All right, I'm gonna go ahead and get started with some intros here. I'm Kelly Bania, food retail and distribution analyst. Thrilled to have PFG join us. A lot of interest for PFG. They are a top three distributor in the U.S. in the foodservice industry, on pace to generate about $58 billion in sales across its three segments. So that's Performance Foodservice, which drives the majority of the profitability, but also the highly profitable Vistar segment, as well as the convenience distribution segment. So in the summer of 2022, PFG outlined a three-year plan to reach $1.5 billion-$1.7 billion in EBITDA by fiscal 2025, which I recall seemed kind of crazy at that time. And we are well on our way to hit that, actually, the low end of that, this year.
So, that would mark significant growth for the company since your IPO, which I think was maybe nine or 10 years ago. So thrilled to have George Holm, CEO and chairman of PFG. George founded Vistar in 2002 and became CEO when it was acquired by Vistar in 2008. And Patrick Hatcher, EVP and CFO. He's been in the CFO seat since January of last year, previously president and COO of Vistar. And Bill Marshall with IR, who many of us, I'm sure know. So, so many questions for PFG. We just had earnings across the group. One thing that I wanted to start with was maybe the organizational structure and some of the changes that were made in terms of Scott McPherson taking over the EVP and Chief Field Operations Officer role.
So maybe just tell us what prompted that, how that's going, and we'll start there.
I guess one of the big reasons is we're aging out.
Okay.
We got to get the, kind of the next group of management developed, and Scott had been the CEO of Core-Mark when we bought Core-Mark. So he has public company CEO experience, and we needed to get him more involved in the Performance Foodservice business. He had had Vistar for a period of time, so he basically has all of our operating businesses, almost all of those. And that, in conjunction with putting Patrick into the CFO role, who also has a good operating background, we think we're kind of getting for that, right for that next generation.
Perfect. Okay, that's, that's kind of what I expected, but it's nice to hear. So M&A is also just a really big topic for PFG and the space. It seems like as of late, there's been just a couple of smaller deals for PFG. So maybe even though they're small, I just would love to kind of hear what was attractive about the recent acquisitions. I'm talking Green Rabbit and Orion, I think I'm saying that right. Just what was attractive and why those today?
Okay.
Yeah.
Actually, it's OLM, but it's the old Orion and the old Land Mark that merged together.
Okay.
So OLM was a big producer of ingredients for pizza, and they do pre-made pizzas. We sell a lot of pre-made pizzas, and we've had trouble getting a consistent supply and getting the type of product that we want. So it gives us a little bit more control with it. They were a customer of our cheese plant, and they were a supplier of other items to us before we did the purchase. Just gets us a step closer to the customer.
Okay.
And then they have several convenience stores, some that are independent, some that are small chains, that actually have a franchise program, and they use them for pizza and sandwiches. With Green Rabbit, we have a fulfillment business that's primarily for CPGs. It's heavy chocolate, candy, snacks, those type of areas, and they're in that same business as well. So we had three distribution centers that do fulfillment, and they have three distribution centers that do fulfillment. We wanted to expand our geography and expand our capabilities. They have their largest one is in Indianapolis, and it does significant freezer and cooler business, which we're all ambient product. And we look at that as an important part of our business in the future. And when I say fulfillment...
Okay
... we're doing it for, our suppliers, and we're doing it for our customers, depending on what their needs are. So a big part of it would be, what you see at a cash register, impulse buy items. Very few people do that themselves, so, you know, it's a big part of their business. And then, if you're going online and you're ordering, product to your home, or it may even be through Amazon, some of those products, we're doing the fulfillment of those products.
Okay, and so I want to go back to that. So, when you say ambient, we're talking Vistar, but freezer-cooler, you see as an opportunity within Vistar long term?
Correct.
So what would that... where would that fit? I'm just trying to understand this, because today it is all really ambient, correct? Well, maybe some chocolate, I guess.
Well, yeah. You wanna... go on.
Yeah, sure, I'll add into that. First of all, thank you for having us, Kelly, and...
