Let's keep the show going. Next session is gonna be bittersweet. On one hand, I'm thrilled to have The Simply Good Foods Company on stage once again this year. Those who followed the company since it became public, know that it has quite simply been a better-than-good fundamental story and simply a great stock to own. We're fortunate to have on stage for the first time this year the company's President, COO, and CEO-elect, Geoff Tanner. The bitter side, however, is that today we say goodbye to the one and only Joe Scalzo, the man who deserves credit for guiding the company on such a fantastic journey. Without further ado, let's sit down with the team and talk about what's next. Joe, let's start with you.
I did write that, by the way.
Yeah, I know. It's not very flattering. He did write it, by the way. He gave it to Mark, who sent it to me and said it'd be really nice if you called him fantastic and say great things about the guy. Joe, what's next for you? You're bowing out. Like, tell me, like, first, when's your last day, and what are you gonna do after that?
Well, early, I'll step down as CEO in early July, move into Executive Vice Chair role for at least another year. Probably part-time on the business, just helping Geoff with the transition of the business over time. You know, I'll chase some passions I have, not have to go to the gym at 6:00 A.M. in the morning. You know, do some things that I like to do and before I decide kinda what the next chapter is.
Okay. I think we're all gonna wanna live vicariously through you.
I will
on the story and the journey.
Yeah.
Geoff, those of us who followed Smucker know you, particularly. Well, to know you have to have just shown up at the analyst days because you're, like, you're not showing up very often on public conference calls or many of this type of circuit. It's the analyst days where we've had opportunity to get to know you. I think there's a limited cohort of investors who've actually attended those. Give us your backstory. Tell us where you've come from, maybe close with, like, why are you here? What drew you here, aside from obviously the role of CEO?
Yeah. It's great to be here. I have worked in food and beverage, mostly in North America, for about 20 years. My most recent role was Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at The Smucker Company, where we architected, you know, I hope you would agree, a bit of a turnaround of that company, Jason. Background is in marketing, general management, innovation, and more recently, sales. Kind of think of myself as a growth guy, with one foot on the brand side and one foot in the customer side and increasingly looking at how to bring those two worlds together, which I think is an emerging space. Obviously, you know, we deliver the quarter, get the right to grow the business, generate the fuel, et cetera. What drew me to the...
I was obviously very aware of Simply Good Foods, not to be with, you know, everything Joe's delivered. I worked in a previous life with some of the board members, Jim Kilts and Dave West. When I was looking at, you know, the next chapter of my career and looking for growth companies, this one just stood out on every dimension. The category that is in the early innings, I'm sure we'll talk about that. The brands have proven they can travel. The asset-light model means you can follow the consumer as opposed to trying to convince the consumer to follow what you can make. The strong commitment to marketing and innovation, all those factors just screams growth and runway. This is such a, you know, I saw it as a huge opportunity.
I got to meet Joe, and, you know, I'm thrilled Joe's not going anywhere. It's one of the first things I said to Jim Kilts, "I'm completely gonna keep Joe around, and can I have a really orderly transition with Joe?
Mm-hmm
that's what brought me here.
Yeah. You were, before Smucker, you were with Del Monte, right?
Right. Yeah.
That's where you worked.
That was the Dave West. He was the former CEO of Hershey and the Jim Kilts connection.
Yeah. It's a long time with that organization between Del Monte and the transition to Smucker, so this is quite the adventure for you, breaking out. You mentioned categories in early stage.
Yeah.
That's interesting. I mean, I guess I think about your business still as a bit of a health and wellness bars and shake business.
Mm-hmm
... you know, those aren't new categories. They've been around for a while. What do you mean when you see categories in early stages?
I think if you look at the grocery store in the U.S., most categories have high household penetration. They're in the high 80s and low 90s. Mature brands, where it's mostly a share game, okay? That's my point of reference. You look at nutritional snacking, and I think it's a relative teenager compared to those categories. Household penetration's in the low 50s, and we're just getting started, I think, in terms of the product offerings we're bringing. Yes, the category grew up in shakes and bars, but what Quest has been able to do, for example, in salty shows the potential of this category to break well beyond as we see it today. And retailers see it too. This is week seven for me, so early, but I've met with most of our customers.
