Lamb Weston Hldgs Reports Q1 2027 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

On Tuesday, Lamb Weston Hldgs (NYSE:LW) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.

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Summary

Lamb Weston Hldgs exceeded its Q1 expectations, leading to an increase in its full-year fiscal 2027 outlook, with raised forecasts for net sales, adjusted EPS, and adjusted EBITDA.

The company has revamped half of its executive leadership team and implemented organizational changes to improve speed, decision-making, and accountability, which are expected to enhance EBITDA margins.

North America saw its seventh consecutive quarter of volume growth, with net sales, gross margin, and adjusted EBITDA improving year-over-year.

International performance, particularly in EMEA, faced challenges with margins due to higher potato costs, but actions are being taken to improve capacity utilization and manage market dynamics.

The strategic focus is on building customer relationships and driving innovation, which has resulted in new customer wins and strong retention rates in contract renewals.

Cost-saving initiatives are ongoing, with a cultural shift towards zero-based budgeting to identify savings and support growth and innovation investments.

The company anticipates low single-digit growth in net sales for fiscal 2027, with a focus on managing inflationary pressures through pricing actions and cost savings.

Lamb Weston Hldgs continues to leverage strong customer relationships and innovation to maintain momentum in its key North American market and improve performance internationally.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good day and welcome to the Lamb Weston Hldgs first quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations

Good morning and thank you for joining us for Lamb Weston Hldgs' first quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call. I'm Debbie Hancock, Lamb Weston Hldgs' Vice President of Investor Relations. Earlier today we issued our press release that we will use for our discussion today. You can find the release on our website LambWeston.com. Slides will be shared during our webcast and will also be posted on the website after the call. Please note that during our remarks we will make forward-looking statements about the company's expected performance that are based on our current expectations.

Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in our SEC filings for more details on our forward-looking statements. Some of today's remarks include non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with our GAAP results. You can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations in our earnings release and the appendix to our presentation.

Joining me today are Yann Krups, Executive Chair; Mike Smith, President and CEO; and Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer. Each will provide prepared remarks and then will be available to take your questions. I will now turn the call over to Jan.

Yann Krups, Executive Chair

Thanks, Debbie, and good morning everyone. I hope you're doing well. I'm encouraged to see the organization embracing the changes that we have been driving to make the company more performance driven, focused on value creation, and deliberate on resources and capital allocation. I'm happy to see our efforts reflected in our strong first quarter results where we overdelivered our Q1 expectations and built solid momentum for the remainder of the year.

I'm also pleased that we are today able to raise the full-year forecast on net sales, adjusted EPS, and adjusted EBITDA as our strategy continues to take hold, customers are recognizing us for the value we deliver, and our execution continues to solidify. During our full-year results call, I shared my key priorities to drive value creation for Lamb Weston Hldgs. Let me provide you a quick update. From my perspective regarding people, we have changed half of the executive leadership team, building the expertise and capabilities needed to drive our strategic priorities.

We implemented target setting and compensation changes that drive individual and regional accountability, and we just announced an organization redesign that drives significant improvements in speed of decision making, simplicity, and accountability, while delivering efficiencies that will improve our EBITDA margin and offer an opportunity to shift resources from back office staff to frontline growth opportunities. Regarding strategy, we have advanced into the how-to-win stage.

After completing the where-to-play work, each country cluster owner will have a clear mission and clarity on how they contribute to Lamb Weston Hldgs' growth algorithm. We have identified opportunities for best practice sharing through Lamb Weston Hldgs' execution playbooks, for elevated innovation impact, and for stronger joint business planning through new capabilities. Our work on where to play may lead to partnership and divestiture opportunities.

It has already catalyzed capacity rationalization for us, which is also something we continue to see across the industry with capacity being shuttered and projects being cancelled or postponed. Regarding resources, we have now started implementing ZBB as a new muscle and routine for the company, already realizing real savings in the first phase. Payment terms have seen improvements, and the supply chain has organized its first savings championship where over 70 team members from across all region functions came together to benchmark and stretch beyond the planned cost savings initiatives.

We have also identified opportunities to further deploy AI to enhance our operating performance. We are delivering on the promise of significant operational and cultural changes at Lamb Weston Hldgs. At the Board level, we also lead by example and reduced the board to 11 members from 13. There is a lot more to come, though, and we will continue to update on the progress on these and other initiatives. We see real sizable opportunities to create more value for Lamb Weston Hldgs, our growers, our team members, our partners and our shareholders.