Yeah
... for the conference. Yeah, so Vistar traditionally has shipped more perishable products, but like you said, it's chocolate, it's nothing. This would allow us to get into more things that do sit in a freezer or a refrigerator and ship to the consumer. So this could be meals, it could be pre-prepared meals, it could be, it could even be, honestly, animal, you know, dog, cat food, those type of things. Anything that's being shipped to that consumer that requires some refrigeration along the way. And what Green Rabbit brought to us was, like, a much more sophisticated way of keeping those items in their proper conditions, so they get delivered correctly.
Okay. I want to come back to Vistar because I think there's, there's a lot of questions there. But, I would say the biggest question I feel like we have to talk about is just that lower income consumer. Every company is talking about it, I feel like, in my space. What do you think is really happening out there? Are consumers really just getting fatigued with menu prices? Restaurant prices don't tend to come down, so, not sure what we can do about that, but what...
Yeah, I...
What can we do for...
... I think what I would speak to is more what we're seeing.
Okay.
What customers we're seeing that are impacted. Probably the biggest impact on convenience in Vistar...
Yeah
... because they're selling packaged products, you know, from candy bars to protein bars, to prepared food, a lot of it going into the workplace, a lot of it going into blue-collar workplaces where people are a little stressed. If you think about that consumer, where we've had the very large inflation has been around rent, fuel, food, and that's a significant part of someone's compensation is to pay for those three things. So that's, that's really where we're seeing the most stress. We're seeing same-store sales declines, and I think people just have to get used to a different pricing level.
Yep.
Um...
So in your experience, have you seen something like this, where you're seeing these kind of negative declines in these categories, and it takes the consumer X months or quarters to adjust and go, "Okay, this is what we're dealing with?
Yeah, but it's been more on reduced compensation than increased prices in the past-
Okay
... particularly during the Great Recession.
Right.
You know, we saw it. So this is a little bit different. Now, we are seeing that manufacturers are backing off a little bit. They're not going to lower their price, that is never going to happen. Never seen it happen, and...
Yeah
... I doubt that we ever will. Candy would be a great example. Right now, cocoa is the highest it's ever been, significantly higher than it's ever been. They took two price increases last year. They didn't take a price increase in spite of this big increase in cost of goods because they've seen the impact that it has on demand.
Right.
But every time we see a price increase in that category, we see a slight decline in demand. They get used to it, and it comes back. Then, what we're seeing in the restaurant area is, I think it's the same type, the same, I guess, discretionary income type, where it's our QSR and our somewhat lower price point chains particularly, that we're seeing affected with the negative comps. Even somebody, because they're public and the numbers are out there, but Cracker Barrel, who we've sold since they started, and have never seen this kind of softness. But, you know, they're a fixed-income, heavy- customer base, and it's just the reality that we're dealing with today. But fortunately, we're diversified enough where it's not having that great an impact.
So I want to transition to food service, and maybe this is a good point to bring up here on those lower price points, because you are so big with pizza and Roma. So can you remind us just where we are in the cycle of pizza? I know it did really well, and then it gave back and you know, it's a big part of your food service business.
Yeah.
Like, can you remind us how big is, like, Italian pizza for PFG for the foodservice, and what are you seeing for those price points?
Well, you know, pizza would be a bigger part of, I guess, who we are than it is percent of sales because it's, it's so much of our heritage. But we, we have about a 37% share last...
Wow
... report we got of the independent pizza business in the country, so we're big. Flourished unbelievably during COVID. I mean, it was just amazing, the growth that we saw through that. Then, as other choices became available and other people got into takeout and delivery, and you were able to go into a restaurant again, then we saw it drop off some, and as they came up against those real high numbers, we still grew, but we had trouble growing. We just continued to gain share in pizza. I think right now, I think that it's slow, okay, pizza is. I think that goes back to the people that are regular consumers of pizza. It's a great value. They're just not making as many trips as they've made in the past.
Okay. I want to talk about the sales force. There's more change it feels like going on across the competitive set with the sales force. So I guess number one, the question is: do you, do you expect to see any impact from others maybe starting to increase their sales force size? And how long—how many years can PFG sustain- I think you guys targeted 8%-10% investment in the sales force headcount. Like, how many years can we continue to do that?
Well, we've typically been about six.
