TreeHouse Foods at Barclays Conference: Strategic Shift Amid Soft Market

On Thursday, 04 September 2025, TreeHouse Foods (NYSE:THS) participated in the Barclays 18th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference 2025. The company outlined its strategic shift toward enhancing profitability and cash flow amidst a challenging consumer environment. CEO Steve Oakland highlighted internal improvements and cost-saving measures as key drivers for growth, while also acknowledging rising commodity costs and a cautious economic outlook.

Key Takeaways

• TreeHouse Foods is focusing on profitability and cash flow over external growth.
• The company reaffirmed its full-year EBITDA guidance despite economic uncertainties.
• Rising commodity costs, especially in coffee, are impacting operations.
• Investments in supply chain and internal operations are beginning to show positive results.
• TreeHouse Foods is open to share repurchases if the stock price undervalues performance.

Financial Results

• EBITDA: Exceeded initial guidance for two consecutive quarters; full-year guidance reaffirmed. Q4 EBITDA is expected to rise mid- to high-single digits year-over-year.
• Cost Savings: Targeting $250 million in gross savings through plant consolidations and procurement improvements.
• Leverage: Currently above the target range of 3% to 3.5%, expected to stabilize by year-end.
• Revenue: Harris Tea business contributed a 4-5% sales benefit.
• Capital Expenditure: Anticipated to decline in the coming year.

Operational Updates

• Portfolio Optimization: Focus on quality and price categories; divested from less profitable areas like Ready-to-Drink coffee.
• Supply Chain: Investments in capital and processes have addressed disruptions, with service levels at a six-month high.
• Retailer Relationships: Increasing multi-year agreements and working towards stable commodity pricing.

Future Outlook

• Strategy: Emphasizing internal improvements and cost-saving initiatives over top-line growth.
• Consumer Environment: Expectation of continued softness.
• Capital Allocation: Balancing business investments with shareholder returns.
• Acquisitions: No major acquisitions planned in the near term.

Q&A Highlights

• Private Label Trends: Mixed performance, with retailers optimizing assortment and pricing.
• Coffee Category: Strong demand, but concerns over Brazilian tariffs and formulation flexibility.
• Snacking Category: Currently weaker, though long-term prospects remain positive.
• Investor Sentiment: Potential undervaluation of the packaged food sector due to external factors.

For a detailed account, please refer to the full conference call transcript below.

Full transcript - Barclays 18th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference 2025:

Andrew, Host: Welcome back. Thanks, everybody. We’ll kick off our next fireside chat. So this afternoon, we have our fireside chat with TreeHouse Foods. With us today are CEO, Steve Oakland and CFO, Pat O’Donnell.

Welcome to you both. Thanks for being here.

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. Sure.

Andrew, Host: Maybe a good place to start would be with the question I get pretty often in the context of TreeHouse, which is many of your branded peers have discussed how challenging of an environment the past few years have been for the consumer. And while we’ve seen private label take some share over this time frame, it hasn’t been maybe as outsized as one might have expected. So the question I get is sort of if not now, then when private label to be making its mark. I guess what are your thoughts on why we haven’t seen maybe more trading down? And how would you describe the value proposition of private label today relative to where it’s been in the past?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Sure. Well, a couple of things. I think news flash, right? The grocery consumer industry is really soft, okay? And you all have seen the meetings.

You’ve seen the data from all the categories. So general consumption is down. Private label is flattish, right, depending on what category. It’s up in a couple of categories, down in a couple of categories. At least that’s what it is across our portfolio.

Look, I think it’s as simple as and I’ve read this in some of the larger big consumer companies this last week or so have talked about it, and they’ve got bigger research budgets than TreeHouse does, So the consumer is stretched. The core grocery consumer is buying that you’ve got trips up, basket down, right? So you’ve got less units in the basket, and that’s how they’re managing the absolute cost of the basket, right? The core grocery customer isn’t the highest income consumer in North America. The core private label customer isn’t the highest income customer in North America.

So I think the core grocery customer and the private label customer are both impacted by this, and they’re buying less units. If you say when is the best time? Pre COVID, the categories that TreeHouse operates in were growing 3% to 5% in units, and share was very slowly ticking up. Share is very slowly ticking up and units are down. So we’re growing share in a smaller pie.