They see the growth opportunity, and they're looking to us to provide that leadership and build plans together to grow that into much more of a destination. I see nothing but category runway.
Okay. You're in the part of the store that you've referred to as the What's it called? The HABA?
Health and beauty aid?
Yeah.
HABA.
Yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's a different aisle. Is that a gaining factor in terms of, like, that 50% household penetration? Can you continue to scale while being there, or do you have to break out and go... Like, if you want nutritional snacking to have those types of penetration, do you have to go where snacking is?
Early for me, week six, I think we can build it where we are today. I like our position in that category. I would rather build it from a position of strength. It helps to be category advisor. I mean, that relationship with the retailer, it probably matters more, I think, than ever before. It's up to us to partner with retailers to create the space, optimize the assortment, use combined media and analytic capabilities, and build that as a destination. What would worry me is if we start trying to show up around the grocery store with a small player in large aisles against large competitors, that scares me.
Mm-hmm.
Might we push for some you know, situations where there's secondary display? Yeah, sure. You know, we've got some of that going on with Kroger right now, and it's working fine. My orientation, I think Joe, you know, feels the same way, build from a base of strength.
Okay.
Yeah, we've learned with Atkins and with Quest, where you enter a different part of the store with a product where you don't have scale, you're not as important to that aisle, to that buyer, to that retailer. You have difficulty gaining traction. Meal bowl business on Atkins seven years ago, the pizza business on Quest, successful businesses, but you lack scale and importance in those aisles. I'm completely been where Geoff is from the very beginning. Scale, profitability, really important. Our role in that aisle for retailers is to bring. If you think of the aisle, the aisle is long purchase cycle, personal care products, basically. Cough, cold, hair care, oral care, they don't get frequent shopping occasions. Our category is actually a foot traffic driver into a very profitable, important part of the store for retailers.
They use it that way, right? They look at us as building market basket for them. You don't give that up, right? You just continue to figure out how to get more space as you grow the category. I'm kinda where Jeff, lots of runway for growth. I've been in the business now for over 10 years. We were in the low 30s in category household penetration back then. We're in the kinda mid-50s now. You've seen 20 points of growth. There's another 40 points coming. No matter how do you capture, how quickly can you capture it, and who's gonna win the game of capturing it over time? I like Jeff's hand.
Makes sense. You're diversifying across categories, and we'll touch on this a little bit more, but you're diversifying with two brands, two-brand portfolio now, with Quest and Atkins, which I think everyone in the audience knows, but that's the two brands. They have two different trajectories right now. Quest has been absolutely on fire. I think it certainly exceeded my expectations. I think you guys had high expectations. I suspect it's also exceeded yours. Tell me about the drivers of the success. What's the magic there? Like, it's a brand that's proven to have very broad shoulders and be able to extend to different places. Like, what did you learn from that? I just gave you a lot to chew on.
Yeah.
Take it as you want.
I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to Geoff. Exceeded our expectations. It was the number one asset we wanted to buy as we were looking for M&A. We were fortunate enough to get the asset. You know, we believe the brand had a long runway. I would say that has exceeded our expectation, and in fact, we think the runways, there's a lot more growth in front of us than we've already captured. Very, very optimistic. You know, the drivers of it quite simply have been our ability to invest in it. We've stepped up marketing investment from kind of low to mid-single digits as a % of net sales to, you know, 8%, 9%. I think we've captured a really compelling positioning around athlete-worthy nutrition for your own personal quests. We're macronutrient right.
You know, low-carb, protein-rich is, the, you know, the approach to nutrition these days, and in particular in the athletic community. Then I think we've You know, we inherited a brand with really good innovation pipeline, that it's enabled us the combination of distribution gains, innovation, in particular around salty snacks, marketing, investment, positioning, that we just It's on fire. You know, I'll turn it over to Geoff 'cause he's coined, he wants to throw gasoline on the fire, and I think that there's an opportunity for us to do that.