Okay.
We got behind during COVID, so we decided we were gonna catch up. This is not a decision that I'm making or Pat's making, this is within our OpCo. Some didn't get behind, but so it's we're rolling up numbers, but it's a much more local decision. So we did get to where we're running 10% more salespeople than the previous year. We're at about 5.5 now. What's happened is we've lapped this surge of people that we did, and we also found out that at that time, it was too many people to train at one time. So we didn't have as high a retention rate of people coming in and learning the business and being successful. We're a company that pays straight commission, so you've gotta be successful.
We also hired more people with a culinary background than people experienced in our business. Not usually more, but that was more the ones that didn't succeed. So I think we're - you'll see from us now is we'll be back on that 6...
Okay.
...percent, maybe 7%. But we've done that... God, we've done that since 2008, and we don't have any intentions of stopping now, so.
Okay. And what is, I guess maybe you just said it, the downside of growing too fast? Is that the training process or what? Is there any other downside of maybe investing to...
The training process.
Yeah.
It's really important, and selecting the right people.
Right.
Sometimes when you're trying to do it a little quicker, maybe you don't do quite as well with the selection.
Right.
It's a lifestyle job. I mean, they're on call all the time. Sunday is a big day.
Right.
You can order Sunday for Monday delivery. There's also periods of time during the week that are slow. You get a pretty good gap at lunch where you know you don't have as much to do. Where if you're bringing somebody in from culinary, they're used to going to a place and working in that place the whole time. They're not running around and...
Right
... doing the things our people have to do. They also operate with a pretty relaxed morning. You're doing prep, you're drinking coffee, you're chatting, and then you get slammed for, you know, a couple of hours, and then it gets pretty relaxed again, and you get slammed for a couple of hours.
Right.
Where ours is, it's constant, you know, and it's, like I said, it's a lifestyle job. So we...
Right
... probably didn't do as good a job in the selection process...
Okay
.. for that period of time. But we're, you know, we're back on track. It, you know, didn't have any impact on our growth.
Right.
Just spent a little bit more money.
So training is a key part of that, but what other tools do you give these local sales reps that you feel like maybe differentiate them? Because the growth for PFG's local business has been leading the industry and quite impressive over the years.
Well, first of all, they're commissioned, so you have to have...
Yeah
... a certain type of person that wants to go write their own paycheck and is very ambitious and, and wants to make good money. And we have several, I mean, thousands of, maybe not thousands, but over 1,000 that make really, really good money. So I, I think that's, that's a big part of it. They, when they walk out of that account and they got their order, they can press one button, and they know how much they made. I think that's impactful. We have a CRM like most people do. We don't require a certain use of it. We have people that use every bell and whistle that we have and are successful, and we have people that write their orders on a piece of paper and then go back and punch them in and are very successful.
So you know, it's not a cookie-cutter situation. I think the other thing that, to me, we give them, is that our commission program literally hasn't changed at all in 23 years. We've had the same commission system. So they know it, and they know it really well. And you're gonna attract a different type of person.
Right.
And if you are commissioning, then you go to salary, then you go salary plus bonus, or... They just get confused, and it's, it's a different person that-- I mean, if, if we told our people they were gonna go on a salary, they would flip out, right? I mean, they, they're there to, to, to make good money. So I, as - but as far as, like, from a tech standpoint, I think they have...
Yeah
... everything to work with that our competitors in our industry have. It just isn't as there's no requirement around it...
Right
...that way.
Right. So is that, is that standard across the industry? 'Cause it feels like some have changed their compensation structures. Maybe some of that was latent from, latent reaction from COVID, but, you know, across the, the independents, I mean, is it all commission-based, or do you feel like you guys do a better job at motivating...
Um...
... with that commission structure?
I don't wanna overplay this, but...
Yeah
... we don't change.
Yeah.
So we don't have this, it's very disruptive when you go through...
Right
... a compensation change, and people have this habit of getting real serious about how they're paid.
Yeah.
People like to know how they're paid.
Absolutely.
It's a hard job, so it has to be lucrative if you're a performer.
Right, another question, then I want to go to Vistar. But, there's been some changes in the rules around non-competes. So does that impact your sales force and how you guys go to market, or is that just not a big deal?
