Earnings Labs

The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN)

Q2 2013 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 6, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Tiffany, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Hain Celestial Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2013 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. Ms. Mary Celeste Anthes, you may begin your conference.

Mary Celeste Anthes

Management

Thank you, Tiffany. Good afternoon and thank you all for joining us today. And welcome to the review of our second quarter fiscal year 2013 results. We have several members of our management team here today to discuss our results. Irwin Simon, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer; Ira Lamel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; John Carroll, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer, Hain Celestial U.S.; and Rob Burnett, Chief Executive Officer, Hain Daniels. Our discussion today will include forward-looking statements which are current as of today’s date. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements either as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Our actual results may differ materially from those projected and some of the factors which may cause results to differ are listed in our publicly filed documents, including our 2012 Form 10-K filed with the SEC. This conference call is being webcast, and an archive of the webcast will be available on our website at www.hain-celestial.com under Investor Relations. Our call will be limited to approximately one hour, so please limit yourself to one question with a follow-up question. If time allows, we will take additional questions and management will be available after the call for further discussion. Now, let me turn the call over to Irwin Simon. Irwin?

Irwin Simon

Founder

Thank you, Mary, and good afternoon. I hope everybody had an opportunity to look at our press release that was released at 4 o’clock today. And another record earnings quarter for Hain, as you come back, our sales were up -- sales $455.3 versus $364.8, up 25%. Our gross margin $28.7 versus $28.7 a year ago and that’s what higher commodity costs, some higher input costs but really how we focus on the margin. Our SG&A 16.6% of sales versus 17.4%, and which really shows how we are integrating acquisitions, how we are really watching our costs and how we are actually making a lot of these acquisitions work for us. Our EBITDA which and I’ve talked a lot about EBITDA, what I like to be as a objective for -- objective of sales and $67.3 million, which is 15% of sales versus $49.7, and up 35% versus a year ago. So some great EBITDA and we are really hitting those metrics out there and an adjusted EPS of $0.72 versus $0.53, up 36%. So as you can see, great number, great record earnings. In the quarter, we really focused on sales we really focused on profitable sales. And certain brands here in the U.S., Rob, will talk about what we did in the U.K. in regards to our ambient brands and how we focus on that and how we really look at getting higher prices and less promotional products. If you really come back and look at our free cash, our free cash of $106.8, up 47%, so we are focused on cash and how we turn our inventories in the cash and cash conversion and Ira will talk about that. Let’s talk about the quarter. It’s hard to believe when we last year earnings here we were sitting…

John Carroll

Management

Okay. Thank you, Irwin. Good afternoon. Q2 was a very strong quarter for Hain Celestial U.S., key highlights from the quarter included our Q2 net sales of $280.4 million, up 9.4% versus year ago, when adjusted for the transfer of Costco Canada sensible portion sales to our Canadian operation. Importantly, all key businesses, grocery and snacks, personal care, Celestial Seasonings and Greek Gods showed strong sales growth versus year ago led by as what Irwin already mentioned, Greek Gods 39% increase. Our latest 12-week Nielsen all outlets combined consumption growth was 7.5% which is four times higher than the AOC total channel growth. This reflects continued Hain Celestial U.S. consumption gain across all key measured channels. This growth was achieved even as we lapped a double-digit Q2 year ago comp, resulting in a two-year stacked consumption growth over 18%. These results were driven by gains across the portfolio as we had 14 brands with double or high single-digit increases. Also in Q2, our gross profit margin was up over 100 bps as we were able to offset about $4 million inflation with improved mix, productivity savings and favorable diary costs. And finally and most importantly, in terms of financial metrics, our Q2 U.S. operating income was $47.6 million or 17% of sales, which is up 14% or 85 bps respectively versus year ago. Just another note, our U.S. cash conversion cycle during this quarter was down 10 days, despite increasing our inventory to improve our customer service levels. We have set this inventory increase with higher sales along with significant payables and receivables improvement. Now as we look forward to second half ‘13, I want to start by briefly reviewing our U.S. financial objectives. U.S. business model has consistently targeted and delivered against four key financial objectives. First one is,…

