Earnings call transcript: Lamb Weston Q4 2025 beats forecasts, stock surges

Lamb Weston Holdings Inc. reported a strong fiscal fourth quarter for 2025, significantly surpassing earnings and revenue forecasts. The company posted an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.87, exceeding the anticipated $0.64, marking a 35.94% surprise. Revenue reached $1.68 billion, outpacing the forecasted $1.59 billion by 5.66%. Following these results, the stock price surged 19.95% to $56.50 in pre-market trading, reflecting investor optimism. According to InvestingPro, the company maintains a "FAIR" overall financial health score of 2.28 out of 5, with particularly strong marks in profitability (3.56/5). InvestingPro analysis suggests the stock is currently slightly undervalued based on its Fair Value model.

Key Takeaways

• Lamb Weston’s Q4 EPS of $0.87 exceeded forecasts by 35.94%.
• Revenue of $1.68 billion surpassed expectations by 5.66%.
• Stock price increased by 19.95% in pre-market trading.
• Strong performance driven by increased volume and innovation efforts.
• Fiscal 2026 guidance projects revenue between $6.35 billion and $6.55 billion.

Company Performance

Lamb Weston demonstrated robust performance in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, with net sales increasing by 4% year-over-year. Volume growth of 8% across various channels and geographies contributed to this success. The company’s strategic focus on product innovation and expansion into non-traditional fry channels has bolstered its market position. Despite challenges in restaurant traffic, particularly in the U.S. and U.K., the company capitalized on strong global demand for french fries.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $1.68 billion, up 4% year-over-year
• EPS: $0.87, beating forecast by 35.94%
• Adjusted EBITDA: $285 million, flat compared to the prior year
• Cash from operations: $860 million, an increase of $70 million from the previous year
• Net Debt: $4.1 billion

Earnings vs. Forecast

Lamb Weston’s actual EPS of $0.87 significantly exceeded the forecast of $0.64, resulting in a positive surprise of 35.94%. Revenue also surpassed expectations, reaching $1.68 billion compared to the projected $1.59 billion, a 5.66% surprise. This performance marks a notable improvement from previous quarters, highlighting the company’s effective strategic initiatives and operational efficiencies.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Lamb Weston’s stock price jumped 19.95% to $56.50 in pre-market trading. This surge reflects strong investor confidence in the company’s ability to outperform market expectations. The stock’s movement positions it well above its 52-week low of $47.87, signaling positive sentiment despite broader market uncertainties. With a beta of 0.45, the stock has historically shown lower volatility than the broader market. Analyst price targets range from $55 to $82, suggesting potential upside from current levels.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Lamb Weston projects fiscal 2026 revenue between $6.35 billion and $6.55 billion, with adjusted EBITDA expected to range from $1.0 billion to $1.2 billion. The company anticipates stronger sales in the second half of the fiscal year and aims to achieve a targeted effective tax rate of approximately 26%. Strategic initiatives, including a $250 million cost savings program by fiscal 2028, are set to enhance operational efficiencies.

Executive Commentary

"We are operating in a really attractive category," said Mike Smith, CEO, emphasizing the company’s strong market position. CFO Bernadette Madrieta added, "Our strategy is positioning us to gain share and lean into those premium segments of the market." These statements underscore Lamb Weston’s focus on innovation and premium product offerings as key growth drivers.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential tariff exposure estimated at $25 million.
• Ongoing challenges in global restaurant traffic.
• Supply chain disruptions could impact operational efficiency.
• Market saturation in developed regions could limit growth.
• Economic uncertainties in emerging markets may affect margins.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the potential impact of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, to which the company responded that no material effects are expected. Questions also focused on future M&A and joint venture opportunities, with Lamb Weston indicating continued exploration in these areas. Additionally, the company reaffirmed its leverage target of 3.5-4x, highlighting its commitment to maintaining financial stability.

Full transcript - Lamb Weston Holdings Inc (LW) Q4 2025:

Conference Operator: Day, and welcome to the Lamb Weston Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year twenty twenty five 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, Lamb Weston: Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Lamb Weston’s fourth quarter and full year fiscal twenty twenty five earnings call. I’m Debbie Hancock, Lamb Weston’s Vice President of Investor Relations. Earlier today, we issued our press release and posted slides that we will use for our discussion today. You can find both on our website, lamweston.com. Please note that during our remarks, we will be making 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 Mike Smith, our President and CEO and Bernadette Madrieta, our Chief Financial Officer. Let me now turn the call over to Mike.

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Thank you, Debbie. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I first want to thank our Lam Weston team around the globe for their hard work and strong execution. Fiscal twenty twenty five was a year of substantial change for Lam Weston. In addition to me becoming CEO, we recently added significant new and relevant experience to the board with six new members, including a new Chairman, Bradley Alford, as well as Lawrence Kurzius, Paul Mace, Timothy McClebish, Ruth Kimmelschu, and Scott Ostfeld.

