is really, you know, well understood. And so, that becomes a big part of, you know, sort of that, that competitive attitude and spirit, I think, overall in our business. When I look now at some of those core categories that are worth talking about, and I think, you know, in this context, first on spices and seasonings-
Mm-hmm.
We really like the progress that we're making. But, you know, the investment is going into increased brand marketing. We're also driving renovation across that portfolio, and we're also driving a lot more innovation to the marketplace. We're beginning to recapture some of those distribution points that we lost during the pandemic. And also we're, you know, putting more use of either price gap management or price pack architecture into our portfolio. I think the important thing is that it isn't any one of those levers that's really driving, I think, the performance of that business.
It's really a comprehensive sort of look towards that. And I think that's been giving us a lot of confidence to the direction that we're headed. We like the path we're on in terms of unit share right now, as we look at that part of our business. Those trends will lead our results, and then dollars will follow. But when you're focusing on volume, that's kind of an important element, I think, of how we're thinking about things. On condiments and sauces, we have a really strong foundation and base against that part of our portfolio, a lot of strong consumer loyalty.
Mm.
And so we fundamentally feel good about, you know, where that part of our portfolio is headed, particularly on the consumer side and branded food service. It's also receiving a lot of incremental investment, this part of our category, too. I will say in the short term, though, there's definitely a couple of transitory items that we're dealing with, you know, in that part of our portfolio, particularly on hot sauce. I think just more recently, like one of our competitors just finally got back into supply on shelf, and so that kind of messes with the numbers in terms of how we look at it. But from a price pack architecture standpoint, another transitory element is just a lot more trial sizes showing up on shelf. And so that's also played a lot of noise, especially from a unit share standpoint.
But fundamentally, actually, our units are holding up year-over-year right now on that part of our business, and so we feel fundamentally we're still going in the right direction. And we expect that as we get into the second half, we're gonna see the full effect of just increased advertising, a lot more innovation. In fact, we have a lot of strong pickup on innovation, particularly on the Frank's business. And, and we'll see increased distribution, too. So we really feel like that's also moving in the right direction, probably a little bit behind in pace to spices and seasonings...
Okay.
But that's really reflective of when the investments are actually hitting, I think, overall in the year. And from a supply chain standpoint, it's kind of important to call out we're pretty healthy there. Not everyone in the category is healthy, especially on hot sauce, when you think about supply and ingredients, but we've really done a good job of managing ahead of that overall. I would say on our Consumer business, in summary, in Q1, we really like the progress that we made. We continue to make progress, and as we look towards, you know, the back half of the year, we're gonna start to see drive volume growth during that second half. It's consistent with everything that we've said before. That leads us into, I think, you know, sort of a strong foundation for 2025.
On the Flavor Solution side of our business, we like the progress that we're making there, too, especially on those value-added categories like flavors and branded food service. You know, in Q1, what we called out there was on our flavors business, we really like the fact that we're sort of outperforming the category in segments like alcoholic beverage and performance nutrition, you know, overall. So that feels like it's moving in the right direction. In branded food service, we're gaining share in spices and seasonings, winning more tabletops with Frank's, and that's just part of the process. That's so important to have our brands in front of...
Mm-hmm
Consumers in the away-from-home category. And so, you know, we like the progress that we're making there. So having said that, though, and it's really been widely reported, you know, there still is, I think, with our CPG customers and QSR customers, a reasonable slowdown in thinking just in terms of overall their volume. So we're working through with them and collaborating on how we navigate through this, but it's not a long-term issue. It's really, you know, I think we'll be staying in the business. So, I would just say again, we like the progress that we're making. The early signs that we're seeing are positive. This is a year of investment. We feel really confident about those investments that we're putting into the business, and I do think it sets us up for long-term growth.
Great. As you went through the business, you know, you highlighted what you've long described as McCormick being a different kind of flavor company with strength in a strong footing in both the Consumer segment and Flavor Solutions, and how those two things mutually reinforce one another. Can you talk a little bit more about how that works in practice and, maybe, help make it come to life better for investors in terms of why that is a point of differentiation and a point of advantage for McCormick?