Rob Burnett

Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, John, and good afternoon, everyone. Well, I’m pleased to report record sales and operating income from the U.K. Sales were just over $120 million, up over 100% on last year, and operating income was up from $3.3 million last year to just over $12 million this time. And turnover in the quarter included just two months of sales from our new ambient grocery brands acquired at the end of October. Now whilst the income generation was very strong in the new grocery business, sales were little bit below budget, couple of main reasons, we saw at the end of December quite a low destocking from the retailers and you can see that in terms of press release the retail trade in the U.K. had quite a tough time over Christmas. We also suffered a bit from lower sales of Christmas condiments and seasonal lines from the new Premier business. But probably more importantly when we go -- we took over business we initiated a drawback of deep cut promotional activity. We cut back on activities that previously we had been doing and we concentrated on bringing value to the jam category in particular through higher ticket prices. This has been very well received by customers. We will continue to concentrate on eliminating low margin activity on products. Three of the newly acquired ambient grocery brands were up over double-digit versus last year, being Sun-Pat peanut butter up 16% in the quarter, Hartley’s dessert pots up 17% in the quarter and the Cadbury’s chocolate spread up 30% in the quarter. And from the rest of our portfolio we had strong growth from Lovetub desserts up 15%, real hot category for us, Linda McCartney meat-free up 14% and Cully & Sully the Irish fresh soup leader, up over 10%. So, that’s…

Ira Lamel

Management

Thank you, Rob. Good afternoon, everyone. Income from continuing operations in the second quarter this year was up 53% to a record second quarter income of $32.2 million compared to $21.1 million in last year’s quarter. We earned a record $0.68 per diluted share from continuing operations on a GAAP basis this year, an increase of 47.8% compared to $0.46 per diluted share in last year’s quarter. Adjusted income from continuing operations was $34.2 million this year compared to $24.4 million last year, improving by 40.3%. Adjusted earnings was $0.72 per diluted share compared to $0.53 per share in last year’s quarter, improving by 35.8%. Our adjustments to earnings are from acquisition-related fees and expenses including integration and restructuring charges of $3.8 million, offset by a realized foreign currency gain of approximately $1.3 million on the advanced buying of British Pound Sterling to fund our acquisition of the Ambient Grocery Group in the U.K. Net sales in the second quarter were $455.3 million, an increase of 24.8% compared to the $364.8 million last year. We saw a strong increases in sales across our U.S., Europe and Canada segments coupled with sales contributed by our acquisitions. Sales in our U.K. segment include our recent acquisitions of Ambient Grocery for two months, Daniels for the fourth quarter compared to two months last year and Cully & Sully for the full quarter this year compared to none last year. Gross profit in the second quarter was 28.72% of net sales, up from last year’s 28.67%. We saw a favorable mix of sales in the quarter and were particularly pleased with margin performance given the lower margin rates in the U.K. segment, particularly with Daniels in for a full quarter this year as compared to two months last year. The improved gross profit was…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions)Your first question comes from the line of Greg Badishkanian with Citigroup Group.

Greg Badishkanian

Analyst · Citigroup Group

Great. Hey guys, sales seemed pretty strong. I think 9.4% on a comparable basis. Does that just exclude acquisitions in the U.S.? How do we -- how did you, kind of, get to that number?

John Carroll

Management

Greg, this is John. That’s our sales for light businesses and then it adjusts for the movement of the Canadian sensible portions up to the Canadian division.

Greg Badishkanian

Analyst · Citigroup Group

Okay. Okay. Good. I mean, now it’s pretty solid. In terms of January, have you noticed any big dropout for anything, different thing kind of a trend that you’ve been seeing the last few months?

Irwin Simon

Founder

Greg, it’s Irwin. No not at all and actually January has been pretty solid month. We like what we see. I think you saw some of it in the consumption numbers at Nielsen’s, that’s in the last week. It’s a big display month for super bowl that happened this past week but actually, I like what I see for January.

Greg Badishkanian

Analyst · Citigroup Group

Yeah. Good. That’s really good to hear and then just in -- you talked about the scanner data, some of the, I guess, AC Nielsen’s is about half of the U.S. roughly. The other half can you -- how would you characterize that, business trends there at the last few months.

Irwin Simon

Founder

But here I think this way Greg. We reported 7.5% for the measured part, for the latest 12 weeks and as we are up in 9.4. So the balance of the accounts are doing very well as well.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Chappell with SunTrust.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · Bill Chappell with SunTrust

Good afternoon.

Irwin Simon

Founder

Bill, how are you?

Bill Chappell

Analyst · Bill Chappell with SunTrust

Good. How are you?