Management and the new Board have a high sense of urgency and are aligned on capitalizing on the many opportunities we collectively see to drive results in our business. Today’s results evidence the momentum we continue to build with customers and the visibility we have in our business as we work to rebuild credibility with investors. We are focused on controlling what we can control and are taking advantage of opportunities to drive results and improve execution through a cost savings program we announced today along with our customer centric focused win strategy for long term success. Successful execution of these plans will help drive improved performance, including free cash flow and long term returns. To drive further alignment, along with sales and adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow and returns on capital have been added to our compensation plans for fiscal twenty twenty six.

This alignment continues at the board level, which for 2026, the board has unanimously elected to receive their compensation in equity in the company. We believe these cumulative actions are readying the organization to further support customers and accelerate our performance when demand returns to growth. Turning to business results, Lamb Weston ended the year with momentum in customer wins and retention, delivering results ahead of our updated expectations for fiscal twenty twenty five. The team is executing at a high level and our long standing commitment to quality, service and innovation is driving success with customers globally. We had a strong fourth quarter that came in above our expectations.

Volume was up with wins across channels and geographies and net sales grew. Price mix declined reflecting our support of customers with price and trade as we manage the competitive environment and soft restaurant traffic. We’re also seeing the benefits of our cost savings in our cost structure. Adjusted EBITDA increased in the quarter and we made significant progress in improving working capital. For the full year, our success in the second half enabled us to end the year with volume up.

As discussed on earlier calls, our full year profit was impacted by actions to support customers in a competitive environment, higher costs from production curtailments and higher inventories during the year, as well as inflationary pressures. We offset some of this impact by delivering slightly above our cost savings target with $59,000,000 of savings for the year. Since January, when I took on the role of CEO, I’ve worked closely with the board and management team to drive change with urgency and better position our business for success. Over the past several months and with the support of outside resources, we undertook an end to end assessment of our operations. We developed a strategic plan to drive targeted decision making and actions, and we are now executing on a plan to unlock near and long term value.

This plan, we call focus to win, includes zero based budgeting, assessing our noncore assets, and augmenting our commercial go to market. We’re already making progress. You can see in our better than expected results announced today, but we know that the work and the real opportunities are ahead of us. We are operating in an industry with rapidly changing dynamics and a global consumer environment that remains uncertain. It requires a new approach, a focus to win.

Global demand for French fries remains strong, but the market dynamics are evolving in important ways. Growth in food delivery, expanding QSR concepts, and air fryers changing how we cook at home are creating an opportunity that demands innovation and new approaches. Geographic growth is greatest in emerging markets where margin profiles are lower, but also where QSR formats are expanding. And following market shortages during COVID, the long term attractiveness of our industry has created the potential for future supply demand imbalance, most notably outside The U. S.

As previously discussed, while new capacity has been announced globally, we do not expect it all to be built. We have already begun to see industry consolidation and decisions to postpone or cancel capacity additions. We believe these postponements and cancellations could continue as the industry has been rational over time. Importantly, not all new capacity is created equal. Geographic exposure, capabilities, revitaliability of raw material sourcing and quality determine the markets and channels impacted by new capacity.

We believe that much of the new capacity in developing markets like India and The Middle East does not have the capability to produce higher margin premium items, which is the strategic focus for Lamb Weston. We believe the work we performed on the market confirmed our right to win in our key geographies, segments and product categories. We are operating in some of the lowest cost potato growing regions, and we are investing in capabilities aligned to growth opportunities and to our customers’ needs to win and grow profitably over time. Let’s talk about our focus to win strategy. To differentiate Lamb Weston in today’s market, we are defining where to play through a strategic framework that focuses our resources and efforts on the most attractive growth opportunities across markets, channels, and product segments.

How we expect to win is targeted, strengthen our customer partnerships, execute with excellence, and set the pace for innovation. We are creating a repeatable cycle with four elements that drive growth and profitability for Lam Weston. First, we are focusing investments on priority global markets and segments. Second, we are strengthening customer partnerships. Third, we are achieving executional excellence.

And finally, we are setting the pace for innovation. We’ll talk more about these shortly. But at the core, we will do what our team does better than anyone else. Be our customer’s number one partner, a world class potato company, and an industry leading innovator. Our focus will be on geographies, channels, and products where we can both differentiate and lead.

We’ve built our business in part by being something for everyone. But going forward, we will continue to partner with excellence in our core markets. We will invest to grow in markets, channels, and product categories with more attractive profit opportunities where customers value our full product and service offerings. We will focus our resources on markets and segments where we have the greatest advantage and reevaluate non core assets and markets. We will close the capability gaps in our organization, and we will target premium market segments where innovation is a differentiator.

We must transform how we operate. It is how we will win. First, strengthen customer partnerships. Lamb Weston remains a partner of choice for our customers. Our third party research confirms that our value, relationships, and service are best in class.

Our opportunity is to expand what we’ve done with our largest customers to our priority customer targets and geographies, enhancing our joint business planning activities and capabilities. Second, achieve executional excellence. To be a partner of choice for our customers and to successfully and profitably operate in an increasingly competitive market, everything we do, we must do with excellence across all functions of the company. For example, in supply chain, we are focused on operating an advantaged global footprint aligned to our growth plan with a streamlined distribution network and revamped continuous improvement team with a focus on plant productivity. This includes simplifying and standardizing operations across locations, driving OEE improvement via our Lamb Weston manufacturing operating culture, and embedding a zero loss mindset in raw potato and materials usage.