We and you know this, we have used this as an opportunity to focus internally. Our history is a number of we were constructed from a number of acquisitions. It isn’t how you would structure the company if you did it with a blank sheet of paper. So we’ve used this flat volume environment to drive cost, to focus internally, and we think we have continued runway to continue to drive EBITDA growth in this flat volume environment for private label.

Andrew, Host: So we’re going get into that for sure a little bit later as well. Your conversations with retail customers, what’s their view on the trajectory of private label, where it could go from here? Are you seeing a difference in how private label is being sort of utilized by retailers today versus even five to ten years ago?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Well, the assortment and the quality has never been as good as it is today. So I think those two things exist. I think you have the European discount retailers of Aldi and Lidl driving a focus on private label. And so I think wherever your retailer is, if they’re in a market where those two are strong or those two are investing, I think private label is a key focus of theirs. But I also think the conversation we’re having with the retailer today is different in that, look, they know their center store is soft, and they need the private label penny profit.

So they’re asking us, do I have the right assortment? Do I have the right mix? Is my price gap right? Now clearly, they set they have their own pricing strategy, and different retailers use private label differently. But we’re having a more of a classic category management question and conversation with the retailer because they’re saying, okay, look, I need this penny profit, so I’ve got to get this right.

I don’t expect incremental changes in private label, big blocks of private label. I think they’re going to be just very, very targeted. I think you’ll see the retailer put the right items on the shelf, get their mix improve their mix, do those things, which will be good for us.

Andrew, Host: Yes. You’ve done a lot of heavy lifting over the last couple of years to really optimize the portfolio, strategically positioning TreeHouse in sort of fewer declining categories, more categories where the company sort of feels it has more of a right to win, clear line of sight on how to do so, more depth within certain categories. Can you talk a bit about the progress you’ve made on this front and where you feel like there might still be further opportunities to sort of fine tune the portfolio?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Sure. It shouldn’t be any surprise that those categories where we offer the best quality assortment and price is the places where we do the best, right? We’re extremely deep, for example, in the cracker portfolio that we have. We’re deep in our broth portfolio. We’re deep in our refrigerated dough portfolio.

Those places are core businesses for us. There are some categories like coffee and tea and those places where we felt we needed to make further investment, and we’ve done both of those inorganically, right, quite frankly. The Farmer Brothers opportunity came to us and the Harris Te opportunity. So we think the key for us is to be able to be that vendor that can provide the full solution. We think we’ve got to pick categories that are consumer trending, that are stronger.

That’s an oxymoron right now, right, but relatively consumer trending. And then we have to be deep in it, And that’s where our margins are the best, and that’s where our growth is the best. And what

Andrew, Host: has been what is building greater scale in a fewer number of categories really enables you to do that maybe you were not in a position to do when you were maybe stretched thinner and wider across just a greater number of categories? I think initially, the thought was that TreeHouse can be the all solution across as many categories as possible for a given retail customer, and that scale across all these categories would be the way forward. This is obviously enabling you to do things in a different way. And what specifically has it allowed you to do?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: I think it’s allowed us to focus our investment and to really build category expertise. I think that vision of TreeHouse, if you build it, they’ll come. We didn’t do that with the customer in mind, right? The customer makes the decision at the individual category buyer, right? And so if we don’t show up and bring the insights and the capabilities and those things that allow category management at a given customer, whether that be a national or a regional customer, to be successful, we’re not the vendor of choice, right?

And so we needed to be strong enough in each one of those categories. And I think just the original when Pat and I arrived some seven or eight years ago, I think the assortment was so unruly and there was so much work to do, it was just it was an unreasonable task, especially given our balance sheet. The divestiture of Meal Prep allowed us to clean up our balance sheet and allowed us to have capital allocation alternatives that we have today to invest back in our business. So I think when you add those two things together, I think we’ve become a much deeper we bring category expertise. We bring small focused vendor expertise, and we bring national scale and national distribution.

The

Andrew, Host: coffee buyer doesn’t necessarily care that TreeHouse brings 30 different categories to the retailer. Correct. They’re

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: absolutely correct. Now they do like the idea, though, that they can buy coffee or tea on the same truck with refrigerated dough or broth or something so that they can have logistic scale. That helps. But if you’re not deep in the category, you can’t answer and solve their problems, it doesn’t matter what scale you have.