We also see greater value in the company than what we believe is reflected in the current stock price. We are executing against our key initiatives with a great sense of urgency and confidence that the performance and ownership culture we are building will enable us to further differentiate Lamb Weston Hldgs. Now let me hand it over to Mike to discuss the progress the team has realized in Q1. Over to you, Mike.

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jan, and good morning everyone. The Lamb Weston Hldgs team delivered a solid start to fiscal 2027 with net sales, adjusted EPS, and adjusted EBITDA results above our guidance. As a result, we are increasing our full-year fiscal 2027 outlook. Underlying these results are several favorable trends. We grew volume for the seventh consecutive quarter in North America and are exceeding end market growth. This in part reflects the fact that we over-indexed to chicken-focused QSRs.

Price/mix improved as we lapped targeted investments and customers recognized the value we bring. Supply/demand is harmonizing as industry capacity continues to rationalize and capacity expansion projects are increasingly delayed or shuttered, and Europe experiences a tighter crop environment. The team continues to raise the bar, strengthening our customer relationships, addressing challenges with urgency and agility in a dynamic market, and relentlessly focusing on delivering improved financial performance.

North America had a good quarter. Sales volume, net sales, gross margin, and segment adjusted EBITDA dollars all improved year over year and were ahead of expectations. International segment performance met our expectations but is below our long-term aspirations. Segment adjusted EBITDA increased sequentially versus fourth quarter. We continue to control what is within our control and take action to better position our business for long-term success.

Our cost savings program remains robust and on track. These aggressive programs have permanently lowered our cost of operating while building new capabilities and a culture focused on costs and process improvement. We are successfully executing our Focus to Win strategy, demonstrating positive results and positioning us for improved performance long term. Our North America business started the year with good momentum with existing customers and fueled by new wins.

Over the past year we have added several growing customers, expanded business with existing customers, and we have built a strong mix of sales across QSR restaurant channels. Our focus on strengthening customer partnerships and driving performance through value-added innovation is our foundation for growth. We have completed about 70% of our contracts in for renewal this year with a high retention rate and pricing that reflects the current inflationary environment.

We anticipate completing most of the outstanding discussions over the next two quarters. Overall segment price/mix improved and was down 1.7% in the first quarter. This was a 70 basis point improvement from the fourth quarter decline of 2.4%. Price/mix reflects equal parts price and mix, including the impact of carryforward targeted pricing we implemented in fiscal 2026 as well as ongoing mix shifts with growth in multinational chains and private label offerings.

This was partially offset by recent inflation-justified pricing actions we have taken. As our most strategic and important market, we are encouraged by the solid momentum and execution of our North America business. As I mentioned earlier, our results for the quarter were in line with our guide but they do not yet meet our expectations for long-term performance. As we have worked through the carry-in of prior year's potato costs, we expect segment adjusted EBITDA margin to improve from first quarter levels in EMEA.

We are managing market challenges by acting on what is under our control. We are balancing our network utilization as demonstrated by stopping production at our brookhysenvoors facility, and we have successfully transitioned our customers' fulfillment to other Lamb Weston Hldgs locations, enabling further cost optimization. We are well positioned to raise Lamb Weston Hldgs' capacity utilization in the region to more than 90%. As reported in the media, the market has seen announcements from other manufacturers regarding capacity closures or delays in future capacity expansion.

This includes one announcing a closure of a Belgium facility and delays in new capacity additions from others, including media reports of a cancellation of a previously announced large new facility in Germany. Furthermore, in contrast to last year's robust crop yields, this year's European crop has been negatively impacted in both quality and yield due to extensive heat and dry conditions. Non-contracted spot prices for open market potatoes are up and we anticipate tighter supply.

Potatoes will be the limiter in the industry this year and we expect not all open industry capacity will be used. Due to our extensive long-standing grower relationships and our disciplined potato contracting cycle, we are in a good supply position to meet expected customer demand in contrast to some other players who have historically placed more reliance on the spot market. Additionally, given our expectation of rising potato costs, earlier this month we implemented a price increase in Europe.

Beyond EMEA, net sales and adjusted EBITDA grew in China driven by multinational chain demand and our ability to execute LTOs with key customers. Our focus on favorable mix, productivity improvements, and better fixed factory absorption drove much higher adjusted EBITDA and margins for the quarter. Across the rest of Asia Pacific, we were off to a slower volume start and have engaged with our largest customers in joint planning for the balance of the year.

Latin America continues to win business and ramp production at our newest plant in Mar del Plata, Argentina, expanding both volume and margin. We recently began shipping to a strategic global QSR, a new customer in the region. For our local team, we are focused on building volume to optimal production levels and emphasizing our quality point of differentiation. As we indicated previously, our work on the prioritization of markets and channels as part of Focus to Win will identify where we see our best opportunities across the geographic markets.