Finally, to differentiate in a competitive marketplace with changing customer preferences, we must continue Lamb Weston’s long track record of being an innovation leader. Our innovation efforts have delivered incremental improvements that directly enhance the customer and consumer experience. Looking ahead, we’re expanding our ambition to include breakthrough innovations such as Lam Weston fast fries that allow operators in nontraditional fry channels to provide customers with fast and crispy fry offerings. These customers unlock new sources of value in channels that don’t traditionally serve fries. This next chapter broadens our innovation efforts beyond product level and into areas such as process technology.

Finally, we have created global innovation hubs to orchestrate disruptive innovation platforms. We believe this will create a global network of insights and innovation specialists centered on two innovation hubs, North America and international. In concert with these plans, and as part of our focus to win strategy, today we announced cost savings that are designed to better align our organization with the environment, improve efficiency, and focus on our biggest opportunities. We have identified at least $250,000,000 of annualized run rate savings that we expect to achieve by the end of fiscal twenty twenty eight that Bernadette will talk about more in a moment. We believe these actions will lower our cost base and help ensure we remain competitive while reallocating resources on a more targeted basis to invest for growth.

As I’ve discussed, customer and consumer preferences for our products remain high, though execution in this period of macro uncertainty will be paramount to the future success of the company. We must control what we can control to continue delivering best in class returns on our business. This includes streamlining our organization, implementing zero based budgeting, and strategically investing to improve productivity and strengthen our manufacturing network. But we also should not lose sight of the bigger picture, which is that Lamb Weston will be poised to deliver for our customers with an improved cost structure and operations. When our customers see increased demand in their business, we don’t know exactly when that will be, but when it does happen, we have confidence that it will, and we will be well positioned to win when it does.

I’ll now turn it over to Bernadette to review the fourth quarter and fiscal year performance and walk through our outlook.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by thanking our teams for their hard work in fiscal twenty twenty five as we navigated a challenging year. Halfway through the year, we made important changes to adapt to the evolving environment and put our business on a path back to growth. Our fourth quarter results reflect the progress we made throughout the year to address the dynamic and changing environment. We delivered volume growth in the fourth quarter and for the full year, disciplined cost management, and a focus on cash flow with significant working capital improvement and lower capital expenditures.

Let’s begin with our fourth quarter results on slide 17. Net sales increased 4% compared with the prior year. Volume increased 8%, primarily driven by contract wins across each of our channels and geographic regions and lapping an approximate $22,000,000 negative impact in the prior period from a previously announced voluntary product withdrawal. These gains were partially offset by soft global restaurant traffic trends, which were down low single digits in our largest markets of The US and UK. Despite lower traffic trends, there are some positive trends in the consumption data.

In The US, French fry attachment rates continue to remain approximately two points higher than pre pandemic levels. The French fry category grew 1% in the quarter, and QSR fry serving sizes also increased 1%. Price mix declined 4% in the quarter compared to the prior year, reflecting efforts to support customers on price and trade in an increasingly competitive environment in both our North America and international segments. Looking at our segments, North America net sales declined 1% compared with the prior year, primarily due to lower net selling prices. Price mix in our North America segment declined 5% due to pricing actions to support our customers, which was only partially offset by favorable channel and product mix.

The favorable mix was attributable to growth in higher margin regional, small, and retail customers. Volume increased 4%, primarily related to regional, small, and retail customer wins. These volume gains were partially offset by soft restaurant traffic. In The US, QSR traffic improved from February’s levels, but compared with the prior year, was down 1% in the quarter and the fiscal year. Traffic at QSR chains specializing in hamburgers was down 2% in the quarter and 3% for the year.

It’s important to note that this is on top of declines in the prior year. Restaurant traffic on a two year stack is down mid single digits with QSR hamburger focused restaurants down high single digits over the two year period. For our international segment, sales grew 15% versus the prior year quarter with little impact from foreign exchange. Despite restaurant traffic being down 3% in The UK, our largest international market and relatively flat in key international markets, the international segment’s volume increased 16%, driven primarily by recent customer contract wins and to a lesser extent, lapping the voluntary product withdrawal in the prior year. Price mix declined 1%, reflecting pricing actions to support customers in key international markets in response to the continued competitive environment.

Moving on from sales, as expected, adjusted gross profit declined compared with the prior year quarter due primarily to first, pricing actions to support our customers Second, deliberate choices we made to temporarily curtail some production resulting in approximately $19,000,000 of higher factory burden absorption. Specifically, fixed costs assigned to our curtailed lines are being temporarily absorbed by lower production levels, which leads to increased cost per pound. Third, low single digit input cost inflation, including the benefit of lower raw potato prices. And finally, while not impacting EBITDA, higher depreciation expense from our recent capacity expansions. These actions were partially offset by increased sales volume and lapping the impact of the voluntary product withdrawal in the prior year.