Andrew, Host: Yes. Yes. Are you finding that the greater percentage of your contracts with retail customers are maybe now more multiyear rather than annual as you’ve gotten deeper scale in these categories? And is that a longer term benefit you’re aiming to achieve on the back of having a more resilient supply chain that’s better suited to cater to key retailers and I guess in turn make you the preferred supplier by virtue of aspects outside of offering just a better price point?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Sure. I would say pre pandemic it was cost, quality and then service were the determining factors. A little there’s a few retailers that might have mixed them up differently. I think post pandemic, it’s service and then cost or quality roll in, okay? And so I think especially your largest retailers, your national scope retailers who are competing with all of the growth and the discount rate, all of those things that are happening, I think they need to lock up key categories.

But that was also part of the divestiture strategy. By being in consumer trending categories that are growing, your capacity is in more demand. When we were in the declining categories, the retailer knew the capacity was available, So the combination of your capacity being in demand and then the retailers’ focus on private label has made that happen. I think we’re seeing more multiyear agreements. We’re seeing more pass through pricing on commodities.

We’re seeing those things that make our business more stable.

Andrew, Host: And one thing to clarify, I know as you always talk about it, at the end of the day, you’re operating as the retailer supply chain. That’s correct. And that comes with a it’s a very different business model than what I think many are used to on the branded front. We are the supply chain

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: for their brands, right? We bring their marketing ambition to life. We don’t set their marketing trend. We bring it to life.

Andrew, Host: Yes. One area that’s held the company back over the past few years has been the frequency with which you’ve had to sort of contend with supply chain disruptions, product recalls with the broth and griddle facilities having been the most recent examples. I guess why do you think that this has been the case? And more importantly, I guess, what have you done to reduce this risk going forward? And how can we be confident that sort of those sorts of things are really in the rearview?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Sure. I think that’s unfortunately the tail of our transition. So the sale of Mill Prep allowed when Pat and I arrived again, the company had much higher leverage. We were on the back of a couple of not so successful big acquisitions. So the work we’ve done to clean up our balance sheet allowed us to stop the number one focus being paying debt and to allow the number one focus to be reinvesting in the business.

And so the business was a little bit capital starved. You’ve seen us raise our capital our CapEx spending over the last couple of years. We’ve guided that, that will start to decline as we get into next year and beyond. And that CapEx was necessary to prevent the kind of things that you’ve seen. Quite honestly, unfortunately, those things got to us before we could get to them.

I’m pleased to say we never had this is not where the CDC called us and we didn’t have consumer instances with these things. When we dug into our system, we found they weren’t the way they needed to be, and we recalled the product and we changed the systems, right? And so I think we’ve addressed each one of those places where we think that are that have risk. It’s capital, it’s people and it’s process, and we feel really comfortable that we have all three of those in Much of the capital is behind us and the people and process are in place. Got it.

Andrew, Host: You recently called out a pretty significant change in the company’s sort of strategic approach, at least in this current environment, which in you’re now putting greater emphasis on protecting and enhancing profitability and cash flow rather than necessarily chasing top line growth. Can you expand a bit on what drove the decision to change that approach? And are you thinking about it as a longer term solution potentially or simply as a reaction to a more challenging sort of closer end macro trends?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Well, I think it was really clear to us a little over a year ago that the consumer environment was going to be negative, right? And so if you don’t have category growth taking big blocks of share, you have to do those. They’re very expensive, right? You’ve got to go buy someone else’s business, right? And so we stepped back and we said, look, on flattish volume, we thought there was enough work within our supply chain to drive $250,000,000 of gross cost savings.

We guided that, right? And we just put our head down and ran it that hard. And you’ve seen us accelerate plant consolidations. You’ve seen us accelerate SG and A work. We did a very successful procurement.

You say, Well, why would there be so much procurement savings? You’ve been at this business for a long time. Well, we ran it when we arrived on 13 different ERP systems. We didn’t have clear visibility to consolidate. So all the work we’ve done up to this point allowed us to just run a much better business.

Candidly, Pat and I are convinced that there’s another couple of years of opportunity. So the one question, how long will this soft consumer environment last, I don’t think we can answer. But we can answer the fact that we think we have EBITDA growth runway well into the next couple of years.

