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United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI)

Q3 2022 Earnings Call· Tue, Jun 7, 2022

$47.88

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, my name is Chris, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the UNFI Fiscal 2022 Third Quarter Earnings 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. Steve Bloomquist, VP of Investor Relations, you may begin.

Steven Bloomquist

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on UNFI's third quarter fiscal 2022 earnings conference call. By now you should have received a copy of the earnings release issued this morning. The press release and a supplemental slide deck are available under the Investors section of the Company's website at www.unfi.com. Joining me for today's call are Sandy Douglas, our Chief Executive Officer; John Howard, our Chief Financial Officer; Chris Testa, President of UNFI; and Eric Dorne, our Chief Operating Officer. Sandy, Chris and John will provide a business update, after which, we'll take your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that comments made by management during today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include plans, expectations, estimates and projections that might involve significant risks and uncertainties. These risks are discussed in the Company's earnings release and SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in these forward-looking statements. And lastly, I'd like to point out that during today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions and reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our press release. I'll now turn the call over to Sandy.

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Thank you, Steve, and good morning everyone. We appreciate everyone joining us for today's call. Our third quarter results again validate our team's ability to successfully perform in the face of a challenging and unpredictable environment with capabilities that we believe will continue to create value for our various stakeholders. During the quarter, we continue to navigate industry-wide challenges, including inflation, where the latest food-at-home reading was 10.8% higher than last year, record high fuel costs, low but improving fill rates and challenging labor shortages, all of which continue to impact our business and our customers. While we expect many of these issues to persist through the fiscal year, we are encouraged by the improvements we are beginning to see. Supply levels for many products are increasing, which led to our finishing the quarter with the second highest fill rate month of the fiscal year. In addition, we continue to make strides in stabilizing our workforce, even against a constrained labor backdrop. These improvements are in large part due to the actions that we are taking to proactively secure product on behalf of our customers and improving the associate experience. Many of the associate-friendly programs we've spoken about before, including scheduling flexibility and accelerated pay options, and they are now positively affecting our driver vacancy rate, which decreased to 9% at quarters end. In addition, we continue to make progress in lowering our DC vacancy rate, which improved to less than 7% at the end of the third quarter. While consumer mobility has undoubtedly improved from the early days of the pandemic, the fact is that more people continue to work-from-home and take advantage of more flexible ways of working, coupled with tighter management of household budgets in the face of high levels of food inflation, we expect food-at-home sales…

Christopher Testa

Analyst

Thanks, Sandy, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, I'll provide further color on our sales for the quarter and our sales pipeline that we expect will deliver future growth. I will also highlight the performance of our growth platforms and our wholesale operations and comment on the operating environment and performance of our retail stores. Total net sales for the quarter were $7.2 billion, a 9.2% increase over last year's Q3 with widespread growth across all channels. We continue to believe that our customer-centric approach is driving results. And we are pleased that growth in the quarter, again, came from both selling more to our existing customers as well as the acceleration in business we are now doing with new customers, each a key growth component of our Fuel the Future strategy. Cross-selling gains with existing customers added an incremental $95 million of revenue in the quarter, bringing our year-to-date incremental total to $260 million. This keeps us on pace to achieve nearly $1 billion in cross-selling revenue in fiscal 2022 volume that would have not happened without the Supervalu acquisition. Our continued success in selling more to existing customers coupled with new customer wins contributed to volume gains of approximately 2.5% with the balance coming from inflation. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about our ability to grow our business further based on our unmatched product and services portfolio. Our new business pipeline remains robust with opportunities that range from expanding category and product penetration with existing customers to new business wins with retailers who operate captive distribution centers. For both smaller volume wins as well as larger new customer business, we believe our customer-centric approach to growth will help us earn new business and allow us to help make our customers stronger, a key part of our mission…