Irwin Simon

Founder

Good.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · Bill Chappell with SunTrust

Just wanted to, I guess, clarify with the business that you, I guess, discontinuing over on Premier and getting out of. How much of an impact did that have on the second quarter. And then also maybe if you could quantify what Sandy has in terms of impact on the quarter?

Irwin Simon

Founder

So remember one, Sandy, again was $4 million to $5 million that we didn’t ship that week. Somehow it would be picked up and got shipped, it was right over 500 stores closed and I think we saw within the Nielsen numbers. So that’s number one. And back and look at the effect from the U.K. as -- there are couple areas, like number one is the Premiere acquisition as Rob said three things the holiday, promotional items number one, retailers deciding not to promote and us not promoting and at the same time as we’re converting one of our facilities to take on that business, total was somewhere it’s around 10 million to 15 million pounds -- dollars, I’m sorry dollars.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · Bill Chappell with SunTrust

Okay. I’m just trying to reconcile the kind of the original guidance you gave when you closed Premier in terms of revenue accretion this year and then kind of what you are looking at now?

Irwin Simon

Founder

So, originally, we said about $180 million, somewhere it’s 160, 165.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · Bill Chappell with SunTrust

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Irwin Simon

Founder

All right. And again, just taking back, Bill, it’s stuff we decided after we closed to start eliminating, to run the plant more efficiently in the margins and as you can see, it’s not one bid effect on profitability here. At the same time, we are pulling some promotions to get retail prices up. And all other retailers want that too. So this is something that we -- as I said before, there is a lot you learn about the business before you buy it but once you own it, there is a lot more you learn.

Ira Lamel

Management

And the only thing I’m going to add to that Bill is that this is not something that we’re doing for the first time ever having a quite business. We’ve done these reviews when we take over the keys so to speak and own the business and go through the first few months and make decisions about how we want to go forward with some of the product offerings.

Mary Celeste Anthes

Management

Next question.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Wolf with BB&T Capital Market.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst · Andrew Wolf with BB&T Capital Market

Good afternoon. John, on the commodities side, do you have -- are you going to forward the comp on these products or hedged or some combination thereof. Do you think there is any risk of you as the biggest player in the industry can be caught short again?

Ira Lamel

Management

In regards to the chia and the almond I take it.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst · Andrew Wolf with BB&T Capital Market

Yeah or any other commodities that you might have a view on that are running tight?

Irwin Simon

Founder

For example, Andy, on almonds we actually -- the price pressure started in the first half, however, because we had bought out through the first half. We were not affected by it. So we look to -- or position is that market like this we’ll buy spot based on immediate need but where we see that we have certain target price points but when we hit them, we’ll go long on them. There is a shortage right now on blue corn. We actually went long on blue corn originally and now we’re buying it on a stock-by-stock basis here.

Ira Lamel

Management

And then Andy, I think the big thing is price is one part but getting supply and we rather pay higher price and then we had inventory but in everyone of these cases whether it’s blue corn, chia seed, almonds, we’re able to go out and procure with our worldwide procurement today and been able to source all around the world and that is the big thing that Hain has, is it might not be able -- we might not be able to get the product within U.S. but in South America, if it’s somewhere in Europe, U.K. we are able to go there and source ingredients. And we are a -- listen, the thing is and we are able to pass price on and especially with almond, butters and nut butters because with other nut butter plants, the peanut butter plan is not even operating. It’s either -- you take the price increase and you don’t get it because we got a line up of people that want that product today and are willing to pay the price and the same with chia seeds. The guys at the beginning of the year were about 20% of the world’s chia seed and we still were out of stock, but we are able to grow and find product.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst · Andrew Wolf with BB&T Capital Market

A follow-up on the guidance, the sales change on the rationalization. Those are both U.K. business groups, right. So with my understanding in the U.K., a lot of the branded business was kind of predicated also on private-label production. So how is it that you can trim this much private-label out without even affecting your trade relations?

Irwin Simon

Founder

Andy, it’s not all private-label. It skews that are not profitable. Some of it, some of it is some seasonal items. Some of it is private-label business. But what happens today is this here. In regards to Hartley’s, we need production time for branded products and for new innovation and new products. Retailers understand that. And at the same time, if we can get the right pricing we are not going to produce the product. The big thing is the other one is, there are certain skews we were losing money on and producing at Fakenham. We filled up that plant before with some volume where it was just basically a meat free plant and we are not going to do that. And we’ve gone to the trade and said, hey, either we get this price or we are just going to do it anymore. And as Ira talked about and Rob, we picked up over GBP30 million business that will begin at the end of May next year as great volume, great margins and that’s what we are going to do there.