Yeah, Quest is a rocket ship. I mean, you don't see too many brands of that scale delivering that level of growth, and we see it week to week. I'm sure you see it in consumer takeaway. It is uniquely positioned. Excuse me. The products deliver. One of the things coming into Simply that I've been really impressed by is the innovation capability. I've worked in innovation roles in different companies. Nobody does it better than the team at Simply Good. It is a legitimate, true capability, and you see it in Quest. The products taste fantastic. I'm sure many of you in the room eat them. Hope so. High protein products that just taste fantastic. What they've been able to do is to take that and push it out beyond just bars and shakes.
That for me is proof of concept, Jason. Not just of the broad shoulders the brand has. I mean, salty snacks in just a few years, $200 million in sales. It's proof of concept of the brand has shoulders. It's proof of concept that the category can extend beyond bars and shakes. The opportunities in front of us, 'cause I'm sure you're gonna ask, how do you keep it going, right?
Of course.
The opportunities in front of us, keep innovating like we have, both in the core and beyond. Keep pushing distribution. There's been a 68% increase in distribution since the acquisition. There's still a lot of runway. There's a runway online, there's runway in terms of getting our high volume SKUs fully distributed, and we're missing. You know, we've got some gaps in key channels. Lastly, I think we can do a better job of marketing this brand. I think the positioning is spot on, but I don't yet believe, and I've been quite clear with this with the team, and Joe and I have talked about it a lot. We need marketing at a level that is commensurate with the size and cultural relevance of this brand.
We need a media plan so people see it. You have to believe I'm gonna jump into that with both feet. We need marketing commensurate with the level of product delivery that we have right now.
That's what we're gonna hold you to next year. Next year, when you're on stage, I wanna hear the success story.
I'll show you the stuff.
You're gonna show me the stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
He just set himself up again.
Totally, you did. Yeah.
I did.
Yeah. My teammate, Alex, is out there.
By the way, I agree with him completely on this.
I think the, I think our strategy on the brand is smart, dead on. I think our execution against it, both from a communication standpoint and a media buy standpoint can. There's always opportunity to improve. You know, the brand has grown household penetration like nothing I've seen in a long time. We're at 14.1%. I think we took the brand over, we were at 11.5% penetration. The combination of marketing, investment, communication, new products, distribution has just drove that penetration, which is driving the growth rate of the business. I'm with Geoff. I think he can. He's exactly the guy to take this brand to the next level. Lucky he's a fit, kiwi rugby player. Come on. Perfect. That's his brand.
Badass.
All right. I didn't realize the rugby component.
Yeah.
I came to America to play rugby.
Did you really?
Mm-hmm.
All right. Well, we could go down the rabbit hole, but not today. That's over a beer some other time. We'll talk about that story. The innovation front, you're pumped about, which I think is actually reuniting the legacy Atkins innovation team that went to Quest, is now back with the whole family. You've had success in salty snacks. This brand's been extended lots of different places. What have you learned? Like, where has the brand successfully been able to go? Where have you learned like, "All right, this is pushing it too far, and like, we shouldn't be there"?
Yeah.
Can I start?
Yeah.
No, I'll give it to you.
I don't think it's... You know, first of all, I would say stay in your own aisle. We learned in pizza you can have success, but if you don't have scale in the aisle, it's very difficult to sustain it. You know, lesson learned is play to your strength, you know, in your supply chain, in the bag that your salespeople sell in the aisle where consumers can find it. I think that's an important component to it. Second, we've had success innovating on Quest, where we can flip the macros of a snacking category, right? If you think of salty snacks or cookies, lots of sugar, lots of carbs, not a lot of really good things for it.
