Morning, guys. Thanks for joining us right at 8:00 A.M. here. I'm Brian Harbour. I cover the food distributors and restaurant space at Morgan Stanley. Also, usual disclaimer: for important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative. So first of all, we have Sysco. Kenny Cheung is the CFO, Kevin Kim, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, guys, for joining us here. Maybe, you know, just a broader question to start, right? So obviously, your customers are businesses, but this is a consumer conference. You serve, you know, almost 20% of the U.S. food service market, right? So you have a good vantage point there. How, you know, are you feeling about demand in your end markets?
As we think about 2025, you know, what cross currents do you think are kind of most relevant here?
Yeah. Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be back again. You know, before I answer the question, I thought, you know, it'd be prudent for me to kind of set the table a bit, pun intended, set the table a bit here. Come on, it's early, right? My jokes are not landing just quite yet. But, you know, in terms of where does Sysco land in terms of our position within the ecosystem and the industry, right? So point number one is we are the market leader globally, number one. So in the most markets that we serve, we're actually number one. So for example, in Canada, we have 25% market share. In the U.S., 17% market share. And then our specialty business, 9% market share. So what does this mean? Two things. Number one, we're the biggest. Scale and size matter in this industry.
And number two, my favorite part is there's so much runway, right? Only 17%, only 25% in Canada. The TAM for our industry globally is $400 billion, right? We have over $80 billion. So again, lots of tremendous runway. If you take a step back, our industry that we participate in is pretty resilient. If you look at the past 54 years, those have been two instances that we didn't grow: one during COVID and one during the financial crisis in 2008. So the business is very resilient. And so we are the market leader in a growing pie. Now, to your question, Brian, around the end market and the end consumer, you know, right now we're seeing a few trends. Right now we're seeing consumers index and gravitate towards value, affordability, convenience. And the good news is Sysco provides these three things for our customers.
Therefore, in turn, they provide to the end consumer at the end. And I like to use examples to prove a point, right? So value, affordability, convenience. So one example is Sysco Brand, providing value, quality product for our customers. Therefore, they can, in turn, have optionality to pass on to their customers. The second point is around our specialty business. Think about, a P&L for a restaurant owner. The two biggest pain points at times are wages and lease renewals, right? So therefore, we can actually take knives out of their kitchen, pre-cut the meat, pre-cut the produce, right? That's one example. At the same time, we can actually dry age their beef as well. So therefore, they don't have to move into a new building to dry age beef for, as part of their operation.
So again, we do find that, as a theme right now, and we are part of a catalyst to enable a movement of restaurants serving their customers as well. The last thing I would say on here on that point is, you know, people tend to think restaurants is all we do. That's not true. Two-thirds of our national customers are restaurants. One-third is what we call non-commercial, non-restaurants. Think about education. Think about universities, healthcare, hospitals, senior living, entertainment industry, and the like. So these are high growth, high margin, and we're doing very, very well here. In terms of the industry, what we're seeing right now, we are seeing momentum. We're seeing sequential month-over-month momentum. So let's kind of bifurcate it a little bit between the months. So if you think about Q1, the market was down foot traffic-wise, round numbers, 3.5% or so.
If you bifurcate the months, July was down 5%, August was down 4%, and September was down 3%, okay, in terms of foot traffic, down year- on- year. October more or less was similar to September, even though we had two weeks of hurricanes and storms in the early part of October. And November, based on what we're seeing right now, seems to be better than October, so down probably 1% or 2% year-on-year. The takeaway here is that it's still negative year-on-year. And I would argue that foot traffic for Sysco, it is a proxy for industry health. However, if you look at the past 12 months, we've actually had a positive spread between our volume growth and foot traffic. So let's take last quarter. Last quarter, we were down 3.5% for the industry. Sysco was up 2.7%.
So we can grow in any environment. And the reason why is the following: one, biggest winning new customers investing for growth. And second, back to my first point, only 70% market share, right? So we are winning new customers day in and day out. And those new customers become penetration opportunities down the road when the market bounces back up, right? So that's fantastic. And the last thing I would say is that though we can't control the market, here at Sysco, we're truly focused on things that we can control, like operations, efficiencies, gross profit management, right? Corporate expense, which was down 14.5% year-on-year in Q1. And so if you wrap it all up, market's getting a bit better. We're a catalyst for change, and we are making momentum across the P&L levers.