The international landscape is complex and we are entering a pivotal new phase of execution to further identify opportunities to better align our organization with the needs of our Focus to Win strategy. As Jan referenced, we recently completed an organizational diagnostic to drive greater speed, simplicity, Accountability and consistency in how we operate. As our business had evolved, our structure had become more complex and no longer fully reflected how we needed to operate. Through this work, we are simplifying our structure, reducing management layers and broadening spans of control, and in certain cases, consolidating regions and leadership roles. These changes, including eliminating selected roles and open positions, better align our organization with our priorities and we believe will position us for greater long-term success.

Mark Schroeder, President of International, will be leaving Lamb Weston Hldgs at the end of the calendar year. We wish Mark the best in his future endeavors. We have begun an outside search to identify his successor to provide us with the operational experience, execution and urgency needed in this critical leadership role as we focus on how our international business can deliver the most shareholder value. In addition, as we work on the prioritization of markets and channels in the near term, we are taking action to simplify our international management structure by consolidating our China and Asia Pacific regions into one unified APAC region.

Our goal is to build a simpler, faster and more agile organization that is better positioned to serve customers, support team members and deliver sustainable growth. It also allows us to reinvest in areas that strengthen our competitive position, including our commercial sales organization, innovation and capabilities that bring us closer to customers. Also, as Yann spoke to, we began a new phase of our Cost Savings program, implementing new budgeting and procurement practices.

We launched an enterprise-wide zero-based budgeting process that is analyzing spending across the organization through intensive reviews by cost, package owners and procurement. We are identifying incremental savings to drive margin expansion and to selectively reinvest in revenue growth and innovation. This is a cultural transition to an owner's mindset, enabling the business to consistently find savings and fund growth initiatives. Our focus on cost is evident in our results.

Adjusting for one-timers, our SG&A was flat to prior year. Inflation has continued to drive input costs higher. The teams are actively managing this impact through our Cost Savings program, which we began over a year ago. We also will continue to make appropriate pricing actions as warranted. Our Focus to Win strategy is working. We have established clarity to our teams on their objectives tied to specific KPIs to measure and incentivize success, and we are making progress across our strategic pillars of prioritizing markets and channels, strengthening customer relationships, executing with excellence and setting the pace for innovation.

We've already highlighted some of the progress from our focus on customers and executing with excellence. In addition, we are shaping our prioritization of markets and channels, and as we progress our strategy work, we have held multiple cross-functional global team meetings to share best practices for success across markets. We anticipate completing this work in the coming months, and we will share more at an Investor Day in early calendar 2027.

Finally, our product teams continue to deliver industry-leading innovation with new offerings to drive menu innovation and traffic for our customers. As consumer tastes and preferences change, with existing customers we are creating excitement in the category with limited-time offerings for QSR customers around the world. One example is Black pepper flavored Stars in China. These collaborations drive uniqueness in restaurant menus and favorable mix for both operators and Lamb Weston Hldgs, and we continue to find ways to expand our market.

For the U.S. Education market, we are launching Reduced Sodium Tater Puffs and star-shaped puffs that deliver crispy texture and stay hotter longer. Customer centricity is the North Star at Lamb Weston Hldgs and informs everything that we do. We will continue to drive great product and service to ensure we maintain the category leadership position we have earned. Let me now hand the call over to Jim.

Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. As Mike said, we are making good progress in the execution of Focus to Win while managing a challenging business environment. For the quarter, net sales finished at 1,670,000,000, which is up 1% from prior year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were 75 cents, which is also up 1% from prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was better than our expectations at 286 million, down 5% from prior year due to the carry-in of the prior year's potato costs.

In EMEA, company net sales increased 1%, led by a 2% increase in sales volume, which was partially offset by a 1.8% decline in price/mix. FX impact was not meaningful. Our North America segment net sales increased 5%, driven by 7% sales volume growth. This was the seventh consecutive quarter of sales volume growth for North America. As Mike mentioned, price/mix declined 1.7%, with price and mix equally contributing. The underlying market drivers for the quarter, as reported by Circana CREST, were softer in Q1, and we outperformed versus these trends.

U.S. restaurant traffic was essentially flat, while QSR traffic declined by 1%. QSR chicken traffic increased 4%, favorably impacting our sales mix, and in fact within our chain business we over-index with chicken QSR customers. In our International segment, net sales declined 8% due to a sales volume decline of 6% and price/mix decline of 2%. Again, FX impact was not meaningful. During the quarter, we faced competitive pricing challenges in EMEA, which primarily reflects the market conditions internationally.