Andrew, Host: Closer in, you delivered two consecutive quarters of EBITDA in excess of the guidance range that you have provided to start the year, yet you’ve only reaffirmed the initial full year EBITDA guide. Has the lack of raising the guide been more so out of conservatism given the environment? Or is there something that you’re seeing such as the slowdown in private label trends that you feel might necessitate either greater investment in the back half or something else?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: I think it’s just not wanting to get out on a limb in the current environment, right? I think we feel really good about the year we guided. We guided for our EBITDA, I think, the midpoint to be up seven ish percent or something. So we thought that was a great start for a year that we thought it would be down for most people. I think as we get further into it, if we need to raise that, we’ll raise that.

But I don’t know if I’d call it conservatism or just we think appropriate given the amount of disruption that we see around us, right? And I don’t want

Andrew, Host: to minimize the coming in above the range for the first two quarters on EBITDA, right? I realize that’s something you’ve been working towards. And so seeing two quarters in a row of

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: that is not insignificant. Yes. I would call it derisking the back half. And I think for those that have been in our stock for a long time, the last couple of years, the back half has not been easy for us, right? We’ve had those external events or those supply chain events that have impacted that.

And so I think derisking that for our investor base is a nice place to

Andrew, Host: be. Yes. If we take your third quarter and full year EBITDA guides, it implies EBITDA in the fourth quarter would have to be up somewhere in the mid- to high single digit range in order to get to the midpoint of your full year guide, whereas 3Q EBITDA is expected to be, I think, closer to flattish year over year. I guess what are the driving forces behind the assumption? And how much visibility do you have towards each of I know there’s some lapse and things involved.

Pat O’Donnell, CFO, TreeHouse Foods: Yes. There’s a couple of moving pieces in there. I would say the third quarter is a very apples to apples comparison because you don’t have some of the supply chain disruption kind of impacts. And so you’ve got a comparable sort of base that you’re comparing to. I think there’s a little bit of we see some continued commodity inflation.

So we probably have a little bit of pricing lag that’s impacting us in the third quarter as well that shall catch up by the fourth quarter. We will have the benefit of in the fourth quarter, it’s not a part you’ve got the benefit of being able to lap as well. And so while that may seem like a fairly steep hill when you consider we weren’t really shipping much in the way of any waffles in that quarter, I mean, that’s a little bit easier of a comparison for us. And we’ve done all the right work around some of our cost savings programs. And given the seasonal weight of our volume, you are seeing the flow through of some of the cost actions that we’ve taken over the course of the year, and we’re starting to get the benefit of.

So we feel like we’ve got the right visibility in terms of where that cadence is laid out, and we’re pleased with the progress that we’ve made to date.

Andrew, Host: I guess similarly, your full year top line guide, right, implies some improvement in trends in the back half of the year as well. I guess how much of that is predicated on any incremental benefit from further private label trade down versus improvements in your own competitiveness within your categories or simply easier year ago comparisons?

Pat O’Donnell, CFO, TreeHouse Foods: Yes. I think it’s we’ve tried to guide what we felt was within our control and what we had exposure to. When you look at our guidance range, we sort of pick the sort of middle point of the outcomes. If consumer trends are little bit better, you’re towards the top end. If consumer trends weaken, you’re maybe towards the bottom end.

I don’t think we’ve seen to date anything a lot different from what we’ve expected in terms of trend. And so I think you’ve got the tailwind of, again, recovering some of the services. There’s obviously a bit of pricing that’s baked in given some of the commodity inflation. That’s cost recovery pricing, generally speaking, for the commodities. So you’re seeing some of that come through as well in the back half.

Andrew, Host: And I know people that are perhaps less familiar with the company may be taking a quick glance at your volumes in the first half and seeing some pretty large year over year declines. But in reality, there are a number of different factors, right, that are playing out there. I guess can you break down some of the different drivers of the volume declines in the first half? Which ones do you expect to persist into 2H? And which might be alleviated or even reversed in the back half?