Adjusted SG and A declined $16,000,000 on lower advertising and promotional spend, lapping of higher ERP transition expenses in the prior year, as well as the benefit of our cost saving initiatives. All of this led to adjusted EBITDA of $285,000,000 which is essentially flat or up $2,000,000 versus the prior year. Lower adjusted SG and A offset lower adjusted gross profit and equity method earnings after adjustments for depreciation and amortization. Turning to segment EBITDA performance on slide 19. Adjusted EBITDA in our North America segment declined 7% or $19,000,000 versus the prior year quarter to $258,000,000 primarily related to pricing actions to support our customers and $17,000,000 of incremental fixed factory burden absorption.

This was only partially offset by lapping a $19,000,000 charge for the voluntary product withdrawal in the prior year and lower SG and A expenses. For our International segment, adjusted EBITDA increased $22,000,000 to $63,000,000 Higher net sales, lower manufacturing cost per pound, including lapping a $21,000,000 charge related to the voluntary product withdrawal in the prior year, and lower SG and A offset the impact of a 1% decrease in price mix. Moving to our liquidity position and cash flows on slide 20. We ended the year with approximately $1,240,000,000 of liquidity, comprised of approximately $1,170,000,000 available under our revolving credit facility and $71,000,000 of cash and cash equivalents. Our net debt was $4,100,000,000 and our adjusted EBITDA to net debt leverage ratio was 3.3 times on a trailing twelve month basis.

In fiscal twenty twenty five, we generated $860,000,000 of cash from operations. This is up $70,000,000 versus the prior year due primarily to $349,000,000 of favorable changes in working capital, which was primarily attributable to lower inventories, which reduced eight days and a favorable change in accrued liabilities. We expect to continue to drive inventory improvements as part of our Focus to Win plan. This plan includes approximately $60,000,000 of cash flow from inventory improvement in fiscal twenty twenty six and 2027 or $120,000,000 in total by the end of fiscal twenty twenty seven. Turning to slide 21.

Capital expenditures for fiscal twenty twenty five, net of proceeds from blue chip swap transactions in Argentina, were $651,000,000 down $323,000,000 with our expansion projects nearing completion. We ended the year below our initial $750,000,000 target due to continued capital discipline, cost savings initiatives, and the timing of projects and cash outlays. For fiscal twenty six, our capital spending is expected to be approximately $500,000,000 with approximately $400,000,000 in maintenance and modernization and $100,000,000 for environmental projects, which are mostly for wastewater treatment. On slide 22, you can see that we remain committed to returning cash to shareholders. For the year, we returned $489,000,000 In the fourth quarter, we repurchased $100,000,000 of shares and $282,000,000 in the year, leaving us with $358,000,000 available under the plan.

We also returned two zero seven million dollars in cash dividends during the year. We plan to continue to follow a disciplined capital allocation approach anchored around investment in the business, its capabilities, and areas we are working to competitively differentiate Lamb Weston to execute our business strategy while maintaining a strong balance sheet and opportunistically returning capital to shareholders. Let’s turn to our outlook. Starting with the potato crop on slide 23. We’ve started harvesting and processing the early potato varieties in North America, and initial indications are that this portion of the new crop is slightly above historical averages.

At this time, the potato crops in the Columbia Basin, Idaho, Alberta, and the Midwest that will be harvested in the fall appear to be largely within historical ranges as growing conditions in these regions have been favorable. As a reminder, in North America, we’ve agreed to a mid single digit decrease in the aggregate in contract prices for the 2025 potato crop. Because we ended the year with lower inventories, we expect that we will begin realizing the benefits of lower cost potatoes harvested out of field in the second quarter of fiscal twenty six. This is earlier than last year and in line with historical seasonal timing. In Europe, favorable dry and warm growing conditions in the industry’s main growing regions of The Netherlands, Belgium, Northern France, and Germany are expected to result in an average crop.

We currently expect our potato costs in Europe to be flat to slightly lower than the previous year’s fixed price contracts. We will provide more details on the crops in both North America and Europe when we report our second quarter results. Turning to slide ’24 and our fiscal twenty twenty six outlook. The outlook includes the contribution of a fifty third week with the additional week falling in the fourth quarter. In fiscal twenty twenty six, we expect our category to continue to be in high demand with customers and consumers prioritizing french fries as a menu and an at home item.

However, our guidance assumes continued pressure on consumers from macroeconomic and geopolitical factors. Our outlook assumes no improvement in global restaurant traffic from fiscal twenty five levels, but it does plan for customer momentum that began in the ’25 to continue. It also does not include additional impacts of evolving trade policy, including changes in tariffs and retaliatory countermeasures. With this as a backdrop, we expect revenue for fiscal twenty twenty six in the range of $6,350,000,000 to $6,550,000,000 which is a 2% decline to 2% growth on a constant currency basis. The carryover pricing actions we made in fiscal twenty twenty five to support our customers will have a negative impact on net sales in the first half of the year.

Based on the timing of contract renewals, most of the fiscal twenty twenty six pricing actions will impact the second half of the year, and they are expected to have a lesser impact than those made in fiscal twenty twenty five. In total, we expect sales to be stronger in the second half of the fiscal year, which will benefit from the additional week. Turning to our adjusted EBITDA outlook on Slide 25. Beginning in fiscal twenty twenty six, we are implementing changes in our reporting of adjusted SG and A and adjusted EBITDA to fully exclude non cash share based compensation expense. In fiscal twenty twenty five, stock based compensation expense was $40,000,000 After this call, we will publish a schedule recasting prior periods to reflect this new methodology on our investor website.