Well, first of all, I always kind of like to point this out: we're probably one of the few, if not the only company, that sort of operates end-to-end in flavor from a Consumer segment all the way through the flavor industry. And that's a unique vantage point for McCormick, and it is kind of one of those things that sort of sets us apart and differentiates us out there. You wanna be in flavor, it's kinda like the good place to go, right? 'Cause you're covering the whole range. Personally, I'm super passionate about the complement or the way we complement, or the complementary strengths between our consumer and our Flavor Solutions business....
It comes through, you know, the scale of the categories in which we operate and the insights, you know, that we're leveraging between both categories, as well as the technology and the ideas that we are able to execute through both segments. And that kind of underpins really how we look at it. You know, we're broadly in flavor in our Consumer business. I mean, millions of people, you know, kind of look to cook with us in their kitchens, and they have brands that, you know, we trust. But also on the flavor side of our business, you know, that broad knowledge of flavor translates into, you know, we power the flavor of some of the most iconic brands in the world.
And so we really do have a very firm footprint in both, and it's really, you know, I think, profound. It's a business model that, you know, allows us to really, you know, leverage scale and insights, and also scale and sourcing, and also technology in a way that we can drive synergy between both. Now, I'll give you maybe an example out of each area that what that, you know. And, this is like one of those things, I think, in our business, Steve, that, we're continually looking for those examples that resonate with people because it, it's often been the kind of hardest part to understand, like, why we're so excited about it.
You know, one of the areas when I think about insights and, you know, I'll just use a more recent one, it's about how we engage in insights and trends and then kind of move into innovation for both segments. So, in our management team, I've made it a priority that we all really engage in trends and innovation directly. And the reason why that's so important is a third of our sales growth algorithm is innovation. So if our leaders aren't engaged in that, then shame on us, right? And so it's really important that we're all really engaged.
So one of the things we do is we often meet, and in fact, we just had this meeting two weeks ago, where we sit down and we kind of go over the latest trends and insights that we have and think about how those might translate into innovation in both segments. We do this as a leadership team. Now, it's also happening throughout the organization, but it comes to life as a leadership group.
We're talking both segments at one moment behind a particular trend or a particular insight in the marketplace, and this is something that I think really does fuel the way we think about the business. So if I could sort of place you in the corner for a day, that's kind of what we're doing, you know, all the time. So we're having conversations about both segments all the time. It's not siloed and separated, as one might think it might look like, and we eat really well.
Yes. Of course.
Yeah, we do. But it's important to show how it's gonna translate innovation for both the Flavor Solutions customer or our Consumer segment. I mean, just this last meeting, a lot of it had to do with about three or four years ago, we came out with our Flavor Forecast, and we hit really hard, you know, sort of the things that we were think were gonna kind of start to mainstream in a couple of years, like Korean flavors, like gochujang, or it might be even Middle Eastern flavors, like za'atar. And, you know, just in this last meeting, we're talking about how we're seeing those mainstream now in our innovation with both Flavor Solutions customers and our Consumer business. This is how that comes to life for us.
You know, another way when you think about scale and bringing together a platform and making it scalable, think about our heat platform. It's about 20% of our business in terms of sales. The interesting thing is the greater share of that actually happens in Flavor Solutions. You might initially expect, "Oh, it's all hot sauce." Not necessarily, and so this is a platform that, you know, we really believe that we're uniquely positioned to win with global brands, our science and technology, just our scale in terms of how we operate. And so it allows us to kind of create a scalable opportunity, you know, I think because we have both those segments, overall. And so that expertise, you know, might come through in terms of overall insights.
Just in the last 20 years, we probably have announced, like, 50 hot flavors that have really come about. They're all very different. When we think about science and technology, our scientists are really, you know, proficient at being able to kind of, you know, transform like a, a form of heat from one form of heat to another, like from a raw ingredient into something that might go into a flavor. Well, when you think about scale in terms of sourcing, I mean, we've operated for decades in places like India and Mexico, where we're sourcing chilies and peppers. And so we have a deep understanding of that, and it was well before we even did the Reckitt, you know, the RB acquisition.