And then further out, what you believe maybe a more normalized level of unit volume growth would be for the business beyond Yes. This

Pat O’Donnell, CFO, TreeHouse Foods: think when we looked at the year, we sort of felt like the base volume would be somewhere in between kind of minus one to plus one in terms of thinking about what the business does. Now that having been said, there were a couple extraordinary decisions that we made along the way. The first was we did purchase the Harris Teas business, which provided a 4% or 5% sort of benefit to sales on the year. That benefit was offset by some decisions We undertook a series of margin management actions.

And that was really getting rid of either volume that we didn’t feel like we were being compensated for appropriately given the complexity of what it was, or it was just very complex to run on our system. In an environment where you’re growing, you may hang on to an additional shift or a production day in your facility. In a declining environment, that decision to run some overtime or have an additional shift probably doesn’t bear as well. And so we really tried to look at the portfolio to say, hey, where do we want to make sure we’re getting compensated for complexity and or that complexity is just overall driving inefficiency into our plants. And so we did exit a series of businesses.

We also chose to exit a ready to drink coffee business, so kind of a frappuccino like business and bottled coffee. And that was a business that just turned out not to have great private label penetration over time. We made some investment thinking that, that was going to come. Retailers were asking for it, but it turned out not to be a category with a lot of private label growth. And so a few puts and takes in the math there.

I would say, some things we chose to do to exit businesses that were mostly offset by the Harris Teas. So I think when you then say, hey, plus or minus 1%, that feels like where the environment has been over the last year. And I think as where we sit today, sort of what we see into the near term as well.

Andrew, Host: Great. We’ve been hearing, as you have, a lot from many of your sort of branded competitors that they’re planning to step up advertising and promotional efforts, in some cases, pricing reversing some pricing moves in the back half of the year in order to drive volume led sales growth. What’s embedded in your expectations for the back half as far as the impact some of these actions might have? And are you able to point to any specific categories where maybe you’ve recently seen branded investment picking up and what effect it’s had on private label within the category?

Pat O’Donnell, CFO, TreeHouse Foods: Yes. I think, generally speaking, what we’ve seen from a promotional activity standpoint, I don’t know we tend to say pre COVID is sort of the last normal year. We’re getting well past that, so that may no longer be the last normal period. But I think promotional levels are still below where they were pre pandemic in total. We have seen, and there’s been some of our branded competitors have been vocal about where they are investing advertising dollars in certain categories, and we’ve seen that throughout the year.

I would say private label over time has taken share even when brands have promoted. And I think even when brands promote, that does drive traffic to the shelf, generally speaking. And so there may be promotional activities that on a week to week or month to month basis may change some of that. But we think over time, continuing that continued investment in the category is a good thing overall for the category.

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Sure. I do think though our guide includes the assumption that back half promotions will increase, So we and by the way, they have historically, right? The fourth quarter has been such a big important quarter. We’re in a lot of seasonal wintertime businesses. And so we assume that every year.

So we’re assuming normal promotional levels.

Andrew, Host: And as we sit here today, I guess, about twothree of the year sort of behind us, what would you say are the biggest risks to sort of hitting your full year guide? And were there potentially some opportunities potentially to even overdeliver relative to your sort of current outlook?

Pat O’Donnell, CFO, TreeHouse Foods: Yes. I think for us, as we’ve tried to construct the year in our guidance, I think this was a year of execution. And I think we owe that to the group. And so we continue to be focused on executing across our cost savings initiatives, executing across our supply chain, delivering the right service levels to our customers. And so that’s where the focus is, to answer the question that way.

And so I think the opportunity for us is to continue to do that. And I think if you see a little bit of consumption tailwind, I think that’s potential upside to where we’re at, and we continue to monitor that. But I think in a year where there is uncertainty around that, the mantra has been very much control what you can control. And so we remain focused on controlling those items where we can control, which is really execution and cost savings, execution on delivering the products for our customers.

Andrew, Host: On cost saves, I think at your Investor Day a couple of years ago, you unveiled a multiyear productivity program, which targets over $250,000,000 of cost saves from 2024 through 2027. I guess what sort of initiatives have you been pursuing as part of the program? And really how things progressed relative to the sort of initial expectations?

Pat O’Donnell, CFO, TreeHouse Foods: Yes. We’ve made really good progress. I think there was a couple of elements to that, just to remind the group. We felt like we had the opportunity, and Steve referenced it earlier, to drive procurement cost savings, and that was enhanced visibility. And so this is maybe one area where I do think our scale benefits us a little bit.