The way that we understand it, there still can be non-solicitations.
Okay
I n it. If it were up to us, I would love there to be no non-competes, because we hire people...
You hire.
We wait a year before they can go visit their account. But, it sounds like that's not going to change with this.
Okay, so maybe it's a non-event. Okay. So let's maybe switch to, to Vistar, which I know, Patrick, you were running, really, so, maybe we'll, we'll switch over to you. But I guess, there's so many channels within Vistar now. It's been a story of expanding into different channels. Is there any more areas that we can go into, or is this we're getting to a more mature kind of growth with these channels? How should we think about that?
Yeah, I mean, it's a question we've been getting for some time, because everyone...
Yeah
...e very time we go into a new channel, like, "Is there anything more?" And there's always more. And I think the really interesting thing is, we've talked about this in the past, is what's going on within some of the channels we do serve really well, like the vending channel, which people think, oh, traditionally, this is just a box with 38 items. But they've moved into micro markets, and we've talked a lot about the micro markets, and we continue to see our customers move aggressively away from the machines into these micro markets. Because, again, you can provide so many more items than you can in a traditional vending machine. You can have hot, cold, refrigerated. You can have, you know, meals, candy, snacks, and beverages.
So it just gives that consumer a lot more choice, but also gives our customers a lot, the ability to service that customer in a much broader way than they've traditionally done. So Vistar continues to stay on the forefront of that, of making sure they're bringing in the right items to service the customers, but that has definitely helped them in their growth. Other channels, there's always opportunities. I mean, we're constantly looking at additional things, and we've talked through things like gambling and military and all those different areas that we do have some business in, but there's a huge opportunity there, and they'll just continue to look at different opportunities.
They've been really successful at finding areas where, you know, there's a grab-and-go opportunity, there's a snacking opportunity, there's a drink opportunity, and, and getting the products there.
That makes sense. When I think about PFG Foodservice, I think about it as such a mix story, right? Mixing with private label, mixing with independents. When I think about Vistar, what's the most important thing from a mix standpoint? Or is it less about mix?
No, mix is huge. It's really about those categories I was talking about.
Okay.
So what they make on, say, selling a case of candy bars versus what they might make selling a case of refrigerated items.
Right.
All those different categories have different markups and different margins on them. So a lot of the things they've done, like we've talked about Good to Go in the past, where we've really focused on healthier for you items for the consumer, those generally drive a higher margin. So the mix has definitely played a part of it.
Okay. And then, there's comments, I think the last couple of quarters, you have some new customers coming on, but just the pipeline of new business sounds still very strong for Vistar. So where's that coming from? Who are the key competitors, for Vistar?
Yeah, I mean, Vistar is unique in a sense of the last part of your question, just they have competitors everywhere, but they have all these different channels. So someone who might be a really strong competitor in one channel may not impact them in the other channels. But in terms of growth, you know, we were talking earlier about some of the small parcel things the idea that we can do fulfillment. When you think about total e-commerce fulfillment out there, you know, George mentioned Amazon, but plenty of others, and then all the manufacturers are in this space as well. You know, we're confident that we can continue to play a bigger and bigger role helping those manufacturers out, helping some of those, sites, like an Amazon out, doing that last-mile fulfillment for them.
Okay.
Let me...
Go ahead. Yeah.
... make a kind of a mix. I think one thing that always surprises people, our Vistar companies stock anywhere between 6,000 and 9,000 items, and that's just gonna continue to go up.
Okay.
It's, you know, it's just, it's just a huge assortment, and the key products are all coming in those buildings in truckloads. So you get a real good cost of goods as well.
Right. So as we think about what's going out from Vistar, the segment, how much is delivered on a truck, or how much is maybe shipped via a third party?
Oh, it's majority still on a truck.
Still majority.
It's not that comparable...
Right
... because, I mean, we're, you know, we've got so many OpCos across the country, and we cover the entire country with the trucks, and they're going out every day doing their routes. So, you know, we talk about the small parcel because it's a huge opportunity and we have a real strong business there, but comparatively, the cases you talk, it's much more on the truck.