So these are things that really do come together as a strong synergy in terms of how we operate in heat overall, and oh, and we're also a hot sauce company, right? So I saved that for last just because it actually kind of precedes that. It builds up on that, and this is an area in which we you know really do have a lot of strength. And I'll just throw out one other example because I'm trying to also hit technology. There's technology that comes from our flavor business, and one more recent one's called TrueTaste. It actually came from the acquisition that we did with FONA.
Not only are we able to use that with our customers, there's a real proprietary element to that because we don't have to use high heat to process the flavor, so you retain a lot more flavor. But we're also able to use that in some of our consumer products, too. So there's synergy between both segments, where we're using that technology and commercializing it with our customers, but we're also seeing applications within our own, own portfolio. You know, every time we're gonna talk, we're gonna try and come up with a new example because it's just stuff that we live every day as we think about how...
No, those, those examples are helpful.
Yeah.
Very helpful. So I wanna, I wanna pick up some of the, the business trend topics, Brendan, you mentioned with Mike, so stay tuned. But before I do, you, you talked a lot about consumer insights. Kind of looking more near term, one of the questions that I, I know investors are asking is, you know, why we as an industry aren't seeing more... Well, we're not seeing kind of some of the weakness that you talked about at food service translate into better at-home demand. Does McCormick, from what you said, have a, have a, have a perspective on that?
We do. First of all, I think, we do get a chance. We do a lot of proprietary research on our own. You know, it, it might sort of, it's probably at least every quarter, we're doing our own surveys at a global level 'cause there's a lot of markets in which we operate in, and we wanna see how globally present, you know, some of these themes that might be here in the U.S. like the global or in the U.S., you know, might be global overall. When we think about the consumer today, we still believe that consumer is exhibiting a lot of value-seeking behaviors right now. If anything, I think we've seen it start to pick up. In our latest research, it's starting to kind of show a little bit more stress is that lower- and middle-income consumer.
That's definitely come through in a lot of our research more recently, and so we see them, you know, sort of really exhibiting far more, you know, value-seeking behavior than we did previously. And so that's kind of like a consumer tone. But then you look at the food-away-from-home market, and, yeah, traffic seems like it's strained a little bit compared to where it had been. And even happening in, you know, parts of the channel, like QSRs, that typically are quite strong during this period of time. And so we definitely see a little bit of a slowness in the food-away-from-home market, and we do believe some of that volume is shifting over into retail. But everyone's question is: Well, how come we're not seeing more of it? Our perspective on this is it's really a slow transition.
And the reason why that is, is I think one of the things that popped up in a lot of our research that we did was a lot more financial anxiety in these last couple of months, particularly in the U.S. We didn't see as much globally. It's been more consistent there. We definitely saw a spike in the U.S., and so I think consumers are just being that much more careful. I think that transition will happen, but it's just happening, I think, a little bit more slowly, would be my judgment, based on the data that we're taking a look at overall. But this is not... This is a view that doesn't necessarily contradict the way we thought about the year. We, we thought there would be bumps along the year.
I could never predict when they would happen, but, you know, we had to go in there and say, "It's not all gonna be great." And so we kind of took a broad view of how we thought the consumer was gonna operate this year, and I think it's largely playing out as we might have expected, even though it feels like these last couple of months may have been a little, a bit more strained, particularly in the U.S.
Mm-hmm.
Or the market overall.
That's consistent with some of the consumption data, too.
Yeah.
Okay. That's a good segue. Mike, from your perspective, as Brendan said, you know, Q1 was a great start to the year. Some bumps as we moved through the second quarter, but guidance was set prudently from your perspective. Well, that was your description of the guidance from the start.
Yeah.
So, you know, with all that, like, from your perspective, in your seat, you know, how do you think the business is performing across both businesses, Consumer and Flavor Solutions? And, you know, how would you assess your confidence in that second-half inflection that we've been looking for in terms of...