With this change, we expect adjusted EBITDA for fiscal twenty twenty six of $1,000,000,000 to $1,200,000,000 We expect adjusted gross profit to be down, negatively impacted by the carryover pricing and further efforts to support customers with price and trade in fiscal ’twenty six low single digit inflation, including the benefit of lower raw potato costs and higher fixed factory burden and start up costs in our international segment, primarily related to our new plant in Argentina, which is expected to begin producing sellable product in August. Before the benefits of our cost savings program, we expect adjusted SG and A will increase compared with the prior year due to an incremental $40,000,000 headwind related to normalizing incentive compensation expenses after a couple of years of lower than planned incentive achievement and approximately $10,000,000 of incremental investments, including, for example, innovation and advertising and promotion expenses to support our long term strategic plan. Our adjusted gross margin and SG and A will benefit from the cost savings program that we announced today. We expect to deliver approximately $200,000,000 of the full savings target by the end of fiscal twenty seven, with about half on a run rate basis than fiscal twenty six.

In fiscal twenty six, we expect approximately two thirds of the $100,000,000 of savings to be realized in the second half of the year. About two thirds will benefit adjusted gross profit and one third will benefit adjusted SG and A this year. Over the program’s life, however, we anticipate approximately 75% of the benefit in gross profit and 25 in SG and A. To deliver the savings, we expect to recognize approximately 70,000,000 to $100,000,000 of cash pretax charges, most of which are expected to be paid in fiscal twenty six. Keep in mind that these savings are on top of the remaining approximately $25,000,000 of incremental benefits that we expect to deliver under the restructuring plan we announced in fiscal twenty twenty five.

And finally, adjusted EBITDA will benefit from the contribution of an additional week of sales and earnings. We are targeting a full year effective tax rate of approximately 26% for fiscal twenty twenty six, excluding the impact of comparability items. This tax rate is forecast to be in the high 20s in the first half of the year and low 20s in the second half of the year, reflecting the expected timing of discrete items, most notably in the fourth quarter. We do not expect the recently enacted U. S.

Federal tax legislation to have a material impact on our fiscal twenty six tax rate. In summary, Lamb Weston is operating from a strong financial foundation, and we believe the steps we announced today will enable us to improve our competitiveness and financial position through cost savings, establishing clear strategic priorities and working capital improvements. We believe these expected savings, together with lower levels of capital expenditures and working capital improvements, will help drive improved profitability and cash flow over the long term. I’ll now turn the call back over to Mike.

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Thank you, Bernadette. I’m confident in the direction we are taking Lamb Weston, and we are making important and significant changes to our business to compete more effectively in today’s marketplace. We have organizational alignment to capitalize on the tremendous opportunities in front of us. We will drive performance by focusing on the controllables, but we do so knowing it will provide an even bigger opportunity for us and our customers when restaurant traffic returns to grow, and we will be ready. With that, we’re happy to take your questions.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston: Thank you. If you would like

Conference Operator: to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We will go first to Peter Galbo with Bank of America.

Peter Galbo, Analyst, Bank of America: Good morning, Mike and Bernadette. Thanks for the question.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Morning, Peter.

Conference Operator: Good morning.

Peter Galbo, Analyst, Bank of America: Wanted to start on the EBITDA margin target for the year, think is around 17% at the midpoint. And that would kind of be the, I think, the lowest it’s been since the company was spun public on a stand alone basis. So maybe you can just kind of help us understand if you think this is a floor in terms of a margin percentage. And I know you guys probably care about dollars more than percentages. But what the push and pull factors might be over the next couple of years that could push that number either higher or lower from that new kind of seventeen days?

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Yes, Peter. Appreciate the question. I think as I think about it, obviously, we’re going be below that normalized range here in fiscal twenty six. I think despite the fact that our key customers are experiencing headwinds, you know, we’re supporting them with price and trade in in what’s really a competitive environment. We’ve talked about that in the in the past.

You know, we’re also, you know, investing in markets and channels that are strategic and and where we believe we have the right to win, for the long term. And and those are gonna be, you know, longer term opportunities that we believe will deliver, you know, whole EBITDA dollars as as you talked about. But I’ll tell you, you know, when I think about our category compared to some of the other categories in CPG where the challenges might be a little bit more structural in nature, you know, we operate in a really attractive category. And you’ve heard me talk about how, you know, it’s one of the the most ordered items across all generations of french fries. It’s one of the most profitable items on restaurant menu and menus, and the attachment rate remains high.

And so, you know, we we believe we’re gonna continue to invest in the business for the long term, and we’re also making significant changes around our cost structure. And, you know, we’ve done a lot of work as we talked about in our prepared remarks over the last several months, and it’s shown us where we have some opportunities. And so we’re addressing those and with the announced $250,000,000 cost savings program over the next few years. And so I’ll tell you, listen, we believe our strategy has us on a path to return to those margin levels, but we’ll provide more details once we’re further along with our focus to win strategy.