QSR traffic declined 1% in the UK, France, Italy and Germany, while Spain was essentially flat. Change in adjusted EBITDA was better than our guidance for the quarter, declining only 5%. North America was up 11% and International declined in line with our expectations in Q1. North America delivered gross profit margin expansion and 11% adjusted EBITDA growth. Sales volume growth led the way, combined with cost savings initiatives, Section 301 tariff refunds, and improvement in earnings from our joint venture with RDO.

Inflation has proven to be persistent. All key input costs were increasing in the quarter, with substantial increases in freight costs, edible oils, packaging and ingredients. For Q1 International performance, we were impacted by lower sales volume, mostly in Europe, and a higher carry-in of prior year's potato crop costs. As a result, segment adjusted EBITDA declined to $27 million. Cash from operations generated $235 million in Q1, which is a decrease from prior year's quarter.

Just to correct that, last year benefited from a $136 million improvement in inventories as the company was beginning its cost savings program. Current quarter cash provided by operating activities benefited by $50 million from an increase in accounts payable due to the company's work with supplier partners to improve terms. Other changes to working capital were attributed to normal course of business. Capital expenditures were $91 million in the quarter, in line with our expectations.

Free cash flow generated in Q1 was $144 million in the quarter. In Q1, we returned $52 million to shareholders through our quarterly dividend. Net debt was $3.8 billion, and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio was 3.3 times on a trailing twelve-month basis. As we move forward with Focus to Win, we anticipate that adjusted EBITDA will grow and contribute to an improved debt to EBITDA leverage ratio. This morning we announced the next quarterly dividend of $0.38 per share, payable on December 4th.

We are updating our guidance to reflect the positive first quarter results. We continue to believe our strong position with customers, improved operating efficiencies, and the lapping of one-time items, as well as current pricing actions to address rising input costs, support an expectation of earnings growth in fiscal 27. For fiscal 27, we are increasing our net sales outlook to low single-digit growth versus our prior expectation of flat to 1% growth.

This growth is versus fiscal 2026 adjusted for 52 weeks, which equates to a net sales base of 6,485,000,000. In fiscal 27, our adjusted operating income target increases to a range of $730 million to $810 million. Our updated guidance for interest expense is in the range of $185 to $190 million, and tax rates are in the range of 25% to 27%. We now anticipate an adjusted EPS range of $3.05 to $3.35 versus the 52-week adjusted EPS number of $2.90 in fiscal 26.

We are raising our adjusted EBITDA range to $1,125,000,000 to $1,215,000,000. This is versus a comparable $1,118,000,000 in the 52-week period for fiscal 26. Furthermore, we continue to expect cash used for capital expenditures of approximately $380 to $410 million, which includes carry amounts from projects started last fiscal year. On an accrual basis, we anticipate investments in the range of $330 to $350 million. We continue to focus on capital efficiency through the better pacing of investments, process improvements to debottleneck capacity, and disciplined decision-making based on return on investment.

We are generating strong cash flow, and our expectation for cash provided by operations is $750 to $800 million. We expect to hold the investment in working capital relatively flat year over year. Despite an anticipated increase in net sales, for Lamb Weston Hldgs' second quarter results, we expect net sales to be up low single digits, and we anticipate adjusted EBITDA to be up high single digits to low double digits. Overall, North America crop conditions remain generally in line with expectations, while regional variability exists.

Current production estimates support our outlook. In Europe, there was prolonged heat and dry conditions throughout much of summer. These conditions are expected to negatively impact the harvest, resulting in a smaller-sized crop with tonnage tracking well below historical averages. To continue to meet demand, we are working with our customers to modify product specifications. We anticipate the tighter supply will result in higher raw material costs, which we are mitigating through pricing actions, and will be handed back to Mike.

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jim. In closing, it has been a dynamic start to the fiscal year. We delivered a good first quarter and had momentum in our North America business, our most strategic, important market. We are taking decisive action to drive improved performance internationally through actions in EMEA and a focus on improving volume and profit in our opportunity regions. We've executed against organizational design and cost savings to improve our agility and cost of doing business, and we are addressing rising input costs through our proactive cost savings program and appropriate pricing.

We continue to have a lot of work in front of us, but there's a lot of opportunity, and I am proud of all we've accomplished and the plans we have for driving long-term shareholder value. Given our Q1 results, the progress we have made with customers and the steps we are taking to address rising input costs, we are increasing our fiscal 2027 full-year outlook. We'll now take your questions.

OPERATOR

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star-one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure the mute function is turned off to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star-one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to assemble the queue. We will take our first question from Peter Galba with Bank of America.