Yeah, I mean, you think a little bit about the journey here. I think last year we had, did have a nice sequential improvement in volume mix through a couple quarters. Fourth quarter was a little bit of a challenge, as we talked about. Still had a good 2023, but we intentionally decided, you know, we're gonna make investments in the business really in the first half to drive volume. The pivot from the pricing environment over the last couple of years to volume is really critical for us. We've done it in the past, and we wanted to make sure we did it in the future with these incremental investments that are, you know, really driving in the first half. You know, from my perspective, Brendan gave a little bit of insight on where the macroeconomic environment is.
In the Consumer business, it's really making good strides. The things that we've done, investments in price gap management, the advertising we've spent, is really yielding results, and we do see that sequential improvement continuing into the second half, as we've thought about it, even with some of the pressures we're seeing. In the Flavor Solutions side, we talk about Flavor Solutions a bit as a lot of it's a bit lumpy, and a lot of it's dependent on when promotions and things are being done, so you'll have some quarter-to-quarter noise. What we're seeing, though, is additional pressure in Q2 on the QSR business, some of our CPG customers, as we talked about. In the context of the whole year, we did prudent guidance.
Yeah.
And, you know, this is another example of where we kind of looked at the environment and said, "You know, there's gonna be some things that go well, some things that don't go well. You know, second quarter in the Flavor Solutions is gonna be a bit challenged." So, you know, just to give you a. We're in a quiet period now, two days into the third quarter, but, you know, we look at the volumes on that side of the business on a short-term basis, probably being down low single digits to mid-single digits for this quarter. However, as Brendan said, we view this as a kind of medium, in the medium to long term, still really good business. Our customers are acting very quickly to correct these things. I mean, you can walk down the street and see some of our QSR customers with EUR 5 meals...
Yeah
And things like that. So that, that will drive volumes, we think, later in the year, but it is a bit of a, you know, first half, second half story. But broadly, we feel good about our proven guidance.
Okay. So and what's the, maybe this can go both ways on this one, but in terms of the cost to get that volume recovery and the cost not exceeding what within what's in that proven guidance. You talked about value-seeking behavior, moments of anxiety in the U.S. consumer, some softness. You know, what... And obviously, you've been investing to drive that volume. Has the cost you think will be required to stimulate volume growth in the near term gone up? How are you thinking about that, and how do you think longer term about the rates of investment to...
I always like thinking about...
Sustainable
McCormick in the long term because, you know, the last couple of years, you know, I've been at McCormick over 33 years now, I mean, the broad-based, high-level inflation is something we've never seen quite that big. And those two years to me are the anomaly, and we had to act quickly, take pricing, get that through. Our CCI, our cost savings programs, couldn't cover that, so we priced the cost. But longer term, and if you go back to the 2012, 2013 to 2019 timeframe, and we were differentiated through our volume growth. And in those normalized environments, you might have had low single-digit inflation and mid-single digit inflation. Our cost savings program drive the ability to grow margins while investing in our brands. So we're an investment company to drive growth.
We've invested more and more in A&P over the years because we get a positive ROI. So I look at as we pivot back to volume growth, these investments we're making. We talked about our first half of the year, really stepping up things like A&P or price gap management or innovation, you know, R&D support. These are things we needed to do to get to the next level. You know, and we're constantly doing test and learns to make sure they're effective and we're measuring things, but we feel really good about the investment. Some of those will continue, things like A&P.
You know, we're at a level now where we're getting to the CPG best-in-class, and we rigorously measure ROI. I just sat through a marketing mix modeling study a couple weeks ago with our global marketing team, and frankly, I was so impressed with the financial discipline they're bringing to that for every incremental A&P dollar. So we're making sure we're getting the bang for the buck there. But some will be part of our just normal ongoing expenses through revenue management and things like that, some of the price gap management activities.
Okay. I mean, if maybe a little bit, if you're able to, just to talk a little bit about how you... 'Cause I think you're investing in, you know, as you know, as you say, I think it's about $80 million-
Yeah, yeah.
In fiscal 2024 for across marketing and digital investments and innovation support. You know, how are you measuring the ROI on those things? If you can elaborate for us. And then, you know, just the belief you have in the capacity for those investments to continue beyond the current.