John Howard

Analyst

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, I'll cover our third quarter financial performance, balance sheet, capital structure and our fiscal 2022 outlook. As Chris stated, third quarter sales were $7.2 billion, an increase of 9.2% from last year's third quarter, which brings our year-to-date sales to $21.7 billion, a 7.1% increase compared to last year. As stated in this morning's press release, we've revised our definition of both adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS to exclude the impact of LIFO expense. LIFO is a non-cash item, which impacts gross profit as well as adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS as previously calculated. Historically, the effect of LIFO has been relatively small, stable and predictable, but the recent inflationary environment has driven it meaningfully higher because we believe the volatility in this year's non-cash LIFO expense, meaningfully distorts our underlying operating performance. Beginning with this quarter, we will adjust LIFO expense out of GAAP net income and a GAAP EPS in computing adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. This revision has no impact on the economics, cash flows or GAAP results of our business. It more closely aligns UNFI with how our industry peers treat LIFO and we believe better reflects the company's underlying operating performance. We also believe it will help investors assess our underlying performance in a manner consistent with how we make business decisions. On this revised basis, adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter totaled $196 million, a 5.9% increase compared to the $185 million in last year's third quarter, when computed on the same basis. On a year-to-date basis, adjusted EBITDA totaled $616 million compared to $564 million last year, a 9.2% increase compared to last year. Our third quarter GAAP earnings per share totaled $1.10, including the impact of the non-cash LIFO charge described above…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Andrew Wolf with C.L. King. Your line is open.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. I know you don't guide on specific quarters, but was it fair to assume that the quarter you just reported, you beat your internal expectations decently? And could you comment how that is carrying through in the fourth quarter and your sense of the quarter on a profitability basis? And any color you can give as we start to think about fiscal 2023 as well? Thank you.

John Howard

Analyst

Sure. No, I appreciate the question, Andy. This is John. I'll start. I think with your questions there, I think I would say we were in line with what we're expecting for Q3 internally. As it relates to Q4 guidance, you're absolutely right, we generally don't provide quarterly guidance, but this is the one quarter of the year where it actually is indirectly provided with our full-year guidance change and by increasing our full-year guidance, I think you can get into – back into the Q4 number for you. And then – and say again, what was the third question, Andy? I forgot. Yes. Obviously for FY2023 at this stage, we're not going to provide any guidance other than what we provided with the – the long-range planned Investor Day that we did last year, showing what our three-year CAGRs would be for 2022, 2023 and 2024, and as I think, all three of us said in our prepared remarks, we are on track to achieve those.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst

All right. On the LIFO charge itself at $72 million, I mean the first half was $30 million. So clearly, I guess the accrual rate went up a lot. Could you comment on that how that relates to – its inflation jumped that much, or were you had to increase the – did you increase your accrual rate or is there catch up in there? Can you just give us some color on why the actual number is so high compared to what you were accruing at? And also just, I guess, tie that to what's going on with inflation.

John Howard

Analyst

Yes. And you're absolutely right, Andy, it is all tied to the inflation that we saw – that uptick that we saw in Q3, that's what's driving that number. There's no other dramatic or fundamental change in the calculation or in the underlying business. Our inventory balances are substantially where we thought they would be. It's all being driven by that uptick in inflation that started in Q3 for that non-cash increase that you're seeing. And you're absolutely right, the way the math works on LIFO, there's a full-year catch up as that inflation rate changes throughout the year. We have to capture the full rate impact every time we go through the calculation and our quarterly results, and that does represent a little bit of a catch up in Q3 on the non-cash. Sandy?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Yes. I was just going to comment on the second part of Andy's question regarding inflation. Obviously inflation continues to be elevated, and it's a complicated topic through the P&L, drives topline and margin, but it has a negative impact on sales elasticity. It's really a direct result of continuing fill rate issues and then you've got the whole dynamic with promotions. Our focus is really on how we can help our customers through it, and help them stay competitive by working to ensure that they have the most possible lead time on price increases and then specifically through the summer, working with our suppliers to give our customers good sharp promotional price points, particularly in key value items. I'd also mention owned brands, Chris mentioned the consumer energy around owned brands and our focus on providing the best possible offer there. And then finally, as it relates to any margin that's moving around, we have our ValuePath initiative with which the company fielded to yield a gross amount of $70 million to $100 million of savings by 2023, so that we can make it all work as the different parts of the external environment move around.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst

Thanks. And I'll just ask a quick follow-up instead of my third question. Sandy, you mentioned, trying to get promotions and [KVAs] to your clients – your customers. How challenging is that when the product is basically short and there's so much inflation, I mean, are you dipping into your own pocket to help out your customers in a sense?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Well, it's actually a process of working with our customers and our suppliers. Our customer base is a really important source of growth for our suppliers. And as I mentioned, one of our initiatives is to help make them more visible and to connect the dots. And so we're having, I think, good success with a number of our merchandising programs. And for example, we have a very big sales show that starts this afternoon in Connecticut, where we have literally thousands of customers coming into, meet with suppliers to put in place programs, to buy products, set in place promotional plans for the rest of the year. And by working hard to make them visible to each other and connect the dots, I think we're having pretty good success in terms of doing everything we can to help them be as competitive as possible.