Right. Okay. So maybe we'll shift gears to convenience. And I guess lots of questions about Core-Mark, and that acquisition. So if we just really step back and think about the original business case, and the thought process, how has that played out relative to expectations?
I would say it's played out as we expected, but not as quick as we expected.
Okay.
I think from a food standpoint, we had a lot to learn. In a convenience store, we can be pretty snobby about quality, right? It's a different price point, and the product has to hold up real well. So we were slower getting going with these turnkey programs that we had, maybe it's a chicken program, or a pizza, or a deli, or a barbecue, but we have really stepped it up. And, you know, matter of fact, every month, we get a report of how many we installed, and it's been going up significantly each month. The industry's gone through a little different times. You know, the guys at Core-Mark have been at it for a long time.
Yeah.
Most of them been there 25-30 years, the management team. They have not seen this kind of same store slowness in the store that they're seeing now, and it just goes back to that price point, and that person that is a regular gets, candy regularly, and they're paying $1.75, now it's $2.75 type of thing.
Yeah.
Okay? It doesn't show up in our sales as, you know, sales going down only because we're picking up the, you know, the food service business. And of course, tobacco's always gonna go down as...
Right
... as we expect and quite frankly, like to see. We've done a great job growing the earnings, and I think that it will head, kind of continue to head in that direction, where it won't show big top-line growth because...
Right
... the tobacco part of it is so big, but we'll continue to grow the earnings. It also isn't as stable as the food service because...
Right
... you make a good bit of money on your inventory.
Right.
And it used to be pretty steady when these price increases came, and COVID turned that all upside down. Some people were early, some people were twice. They did it twice, now they skipped. So it's been choppy, but we really like the business that we're in. And OLM gives us some other capabilities that will be very helpful for with us in convenience, although we don't report that at this point under Core-Mark because they produce product for Performance Foodservice as well.
Okay. Yeah, that's getting a little... There's some moving pieces there.
We always have moving pieces.
So, I guess on that front, maybe since you mentioned the lumpiness, because I look at my Core-Mark model, and it's been lumpy this year, to say the least. So maybe I'll stop here and just do a short-term question for Patrick on the fourth quarter outlook. How much of this rebound in the fourth quarter is really the tobacco gains that will impact that convenience segment?
Yeah, I mean, so when we talked about the fourth quarter on the call, and we do understand that it looks like a sizable increase. But the reality is, and that's why we called out the things that are gonna impact the fourth quarter ...
Right
... specifically. But a lot of these things that are gonna impact the fourth quarter are also gonna impact 2025, and that's what gives us really good confidence about the fourth quarter. The, the tobacco gains were one of the things we did call out. That certainly helps, but it wasn't a large part of what's gonna allow us to achieve those targets. We, you know, as we've mentioned, we onboarded new business for food service last week, and that went extremely well. We're onboarding new business in the convenience channel right now, this week and next week, and so far it's going very well, and we know exactly what that is. So we're really excited about all this new business. Vistar is gonna add some new geographies with one of their customers next month.
So you know, individually, none of them are, like, huge numbers, but in total, they amounted to a lot of dollars of sales, and we, you know, have a real good line of sight to the GP that they'll generate. And then, you know, we also talked about that we've been going through two quarters plus of deflation in food service, and as we exited the third quarter, that moved to inflation. So that gives us a nice tailwind, where that's been somewhat of a headwind until now. So the culmination of all three of those things gave us really good confidence, not only for Q4, but also into 2025.
Right. I guess going back to what we're seeing in convenience and the investment in food there, I mean, as you look at kind of your QSR business, are you seeing that kind of take a little bit of share from the QSR? I mean, if you're putting in pizza and chicken and so many more convenience stores ...
Well ...
I s that a little bit of a hedge to that QSR business?
I would say it, it's more about what that customer prefers.
Right.
We do some QSR business with good accounts of ours into those convenience stores. But in those cases, for the most part, it's the QSR brand that makes the money, not the store.
Right.
The stores have lived off of fuel, and tobacco, and snacks, and ...
Yep
... beverages, and that world is gonna dwindle-
Yep
... for them, and that, that's why they just have so much interest in doing something-
Right
... themselves, where the margins are much better. And I'll comment a little bit on Q4, too, where ...