Yeah, if you think about the $80 million we laid out, the CAGNY meeting, very discreet about that and talked about how it was really front-loaded to help us pivot to the volume world. I mean, A&P was a large one. Obviously, we talked about that and the rigorous methodology we have about measuring ROI, whether it's traditional spend or digital spend. We've been a leader in digital spend over the years, so continuing to double down on that. Price gap management, and Brendan talked about some of the... You know, we did a bunch of tests and learns in the third and fourth quarter, and we've seen success really in the spices and seasonings category, growing volume, growing unit share. Those are things that we haven't had for several years.
So that's, again, ROI on that we see is very positive, and we're continuing to test and learn and expand that as necessary. And we talked about, you know, ramping that up in the first and into the second quarter. So a little pressure on margins in the first half, but we are seeing the fruits more so in the second half. Innovation, I mean, investments in R&D. Innovation is a third of our growth algorithm, and during COVID, grocery stores didn't want innovation. Now, you know, it's really turned. The consumer, even though they're under pressure, does want innovation and things like our Frank's squeeze bottles and, I mean, they're getting huge ACVs, and we see that's a reason to believe in the second half.
And again, that ROI you're getting in that investment, keeping the category fresh is really important. So we think those are good investments. Some will continue, but, you know, we have a history of the, our CCI program really driving costs out. I mean, frankly, A&P, we're really—A&P is up over 10%, but through CCI savings, we're able to optimize our A&P spend to high single digits so that we're looking at every line of the P&L to help fuel growth. And that's—but that's the way we've done it for a long time.
Just to build on a lot of the points Mike's saying about just our investment profile. You know, we are investing and putting a lot of focus on what it looks like at shelf overall. And I think it's important that, you know, a familiar phrase, I think, over the course of, like, the last two years was, you know, it's the elasticity is lower than historical norms.
Yeah.
I'm not sure that's really relevant anymore. And it's not relevant because there's just this compounding impact on inflation and, you know, things have really changed.
Yeah.
And so when we look at our categories, we're also looking at it in a very refined way. We've got really sophisticated category management and revenue management. We're always trying to benchmark ourselves by what everyone else is doing out there, and so we get a lot of good feedback that we're probably, you know, at a really strong leading edge. And so it allows us to really assess, you know, where do the price points sit right now, and is it-- are they in the right spot? I would say there are parts of our portfolio, maybe like in even the condiments and sauces space, have been pretty resilient-
Mm-hmm.
Actually, and even parts of spices and seasonings, you know, the same thing is true. But there's also parts of that portfolio that, you know, were definitely more elastic as over time, you know, as we saw. So those are areas that we said, "You know what? We're gonna have to take a much harder look at that." And we did it in a really prudent way. You know, overall, we take a very SKU-level look at what we do when we take a look at pricing, because every item, even every size, has its own elasticity component.
And so we're taking a look at that and just judging on what's gonna really drive volume growth across the whole portfolio. And, and in doing so, we kinda ended up with about 15% of just, you know, the whole portfolio really needed a little bit of that surgical approach to say, "You know what? Let's make sure we're not sitting there uncompetitive-
Sure.
When we think about pricing overall." But again, it's part of a whole comprehensive look at all the levers that we're using, many of which Mike talked about, whether it's A&P, you know, innovation, you know, overall, and then this combination of price pack architecture, like with our Lawry's brand.
Mm-hmm.
We're seeing a lot of good progress with that, but also in price gap management-
Yeah.
Just, you know, almost in a way, just sort of, you know, really call the, call what needs to happen in terms of shelving. We took a very prudent look at it.
We feel good about these investments, too.
Yeah.
'Cause you think about our long-term growth algorithm, you know, operating profit margin should expand about 40 basis points-80 basis points a year.
Yeah.
This year, with sales for the year to be flat, we're actually in the middle of guidance, about 80% or 80 basis points.
Yeah.
You know, we're investing in that $80 million incremental. We, we are having some CCI, you know, the GOE, their Global Operating Effectiveness program is incremental savings this year to help fund that. But, you know, we see a long-term algorithm that still is valuable even... or still in line, even if we do have to spend up on some areas.