Peter Galbo, Analyst at BofA Securities

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Just wanted to, in terms of the North America performance, I think obviously the volumes continue to come in better maybe than your own expectations and better than the Street expectations. And so just want to get a sense for kind of what drives the sustainability of that performance going forward. I think that's come to light even more so recently given some commentary from your largest customer about their outlook for traffic.

So we'd love to just kind of dig under the hood a bit more there on how we should think about the volume performance in North America going forward. Thanks.

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Hey Peter, thanks for the question. This is Mike. You know, when I think about our North America business, I'm really happy with our performance. When you look at Q1, like I shared in the prepared remarks, we grew North America sales volume, net sales, gross margin, segment adjusted EBITDA, and so really happy how things are going, and we did that off of favorable existing customer mix. You know, Jim talked about how we over-index with some of those QSRs that have stronger traffic in the marketplace.

You know, we're also seeing the benefits of all the hard work the team's put in around Focus to Win, like the strong customer partnerships. And you know, we've supported that with more consistent fill rates. I think you're seeing more frequency of engagement from our team, from business planning with our customers. And I'll tell you that's leading to new customer wins and new innovation opportunities. And you know, when I think about as we're looking across our customers, we're winning with the winners.

We've done some customer segmentation that really helps us, you know, identify the customers that have that higher probability of growth and action. And then, you know, as you look down through the P&L, our cost-saving efforts are seeing a lot of proofs. I think the initiatives we have underway are permanently lowering our operating costs. You know, we're adding some additional initiatives to that with the ZBD work that we talked about, as well as the org design work that we just announced today where we're looking to drive simplicity and, you know, making better decisions across this.

At the end of the day, we have a maniacal focus on improving our manufacturing efficiency. And I think all those things together, Peter, are really, really helping us stabilize and move to growth within our North America business.

Peter Galbo, Analyst at BofA Securities

Great, thanks for that, Mike. Jim, maybe as a follow-up, I've got a few questions this morning just on raising the EBITDA guide roughly by the amount of the beat relative to your expectations in the quarter. Obviously inflation has moved up, but I don't think we got an updated inflation number for the year. I think we've previously been thinking about 3% on inflation. So maybe you can just provide us with an update as to where your expectations around that stand for the rest of this year.

Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks very much. Yeah, thanks Peter. I think when we looked at just overall kind of non-potato input costs, we're about 100 basis points higher on our inflation expectation for the year. So some of those significant categories that have been impacted: freight, primarily in the U.S., edible oils, packaging, and then some ingredients costs really kind of across the globe. Always our first step to address inflation is to lean on our cost culture and cost savings initiatives.

And Yann mentioned in his remarks that the team came together both across North America as well as Europe and we did a Champions Day to really press and think about other cost savings initiatives that can impact us this year as well as into next year. And so as we think about those value-creating initiatives that we have currently underway, they're really kind of doing a lot to offset the inflation that we're experiencing. And then where we can't offset that, we rely on pricing to offset any remaining inflation, if the market will accept that.

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. The other thing, Peter, maybe I'll just build on is just that customers are acknowledging the reality of inflation. Everyone's feeling it. And when you look at our spring '26 pricing action, we're seeing good realization. We shared that we're able to pass some formula-based clauses in several of our large QSR agreements and that allows for some pass-through. And then as I said in prepared remarks, we've implemented an increase in Europe and that seems to be pretty understood by our customers.

So I think the combination of these actions is giving us confidence in our EBITDA guidance we issued today.

Peter Galbo, Analyst at BofA Securities

Great, thanks very much.

OPERATOR

We will take our next question from Tom Palmer with JP Morgan.

Tom Palmer, Analyst at JPMorgan

Good morning. Thanks for the question. Mike, you gave some helpful detail on how negotiations have been progressing in North America. Maybe just in context, could we clarify your pricing expectations for the year in the region? I think you had list price increases on kind of the old retail and food service segment customers and then it sounded from the prepared remarks like contracted pricing would be higher as well. Guidance previously was, I think it was a low single-digit price/mix decline.

So kind of how does this shake out in North America now?

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Tom. So first of all, as I said in the prepared remarks, we're about 70% complete, no real surprises. Kind of negotiations have been going as expected and we'll continue to wrap those up over the next couple quarters. You know, as I just mentioned to Peter's question, I think, you know, customers are seeing the inflation, I think everyone's feeling it, and you know, we did take that increase in spring of '26, you know, across our non-contracted customers.