If you can flip the macros, no carbs, no sugar, rich in protein, make a great tasting product, and you're the first one to get there, you can have a lot of success. Tortilla chips being an example, $200 million business. Where the category's already gone there, less certain. Ready-to-drink shakes. Standard of identity in that category with Premier Protein, with a number of other brands, it's already low carb, low sugar, you know, right? Protein rich, right? We've got a nice business, but we don't have the kind of breakout success. Be first where you can flip the macros with a great tasting product, and it's a, like a big category, right? It's a. I would encourage you to watch the cheese crackers that we just launched on Quest.
I would encourage all of you to try them side by side with the leading bad for you alternative and tell me you can taste the difference. I don't think you'll be able to. It's gonna be. We're the only low-carb alternative in cheese crackers. It's gonna be a monster. I think kind of that's our profile. In our aisle, flip the macros, be first to do that with a great tasting product. I think you can create. I think as you walk around the store and look at what people snack on, you now know what our R&D people are working on. Can they make a low-carb protein-rich version of that? If they can and it tastes great, come into a store near you sometime in the future.
That's exciting.
I stole your thunder, though.
No, I was gonna say everything you said. I don't think it's rocket science to look at these large snacking categories and think there's a percentage of people who would pay up for a high protein, good for you, same tasting version of that snack. I mean, that's not rocket science. We will be there first. Joe's right, you know, that's what we're doing. I have a real weak spot for cheeses. Try to keep them out of my house because I can't help myself. I go back.
You do. You'll love these.
I do. I got it.
You'll love these. Mark, send him a box.
Yeah. Where is he? Mark, I'm gonna hold you to that.
He's back there.
All right.
They're amazing.
You see he's like TikToking or something back there. I don't know. He didn't hear that. I'll catch up with him later. Okay. What % of Quest is still bars? It's where the brand was born.
Half.
Okay, still half. It's still big. It matters. Well, how's the bar business doing?
Well-
That's great.
We had an innovation in the last year, so we reformulated the product. If you're, if you've ever been a Quest bar eater, it is, you know. Probably the biggest knock on the original bar was it could get kind of hard over time. It didn't age well. The hack was you pull it out of the foil wrapper, you stick it in a microwave, you zap it for 15 seconds, and it's nice and soft. We've solved that with a reformulation, changing out the fiber system. The new product now is amazing. At 8, 9 months, it's as if it just came off the line, and that has been a nice driver for growth on the business.
One of the really positive things of the brand, the core of the brand, the bar business, continues to grow even as we've added line extensions to the business. You now got a nice growing cookie business, nice growing tortilla chip business. The shake business is growing really well. If your bar business isn't growing, you know, it's less increment-
Yeah
... it's less incremental. There's enough innovation on bars that we're pretty comfortable that's gonna continue.
Now, that category has transformed a lot. Rewind the clock 5, 10 years ago.
Growth attracts competition, always and forever.
A massive proliferation.
Yeah.
I walk the aisle now, it feels a lot cleaner.
Yes.
Obviously, KIND has been folded into Mars. Clif has been folded into Mondelēz. It feels like there's just been a lot of cleanup and consolidation. Is my perception reality?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, you're right. There has been, I mean, I think that's happened across the store. It started in COVID. If you remember prior to COVID, proliferation everywhere. COVID forced retailers to take a hard look at their shelves, and 'cause in-stocks mattered. Now you have labor issues with stores. They've, I think, across the store, and this is happening in our category, how do I simplify assortment? How do I improve in-stocks? How do I take out inventory levels from a retailer's point of view? You're not wrong. I can tell you when that's happening, it absolutely helps to be category advisor. You want a seat at the table. I think bar one of our top 10 customers, we're a category advisor.
That's why I love this category, because retailers are looking to us to chart the course forward, both in the near term tactical assortment, you know, piece, as well as long-term, what does this look like?