Okay. And the price, the, the price corrections, the price investments you make, you know, as you sit here today, have they, are those enough, or is there a risk that we need to make more price investments, especially if the consumers' anxieties continue?
You know, I think we have a really good view of what needs to happen in 2024.
Mm-hmm.
It's hard to sit here today and tell you what I think needs to happen in 2025, but we have a really good view of it, and what I would say is, if we sometimes test something that doesn't work, and so we know not to go any further with it, or we'll pull back on it and say: "You know what? That didn't really have the impact we were looking for." We're always reassessing and modifying that, but I think we have reasonable results against this to give us confidence that we've got the right layer in right now.
Okay, very good. It wouldn't be a conversation, McCormick, without talking about M&A. So we're gonna, we'll go there. You know, obviously, there's been a long and successful track record of not only returning cash to shareholders, but successfully pursuing value-accretive M&A, both on the consumer side, we talked about Frank's, French's, et cetera, but also within Flavor Solutions, you mentioned FONA earlier. I guess from here, how would you... Given everything that you've got going on in the moment organically-
Mm-hmm.
How would you frame the appetite for incremental M&A at this point? And how do you, you know, how do you judge the landscape for those opportunities?
No, I mean, the nice thing-
To kick us off.
Yeah, where we stand now, you know, you look at the last couple of years, we've made some really good acquisitions, and our debt to EBITDA was at a level-
Mm-hmm.
That we couldn't do M&A, but now we're getting to the point, paying down our debt, our zero working capital program is yielding results. Our EBITDA is coming back, so we're ahead of our target. So we have optionality now, put it that way. There's a lot of work going on in the core business, so we don't have to do acquisitions because we really like the businesses we're in and the categories. But obviously, a third of our long-term growth algorithm is focused on acquisitions, and the acquisitions you mentioned, like Frank's and French's, Cholula, FONA, they make us want to buy more. I mean, they're really successful acquisitions. We know how to integrate them. You know, we do a lot of financial due diligence on these things, not only financial, but just commercially and supply chain. How are we gonna run that?
So I think we're really good at getting a business, understanding it, and then hitting the ground running with it. So, you know, we look at a high level. Our strategy really hasn't changed really for a long time. I've been CFO for almost eight years, but, you know, we match it against our strategies. We look at, we make sure, you know, we're a growth company. It doesn't dilute our sales growth. It helps our operating profit margins. It may give us more capacity for operations, like on the Flavor Solution side, some technical capabilities. It gives us more scale in certain markets. So at a high level, those are the attributes we look at around, you know, the... It's really the end-to-end flavor that we're really focusing on, I think, Brendan.
I mean, we like, we like the mix of our business right now, you know, in terms of percentage of consumer versus percentage of Flavor Solutions. But any acquisition really has to kind of serve the need of delivering on end-to-end flavor. You know, we remain, I think, pretty disciplined, but we want to stay in those flavor categories. You know, on the consumer side of our business, it might look like another spices and seasonings asset somewhere globally. It could be more condiments and sauces, too, you know, somewhere globally. Those are things that would fit, you know, pretty obviously, I think, as we think about our portfolio. When we think about the flavor side of our business, it, it is the type of asset like FONA-
Mm-hmm.
which, you know, gives us a lot of, you know, a lot of opportunities for us to either build on capabilities, technology, or even customer access. You know, going back to the consumer side of our business, you know, we're looking for brands that really have the ability to either be expandable or very strong. They're, you know, not only meeting the margin requirement that we're looking for, but also, you know, able to really take it to another level.
We think about, like, what we're doing right now with Cholula. It's a prime example over Frank's, of how we're able to take these brands and kind of bring them into other flavor categories, you know, if you will. But also, they have to be complementary to our portfolio, and we have to be able to kind of really drive growth in some way, either, you know, could be through new distribution or, you know, just really kind of getting behind and supporting the businesses, too.
Mm-hmm.
You think about how we've grown French's as an example. You know, probably wasn't loved enough. We're gonna love it, and that is an element of where we really find our sweet spot. I think with FONA, going back to flavor, that's another area where we really found our sweet spot, where it kind of serves two needs at one time. And, you know, technology, capabilities, customer access, and places that we didn't, you know, compete in before. So these are the areas that we're operating in.