Therefore, we are reiterating our FY 2025 guidance for both top line and EPS, so top line, just to remind everybody, 4%-5% on the top line and an EPS of 6%-7% growth, year-on-year, so.
Okay. Great. If you care to comment, you know, is there any specific kind of customer segment driving that? Is that improvement pretty common across customer segments or any color you'd add to that, those comments you just made?
Yeah. It's pretty spread across all customer types that we're seeing. Obviously, the non-commercial segment's more resilient by nature, so they don't flex much as high or low.
Yeah.
But it's really across the board, and that's the beauty of our business. We serve QSRs all the way up to fine dining, right, so we're seeing that across the board right now.
Okay. What, I mean, more broadly, what do you think is overlooked in the Sysco story as you see it today?
Yeah. I think I'll start off with the first point is I think there's three things here, if I think what's overlooked by the investor community. First is the fact that I, what I mentioned earlier, market leader, over $80 billion of top line, Fortune 50, and only 17% market share. You don't get this combination a lot, right? Literally, there's so much runway and, and white space across local, national, specialty, international. That's point number one. Point number two is, you know, our current shares are trading, I would, I think, factually based historical multiples lows right now, right? They're trading lows right now. And, and we are investing more than ever.
So if you put them together, coupled with the fact that we have the leading industry ROIC, leading industry margins, leading industry cash flow conversion, this is a real proposition from investor standpoint, especially around our TSR 9%-11% on the floor. It's part of our algo. And then last but not least, I would say is just, and we say this a lot, Brian, investment-grade balance sheet, right? We are the only one in our industry that has investment-grade balance sheet. And this allows us to provide value for our shareholders at the spot and play the long game on the floor. So this is really important for us. Our cash conversion generation power can allow us to do both at the same exact time.
Kevin, anything else to add?
Yeah. Just to add to that, from a compensation structure perspective, Brian, I think one of the things that's important is that when you're thinking about our short-term compensation program or our annual program, we do have a higher weighting this coming year in terms of our financials. So it's going from 60%-70%. So that's, I think, a good alignment with how shareholders think about driving shareholder value. And then secondly, in terms of what Kenny was talking about regarding our ROIC component, it's actually part of our compensation program now, right? So as you think about that long-term compensation, a good chunk is coming from that ROIC lens.
Okay. Got it. So obviously, in May, you put out sort of a new 25-27 algo, 4%-6% sales growth, 1.5%-3.5% case growth.
Yep.
6%-8% operating income and EPS growth, lower half of that EPS growth range this year. I mean, there's a few parts of this question, but I guess first, how would you sort of characterize the progress on those pieces?
Yeah. Yeah. The bumper sticker headline news is we remain confident in our financial algo we presented in May. You know, when we put out the algo, we listen to our investor community, right? Say-do ratio, do what you say you will do, right? So our targets are achievable and one that we can deliver on a consistent basis. We really believe in the power of compounding. Think about a TSR of 9%-11% compounding, compounding. So again, achievable, one we can deliver on a consistent basis. You know, I think the way that I would answer your question is 4%-6% top line. Let me kind of unpack that and talk about the components of it and how I feel, how progressing towards that, that number. So 4%-6%, roughly 2% is inflation, right? And we feel confident because we're seeing 2% right now.
We've entered a normalized inflationary environment. Obviously, certain commodities are up, down, depending on the macro. However, as a basket itself, 2%, we're seeing that right now. So check. M&A, 50 basis points. That was part of the algo as well. Edward Don has brought in more than that this year for us. And we are continually looking at M&A. We have a nice pipeline in place, whenever we can build, but we'll be prudent with ROIC lens. So 50 basis points right now, check already as well. So now you have 2.5 already, which leaves you with the volume number, 1.5%-3.5%. The good news is half of our business is local customers. Half of our business is national customers. For national customers, we are already at the 1.5%-3.5%. Last quarter was more of a two-handle organic growth, excluding Don.
So national customers is already there. We're growing profitably, and we're also growing, call it the non-commercial sector as well. This is your education, healthcare, entertainment, and the likes. So that's doing well. So that which really leaves you with the local customer side now, right? So local customers, we're not there yet. We have actions in place. We're very confident with our actions. The two biggest actions that we talked about on the earnings call is one, SC hires. The majority of our hires on the books right now was hired in the back half of last year. And we believe, and we're already seeing some contribution in terms of dividends from that investment. We're seeing that already in some of the selective markets we're investing in. And the other piece is what Kevin just talked about around compensation.