Ira Lamel

Management

Yeah. That business comes in actually in May of 2013. So it starts in our fiscal year this year, but it will have almost a zero impact on our sales in fiscal ‘13. It will ramp up as we go through fiscal ‘14.

Irwin Simon

Founder

And, Andy, this is not the first time -- no different than we bought Daniels. We sold off our divested ICL which is private label. It was private-label meals business, not our business, not our strategy here. At the same time here and I have said that before, we are going to get rid of unprofitable businesses. And we are looking at the same thing in the U.S. I mean, in this quarter over the last six months we have not promoted Rosetto and our sales are down 30%. But our profits are up there because we are not promoting and if we promoted it we would be at the same place. So that’s what we are going to focus on is profitable growth, and our promotion dollars are going to go against our top 18 brands that are growing that will make up 80% of our sales.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst · Andrew Wolf with BB&T Capital Market

Sounds like, it’s working at Fakenham and I look forward to learning more about it and the rest of the businesses. Thank you.

Irwin Simon

Founder

And it will work at our Houston facility too because what we can do is have all these different skews running and the changeover costs that’s just not affective are inefficient for us. And the thing is which we are doing here is immediately. You see we figured this out within the first two months. We’ve not waited six, seven months. We’ve gone to the trades and here’s what we are doing, so we have been decisive on our plan here.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan.

Ken Goldman

Analyst · Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan

Hi. Good afternoon.

Irwin Simon

Founder

Hi, Ken. How are you? Good afternoon.

Ken Goldman

Analyst · Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan

Irwin, you are not selling organic chia pets, are you?

Irwin Simon

Founder

So you can see your chickens.

Ken Goldman

Analyst · Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan

That’s fine. I will take that. Irwin, in the last quarter did your guidance include BluePrint in the top line?

Irwin Simon

Founder

No. It did not.

Ken Goldman

Analyst · Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan

Okay. Okay. So you are lowering your guidance by $45 million on the top line for combined ambient and frozen, right?

Irwin Simon

Founder

Right.

Ken Goldman

Analyst · Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan

And you are adding a little Blue Print in, right?

Irwin Simon

Founder

That’s correct.

Ken Goldman

Analyst · Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan

Ex those two, just help me understand what are you doing with your top line guidance I guess on a more organic basis?

Irwin Simon

Founder

Well, it’s consistent with our original guidance of growing close to double-digit line for the year. So we are going to probably growth in the 9%, 10%, 11% range on the back half for the year. Total growth with the acquisitions in year-over-year was 27%.

John Carroll

Management

I think to be simple about it, I mean originally…

Ira Lamel

Management

I’m sorry, Irwin. One of the things that we didn’t call out as part of the guidance that we’ve just given you, Irwin mentioned Hurricane Sandy where we did lose a couple of million of sales on that. So we took it out of the total full year number. So we are also reflecting not just the forward-looking sales number that we expect, we are also reflecting in it that which we’ve experienced such as having started in the U.K. with some of these discontinuances and so on.

Irwin Simon

Founder

So, Ken, this is all U.K. focused originally what we said. We felt that the Daniel -- Houston facility, the premier brands was about 180. Today, we are saying it’s about 165, 160. At the same time there is about GBP5 million pounds coming out of Fakenham to make room and from a profitability standpoint for our new customer that we’ve picked up.

Ira Lamel

Management

It’s not $5 million. It’s $25 million.

Irwin Simon

Founder

I’m sorry. $25 million I mean sorry. Ken, I think the one piece that we didn’t state which maybe will help you reconcile is we didn’t give you what we’ve accounted in for BluePrint. Remember, BluePrint is a half a year where accounting is for about $10 million, $11 million of sales in the back half which affectively will be the amount of sales we’ll get out for the fiscal year.

Ken Goldman

Analyst · Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan

So just to summarize all of that and that’s helpful. Are there any changes, just to be clear, because as you know a lot of investors care about your organic U.S. growth, any real changes excluding BluePrint, excluding Sandy to your U.S. sales expectations for this year?