Sure
... it looks like a big ramp-up.
Yeah.
First of all, we had these pieces of business coming in.
Right.
You hire ahead of those and train, and you have to have the people ...
There...
... ready to go. So those, those expenses were in Q3. And then our Q3, which is calendar Q1, January was the anomaly. It was absolutely horrendous for the industry. Our February and March looked just like we typically look and as does, April. So it, it's not quite the ramp-up that it looks like it is.
Fair point.
And I'll also mention this, 'cause I think that's important, is that we, in calendar Q4 or fiscal Q2, we had 8.8% independent case growth. We followed it last quarter with 4.3%.
Right.
B ut we gained more share with that 4.3 than we did that 8.8. So that'll give you an idea of the slowness that existed, part weather. In January, the way the physical calendar ran and the way the holiday calendar, we had one less delivery day ...
Right
... in January, which impacted us as well. But I still think some of it goes back to just the reduction in discretionary income and ...
Yeah
... and, just kind of that maybe lower quartile, unfortunately, of income.
Okay, fair enough. So I guess sticking on convenience a little bit, how are you seeing any change in appetite, or interest between chains versus independents to make this investment in food service?
I think our future from a profitability standpoint is going to lean more towards the independents. There's certainly more of them than there are chains, but they do a good bit less volume.
Right.
Most of them haven't made the investment in equipment that they need for food service, but we're getting involved with the customer with that successfully. There's parts of the store that their gross profit that they're delivering from that part of the store is significantly down if they're still doing newspapers or auto, you know, things that they can just take out and they can get some food service in there. It hasn't been a big emphasis from Core-Mark going into the independent one. We've certainly changed that, and it's taken a while to get that different mentality, I guess, within there. I mean, they're a great company.
They've always done a great job, but that wasn't their focus, and it's a big focus today. So we have a lot of confidence in where we're headed with the independent convenience store.
Interesting. So is the hurdle for that independent operator to buy that equipment, and in this rate environment, maybe that's tough, or is it the labor and the worry about shrink with more food? Or like, what is the big hurdle that you hear from them?
All of the above. It's everything you just said.
All of the above.
Yeah, they're in a hard business.
Yeah.
It is a very, very hard business. But, you know, we can help them with equipment, to a degree. We can help them with labor by taking labor out of the store. And it's salesmanship. It's getting them to make the commitment that they're going to do it, and they're going to pay attention to it. And then we had to redesign some of our products where they held up better. I'll give you two examples because they're big categories. One was chicken.
We've got, you know, there's some people that really know what they're doing in chicken and convenience, and we have advantages, certainly purchasing advantages inbound. But we thought it was terrible to do a saline solution in chicken, right? Well, we do the cutting, and our chicken was better, and we pounded on our chest. And then 20 minutes later, when a lot of convenience shoppers are eating it, ours was the worst because it didn't hold that.
Right.
The same thing happened with pizza. We developed just an excellent, excellent pizza, but it didn't hold up.
Right.
We had to reformulate, and we learned.
Okay.
We've got the right product out there now, and we're doing real well with it.
Interesting. Maybe going back to food service a little bit, one of the questions I've had on my mind for you, George, is, one of your competitors have or both of your competitors, two big ones, have talked about kind of these high service models for, like, restaurant-dense areas where it's, you know, maybe a more frequent or higher service cost, higher fee. Does PFG do something like this? Is this just maybe done more, you know, at the local opco level, or is there not like a national strategy to do this?
There is no national strategy. You know, every market is so different.
Yeah.
That's a decision that our people make locally.
Right.
They just do it. They've always done it. Some do have a name for it, you know ...
Okay
... some of them have the name on the truck. But that, that's for them to decide and to work with, and they do a good job with it.
Okay. I thought that might be your answer. That makes a lot of sense. So another question, as we think about how you prioritize. I guess the question is: How do you prioritize sales initiatives versus maybe opportunities for efficiencies and margin expansion? How do you manage that kind of balance at PFG? And maybe that's a question for Patrick as well ...
Yeah
... from a CFO seat.