We have updated and tweaked our compensation structure to align profit and growth and update and change our behaviors of our SCs as well. Those two are actually yielding dividends for us. We expect the momentum to carry into the back half, to have a step change in the back half. Therefore, I feel very confident with the algo, and it's going well so far.
Mm-hmm. And in your confidence, so local and international, I think, are the pieces that are a little bit below.
Yeah.
Your potential now, right? So you're, you think that those will both get better in the second quarter here.
Absolutely. Yes.
So, okay. I mean, you know, part of it is also just operating leverage, right? In.
Yep.
The second quarter and then in.
Yep.
More in the second half, right? What are, you know, the tougher parts of getting there? Could you just talk about your confidence in that as well?
Yeah. We expect to improve our operating leverage throughout the year, with the full year having operating leverage. So that's point number one. Number two is the question behind the question: okay, so we didn't see it in Q1. How do you plan to get there essentially for the rest of the year? What is the glide path essentially is the question behind the question.
Right.
And so there's a few folds here. Number one, as we talked about in the last earnings call, we have strategic sourcing that's underway. There's some timing in Q1, but that's going really well right now. Strategic sourcing, just to remind everybody, this is negotiating, partnering with our suppliers, looking at new and existing categories. And given the fact that we are the biggest, we will see the biggest benefit from that standpoint. Also, local case growth, there's a mixed benefit as well on the GP side. And then with local case growth comes Sysco Brand as well, which has a margin higher calories in terms of margins too. And then in terms of our supply chain side, we are continuing to make a lot of progress on supply chain. The number one driver of supply chain productivity is retention.
Our retention for drivers and selectors are literally doubled year-on-year. And every single quarter, we are yielding productivity. Last quarter's roughly call it a, you know, 3%-4% productivity year-on-year. And the encouraging news is that we are, we plan to achieve leverage this year, and our productivity is still not back at 19 levels yet. So there's still room to go. On the corporate expense side, really strong progress here. Last year, you may recall this, we had a, an action at the end of, call it the back half of last year, nice carryover into this year. And we have a robust pipeline that we're executing upon right now. So we should continue to have corporate productivity as well. Therefore, that contributes to the step function of leverage for the.
Okay. Yeah. And I mean, you know, not to be too short-term oriented, but based on your comments about November, it sounds like 2Q is kind of still as you expected on your call, right? Nothing's changed with that, fair to say.
Yeah. It's still consistent to what we said on X, so we're still very confident in Q2 and the full year.
Okay.
Brian, just to take one giant step back, as you think about the actions that we have in place right now, whether that be the first half of the year or really over the last couple of quarters, I think it's the right steps to make.
Mm-hmm.
In terms of making sure that we're looking at the long-term lens of the business. So again, as you think about volumes returning in regards to traffic levels, as we think about the macro improving in the second half of the year, we feel like it puts us in a very, very good position, especially with our cost base, to make sure that we continue to execute, at the industry-leading margin rates that we do have. A couple of other data points to keep in mind in terms of the other areas of the business that are a little bit more, help feed the pipeline of growth, right? So as you think about Sysco Your Way, which is our restaurant- dense, program, that's already a $400 million business on an incremental basis, driving, plenty of share of wallet with those customers that have signed up.
Thinking about Sysco Perks, which is our loyalty program, we already have over 12,000 customers signed up. So those are some of the things that really have been driving a higher rate of growth that contribute to that financial algorithm, as Kenny was highlighting.
Right. Okay. Maybe talk about the international side just a bit. I mean, you've kind of talked about the Sysco playbook,
Yep.
Working there. You have actually seen good profit growth despite, you know, fairly more moderate sales growth, I would say. What's kind of working there? You know, maybe talk about demand in some of the key markets, like you're big in Canada, U.K., France, for example. Those are, you know, markets that some people here care about as well.
Yeah. So I'm glad you asked the international question. Most of the time I get my questions are around U.S. And, you know, by default, it is our biggest market. But international is roughly 20% of our top line. And it is a growth engine for us to your point that you just made now. A few markets you just rattled off. I mean, we are number one in, for example, Canada. We're number one in Great Britain, number one in Ireland, Costa Rica. I mean, I could go on, just to name a few. So, we are the number one in those markets. And that comes with great opportunity for us because when you're number one in those markets, you have the ability to scale and the ability to tack on with M&A as well.