Irwin Simon

Founder

There is no change, Ken, to U.S., Canada or Europe. It’s just the U.K. is where and the change in the U.K. is to private labeled business that is manufactured both at Houston and Fakenhem. And some branded business that’s small skews that are not profitable. And again, you step back you rationalize brand, you’ll rationalize skews and again look at our margins are going up, look at our margins have gone up in the second quarter and our profitability I think it shows what we are doing to our sales is moving them in the right direction.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Van Winkle with Canaccord Genuity.

Scott Van Winkle

Analyst · Scott Van Winkle with Canaccord Genuity

Hi. Thanks. Hey, John, John, in your commentary about distribution gains in the U.S., you listed some retailers. Any specific product categories or anything we should think about where you’ve seen a little bit of a pickup at least from what you had in Q1 in new distribution?

John Carroll

Management

Sure, sure. We are seeing a lot of pickups on Earth’s Best Pouches, particularly in the growth channel, seeing pickup with Safeway, with Kroger, with Publicx, Giant Eagle that’s a key piece. The other thing is we’re seeing some nice pick up on Greek Gods. We saw a 25% improvement in our distribution at Wal-Mart that came into -- that showed up in January. And we are also seeing different key accounts picking up (inaudible). And then the last one and look, these are just three examples. The last time I talked to you about is Sensible Portions where we just got listed at Kroger and Safeway.

Scott Van Winkle

Analyst · Scott Van Winkle with Canaccord Genuity

Great. And sticking on the U.S., last year you had a real strong March period. Was there anything that drove that last year that we should think about you cycling against?

Irwin Simon

Founder

I think what you are going to see is that’s the time when we picked up and fully realized our first gains on distribution for Greek Gods at Wal-Mart where it fully fleshed out as well as Sensible Portions was picked up at Wal-Mart in addition to Sam’s Club.

Scott Van Winkle

Analyst · Scott Van Winkle with Canaccord Genuity

So you are cycling some distribution gains. Has there been any impact of weather on some of your categories, tea and soup?

Irwin Simon

Founder

I’m here. Obviously, tea has got a nice benefit from weather. I hate to be the guy who cheers for miserable cold weather and flu season, but it’s very beneficial for our tea business and we’ve seen it in December and January.

Scott Van Winkle

Analyst · Scott Van Winkle with Canaccord Genuity

And in your soup business.

Irwin Simon

Founder

And our soup as well. That’s the point I was wondering. We are seeing very strong growth on our Imagine Soup and our Health Valley Soups.

Scott Van Winkle

Analyst · Scott Van Winkle with Canaccord Genuity

Great. And then Ira, if you can, could you -- and if you did, I apologize I didn’t catch it. Can you frame interest expense now that you have got the acquisition in there and what that looks like?

Ira Lamel

Management

Yeah. We are expecting interest expense for the full year and this is the interest in other line that will come in. [Technical Difficulty] Hello. Somebody got a call. They are expecting it to come in at about close to $22 million, maybe a little bit lower than that. Just so you want to frame how to look at it. We’ve got $150 million of fixed rate debt at 6%. Everything else is at floating-rate and floating rates today are under three

Scott Van Winkle

Analyst · Scott Van Winkle with Canaccord Genuity

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Sharma with BMO Capital.

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone.

John Carroll

Management

Good afternoon, Amit. How are you?

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

Pretty good. Thank you, sir. John, a question for you. This period non-major channels did better than major channels. That is the reverse of a trend that we have seen over several quarters. Can you walk us through what happened?

John Carroll

Management

I think what we saw here was two things. One, a very strong pickup in our natural independence and some unmeasured gross -- remember HEB is not a measured grocery account and we’re seeing really strong pickup there as well.

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

And anything of note at Amazon or other retailers?

John Carroll

Management

I was going to go there next. We’ve seen some very strong growth on some of the internet retailers as well. So despite different, they are serviced by a variety of different distributors.

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

Can you give us some idea of how much is retailers as a percent of sales now in U.S.?

John Carroll

Management

I would. Here, I would say that all told, it’s definitely within our top 10 customers if we totaled it up as Internet.

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

Got it. And then a followup on the U.K. business. I mean clearly the strategy of divesting some of the lower-margin business that makes sense. But if I look at the margins, they are already at 10% in the quarter, operating margins. So, as you get rid of some of these businesses, where can we expect these margins to be once you are fully fleshed out with the portfolio over there?

Irwin Simon

Founder

You are talking about operating margins in the U.K.?

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

In U.K., yeah.