Peter Galbo, Analyst, Bank of America: Great. That’s helpful. And maybe just as a follow-up to both of you, there was a lot of discussion around the improvement of working capital, both in the prepared remarks and in the press release this morning. I guess just, Mike, there’s a lot of ways to get there in terms of the working capital improvement, and it looks to be on the inventory side. But maybe just a little bit more detail on what specifically you’re planning to do around inventory levels, what that might look like in the supply chain as we contemplate the go forward?

Thanks very much.

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Yes. No, great question around working capital. When you think about our focus to win strategy, a big part of it is value creation, and that’s across the entire P and L. When I look at the progress we made really in q four, you know, we improved our inventories, and a lot of that had to do with the stronger volumes that we saw coming through the p and l. You know, keep in mind for this coming fiscal year in the crop season, we’ve reduced our acres.

And we have higher inventories, and so we’re making sure that we work through those inventories in the right ways. I talked a little bit about improving our capabilities as an organization, and one of those capabilities that we are investing behind for the future is around planning and integrating play integrated planning from, you know, the ag side all the way through the to finished goods. And so we’re really confident in our in our ability to improve our working capital over the next couple years.

Peter Galbo, Analyst, Bank of America: Great. Thanks very much, guys.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Peter.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Scott Marks with Jefferies.

Scott Marks, Analyst, Jefferies: Hey, good morning. Thanks so much for taking my questions. First one, I wanted to ask about international capacity. You made some comments, I believe, that there’s been some announced capacity internationally, but that you don’t necessarily expect those to get off the ground. So just wondering if one, if I have that correct.

And then two, maybe what what gives you confidence that some of those projects won’t be moving forward?

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Yeah. I appreciate this question, Scott. You know, I’m not gonna speculate on on what the capacity will or or won’t happen, what will or won’t be announced, but we do do believe that the industry has been pretty rational in the past as it relates to capacity. And through our competitive intelligence, we believe that there’s roughly one to 1 and a half billion pounds that’s been canceled or delayed. I’ll also tell you, the pace of new announcements has also slowed.

And so when we think about our business, we’re really taking the steps to control what we can control and ensure that our production lines up with our demand. The great thing about the position that we’re in, as we see restaurant traffic return and as our customers start to grow, we’re well positioned with available capacity to take advantage of those improved demand signals.

Scott Marks, Analyst, Jefferies: Appreciate the answer. Thanks for that. And then secondly, just wanted to ask about kind of the CapEx guide for the year and maybe go forward, how we should be thinking about it. I think in the presentation, you mentioned that about 3% of sales should be kind of a maintenance CapEx number. And obviously, the guide you gave came in a little bit below what folks were looking for.

So just wondering if you can kind of share some thoughts around that and kind of puts and takes and how we should think about that going forward. Thanks.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: You bet. So first, we are reducing intensity as we shift away from our growth investments to modernization and maintenance, as you mentioned. Generally, we would expect about 3% of sales for base capital and 2% for modernization. And then as I mentioned, there’s about $100,000,000 we have now that’s related to wastewater treatment. So all in, we expect that this $500,000,000 CapEx plan is really something that is going to support Lam Weston continuing to maintain its assets and the capabilities that we need to drive our strategy forward.

Scott Marks, Analyst, Jefferies: Got it. I’ll pass it on. Thanks so much.

Conference Operator: We will move next to Alexia Howard at Bernstein.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston: Good morning, everyone.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Good morning, Alexia. Hi

Alexia Howard, Analyst, Bernstein: there. So two quick things for me. First of all, can you talk about what went better than expected this quarter and whether any of those trends could persist into fiscal twenty six?

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Yeah. You know, the one that, you know, that comes to mind, Alexia, for q four is how we’re engaging with our customers. You know, you’ve heard me talk a lot about the importance of driving customer centricity through our organization, and that starts at the top. And I’ve been personally out meeting with several of our top customers and talking about where we have opportunities to improve and where we can help support them and their growth into the future. And so we’re continuing to do that.

The other area, obviously, that we’ve talked about here is around our focus to win strategy and and the cost savings program. And, obviously, we’ve been doing a lot of analysis over the last several months, but we’ve already started to focus in some of those areas to start implementing some of the opportunities that we see specifically around better execution on the business as well as focusing on our innovation moving forward.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Yeah. And, Alexia, the only other thing I mentioned is just a really strong volume growth across all of our channels and all of our regions. I think as we mentioned, you know, North America volume was up 4% and international volume up 16%. And as Mike mentioned, that’s a big reason we were able to also drive down our inventories at the end of the year.

Alexia Howard, Analyst, Bernstein: Very helpful. Can I can I follow-up, with a question about, the burger channel? I think you said on a two year stack, the traffic in there is still down, I believe, high single digits you mentioned. How much exposure do you have to that channel in North America? Because I I’m trying to figure out if there’s a risk if GLP one weight loss drugs really step up next year with the pill versions coming out.

Could that have a material impact, or are there ways that you can insulate yourself from that kind of outcome next year? Thank you, and I’ll pass it on.