So that's, you know, you notice that, in most M&As that we do, we usually buy companies that are tacked on when we're number one in broad line, right? So think about Ready Chef in Ireland. Think about Campbell Brothers and, in the U.K. So again, number one in those marketplaces. In terms of what we're seeing in international, and let me just right off three numbers, which is pretty impressive. Yes, you're right. Top line, roughly 3% growth in the last quarter. GP, gross profit, we grew 6%. And operating income, we grew 12%, right? So we doubled up every layer of the P&L. And so the question is, what's driving that despite the fact that, sales is, it's around 3%? You know, there's a few things that's driving it. I'll try to unpack it from the different levels of the P&L.
So in terms of from on the sales side down to GP, the reason why you're seeing that nice leverage from 3 to 6 is a few folds. Number one is, you know, traditionally, our international business is focused on our national customers, and as part of the Sysco playbook that you referenced, Brian, we're targeting really hard now on local customer growth. Local customer growth last quarter was actually 3%- 4%. So that's point number one, better mix of business. Point number two is also strategic sourcing. So, you know, back in the days, each market negotiates on their own. Now we have a European structure. So it's not just this region market going by themselves. It's looking at it from a Europe standpoint. So strategic sourcing, looking at categories, similar playbook to what we did in the U.S.
So, and one in which we are still doing in the U.S. That's point number two. Number three is Sysco Brand penetration. We're seeing, because of local case growth, we're seeing Sysco Brand penetration go up as well. These are a few things that's driving, I would say, the GP leverage between sales and GP. The other thing which you'll see more of, and it's starting now, is Total Team Selling. Total Team Selling [is] the ability to have our broad line, especially walk-in. Kevin's broad line, I'm specialist, right? He walks in, and then he brings me with him. I sell produce. I sell Ready Chef. I sell Campbell, especially meat, right? That's high margin calories for the P&L as well. That's the fourth leg.
We'll see more of that as the M&A that we acquired recently in the past 12 months become more mature and more embedded within the business. That's at the GP line. On the CorpEx line and then supply chain line, similar to the U.S., we're tackling both SG&A and supply chain as well. On the SG&A side, you may remember this, you know, I came in a year and a half ago, and one of the first things we did was shared service centers, right? And one in Costa Rica, our first one outside of the U.S. And, I'm happy to say that's working really well. We're getting obviously savings, but more importantly, we're seeing, we're getting great talent. And, Canada was actually the last one that we did. And, Europe is next on the docket as well. So we're seeing that.
That's part of the base cost SG&A savings that you see. And then ultimately, on the supply chain side, same exact thing, working on digital, working on productivity measures that drive supply chain productivity as well. So that's the reason why you see that 6%-12%. So overall, we're extremely optimistic about the European market, our Canadian market, our international markets, our Latin American market, and we're doing the right way, Brian. So, you know, I say this because, you know, if you think about profitability, we are being very deliberate on which business we take on, which one we walk away from, right? You know, there's examples that I won't name the customer, but not profitable, we walked away from it, right? Another example is Mexico.
Our JV, we recently decided to exit our JV in Mexico, and it didn't meet our hurdles for profit. It didn't meet our hurdles from a ROIC standpoint. So therefore, we are taking that dollar and redeploying that dollar to other growth markets in our international portfolio, so again, we're very proud of our team there. And, and the last thing I would say for international is, and I get this a lot, is, is there any impediment or any barriers for international margins to be at parity with the U.S. market? And there is none, and a good proof point, even though it's smaller, obviously in size, but is our Ireland business. Our Ireland business has similar profile. We're number one in the marketplace. We have Total Team Selling. We have Sysco Your Way, as Kevin just talked about. We have Ready Chef in place with a specialty capability.
Their margins are 6% right now, right? Which is twice international margins, and it's literally on parity with our U.S. business. There is no barriers, if you will, that we can be the same margins as the U.S. If anything, some of the SG&A work and supply chain work and continuing work on GP will help enable that and all that.
Yeah. And I mean, you did do a deal there as well, right? So, and I think some of these markets, as I understand, are less consolidated. So I mean, if we look a few years out, do you think that this is sort of, you know, a larger share of your, if you're, if you see margin upside, is it a larger share of your overall business as we look a few years out?