When Mondelēz acquired Clif, we all balked at the. Was it multiple? Jaw-dropping for a business of that size to go out with that type of multiple. They said, "Don't worry, we'll prove that it's worth this because it's been an under-managed asset in terms of margin." I think last earnings call, they boasted of a 1,000 basis point improvement in margin since the last acquired and said, "We're not done. We've taken two rounds of price." Like, they had just been complicit, riding the same price point for years despite inflation. Usually you see a company with a massive brand say, "I'm gonna pivot to a margin," it creates opportunity for those underneath it to either say, "It's a price umbrella. I can move up or I can take market share." I imagine the same is happening for you.
What are you seeing in that interplay, and which path are you going down?
You know, I've been in a lot of categories in food, beverage, and personal care. This is not a category where you have a lot of brand interaction based on price.
Hmm.
Right? Worked at Coca-Cola, Coke and Pepsi, two-liter bottle, gotta be close to each other in price. Worked in the juice business, worked in the. It's not this kinda category. You kinda take care of your own house. You protect your margins as. However you feel is right, you protect your margins based on cost, try to get the price points that are relevant for consumers. It's not a, it's not a category that has brand interaction like price gap relative to competitor that lead you to a different pricing strategy. I think they just feel, like I assume, that Clif missed the opportunity to price and cost of goods have been going up, and they took the opportunity to take price.
We did not. We took two sequential price increases on Quest.
Yeah.
By the way, the volumes just kept growing.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's how we look at how do we get our own house in order, manage our margins.
Yeah
... versus, you know, what KIND or Clif might be doing.
Yeah. All right. We're not even in the aisle with them, right?
Yeah.
They're in our category, but not a lot of interaction with them. Very different place.
I wanna bring us back to margins and get Shaun into the mix in a minute. Before I go there.
Thank you.
Yeah, exactly. I know. You're looking kinda lonely down there, all on the end, left out of the discussion. I'll bring you in. Just give it a second. Let's first close the loop on portfolio. We talked a lot about Quest. The Atkins business has not been performing as robustly as it historically has, as I think I would certainly like to see. This is the second year in a row you're on stage and we're having the same conversation. 'Cause last year, like, I asked the same type of question, like, "Hey, Atkins ain't doing so great. What's going on?" Here we are a year later. Atkins isn't doing so great. What's going on?
I'm gonna miss the provocative questions from you, Jason. I have to admit that. Let's get to. Look, I love this brand. I'll talk to you a little bit about what I love about this brand. I have some aspirations for it, you know, based upon my understanding of it. Let's talk the facts first, right? The first fact is consumption was up 5% in the second quarter, right? Which is, we would expect more based upon how we've been performing from a household penetration standpoint. It's, you know, it's an acceptable growth rate. As we moved into the third quarter, we weren't warned on the earnings call. We had some overlaps from last year. In and out items in club store not being repeated. At the time, club stores were looking for foot traffic due to COVID.
What they did is they basically took items not in distribution, put them out on pallets, so we got a lot of incremental volume from those. If you just back that out a year ago number, we have decent growth on the business, right? I think quarter to date, we're down 3% in track channels, and then obviously, much better performance in on-track channels. I think I would characterize similarly to you. We have higher expectations for the brand. Let me tell you what I love about the brand and let me tell you where I think the opportunities are. I've been working on this brand for 10 years. This is a brand that is. It's very, very difficult in your career to find a brand that is more sharply positioned.
It is a low-carb, protein-rich brand for people looking to be better, be well, and look better. That is a very compelling positioning, and it's proven out. When a consumer comes to this brand, they're loyal and they buy a lot. A multi-year buyer of Atkins is buying over 100 servings in a year. There is no snack brand on the planet, Cheetos, Doritos, doesn't exist. This is a highly loyal lifestyle brand, and we've shown the ability over a decade to bring consumers to the brand. That has not changed in the last three years. The challenge has been, we've not been able to. The aspiration for this business is, can we keep the consumption at the rate of growth of buyers? That has not been the case. During COVID, it was driven by snacking behaviors.
