Full Transcript: Conagra Brands Q1 2027 Earnings Call

On Wednesday, Conagra Brands (NYSE: CAG ) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below. APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit to learn more.

Access the full call at Summary Conagra Brands reported a Q1 EPS beat due to favorable SG&A timing, Ardent Mills benefit, lower inflation, and a tariff refund. Organic sales are expected to decline by 2% in Q2 due to cautious elasticity assumptions and Thanksgiving timing. Inflation guidance is adjusted towards the higher end of 5-6% due to increased logistics costs, despite some relief in protein prices. The company remains focused on SKU rationalization to reduce complexity and improve operational efficiency.

Conagra targets a long-term leverage goal of three times, with current leverage around four times, and plans to pay down approximately $250 million in debt this year. A&P spending will increase to 3% of net sales to support brand building in single-serve meals, meat snacks, and popcorn. Management expressed confidence in managing through increased costs and reaffirmed its guidance for the year. The consumer environment remains stable but muted, with no significant changes in behavior observed.

Full Transcript OPERATOR Good morning and welcome to the Conagra Brands Q1 Fiscal Year 27 earnings Q&A conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. Please also note today's event is being recorded.

At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Matthew Nyses, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Matthew Nyses, Head of Investor Relations Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us once again. I'm joined this morning by John Brase, our CEO, and Dave Marberger, our CFO.

We may be making some forward-looking statements and discussing non-GAAP financial measures during this Q&A session. Please see our earnings release, prepared remarks, presentation materials, and filings with the SEC in the Investor Relations section of our website for descriptions of our risk factors, GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations, and information on our comparability items. I'll now ask the operator to introduce the first question. OPERATOR And at this time, we'll begin the question-and-answer session.

To ask a question, you may press star and then one. If you are using a speakerphone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, you may press star and two. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourselves to a single question at this time.

We'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question today comes from Andrew Lazar from Barclays. Please go ahead with your question. Andrew Lazar, Analyst at Barclays Great.

Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody. Morning. Maybe I want to start out.

Conagra is pointing to organic sales in fiscal 2Q to decline 2%, a bit heavier than current consensus. It looks like quarter-to-date maybe scanner looks to be running maybe closer to flattish. So I guess I'm just curious if anything's changed in your 2Q top-line outlook, and whether it's elasticity or something else that might cause a sequential deceleration, or perhaps it's just more prudent planning. Thanks so much.

John Brase, President and Chief Executive Officer Good morning, Andrew. Let me start and then I'll turn it over to Dave. But I think, in general, the pricing we discussed in the Q4 earnings call is really just hitting the market kind of as we speak. And so I would say, in terms of our pricing assumptions, at this point results are in line with how we planned the year.

And I like the word you used, Andrew. I think we've taken a very prudent approach to our elasticity assumptions, and these assumptions remain unchanged, which is really frozen at more of a 2-to-1 elasticity that we've modeled for the year, and Grocery & Snacks at more of a 1-to-1 elasticity. Now, in terms of competitors and followership, I would say we have not assumed any followership in our pricing moves. Obviously, if that happened there could be some upside to those elasticity assumptions, but we have not modeled that in.

Dave Marberger, Executive Vice President & CFO Great, thank you, John. Just one additional piece of color. So we guided to down 2% organic for Q2. This contemplates Thanksgiving timing because you have the second quarter this year versus third quarter.

So we may ship a bit below consumption in the second quarter because the seasonal items may have some more consumption versus shipment, but the 2% is consistent, like John said, with our original planning posture. Andrew Lazar, Analyst at Barclays Great, thanks so much. OPERATOR Our next question comes from Peter Galbo from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.

Peter Galbo, Analyst at Bank of America Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question, Dave. Just wanted to touch on the updated inflation guidance for the year, having moved kind of to the higher end of the 5 to 6. I know you had kind of Q1 inflation in the 5-ish percent range, more towards the low end, but just kind of how you see it pacing over the balance of the year and maybe just help us think about exit rate.

Are we above that 5 to 6 as we get to Q4 and kind of how we might think about it again from a phasing perspective. Thanks very much. Dave Marberger, Executive Vice President & CFO Yeah, Peter, thanks for the question. Let me try to give you a little bit of color here.

So as we talked about for Q1, we did have some favorability in proteins relative to our planning. So we were a bit favorable, which drove some of the favorability we saw in Q1. But as we went through Q1, obviously we've seen an acceleration in inflation around logistics—our transportation costs—really driven by the driver shortage and oil prices as well. So as we forecasted inflation, we're still in that 5% to 6% range for the year; we said towards the higher end of the range.