Yeah. The goal is to grow both, right? Both the international and America, just like local, right? When we say local needs to grow faster, it doesn't mean you pause national for local to grow faster. So the answer is to grow both. You know, right now, from a financial standpoint, obviously it is dollar accretive, margin dilutive right now, right? It is that. However, I am confident with the actions that we're taking, leveraging the Sysco playbook, that margin gap will every single year be less and less and less versus the U.S. So at some point, it'll, it should be both margin and dollar accretive.
Mm-hmm.
In terms of M&A, one last thing I'll turn it over to you, Kevin, is you know you mentioned M&A. Yes, we recently have Campbell Brothers, which is a specialty meat business in our U.K, and then Ready Chef, which is a specialty produce business. And they're both going really well right now, you know, and it's part of M&A. I think I get this question sometimes too, is it ever, is everybody open for business for M&A and international or no? The answer is no. Not every market is open for business for M&A, and the reason why is, as I mentioned earlier, there are certain markets like GB or Ireland or Canada that they're number one in the marketplace, and it's really primed to have specialty, which is mostly our tuck-in M&A strategy.
But if you're like a, for example, France, there still needs to have some self-help. So we're being very deliberate and being very thoughtful on which market we actually have M&A in right now. So, but M&A is open for a selected few markets right now in international.
Okay.
As I think about that international business, I tend to think it's really about applying that global operating model and really applying some of those best practices. Investors would see that as synergies, right? As we think about all of the different segments of the business, and it's applying some of the best practices that we have here in the U.S. and applying that to Europe and some of our other international markets, and it's also the other way around, Brian, right? As we think about best practices, whether we're talking about Sysco Brand, whether we're talking about local, whether we're talking about the investments, and again, that long-term view.
And just one good proof point for those in the audience, as you think about that local case performance and Sysco Brand, the penetration rates here within that segment of the population, in the U.S, is generally about 50%, right? Again, coming in at higher margins. As we think about those penetration rates in other international markets, for example, in Canada, right, where we're a little bit earlier in terms of the Sysco Brand story, about 40% penetration rates, right? As we think about Europe, it's about 36%. In certain parts of Latin America where we do have exposure, it's generally about 12%.
Again, as you think about the long-term trajectory of the international business and it being certainly a growth vector, as Kenny was talking about, there's certainly opportunity from both a Sysco Brand penetration perspective as well as the local side as you get those mixed benefits going forward.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you still think you haven't been to high single digit sales target in this segment? Do you think that's achievable in the second half of this year? Or do you think that there can be some improvement there?
Yeah. We believe the current view is we believe that number will improve every quarter in terms of from a sales standpoint. And here's the thing. Our business and the beauty of it, and it's not just international, we have a lot of levers in the P&L, so if there was any adverse impact in the marketplace, you know, we can obviously offset from a other lever standpoint. The beauty of our guidance is that we're not expecting a huge jumper step change in terms of industry traffic. We're just not. So if you had to proxy it, the majority of our improvement and the majority of the reason why we're confident in the year is because we're not hoping, praying that the market bounces back to +2% to 5%. We are, it's all within our, mostly in our control.
Okay. Maybe just talk a little bit about capital spending and capital allocation. I mean, how much, you know, capacity is there annually? Is there anything different on, you know, fleet technology, like other things that we may not have sort of other pockets of capital spending we may not have talked about? And I guess, you know, what about the M&A side? Do you think that sort of more on pause near term, given how much you've done recently? Would you lean into repurchase this year? I think.
Yep.
You know, obviously the Mexico issue, do you sort of use that for the proceeds from that for repurchase?
Yeah. Yeah. So a few things there. You know, this is probably my favorite question because, if you think about capital allocation, it's one thing, you know, we are very proud of here at Sysco. If you look back at our track record, we've been very consistent and very thoughtful in how we've done this. You know, our capital allocation strategy remains unchanged, right? First and foremost, we invest in our business, and you mentioned CapEx, you're right. It's usually our fleet refreshes, digital investment tech stack, new buildings that we're building right now, for example, we have 10 in place right now for a Broadline specialty business. And then, usually if you had to proxy the spend, it's about 1% of sales every year. So we're spending every year more and more.