You can imagine if you're snacking that much on a product like that, the difference between being at work and being at home, your snacking behavior is disrupted, it wasn't a positive for the brand, right? We had less meal replacement, less on-the-go, less convenience, more confection snacking in the evenings. We had a ride through that during COVID. Since then, it's been trade down per purchase due to us. We didn't innovate as well as we should have on bars. Where we were innovating, the package size per purchase was smaller. We're seeing high single-low double-digit buyer growth, but the consumption growth is much lower because we've traded people down. We got to fix the portfolio. We got to get innovation on bars better to get the buy rate back up. There's no reason that we can't do that.
In fact, the plans are in place, just running the business. You'll see innovation rolling out as we move through the spring and the summer, and you'll see the bar business get back on track because of that. Just so you understand, bars are 5 and 10 packs. Chips are singles. Just traded people down from 5 and 10s to 1s, and cookies are 4 packs, and shakes are 4 packs. Anytime you don't pay attention to your mix of the business on Atkins, you can actually force a unit and trade yourself down 20%, 30%, 40%, and it has a significant impact on consumption. We don't have a brand relevance issue in my mind. We just got a portfolio execution issue that we need to fix.
Do you have a diet relevance issue? I mean, if we look across and, I mean, I think a lot of people still perceive Atkins to be a diet brand. Correct me if you think I'm wrong, and I think you will.
I do.
I'm looking forward to that correction. As we canvass the landscape, like hey, Nutrisystem, like every freaking legacy diet brand is under pressure other than these new drugs, which are just enfuego. We'll hear from Weight Watchers or later, on how they're pivoting to try to capture some of that because their core business just keeps going out. Is that at the core of the real problem with Atkins?
If it were, I couldn't recruit buyers. It's not, right? If I weren't bringing people to the brand, the brand would have a relevance issue. If you just step back 10 years, how different the landscape has changed over 10 years. 10 years ago, low carb was the lunatic fringe of nutrition. Today, it's mainstream. 10 years ago, fast weight loss was the benefit. Lifestyle change is the benefit now. We dealt with keto as a trend, right? We're now dealing with weight loss drugs as a trend. The brand has always been able to adjust to the business situation that we're facing and continue to recruit buyers to the brand. That's not the issue. The issue is keeping buy rate growth-
Mm-hmm
... similar so that your growth in buyers is growth in consumption, and we can get that back on track. Our track record is just too good for it. I just want to remind you in, when I started on the business, Atkins was a $150 million brand. It's 4 times the size now. We've shown the ability to grow this brand consistently year after year after year, and I'm staring at really good buyer numbers. We don't have a relevance issue on this brand. We've got some executional issues we need to clean up, and we're gonna clean them up.
The snack bar portion, right, which is a large portion of the business, because we didn't bring innovation, we lost 25% of distribution.
Mm-hmm.
That's gonna have an impact, right? We are working furiously to bring back innovation there. I'd characterize it. That's a pretty big impact on a business when you lose 25% of distribution. We will get it back.
Yeah, if we had executed that way on Quest, we'd be having a different story on Quest too, right?
Sure.
You have to. We learned that that was our fault. We executed badly. Should not have let that happen. The good news is we have good customer relationships. As we innovate, we'll fix that problem. The better news, actually, short term, is you start lapping those losses right now, right?
Yeah.
You're gonna see the business as we move into the fourth quarter.
We'll be through the club store comparisons year ago. You start lapping the distribution losses a year ago, and you'll see the business start to pick up.
When what's the innovation fix? Your snack bars didn't work. They fell out of market. You didn't have a backfill, right? When's the backfill coming?
well, we've got, we're launching some right now, but we have a much larger pipeline that is a really good-looking pipeline. We'll be bringing that to market over the next one to three years.
Okay. Okay. I'm gonna pivot to margins, but real quick, anyone in the audience have a question? Nope. Okay. Shaun, it's your turn.
Talking about margins took 30 minutes. I'm surprised about that.
Well, yeah, this is a growth story.
That's it.