And really what's happening is the favorability that we've seen in proteins, which we would continue to see, is a little bit more than offset by basically the doubling of inflation in transportation versus where we planned it for the year. So it's kind of a trade-off there. In terms of the flow of the year, we would expect—and we usually don't give this much detail, but I think it's important because I think there's some confusion on this inflation—we would expect our inflation rate in Q2 and Q3 to be higher than Q1 and then to be about the same, and then we expect our Q4 inflation rate to actually be lower than Q3. So that's kind of the flow.

And as we sit here today, we have no reason to believe that we wouldn't be wrapping on not just the transportation costs that we're seeing this year, but, you know, things like edible oils and kind of our corrugated, aluminum—we have a lot of areas where we're still seeing high inflation, which we will have all during fiscal 27. I don't see a reason why we couldn't expect that we would wrap on that. So obviously we'll have to get closer for that. But I feel like Q4 will be lower than Q3, and we should be wrapping on a lot of these higher inflation categories in our materials when we get into fiscal 28.

Great. Thanks very much. OPERATOR Our next question comes from David Palmer from Evercore. Please go ahead with your question.

David Palmer, Analyst at Evercore ISI Thanks. I wanted to ask you about pricing—the acceptance at retail. How much is that a factor into what you're thinking there? Or is your price elasticity modeling just basically a price impact to the consumer in a vacuum of competitors not also pricing?

And I have a quick follow-up. John Brase, President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, thanks for the question. I think, in terms of pricing, I kind of go back to my opening comments. I'd really say it's really in line with our expectations.

And so we're really past the customer acceptance of that now. Pricing is effective in market. And I would tell you that customer acceptance—there were no surprises versus our planning posture. And so that's how I think about pricing as we move forward.

David Palmer, Analyst at Evercore ISI And then I noticed you had some comments about not repeating a promotion from last year on the Sandwich Bros. brand. Is that the kind of thing that we will be seeing throughout the year—that there will be promotions that you already see that were not effective from a profitability standpoint? And is that baked into your guidance?

And I'll pass it on. John Brase, President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, great question. And again, I think we continue to look at our promotional dollars through a real ROI mindset. And I think we've been really prudent in saying, hey, we're not going to repeat promos that have been dilutive to the company.

And I think that's what you're seeing in some of this simplification—really focusing on those high-leverage elements that can bring value to not only the consumer but also to you guys, to the shareholders. And so we're going to continue to make that a part of how we operate. But I would tell you, again, all those assumptions have been embedded into the fiscal year forecast. David Palmer, Analyst at Evercore ISI Thank you.

OPERATOR Our next question comes from Tom Palmer from JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question. Tom Palmer, Analyst at JPMorgan Good morning. Thanks for the question.

I wanted to maybe just clarify on your second quarter expectations. You've got this high single-digit operating margin outlook. Incremental pricing is flowing through. There was the SG&A callout.

I just want to make sure I kind of have my arms around the gross margin cadence here. Like, is there a step down expected in gross margin as we move into 2Q, or is this really about the timing of SG&A that swings the margin lower? Dave Marberger, Executive Vice President & CFO Yeah, Tom, let me take that. There's really three drivers.

5% for Q1, we said higher single digits for Q2. There's really three drivers. One, as I just mentioned, we expect higher inflation in Q2 versus Q1. 03 of our EPS beat.

Half of that was a one-time benefit, and half of it was timing. Where it didn't hit in Q1, it's going to hit in Q2. And then the third piece is accelerating our investment in A&P. 3% as it was in Q1.

So those are really the three drivers. So you will see a little bit of impact on gross margin from the higher inflation versus Q1. Tom Palmer, Analyst at JPMorgan Okay, thank you. OPERATOR Our next question comes from Alexia Howard from Bernstein.

Please go ahead with your question. Alexia Howard, Analyst at Bernstein Great. Could I ask about leverage? So you've talked about the three times being the long-term target, and I think it increased a little bit this quarter to close to four times.

I think you're saying that you'll still probably be at four times by the end of the year, or you said through fiscal 27 it will remain at this four times. So how quickly do you expect to start on that deleveraging trajectory, and how quickly do you expect to achieve that goal? Thank you. And I'll pass it on.

Dave Marberger, Executive Vice President & CFO Yeah. Hi, Alexia. If you start with this year—yeah, we guided to expecting to finish the year at approximately four times on our leverage. 99 times.

That's actually favorable to where we thought. Usually what will happen in Q1 and Q2 is our leverage will tick up because we're very seasonal with our inventory, right? With our seasonal businesses and things like our tomato operations, we build all the inventory in Q1 and Q2. So obviously we use cash in the first half, and then we have cash inflow in the second half.