Yeah, well, and I know we don't talk about it a lot, but we do have a whole group of people that focus on inside the four walls and the trucks, and the tractors and trailers, and looking constantly for ways to improve efficiencies in our buildings. You know, when we open a new building, we've opened one recently in Houston, we've put in a lot of great technology in there, a lot of ways that allows the worker to be as efficient as possible.
And that can be everything from just how we laid out the building, so they can work as efficiently as possible, to adding more automation into the building so that some of the picks that might have been really slow picks for them are really sped up and allows them to pick just more efficiently throughout the day.
There's a lot of different things that we're doing there. We're really excited about either retrofitting buildings to do that or, as we open new buildings, we can ensure that technology's in place. And, you know, we're always looking at top line growth, obviously. We're very much a growth forward company, and then, you, you know, we talk a lot of things about, like, the penetration of our performance brands. That allows us to really give our customers really high quality brands at a little bit lower price, but also drives more margin for us. So we're looking at all these things all the time. And I'll pass back to you, George.
I think the biggest thing we look at to judge, okay, to judge everyone how they do, is what percentage of the gross profit dollars make it to the EBITDA line.
Okay.
You know, we have big differences among our businesses. We have 11 distribution centers that only do chain restaurants, and they can put over 20% of those gross profit dollars to the bottom line with less than 1.5 EBITDA margins.
Right.
Very efficient businesses, not as heavily staffed. Then we have many that we call legacy Roma, but they're like, you know, mostly pizza, Italian, and then chains, QSR chains. So once again, lower margins higher case cost average.
Right.
And they can run, you know, 2.5%-3%, and do that. Then we've got big broad liners, I would call, like, traditional broad liners companies that, you're... Once again, then you're in a whole different world. You know, you're talking 6, 8, couple tens, you know, as far as EBITDA margins. And of course, our convenience business is totally different. So ...
Right
... they're gonna have to try to judge them by what their delivery expense ratios are, or what their warehouse expense ratios are, or what their productivity is in the warehouse. If you're one of these big broad liners that make the most money, you're gonna have the highest warehouse cost ...
Right
... because you're covering more space, you have less multiple case selections. It's almost an impossible question...
Yeah.
... to answer. The best way to determine how they're doing is go watch them do it and see ...
Right
... what they're doing, and you know ...
Right
... maybe we can help them with slotting or racking or something, but ...
Right
... you can't. It's just not something that you can judge like that.
Okay, fair point. I guess, so Patrick, you mentioned some of the technology that's going into your new, warehouse, and maybe some of the old other ones getting retrofitted. Do you think PFG gets enough credit for the technology investments that you do? Or it feels like sometimes we don't talk about it as much, and it's, it's more, the discussion tends to be more on the growth side, but I think there are more things that you're doing. Do you feel like you guys get credit for that, or if not, like, what, what should we be focused on in terms of your technology investments?
Well, I mean, I would think that, you know, the people who follow us, our investors, know we're a distribution company, and I mean, that's what we do in the warehouse and what we do every day on the road delivering this products to our customers is absolutely the lifeblood of this company. So we spend a lot of time investing on the best ways to make those workers, those associates, as efficient as possible and as safe as possible. Whether we get credit for or not, you know, I don't know. But, you know, like I said, we have a team that goes out, and they look at what's the most recent technology.
We're never on the cutting edge of this stuff, but we do invest in automation, we do invest in various other things like robo-wrappers, robo-scrubbers, just ways to take work off of our associates and get them focused on picking cases. I don't know if you wanna add into that, George, or?
Well, we're never gonna be in the cutting edge, I can guarantee you that.
Okay.
Very expensive.
Yeah.
I think our employees have what they need to be successful, and our customers as well. You know, our customer base is as broad as it is in Vistar, and as many as we have, say, in Performance Foodservice, we're really focused. I mean ...
Yeah
... we do almost no healthcare ...
Right
... we do almost no lodging, contract feeding. It's just not what our high level of capability is. So we're, you know, we're pretty focused, and we provide the technology that the customers and our salespeople need that are focused on those businesses.
Fair enough. All right, time is up. That flew by. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
That was really helpful.
Thank you.