Irwin Simon

Founder

It should climb up a couple of points. And then we expect as we go into ‘14, not that we are giving any guidance that we will continue to climb because of the efficiencies in the plant -- in the Fakenham plant. As we bring on that program for the major retailer and again that will ramp up as we go through fiscal ‘14. It won’t all start right at the outset of the year, but we should -- it should get to a planned level by the end of ‘14.

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

But bringing that newer business, which is private label business, will not negatively impact your operating margins in U.K.?

Irwin Simon

Founder

No. It doesn’t. It’s a major program, which is going to make that plant highly efficient and effective. It’s one customer, which will take up past the plant. There is a lot of volume going through that plant, Amit.

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

Got it. So just to reiterate, so about $45 million of sales and 10% to 12% operating margin of that business?

Ira Lamel

Management

I’m sorry. Could you say that again, Amit?

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

So that business will be about $45 million of annual sales and about 10% to 12% operating margin?

John Carroll

Management

Yeah.

Irwin Simon

Founder

Yeah. And it will actually be higher than $45 million annually when it….

John Carroll

Management

In full swing it starts to…

Irwin Simon

Founder

It’s a minimum GBP30 million sterling on an annual basis.

Amit Sharma

Analyst · Amit Sharma with BMO Capital

Got it. Okay. All right. I think that’s all I had. Thank you.

John Carroll

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Sean Naughton with Piper Jaffray.

Sean Naughton

Analyst · Sean Naughton with Piper Jaffray

Good afternoon.

Irwin Simon

Founder

Hey, Sean. How are you?

Sean Naughton

Analyst · Sean Naughton with Piper Jaffray

Good. How are you, Irwin

Irwin Simon

Founder

Good.

Sean Naughton

Analyst · Sean Naughton with Piper Jaffray

A quick question for you. We’ve been talking about the U.K. and the U.S. a little bit. But maybe just looking at your other line item, the Canadian business and European, continental Europe, margins decreased a little bit there in the quarter and sales growth looks like it ticked down a little bit there. Any sort of commentary there? Is this seasonal, or is there something that impacted the comparability there in the quarter?

Irwin Simon

Founder

So, Canada, the margins probably -- the margin were really affecting Canada. We had about $2 million of a stock there, just some of the effects sort of getting product from the U.S. And at the same time, our margin was down a bit because the Europe’s best and just some of our commodity cost. So that’s the big thing with Canada. In regards to Europe, our sales in Europe were up strong, up almost 9% and I think our margin could be currency. It’s a little bit down. It’s just a bit down, but our sales were strong in Europe. Europe really had a great quarter.

Sean Naughton

Analyst · Sean Naughton with Piper Jaffray

Okay. And then just outside of chia, just moving to the commodity headwinds that you guys were discussing before. Outside of chia and almonds, are there other categories that we’re concerned about, maybe Blue Corn, but are there other categories we’re concerned about? And then I guess in terms of the pricing action that you guys took to offset the chia and almond pricing, when did that go into effect?

John Carroll

Management

So, almond and chia, this is John. The almond and chia are by far the biggest concerns given the 30% increases versus the first half. We just announced we’ve taken pricing on both of those commodities in the beginning of the year, and then just have watched them continue. So we just announced another price increase for both one. But it really -- we won’t get much of this fiscal, perhaps a little bit in first quarter. The only other two that we are watching real closely is our rice and Blue Corn. Blue Corn is more an availability. It is not a wild pricing issue and rice, I was watching it relative to what’s going on in the non-organic market but both of those are really pale in comparison to the headwinds from chia and almonds.

Irwin Simon

Founder

And in the U.K., we did get pricing up in the business that we wanted to keep and that is something we’ve been believe do. But I think the big thing also, Sean, what Myers and his group have been able to do on productivity and get cost out whether it’s fuel or whether it’s freight, whether it’s corn. But the big thing is the supply. I mean, price is one thing but if you are out of stock it’s a big issue, and we’ve been able to stay in stock and today with pouches, we got all the pouches and all the Earth’s Best products we want. Same with Garden of Eatin’, we ran into organic corn. We will get certain other ingredients for Earth’s Best baby formula. So the team really knows how to go out and find ingredients here and we’re to find it, just too keep it in stock. Our gluten-free business in the first quarter, we were up 35% to 40% on Arrowhead Mills and DeBoles just getting ingredients grains and certain flowers to give us back -- back in stock was the first thing and the group has been able do it.