And so we've gotten into the contracting season with those larger multinational chains that are in multi-year agreements. We do have some formula-based clauses in several of those and we're able to get that pricing through. And so as you saw, you know, in our price/mix we have made some sequential improvements quarter over quarter and we believe that we'll continue to have some improvement in price/mix throughout the remainder of the year. I think the important piece to remember, you know, about half of that's price, half of that's mix.

And we do see some shifts in mix as we have a higher portion of our—sorry. We see some growth in multinational chains and also a shift to private label in retail.

Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer

Maybe just to add, I mean, I think as you think about the balance of the year, we've had some notable new customer wins almost a year ago, and so the lap of those will slow. We'll still expect sales volume growth. I think it'll just moderate as we get through the balance of the year. And then as Mike mentioned, we're working pretty hard on reducing the impact of price/mix and we see that becoming less and less of a headwind and possibly a contributor.

So for North America right now, I think for the full year we anticipate really kind of modest top line growth. And the EBITDA growth I think is driven really by the pricing momentum as well as the significant cost savings which are going to offset that persistent input cost inflation that we're addressing this year.

Tom Palmer, Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay, thanks for that color. And maybe switching subjects to the environment in Europe, I think the implication or the potential is that you have a less price-competitive environment just given the evolving costs and how some of your competitors might be disproportionately affected. Maybe two clarifications here. One, are you starting to see behavior changes by your competitors? And to the extent that you do see changes, would that be embedded in your outlook or incremental?

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, maybe just let me speak to what's going on in Europe right now. I think it's a tale of two years. You know, if I think about last year, just to ground you, I mean, we had raw crop, we had high yield, we had more acres that were planted, and that led to a lot of raw. We also saw a lot of excess capacity, especially as there were less exports from Europe going out worldwide around the globe. And then there was continued, you know, consumer demand softness and restaurant traffic softness, softness.

I think this year is very different. And when you look at the poor quality and the poor yields of raw, you know, that's likely going to be the limiter to being able to use all the capacity in that region. And I think as a result, you're seeing in the media that there's been closures of current and announced capacity. You know, as I think about our business with the closure of brookhuisenbors, we believe that, as I said in the prepared remarks, we will improve our utilization by about 10 points, be running in the low 90s once that's complete.

And then, you know, the other great thing is we're consolidating into our most cost-efficient plants. And I have a lot of confidence that the teams are going to execute and we're going to be able to serve our customers even better than we have. You know, I think when I look at the closure of Bruckheisenborst, I look at the Belgian closure and also the German facility that's not going to move forward, the three of those represent over a billion pounds of capacity in that region.

Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer

And Tom, let me just comment too. So the net of that I think for International, we're probably seeing for the full year net sales closer to flat, you know, pricing action that's really helping us address both the rising potato costs as well as some of the other non-potato key input cost inflation that we're seeing.

Tom Palmer, Analyst at JPMorgan

Understood. Thanks, guys.

OPERATOR

We will take our next question from Alexia Howard with Bernstein.

Alexia Howard, Analyst at Bernstein

Hi there. Thank you very much for the question here. You talked earlier about winning with customers that are growing more rapidly in North America. Can you talk about how you identify those customers that are likely to do better in this current environment? Because obviously the situation is rather unusual with the weakness in the consumer. And then I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Alexia, I appreciate the question. I mean, we do a lot of analytics to identify the customers that we believe have the right to win long term around the globe and are delivering on consumer trends. And we spend a lot of time, you know, looking at that. We also look at, you know, customers that have grown over the past several years and try and triangulate to who we believe the winners will be in the future. I think when it comes down to kind of the brass tacks, it has a lot to do with our Focus to Win initiative around building those customer relationships.

We're spending a lot more time interacting with our customers on a day-in and day-out basis. We've improved our joint business planning process. We've improved our fill rates and supply to our customers. And I think those things are helping us win in the marketplace and allowing us to really win with those customers that are winning and driving traffic.

Alexia Howard, Analyst at Bernstein

Great. That's very, very helpful. And actually sticking with the same theme, I mean, gosh, the strong volume growth that you saw in North America this quarter is very unusual in packaged food at the moment. Is there a risk of adverse competitor reactions or are you not seeing that? Is it your innovation and the way that you're working with customers that defends against that? Thank you and I'll pass it on.

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think you hit it on the head. I mean, it has a lot to do with what we were just talking about, the joint business planning, the connection to the customers, the innovation that creates stickiness and differentiates us in the marketplace. It's that quality and consistency that Lamb Weston Hldgs is known for and that we've touted over the years and been able to deliver on. And those are things at the end of the day that our customers expect and Lamb Weston Hldgs is delivering.