We buy as much packaging and corrugate and wheat and commodities in comparison to even some of our private label competitors. So that was a space where we were able to leverage our scale to our benefit. And we’ve seen nice returns from the procurement cost savings project. I think achieved some savings last year. We have a lot of projects that trailed into this year, and we continue to deliver.

So I think that’s driving a good portion of our margin improvement. The other area was really within our manufacturing network. And a lot of that was stabilizing what we call TMOS, which is stabilizing the way we work. And so I do I think that speaks to we’ve driven operational efficiency levels to the best they’ve been in our time here over the last couple of years. It’s also engaging the workforce in a way that’s a little bit different.

And then I think it’s also the looking at the broader manufacturing network and driving the cost savings through the consolidation of some of our manufacturing facilities as well, which is driving savings. So obviously, we announced a couple in the last quarter. Those will provide some benefit late this year and then really into next year. And we think there’s opportunity for us to continue to look at that and be cost effective in that space over Maybe

Andrew, Host: looking into a specific category, Steve, just where TreeHouse plays and where you have a lot of experience over time is just coffee, just given the extraordinary impact around green coffee costs, tariffs, a tremendous amount of pricing has been taken, more clearly is coming in the industry. I’m just curious what you’re seeing in terms of consumer behavior there. Elasticity seems to be holding up relatively well for the category so far. I realize there’s more likely more pricing to come. But just what are you seeing consumer behavior trading down behavior The that sort of

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Surcano data would suggest that coffee is actually probably one of the bright spots in our portfolio from a coffee or from a category standpoint. And the customer treats coffee slightly differently than many private labels. I mean if you go into Whole Foods, it’s an Allegro coffee shop, right? It’s a cafe au lait and an HEP. So there is experiential coffee within the better retailers across the country.

So we see a lot of focus on that. Obviously, they’re very concerned about Brazilian tariffs, right, and about the tariff impact. So I think there’s a lot of focus on do I have the right formulation to maximize value? Do I have the right formulation to meet the consumer need? And so what it’s done for us at a wonderful moment actually is it’s opened up the customers’ question about all of that at a time when we’ve invested tremendously in our capabilities and our people.

So the facility we have in Northlake is world class and shows as well as anything I’ve ever seen in coffee. And the team we have running it come with years of experience. And so I think we’re really positioned right now to help the customer answer those questions. We’re seeing formula flexibility we didn’t see before. We’re seeing questions that we didn’t about origin, about all these things that you would imagine.

And we’re seeing the consumer hold up, which is really nice. I think we may have a little trade down opportunity as well. It will be interesting if roast and ground pops up a little bit because it’s so much cheaper per serving than single serve. But we haven’t seen that yet. The pod business has stayed strong.

But the bigger thing is the customer is asking us help me understand globally what options I have. So that’s fun.

Andrew, Host: Leverage is now a bit above the company’s long term target of 3% to 3.5%. And how are you thinking about your capital allocation priorities over the next couple of years?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: Sure. We are a back half cash flow business, right? We build inventory. We’ve got I mentioned it a minute ago, we have a lot of back half or seasonal winter businesses. And so we’re in that burn cash mode now in that we build cash specifically in the fourth quarter.

So our cash forecast and our cash guidance, which we’re very comfortable with, suggests we’ll be back in that 3% to 3.5% levered. We’re I think 4.1 or 2% now. So we’ll be that for this next quarter, and then we’ll be back in our normal leverage profile, our targeted leverage profile by fourth quarter. So that gives us the opportunity to do what we think we do best, which is balance that capital between investing in our business first, right, maintaining our strong balance sheet. Now you all know our debt our bonds are fixed at 4%, and our bank debt is swapped at slightly above that, right?

Under 5% debt in today’s world is not someplace you’d probably put capital. So that leaves the opportunity for us to either invest in our business or return it to our shareholders. And I think if you look at us over the last five years or so, we’ve done that pretty balanced, and I would expect us to continue to do that. So we’ve got some integration opportunities with Harris Teas and all of those things. So I don’t see you never know, but I don’t see big acquisition on the near term burner, so probably some cash back to our shareholders.