The beauty of our investment profile, it's also well laddered as well because of our, our balance sheet. Many companies can't build 10 big buildings at the same exact time. And the reason why it's very simple, the payback isn't one month. The payback isn't one year. The payback is five to seven years at times, right? So our investment dollars are definitely, yielding dividends every single year. Again, we're playing the long game here. So that's point number one. Number two is priority is maintaining our investment grade balance sheet, operating within the 2.75, 2.5, the 2.75 times net leverage ratio. And obviously it's math, right? If you increase your, your earnings and EBITDA, then by definition, you get to lever up a little bit. Rest assured, we are prudent, strong, very prudent with our capital allocation.
So we will lever up and ROIC with the lens in which we deploy capital. And if we can't find, I view myself as an asset manager, if we can't find the right investment vehicle, if you will, we return that cash back to shareholders. That's how we think about, which leads me to my third piece is returning rewarding our shareholders. If you think, if you go back, you know, last 10, 11 years or so, 2015 to this year, roughly $20 billion back to shareholders, between dividends as well as share repo. This year we are committed to delivering rewarding back over $2 billion back to shareholders, one billion dividends, one billion share repo. And to your point, Brian, if the M&A activity, depending on M&A activity, that number on repo could flex up.
As I mentioned earlier on M&A, just the way that we think about it, we're not gonna kingdom build. We know the value of assets. You know, for us, we go through a pretty rigorous model to ensure that this asset is right and it's multiples accretive for our, for our enterprise. That's how we kind of think about it.
Okay. Got it. Understand. Maybe just let me come back to a couple of questions on kind of the U.S., U.S. business, right? On the local side, could you, could you just talk about the health of that customer? And I mean, what obviously hiring people is, I think, the key driver of, of acceleration that you've sort of talked about. But what do they, you know, what do they care about the most, right? What do you think is sort of, that's obviously a very competitive market. Everyone's trying to grow at that segment. What's kind of the hook from your perspective that gives you that confidence and improvement?
Yeah. So, you know, hiring people, that's definitely one of the key correlations that we believe with hiring and growth as well. But let me double click a little bit in terms of what, what does the customer care about when I think about, you know, why Sysco? Maybe that's the question behind the question. Why Sysco, right? So as you think about our assortment between broad line and specialty, we have the greatest assortment, in our industry. That's point number one. So when a local business wants to differentiate his or her menu, as you can imagine, it's not gonna be based on broad line, right? It's those are commodity products, right? It's gonna be based on specialty products. So we have the biggest assortment. And so that's point number one. The biggest basket, biggest assortment. And then we buy the most as well.
We buy the most as well. So therefore, we can offer competitive pricing and the likes. That's point number one. Number two is the fact that just our reach as well. Think about these local customers. Some are just have one storefront, one door. Some has 10. Some has aspirations to be 10 to 100, and we have stories of that. Who better to partner with than the biggest person, the biggest player in the marketplace? That's Sysco, right? Not just in the U.S., but also international as well. Believe it or not, we have customers on both fronts. U.S. wants to go to international. International local wants to move into the U.S. business as well, and we can enable that too.
And the third piece is, you know, as part of local customers, it's a relationship business as well. And that's the reason why having the right talent, the right people, the right product, it's just so important, right? And the last thing I would say is, for us, it's table stakes, just pure operational excellence, you know, on time, in full, deliver on time, the right products as well. And we are world class from an NPS standpoint in that. So that's another reason why when you trust Sysco, you're trusting not just the brand itself, but the everything that comes with it as well. So those are the four things I would say that local customers really care about. And I wouldn't say it's a hook. I think for us, it's just what we have to deliver day in and day out.
Right.
It's part of our service and product offering.
Yeah. The industry, when you look back over a long period of time, 20+ years, Brian has been growing kind of in that 2%-3% range as you think about the overall industry from a net sales perspective. So I think what we're seeing right now today in regards to negative traffic, the industry is actually reacting in the right way, right? So we hear a lot about burger wars, pizza wars, things like that, where restaurateurs are trying to drive value back into their doors. That's the right thing to do from an industry perspective.
So as you think about all of those things Kenny had brought up in regards to how can Sysco as a distributor partner with those concepts as appropriate, whether you are a local customer or whether you're a national customer, we are extremely well positioned as we think about our centralized capabilities as well as our local touch points.