And so we're getting the nod and we're bringing on new customers. But equally important, we are growing with our existing customers through LTOs around the globe and through other innovation projects and through battered and more crispy fries. So we're really excited about the performance that we're having with our customers. I'd add when we look at our customer mix, and I mentioned that we do over-index with QSR chicken in North America. And honestly, QSR or just chicken as a concept, whether it's within a chain that's focused on QSR or within a burger chain, has definitely been appealing in many of our global markets. And then also what Mike mentioned and I think that we may kind of undervalue as financial analysts, and when we look at the company, is LTOs and the ability to really work with a specific chain to further deepen that relationship and bring a limited-time-offer concept that's going to be both helpful for them in terms of driving traffic and it's also helpful for us in terms of both volume and margin.

OPERATOR

We will take our next question from Max Gumport with BNP Paribas.

Max Gumport, Analyst at BNP Paribas

Thank you very much for the question. Two-part question on international. One is you made comments about how you're doing work and where you may play in international, how that could lead to partnership and divestiture opportunities. Just a bit of an update on what you're considering there. You also noted that you remain below your long-term aspirations for international, specifically with regard to margins and profit. If you could put a bit more color on what you see as the right long-term opportunity for international's EBITDA, that would be very helpful.

Thanks very much.

Yann Krups, Executive Chair

Thank you, Max, for your question. So last time I mentioned that we were in this strategic process of where to play, how to win, which in the end will lead to a growth algorithm going forward. So at this stage we have completed the where to play work and we're in the middle of the how to win, which is actually quite exciting because that work leads us to a set of country clusters. Remember we talked last time we worked with a lot of data sets on net landed costs, which countries cluster well together, where do we expect the growth to come from in the different parts of the world and how are we positioned to capture that growth?

And in the end that work leads to country clusters where we can give an owner of a country cluster a clear mission and also clarity as to how they contribute to the Lamb Weston Hldgs growth algorithm. The how to win work is quite exciting because really there we get the teams together and we dive into the how to win and the different kind of toolkits and playbooks that we have to improve sales execution and that we can roll out across the different countries that share a similar mission.

So that really serves our strategic purpose quite well. And again, this work could also lead in the future to partnerships and divestiture opportunities depending on which roles these different clusters play in our growth algorithms. So to go more in detail is a little bit too early today. In terms of growth algorithms, we really look forward to sharing more details with you during our Investor Day in early 2027, so look forward to that.

Max Gumport, Analyst at BNP Paribas

Thanks. And as a follow-up there was mention of ZBB. It's been almost a decade since we've heard much about ZBB in the CPG industry and I think the learning from that prior experiment was you can have some short-term margin expansion that can be a bit dangerous in terms of cutting too much and what that could do to organic sales growth. What sort of guardrails do you have this time around to make sure that you don't cut too deep and that you can keep your organic sales momentum going?

Thanks very much.

Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I think, Max, I mean, we're very thoughtful about that. I think as you think about the work we've done with Focus to Win over the last year and a half, we've put a strong focus around driving out costs and we're well ahead of our cost savings plan and what we're doing there. When I think about the ZBB work, it's more about creating that culture and that owner mindset within our organization. And I think a lot of times when we talk about ZBB, we go straight to costs.

This is as much about where can we have that owner mindset and find opportunities to drive out costs, but it's also about where we can reinvest some of those savings back into where we have a right to win long term. Things like innovation, things like our commercial teams and just things that are going to help us connect better with our customers out in the marketplace.

OPERATOR

We will take our next question from Robert Moscow with TD Cowen.

Robert Moscow, Analyst at TD Cowen

Most of the questions have been asked, so maybe just to Jim, I noticed that the free cash flow guidance is unchanged even though everything else is up a little bit. Any real reason for that? Is it because of raw material costs going higher? Thanks.

Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, just a little bit of raw material also then rolling into our finished goods and so just, you know, thinking about, you know, how that's going to play out necessarily on inventory and change in inventory value.

Robert Moscow, Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay, thank you.

OPERATOR

Okay, we will take our next question from Puran Sharma with Stephens. Mr. Sharma, your line is open. If you could please check your mute button.

Puran Sharma, Analyst at Stephens

Sorry about that. Good morning. Thanks for the question and congrats on posting strong results here. My first question wanted to understand how European procurement is faring given just the tighter environment. I think you typically get about 70 to 80% of your supplies under contract. But I believe your contracts are based off acreage and just wanted to get a sense of how much more procurement do you see on the open market this year than you typically have in the past.