So that's very normal. So we're still on track with the approximately four times. We don't get specific with this, but it's implied: we do expect to pay down debt in the year. For the full year, approximately $250 million of debt paydown is what we would expect for this year.

Our target is three times. We are maniacally focused on getting there as soon as possible as we get into fiscal 28. John talked about it—we're focused on improving margins and profitability of this business. So with improved profitability and the dividend adjustment that we made, we feel like we're going to be able to make great progress in fiscal 28 on getting that leverage down.

We're not going to give you that number today, but we want to get to three times as soon as possible. Alexia Howard, Analyst at Bernstein Great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

OPERATOR Our next question comes from Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead with your question. Chris Carey, Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities Hi, everybody. Chris Carey.

I wanted to ask about the snacks portfolio. Can you just give us a sense of maybe where you are on some of the interventions to improve performance you talked about—think popcorn, Slim Jim? What are the expectations more from a volume standpoint as you look forward and perhaps lap some of the elasticities over the medium term? And then just maybe not like a clarification, but just curious whether you're seeing, or you thought you saw, any benefit in your frozen business from Cyclospora-related demand, and if that's a factor in how you're viewing the next few quarters in frozen?

John Brase, President and Chief Executive Officer Great. I'll take both of those. As you think about snacking, let's start with the positives, really. Our Sweet Treats portfolio continues to perform really, really well and had a very strong Q1, and that's really behind both Snack Pack and Swiss Miss, which continue to be performing very well in the market.

I think permissible snacking, as you said, is really where we're not where we want to be. And I think a couple of points of drivers there. The first is, obviously, we're very overdeveloped in our meat snacks and our seeds business in the convenience channel, which has been really challenged lately with the higher gas prices. But I think aside from that, there's work to do from my standpoint in terms of execution and a channel lens.

We need to do a better job of participating where the growth is really coming from. Specifically in the meat snacks category, as you take a step back and you think about meat snacks and popcorn and seeds, these are fantastic categories, and we are the market leader, and so it's our responsibility to kind of drive these categories forward. And so I think what you're going to see, and you're already seeing as we go into Q2, is a significant step up in our brand building and marketing, specifically pinpointed at meat snacks and popcorn specifically there, but then also innovation—a major step up in innovation.

We think those are the two critical levers that kind of get us back to a growth trajectory in those important businesses. On Cyclospora, just a quick one there. You know, we did see some benefit, but I would tell you nothing material as we think about Q1. And we also actually saw some offsets from Glycospora as you think about, like, our Wish-Bone salad dressing, as an example.

So again, nothing material there. But I think more than the one-time benefit, I think what's really important is this is a reflection of consumers coming to a brand they know and trust with Bird's Eye, and we did a great job of delivering for them. And so I think as you think about that brand, we've got such an opportunity to drive better, more trial and more engagement with consumers. We deliver great taste, great convenience, and honestly reliability that they're looking for in their vegetables.

So we think a great opportunity to continue to drive Bird's Eye. OPERATOR Our next question comes from Max Gumport from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead with your question. Max Gumport, Analyst at BNP Paribas Exane Hey, thanks for the question.

Just coming back to the 1Q beat and your reaffirmed outlook for the year—obviously it was a sizable EPS beat versus consensus and, I think, first-year expectations too. You either get some help from inflation, there were some SG&A timing benefits as well, and your inflation outlook for the remainder of the year has ticked up. But I'm curious to what degree the reaffirmed outlook maybe has embedded additional conservatism in it, especially with regard to Ardent Mills as well, given the wheat price volatility. Thanks very much.

Dave Marberger, Executive Vice President & CFO Yeah, Max, let me take that. Starting with Q1, you kind of hit it. We had a beat to our expectations, really driven by, I think, four things: our SG&A, which was the timing; and then the one-time—we had the Ardent Mills benefit; we had the inflation lower than our internal forecast; and then we did get a bit of benefit on a tariff refund that we got in the quarter, which was close to a cent. When you look for the full year, you know, SG&A—we talked about it: the one-time's the one-time, and then you have the timing, but that's pretty much on track.

The big impact is the acceleration of transportation inflation. It's double the rate that we had assumed for transportation. The good news is that we have some other areas in materials where we're favorable to that. So there's a lot of puts and takes there.

The other dynamic is we're just starting with our frozen pricing, and so we really need to see how this plays out. You know, we've been very clear on how we've modeled elasticities. There could be a scenario where maybe that winds up being conservative—maybe not. So we just need to see how that plays out.