Yeah. And don't underestimate our scale to the point, right? A local customer could have one door in the Midwest partnering with a local supplier now. But if he or she wants to go to East Coast, West Coast, Northern Canada, that supplier can't do it anymore. So right now, despite the fact that we are seeing pressure on traffic, we are winning new business along the way. And that's the reason why.
Mm-hmm. Do you, in the specialty side of the business, you had also said, you know, you target high single digit sales growth from that specifically. Is that, will you, do you think you'll hit that in 2025? Is that sort of something that accelerates as you accelerate local? Or, you know, how would you measure yourself against that?
Yeah. You know, that, that business is performing well. And we are still confident in hitting that number across the algo years. And that number should accelerate, especially with the M&A coming on board, right? The M&A side of the house, most of the M&A that we do are Specialty. And, as well as with the new SCs coming in and also the new compensation in place, that should also fuel that. And what I mean by that is, you know, one of the biggest changes that we've done around our compensation structure is rewarding based on growth and profit. And as you know, with Total Team Selling, you're selling both Broadline and Specialty. And the conversion rate, by the way, is very high.
I don't think we disclose it publicly, but it's actually very, very high versus you just going in with a potato, lettuce, onion, you know, broad line products, right? So, I would say with our SCs coming in, with local taking off, and with the fact that, you know, our M&A assets maturing as well, that should ramp throughout the algo period.
Okay. What's been driving some of the success with national accounts? I mean, you know, maybe it's just kind of your sales force doing well, but any like specific type of customer, you know, specific efforts that are driving that?
Yeah. So, you know, as I mentioned, international accounts, we're very proud of that team. And two thirds is restaurants, one third is what we call non-restaurants or non-commercial. And so on the restaurant side, I don't wanna discount this side at all because this side, it's a hard business. It's day in and day out. Think about Cheesecake Factory, right? Day in and day out, huge footprint, right? Lots of logistics involved behind it. And you know, we are renewing contracts at, you know, nice economics as well. And we're providing world class service too. And we're helping our customers expand as well. That's really important. That's the name of the game, helping our customer expand. There's two ways to grow, penetration or new, right? There's two ways to grow here.
And we love new customers, but we actually love the fact that the new customers that we bring in are expanding too. So that's another win as well. We call it grow with the grower. So that's another part of it too. The other piece is the one-third. These are your healthcare, the movie theaters, and the like, and they're higher margins. And they're, you know, strategic wise, they're relatively more resilient than the other space, right? And so we're winning on both the restaurant side as well as the non-restaurant side. And I'm gonna be very, very clear. We're winning with higher profit margins. It's really important that I say that, because as you know, on the national side, the margins are thinner than the local customer side. So we are winning with that.
you know, you're probably wondering, okay, so how do you expand margins on these? I'll give you a good example, Sysco Brand, right? Think about, you know, a, obviously in a national basket, there's proprietary SKUs, if you will.
Yeah.
But there are also other things that are not proprietary SKUs that we're trying to partner and have trade deals with them. So overall, we're seeing that. So again, these are, these are things where we have, again, I won't go into too much detail, but we work very, very hard on these contracts and have a win-win scenario where, you know, the more they grow, the more we grow as well.
Okay. Maybe we finish with our lightning round question. These are standard for everyone.
Okay.
We talked about some of this, but thinking about the demand backdrop for the year ahead versus recent trends, would you expect it to hold, accelerate, decelerate?
Yeah. I would say improve slash accelerate. Now one caveat is, based on recent trends, we think it'll be modest uptick, increase throughout the rest of the year, and that's what we're baking in our guidance.
Okay. Margins for the year ahead, up, down, neutral?
Up, margins up, and we expect both EPS and margins to be up for us the rest of the year.
Okay.
You're smiling 'cause you like the answer or?
Makes sense. If sales are accelerating, hopefully margins are going up, right?
Yeah.
That's the goal. Capital allocation, you know, just prioritize between CapEx, buybacks, dividends, debt pay down.
Yep.
Any of these moved up or down in importance in your view?
Mostly unchanged. You know, invest in business, reward our shareholders. And the rewarding our shareholders could flex up depending on M&A, but most of it's unchanged. And that's the beauty of Sysco. You'll get consistency and deliberateness with our capital allocation strategy.
Okay. I think that about brings us to the end. Thank you guys.
Awesome.
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you all. Thanks so much.
Thank you.