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Puran, I appreciate the question. I think, you know, as I think about really around the European crop, you know, as we, I think Jim talked about in the prepared remarks, there's been several heat waves. I mean they've been well documented in the news over the course of the summer and that impacted yields and quality and we believe that reduced tonnage in the region about 15 to 20%. I think as we think about processes that we've put in place around better forecasting and tools that we have, we anticipate that we have sufficient supply of contracted-price potatoes on our business.

We have a smaller portion remaining of opens, lower than we have typically in the past. I think given the inflation in potatoes and some of those other key input costs, that's the reason we took our pricing increase in Europe. I think as I think about Europe overall, we're working really close with our customers to also adjust the specs. And that's normal in Europe. There's more variability in raw there. And so adjusting those specs is something that we'll typically do to help stretch the raw to get through the season.

But like I said before, you know, raw is going to, we believe raw is going to be the limiter to capacity in that regional market.

Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer

And Mike, maybe if I add, just as we looked at the pricing increase, we're really thinking about that small portion that's open. That cost is in our forecast for the balance of the year. And so then also balancing against inflation and some of the other potato crop costs. And so we'll have net sales up, we'll have COGS. And so that's kind of leading us to a little bit more of a kind of a balanced view for International versus the full-year guide that we had.

Puran Sharma, Analyst at Stephens

Great. Appreciate the color. I guess on my follow-up, wanted to understand some of the comments you said earlier. As you simplify International and consolidate APAC leadership, how much of the opportunity there would you say is cost versus improved execution?

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so I think the important piece is this was around improving our execution. There were benefits of cost savings that come along with it, but the focus was around improving our agility and cost of doing business. You know, because our implementation timelines, you know, vary around the globe and some of those local requirements, we're not going to disclose a specific number or dollar figure right now, but they're really focusing on simplifying the organization and reducing those management layers just so we can have quicker communication, be more agile and be able to address customer needs moving forward.

Puran Sharma, Analyst at Stephens

Great, thank you for the color.

OPERATOR

We will take our next question from Mark Torrente with Wells Fargo.

Mark Torrente, Analyst at Wells Fargo

Hey, good morning and thank you for the question. Just first in EMEA, you've taken some actions in addressing capacity, as have competitors. You believe you can get capacity back into the 90% range for utilization. Maybe any more color on what is needed to return to those levels? Is it more about recent actions starting to rebalance across the market as demand stays steady or are there any further actions to take? And I guess what's the timeline to reach those targets?

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, you know, I think a couple things come to mind. I mean we've talked about the changes in the potato raw and, you know, the closures and so forth. I think the other thing, it just goes back to that Focus to Win strategy that we have in place. I mean we have really focused on building those customer partnerships in the marketplace. I know we talked a lot about that with North America on the call already. But that translates across the globe. You know, we continue to have that focus on cost savings and we've done a lot of work in our international plants in order to be more efficient, whether that's pinch point analyses or throughput work to make sure that we improve in those areas. And then innovation is another important area. I mean as you look around the globe, especially in some of these markets that start to see higher index of delivery and carryout fries, you know, that crispiness, that batter technology, that becomes an important piece of delivering on consumers' needs. And we're doing that through innovation. So we're excited about the work that we're doing there. And again we can control the controllables and those are a few of the things that we're doing to control that moving forward.

Mark Torrente, Analyst at Wells Fargo

Okay, appreciate that. And then just any more color on end-market trends that you're seeing. Have you seen any recent improvement in restaurant traffic trends across US or key European markets? And what's factored in your outlook for the year in terms of just general market conditions? Thanks.

Michael Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I'll touch on this and maybe hand it over to Jim. I think we talked a little bit about traffic already, but when I think about the growth in the category, I think fries continue to be the most ordered item on restaurant menus. It's one of the most profitable items for our operators. And so they continue to buy those. It's an important piece of their overall menu mix. And, you know, when we look at the fry attachment rate, it remains elevated since pre-pandemic levels.

And so, you know, when people are going out to restaurants to eat, they're ordering fries.

Jim Gray, Chief Financial Officer

And maybe just to add, you know, in our remarks we talked about Europe demand and maybe tying it back to the last question too. So in a number of the countries QSR traffic was down 1%, Spain was flat. And so we just watch what the consumer is doing with regard to eating away from home and kind of what that quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year traffic looks like. And I think just demand in Europe is also something that can really help to tighten utilizations up over time.

OPERATOR

And this will conclude today's question and answer session. I will turn the conference back to Ms. Hancock for any additional or closing remarks.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, Cynthia. And thank you everyone for joining us today. Our team will be at these upcoming events and we hope to see you there. The replay of the call will be available on our website later this afternoon. Have a good rest of your day.

OPERATOR

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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