Especially we think our stock price is completely dislocated. We think it’s because we have to prove that we have to deliver a couple of quarters, as you I think you opened with. And so I think that will line up very nicely. So if our especially if our stock price does not respond to the earnings that we’ve guided, we’ll address it.

Andrew, Host: Got it. We may have even talked about something along the lines of this question last year, and it just shows it’s been a challenging year for the industry as a whole. But where valuations are for a bunch of the names in the space, and you’ve got a long history in the packaged food space broadly. Almost seems like investors are starting to think that you know what, maybe this time is different. Maybe some of these challenges for the industry are more structural in nature than they’ve been historically.

You’ve been through many ups and downs in And the generally, the industry has found its way out one or another, where some of the challenges that people thought were structural back then proved not to be. I was curious on your take on that. Like I think it’s a nice way to say I’m

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: an old man. This has toughness for a

Andrew, Host: long time. I’m right there with you.

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: That was a nice way to say that. Thank you. But well, no, I think look, I think the industry has adjusted over the years, right? And I mean, think about the announcements this week, okay? You’ve got large CPGs that are going to break up.

And we’ve seen Kellogg, what happened there. So I think and I know that our Board is this way. I think our we all have to step back and say, okay, we have an obligation to drive shareholder value. We have an obligation to look at what are the tools in front of us to do that. We think, in our case, it’s execution.

But I think others have to say, look, are the some of the parts more valuable? Are the all of those things? I think there’ll be consolidation. I think there’ll be I think capital will always go to the place where it’s most valuable, okay? And we saw that with Kellogg, right?

We saw those things happen. So and by the way, there’s more capital available outside the public markets than there’s ever been in the past, right? So I think we’ll see all of those things sort themselves out over the next I don’t know what the time frame will be. Will it be one year, two year, three years? But I’m just pleased to see that all the Boards are really saying, okay, look, the environment is different.

The opportunities for us are different. How do we realign our businesses to serve our shareholders the best? I know that’s the conversation we’re having in our Board, right? How do we align the business to give the best return to our shareholders?

Andrew, Host: Maybe one last one over the last couple of minutes. A lot of discussion here among a lot of the snacking players and the overall snacking categories broadly have been quite a bit weaker than I think anyone would have expected. A lot of the discussion is they’re a little more discretionary in nature and you’ve got a weaker consumer, not including as much of these in their basket ultimately. You play in some, obviously, private label and some snacking subsegments. What’s your thought around snacking?

Any reason to think that structurally snacking won’t be an advantaged category as it has been for a long time over time? Or is it or do you think there’s something more structural going on there?

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: No. I think it’s economic. I mean the basket is just so expensive today, and that is an easy place to step away. I don’t think the trend towards snacking is changing. No.

And there’s no data we would see. There’s no customer things that we would see. We still see and I think it drives it. I mean if you take the higher income consumer, you take a customer like Costco or somewhere, those trends remain really strong. So that would suggest to us that just economic.

Maybe last, I

Andrew, Host: mean if you ask a couple of your top key customers today, hey, what are your thoughts on sort of TreeHouse ability to service versus even just maybe like two years ago? How does that how would that response differ

Steve Oakland, CEO, TreeHouse Foods: I from then to think it’s interesting because I’ve been in a number of those top to tops recently. And I think they recognize the amount of investment we’ve made. They recognize our service levels because our service levels have been the best they’ve been since we’ve over the last six months or so since we’ve been here, right? They recognize that certain things are difficult, that aseptic production is really difficult, and they appreciate the work, the journey we’ve taken them on with their QA departments and ours and all the things we’re doing there. So I think the relationship with TreeHouse is the closest it’s ever been.

It would not be a surprise. Some of the value focused retailers are frustrated with the amount tariff pricing and all of those things. I don’t think that’s directed at us. But I think they’re frustrated with the volatility of price. But I so I think there’s some frustration underlying.

They’re frustrated with the lack of volume in the center of the store, and they’re frustrated with the pricing situation, I don’t think it’s pointed at us. So that’s a pretty healthy environment right now.

Andrew, Host: Good, good. All right. We’re just running out of time here, so we’ll take it over to the breakout. Please join us there, and please join me in thanking Steve and Pat for being here. Thank you.

Thank you.

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