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: You know, Alexia yeah. Yeah. Good good question. You know, Alexia, you know, when you look at QSR servings or or fry servings, 85 or over 80% of of fry servings come from the QSR space. Specific to to GLP ones, you know, we don’t see a material impact on our business right now.

When you look at, the retail frozen potato category data, seems to be in good spot. Also, when I look at fry menu importance, it remains above pre pandemic levels. So when consumers are going to restaurants, they’re ordering fries at a higher level than they were prior to the pandemic. We continue to engage in industry studies and we’re evaluating the consumer just like all the other companies out there on what the impact of GLP-1s might have. And we have our innovation team aligned to to make sure that we, adjust and and change with any sort of consumer preferences that may come our way.

Alexia Howard, Analyst, Bernstein: Great. Thank you very much. I’ll pass it on.

Conference Operator: We’ll move next to Steve Powers with Deutsche Bank.

Steve Powers, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Great. Good morning. Thanks. Mike, I I think, as part of your outlook, you you mentioned that it assumes, you know, continued positive customer momentum that you’ve built, you know, in the back half of twenty five. I just wanted a little bit more clarity there.

Is that is that just the carryover of recent business wins? Or are you assuming, you know, a degree of, you know, incremental wins that may not have yet been finalized? Just trying to understand exactly what that commentary means.

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Yeah. It’s it’s it’s both, Steve. I mean, we’ve had a a lot of strong volume as as Bernadette mentioned in q four. But the teams are also out there, you know, pounding the pavements and talking to our customers and making sure that they understand the Lam West interior to support them for growth. You know, last call, we talked about a new large QSR chain that’s switching to a frozen fry and, you know, that can that transition continues to to move forward and and we’re continuing to, you know, pick up new opportunities as our teams out there engaging with customers in a in a more profound way.

Steve Powers, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Okay. Great. And then if I could, the outlook, as you mentioned a couple times, you know, doesn’t include the impact of any additional tariffs or or retaliatory countermeasures, which I think, you know, I understand. I guess, around that, is there a way, maybe to offer a little bit of commentary just around how you’re, assessing the risks and opportunities associated with potential changes in the current status quo and and what work you’re you’re doing just to position yourself against different different scenarios, that may develop, you know, as recent as as quickly as the next few weeks. So just how you’re how you’re thinking about that?

Thanks.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Yeah. No. Appreciate the question. As you know, just from a business perspective, we’re a global business, and so we’re supplying most of our customers locally or regionally. As it relates to our cost structure, our biggest area, where we will be impacted by tariffs is oil and some of our ingredients.

We continue to look at opportunities for us to look at different blends and other things to mitigate exposure. But in total, if the August 1 tariffs do come to fruition, the exposure to our financial results and our outlook is about $25,000,000.

Steve Powers, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Okay. Very good. Perfect. Thanks for that. Appreciate it.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Mark Terenti with Wells Fargo Securities.

Mark Terenti, Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities: Hey. Good morning, and thank you for the questions. First, just on your outlook for sales, expected flattish overall price mix is expected to be down, implying volumes could be flat to up even. How much of that is driven by the fifty third week falling in Q4? And then with your carryover customer wins and your level of visibility into the year, any more color on expected sales cadence through the year?

Thanks.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Yeah. No. Thank you for the question. As we look at the first half and the back half of the year, our sales are gonna be much more pressured in the first half of the year, primarily due to the carryover pricing from fiscal twenty five. From a volume perspective, the we’ve got the carryover volume momentum that was included in there, but most of the volume impact is going to be in the fifty third week in the back half of the year.

That’s where you’re gonna see some of the increase in volume. And to a lesser extent, you will see impact of pricing in the back half of the year with the fiscal twenty six pricing actions that relate to the fall contract renewals.

Mark Terenti, Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities: Okay. I appreciate that. And then, bridging out the EBITDA a little more, the decrease, seems primarily due to lower gross profit pre cost savings. Could you help with quantifying some of those larger buckets between pricing investment, inflation, fixed cost absorption? Any other color on front half versus back half phasing on those costs?

And when could those costs start to stabilize versus being a headwind? Thanks.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Yeah. So the way to look at this year, from a margin perspective is we’re gonna see more of a sequential increase from first to second quarter and then to third. Last year, if you recall, there was a large increase in margins in the third quarter, and that was because we had a lot of raw inventories that we continued to process. This year, we will get back to the more seasonal trend where we will begin harvesting out of field, and we’ll see the impact of some of the lower pricing of potatoes as well as the cost benefit of harvesting out of field beginning in the second quarter. So really the lowest, you know, margin impact from an adjusted gross profit perspective will be in the first quarter and then sequentially increasing, and then the the typical seasonal decline that we see in the fourth quarter.

Does that that help explain a a little bit about how we’re expecting the year to to play out? Anything else I can cover?

Mark Terenti, Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities: No. That that’s helpful. Appreciate it.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Great. You bet.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Robert Moskow with TD Cowen.

Robert Moskow, Analyst, TD Cowen: Hi. Thanks. I I appreciate the the commentary about what what’s happening in terms of your how you interpret global capacity increases. I was wondering if you could be a little more specific about what’s happening in North America. Are are there projects going on by your competitors that are still ramping in North America?