If the top line's not working, nothing else is working. It all falls apart after that. Margins are important, though, obviously. We need to turn that top line into penny profit. Your margins have come under a reasonable amount of pressure. You're not alone. The whole industry has, right? There's been a lot of inflation. If consensus estimates are right, you're gonna finish the year around 400 basis points lower than where you were two years ago. Hopefully, consensus is wrong, and it won't be as bad. Unpack that. Like, what have been the drivers of the margin compression, and what are the levers you can pull to recover that?
We did take 2 price increases, as these guys talked about already. Over the last couple years on both brands, about 16%-17%. We've had about $170 million, give or take, over 3 years in inflation costs. If you take a step back and say, "Okay, when we started this year, we thought the cost of goods sold would be up low double digits, and we thought our margins would be down versus the prior year." Basically, most of that will be in the first half. If you remember the first half of last year, we actually had improvement in that. We didn't have any inflation in our numbers the first third of the year, give or take. We're about 6 months behind because we actually tend to have people buy out about 6 months.
That inflation stuff can start going the other way. We're gonna get commodities that are gonna be favorable overall, and you'll start seeing that in the second half of the year. We're gonna be sequentially better, and we're gonna be better than last year in Q4 versus the previous year, overall.
You say commodities favorable. Does that mean less inflationary?
Yeah.
are you actually-
Yes.
How about deflation? We were seeing some, like the dairy protein-
Yeah
-linked commodities. They've come way off some of these really high peaks. What are the key commodities we should be looking at, and what are you seeing in the markets today?
Protein, for sure. I think the dairy protein's a big part of our thing overall. I think the key piece you gotta remember, too, is we've gotta burn off some of the older inventory that's a little bit higher priced. You're gonna see the start of that. Our first half of next year is gonna be much better from a standpoint of margins versus where it was this year overall.
Yeah. As a 3P outsource manufacturing company, I can't imagine there's a lot of productivity you can go after. Is that fair, or are there opportunities to go out and pick up-
We target anywhere from $15 million-$20 million in cost savings every year. That's kind of our target overall.
Okay.
Some of that's reformulation, as Joe talked about. Some of that's just kind of productivity out there, tolling increases. We just renegotiate our contract with our 3PL in terms of the logistics provider. You'll see some savings for that. We're pretty focused on both of those things. What's the commodity outlook, and then what are the cost savings and how much that's gonna drop overall.
Yeah. Yeah, the freight markets look like they should be your friend as you go to renegotiate that. Labor is really tight. Is that the primary thing to look at as we think about tolling costs and how they change?
We're generally speaking, we're locked in from a standpoint of contracts for tollings. Occasionally, we'll get some surprises as it relates to minimum order quantities as they kinda work through how that works. We haven't seen much in terms of them trying to pass that on, other than, you know, new categories that we get into overall. We haven't seen as much on that side. The nice thing about our business being outsourced is we have a lot more predictability as it thinks through what's coming for us.
Okay. That's good to hear. Last question from me, and then we're out of time, capital allocation. You've done one deal.
Just one deal.
That's fine. It's a freaking home run. You know, if we can go find something that's even half that successful, it'll be another home run by all accounts. What is the priority? Are you guys looking to pay down debt? Are you always looking for more deals? What should we expect from you going forward?
Always look on deals, right? In our category, in our aisle, consumer brands, growth runway. In the absence of that, from a capital allocation standpoint.
Yeah, pay down debt. Yeah.
Yeah. We just renegotiated, but we're looking to pay it down.
Yeah. With rates where they are today-
Yeah
It makes a lot more sense to be paying down debt than it did a couple years ago. Awesome. Guys, gentlemen, thank you so much. Joe, congratulations on what's been a phenomenal run here at this business.
Thank you.
Geoff, congrats on the new role. I'm eager to grill you next year on some of the proof points and success.
I'll bring you some stuff to look at.
Yeah, some of those, some of those high protein crackers too.
You're gonna love them.
Sounds like it. Thanks.
Thanks. You had a great team.