I think the attractiveness of flavor enhancement as sort of an umbrella category has been talked about by other companies as well. Is the competition for assets, you know, either today or in the future, do you foresee the competition for assets that do come to market going up and the cost of doing those acquisitions rising, or is it more steady state?
I'd say there's always been a competition for high-quality assets-
Yeah, yeah.
If you think about it that way. But I will say, well, at McCormick, we do a really good job. We always talk about there's 1,000 other asset targets out there that at some point, some will come right, and we pounce on them. But, you know, we develop long-term, deep relationships with people who run, you know, private companies. It might be the founder who's run a certain brand or, you know, FONA was that way. It was-
It's a four -year relationship.
Four-year relationship we built over time, and it was the right time. He came to us and didn't have an option. Other brands like Cholula auction, it just depends, but we feel generally, you know, the assets and the competition has always been there. So hopefully, valuations, you know, we always like valuations have come down to some degree, and I think they probably have moderated a bit, but for good assets, there's gonna be competition.
Okay. Brendan, I'm gonna give you the last word, but Mike, one thing I wanted to ask earlier, and I missed it: You talked about some of the pressures that we're seeing in Flavor Solutions-
Mm-hmm.
and food service as you go through the current quarter. Is that changing at all your perspective on the ability to drive margin improvement in Flavor Solutions, that's been a, a key focus for, for-
I mean, it's something, if we look holistically, we have margin improvement building across the business. Obviously, depending on volumes and absorption and things like that, it can put a little extra pressure on the Flavor Solutions business, but that's something we'll discuss as we go through our discussions at Q2 and our forecast process.
Okay. Brendan, I said I'd give you the last word. We've got a couple minutes left. We've talked a lot, but I wanna leave you with the opportunity to just express to investors, you know, what are the key takeaways that they should leave with, as they think about McCormick as an investment opportunity?
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. I think if I were to leave everyone with just, you know, a couple key messages: One, think of McCormick as a growth company, and we're just fully committed to really continue to drive that leadership and differentiation that we've always really enjoyed, I think, in the categories in which we operate. And as you look at even just this current year, we're executing on really proven strategies that have driven our business. A lot of this is getting back to really the cycle of how we really operate the business. You know, after a lot of disruption, we're really feeling like we're getting back to, you know, where we need to be, I think, in terms of those proven strategies. We operate in really great categories.
So, you know, it's one thing that we do have to take for granted, and they're supported by really good long-term trends. I mean, consumers wanting to eat in a healthy way, they look for flavorful cooking, they like to do flavor exploration, and these are things that support our category. But I think the nuance is we're not just gonna rest on that. We really have to be, you know, very focused on making sure that we're driving significant leadership and competitive posture, even in these categories in which we enjoy really, you know, strong leadership right now, but just, you know, not resting on that. I think it's probably a perspective that I would share. We've remained very dedicated to improving volumes in 2024. You...
I think you see that in kind of our continuing momentum as we're building on that, and it only should help to continue to improve and, you know, sort of the back half is what we've called. But it leads us also into 2025, I think, with just a more stable, you know, you know, framing and profile of how we're growing the business, but that's really important to us. And we're really committed to delivering on our long-term algorithm. You may recall, you know, that long-term algorithm includes really healthy organic growth, which is driven by volume. That's what's been our algorithm historically, plus complemented by acquisitions.
This is an element combined with, you know, good margins and attractive categories, we think creates a really nice, you know, story from in terms of long-term growth and high-quality growth, particularly in an area where we're very uniquely competing in the categories in which we operate. So those would be the final points I would leave with everyone is, you know, the things that I think about all the time is making sure that we're staying true to that in everything that we do, and that's definitely the case.
That was a good, comprehensive wrap, and it was to the second, almost.
Pretty damn.
I thank you, Brendan.
Well, let me do the other 10 seconds.
I thank you, Mike. I thank McCormick. I thank all of you for participating. I wish everybody a great conference. Thanks again.