And, if so, I know it’s too early to kinda fast forward a year from now, but, know, I think we’re all wondering, at what point does your pricing structure kinda stabilize? And, I think, you know, that you know, what’s happening from competitors probably has a lot to do with it. So more specifically, when you said that £1,000,000,000 to £1,500,000,000 of projects have been delayed, was any of that in North America as well? Thanks.

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Yeah. To answer the last part of your question, Rob, that 1,000,000,000 to 1,000,000,000, none of that was in North America. Keep in mind, there are some projects that are still being finalized. Those were decisions on those projects were made a couple years or so ago, so they’re just in the in the final stages. But majority of the new capacity that is been announced and coming online is overseas in international markets.

You know, a large portion of that is in Europe, as well as some of the other developing markets that we talked about. I think the important thing to note is that not all capacity is created equal. And so as I talked about in the prepared remarks, you know, it depends on, you know, the quality of raw, it depends on the capabilities in those facilities, on the types of opportunities that these manufacturers can go after. And so again, like I said, the pace of new announcements has definitely slowed over the last quarter.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Yeah. And the only other thing I’d add to that is that our strategy, as Mike talked about it today, really is positioning us to gain share and lean into those premium segments of the market. And to Mike’s point, not all capacity is created equal. So you’ll see a lot from us in in that respect as it relates to carrying out our strategy as we move forward.

Robert Moskow, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. Thank you.

Conference Operator: We will go next to Carla Casella with JPMorgan.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston0: Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to ask you, your leverage target, is it still about 3.5 to four times range? And do you see taking leverage up to that level? Or is that more just the level in case you see the right opportunity in terms of M and A?

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Hi, Carla. Thanks for the question. Yes. We do continue to target a ratio of about three and a half times, and, you know, we’ll reduce debt as warranted to make sure we maintain this level.

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Okay. Great. And then just

Scott Marks, Analyst, Jefferies: on the

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston0: go ahead.

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Carl, I was just gonna say the the the other thing for us is we also are open and then we’ll entertain, m and a or other, you know, joint venture partnerships in the future.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston0: Okay. That’s great. I mean, just on that, I was just doing a follow-up actually on that note. Are there you know, what are you seeing seeing in terms of opportunities? I know you had been looking to more international m and a and buying in some of the regions.

Is there any more opportunity for those kinda easier, you know, businesses you already know type m and a or anything more off the board you would look at?

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: No. You know, we’re continuing to focus on on the potato industry, and we’ll continue to to look at m and a globally as long as it’s in the the right markets with the right capabilities that support our focus to win strategy. And so, you know, we’ll continue to keep our our options open. And and like we said in the past, we’ll look at m and a, we’ll look at joint venture partnerships and and other ways to to grow our business around the globe.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston0: Okay. Great. Thanks for the time.

Conference Operator: We’ll go next to Max Gumpur with BNP Paribas.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston1: Hey. Thanks for the question. First, with regard to your strategic framework in determining the geographies that you want to focus on, could you give a bit more color on what your plan might be for geographies where you don’t believe you have a competitive advantage or you don’t see strong growth potential? And, specifically, how would you view Europe with regard to setting into this framework?

Mike Smith, President and CEO, Lamb Weston: Yeah. I appreciate the question. You know, I’m not gonna give details around those geographies right now. Obviously, we’ve done a lot of work over the last several months. And for competitive reasons, I’m not gonna share the details of of what those might look like.

But know that as we get into those plans a little bit further on, we’ll update the investment community on those decisions as they move forward.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston1: Okay. And and then the decision to remove noncash stock based compensation as an expense with regard to your adjusted metrics. I mean, it seems to me a bit like a step backwards as an accounting practice. So I was hoping to get a sense for the the motivation. I mean, I I would view that as a a real expense.

It’s the cost of retaining employees. And and I think given you’re going into a year when incentive comp is normalizing and the board is gonna be receiving their typical cash retainer and shares restricted stock. The timing feels a bit odd to me. So could you talk more about the the justification for this decision? Thank you.

Bernadette Madrieta, Chief Financial Officer, Lamb Weston: Yeah. I’ll speak to that. So, you know, our annual incentive plan, is normalizing and the $40,000,000 incremental cost that I referred to, that’s a cash award that certainly will be included in our EBITDA metrics. As we take a look at EBITDA, some of the non items that are affected with volatility on in terms of whether or not performance is achieved or not, those those are items that are driving volatility and change that really aren’t something that we want to manage the business towards. And so we took this opportunity now to add that back.

It’s very common in industry where we’ve seen this added back, and and we took that opportunity to do it as that is an item that we, as a management team, as we evaluate this business, do generally add back.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston1: Okay. Thanks very much.

Conference Operator: That will conclude our Q and A session. We will now turn the conference back to Debbie Hancock for any additional or closing remarks.

Debbie Hancock, Vice President of Investor Relations, Lamb Weston: Thank you, Jess, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. The replay of the call will be available on our website later this afternoon. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today’s call. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.

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