Sean Naughton

Analyst · Sean Naughton with Piper Jaffray

Great. Best of luck in the second half and congrats on the nice margin expansion.

Irwin Simon

Founder

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We have time for one or two more questions. Your next question comes from the line of David Palmer with UBS.

Mineo Sakan

Analyst · David Palmer with UBS

Hi guys. This is actually Mineo filling in for Dave. I’m just trying to think about your general outlook for growth outside the U.S. and I guess, most of the U.K. in particular you need -- if you mentioned this already, I’m sorry but what was the organic growth rate in the U.K. last quarter and what is your outlook for revenue growth going forward?

Ira Lamel

Management

So, just in the UK.

Mineo Sakan

Analyst · David Palmer with UBS

Just in the UK.

Ira Lamel

Management

So, you let’s come back we’ve only own this business two months, three months, okay. And as you heard Rob say, we had the number one brand in Hartley’s, Sun-Pat and Robinsons is a big opportunity with Gales. You saw where our business with Linda McCartney was up 14%. We just introduce Greek yogurt. Our Love Tub was up 56%. Our soup business from New Covent Garden Soup business excluding Tesco was up about 6% from Nielsen-measured channels. So, to sit here today, as we pull everything together. Listen we got four or five key categories we’re number one -- were number one in that category. So mid-to-high single digit, that’s where we should be aiming at but we got some cleaning up to do. But at the end of the day, we really got some great brands and I’ve spend some time with retailers, who really want to focus on this brands and I think but the team will also do is a good job on gluten-free. They’re going to take over the non-diary business once we get our new facility. So lot of opportunity on our brand of business and it’s very interesting because Tesco who felt they were the major brand, yeah, recently had major recall with horse meat in their products and where they now focus were brands our important that will benefit us.

Mineo Sakan

Analyst · David Palmer with UBS

Thank you very much.

Ira Lamel

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ed Aaron with RBC Capital.

Ed Aaron

Analyst · Ed Aaron with RBC Capital

Hi. Great. Thanks I apologize if I missed this, but you’ve been giving an all-channel consumption number for the past few years. Do you have that number for the second quarter in the U.S.?

John Carroll

Management

Ed, this is John, yeah. It is very comparable. It’s little bit over 7% for the off channel because usually what we see is slower consumption growth in those channels that we’re more established in.

Ed Aaron

Analyst · Ed Aaron with RBC Capital

Okay. And then to the extent that the reported growth is a little bit stronger than that, is that entirely coming from just business channels that aren’t tracking that data or is there an element of maybe just on because the inventories were -- had been a little bit light, just you maybe shipping just a little bit ahead of consumption for that reason?

John Carroll

Management

No. It’s primarily those channels that are not measured. Remember Costco is not in there, HEB not in there and your internet guys are not in there as well. And we’re seeing a lot of sales move over to that Internet, Ed and this became a bigger part of our business of all time.

Ed Aaron

Analyst · Ed Aaron with RBC Capital

All right. I have some more, but in the interest of time, I will take it off-line. Thanks.

Irwin Simon

Founder

Thank you. So since that was the last question, I want to thank everybody for listing to our second quarter. I sit here and extremely proud of the team of what we’ve been able to do. We have some incredibly strong brands, when you have the amount of brands that we have that we’re up double digits, 16 brands up double digits, when you have traditional food business up slightly to see how we are executing with new products. The Anaheim Natural Foods Show is March 7th here in the U.S. We’ll introduce over 70 new products, 70 new innovative products with ingredients and packaging where we’re focused on, the GMOs, the organics, what’s the latest ingredient and that is the big show for us. In the U.K., we’re introducing another 70 or 80 products. So we introduced over 140 new products a year from innovation. We are in the midst of opening up a new innovation centre that well help us tremendously. At the same time, what John and Rob and I have talk about is how we’re partnering with our customers and having our customers, and how we picked up a major piece of business in the U.K. with the customer. How we’re growing across multiple channels in the U.S. whether it’s internet, whether it’s club, whether it’s mass and last but not least, Whole Foods, which is our biggest customer and seeing great trends there. So we are really partnering well and we’re seeing a growth among retailers that are growing today that allows John to execute his wide space and fill in that. And as you come back and at look at us two year stacked up 18% that really speaks for itself. The U.S. is 61% to 62% of our sales and that’s where a…

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.