Andrew Wolf

Analyst

Great. Thank you. I'll get back in line.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Scott Mushkin with R5 Capital. Your line is open.

Scott Mushkin

Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So I wanted to explore a little bit more, the better, I guess, offering that you guys have to your customers and understand how quickly you think you can gain some market share. What I'm specifically referencing is the single truck, single invoice accompanying the services. As we've written, those are – you guys seem to have a fairly meaningful competitive advantage. How quickly can you move to maybe gain more market share with that?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Yes. Thanks, Scott. This is Sandy. One-UNFI is really a multi-year process. It started and was made possible by the acquisition that the company made at Supervalu a few years ago. Actions have already been taken to align the salesforce to align how we show up for suppliers, but there are incremental opportunities that involve our supply chain that involve our network of distribution and how our IT is set up invoicing, et cetera. And I described it as a roadmap of continuous improvement. The market share gains really come and Chris talked about it by virtue of the immediate impact, which is that we have a really wide assortment and customers need different kinds of products for different kinds of strategies and different kinds of formats. And we've seen in the cross-selling results that Chris described, impact, impact to market share, impact to give customer flexibility. And then finally, I would say that – and this has been particularly important in the last couple years and when the network is as stressed as it is having backup and the ability to move distribution from one center to another has been helpful in times of stress. So as you look at our sales results and think about the industry, we're gaining share, but I think the share opportunity is really more about serving a broader range of customer needs. And as the company mentioned, we think that total opportunity is around $140 billion of which we've captured a small part of it.

Scott Mushkin

Analyst

So as a follow-up – thanks, Sandy. There's a follow-up to that though. How many customers actually have the ability to have one truck, one invoice? I mean, how far along is it? And is it like handful or is that something you can offer to more? That's my first follow-up. And my second follow-up is if this is successful, how should we think about CapEx spending in your capacity if you start grabbing a lot of share, if you're able to execute this, the One-UNFI.

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Well, I would describe the transformation as early stage on some of the supply chain and distribution changes. From a capital standpoint and Eric is here and you can comment, Eric, I think it offers us an opportunity to get both effective and more efficient. As we redesign the supply chain, we have a big initiative right now to understand the network design and to plot that plan. And then finally, as it relates to capital, to the extent that we're able to drive the capacity of the supply chain, that's obviously capital friendly, but it also creates the opportunity for us to make progressive estimates and technology and potentially automation that'll drive up our quality level and obviously with each investment a very disciplined rate of return. But Eric, do you want to talk a little bit about your plans there?

Eric Dorne

Analyst

Yes. I mean, Scott, thanks for that question. As Sandy mentioned, we are looking at incredible options across the country to maximize the use of our current capacity as well as capacity that we need to add to sustain growth. And as far as automation goes, we are actively pursuing options where it makes sense. As a reminder, we just added automation in Southern California and the Pacific Northwest, and we are expanding our automation capability in the Mid-Atlantic states in the coming months. So I think we're making the right choices and we're keeping pace with the options we have to support our growth.

Scott Mushkin

Analyst

Perfect. Thanks guys.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from John Heinbockel with Guggenheim. Your line is open.

John Heinbockel

Analyst

So first thing, guys, maybe you can address the power of scale in this environment, right? With inflation as high as it is, should be more valuable than ever. Obviously, but then you've got to get the product, right? So maybe talk about the ability to lean into scale. And is the benefit to come more down the road, right, when supply is a little more readily available, is that sort of number one. And then two, right, if you think about the opportunities, right, versus new customers coming on to your platform versus picking up new items, right, from some of the existing players. Where is the opportunity bigger right now?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Hi. This is Sandy, and I'm going to pass this over to Chris in a second. But scale shows up for the company in a lot of ways. It shows up, as I mentioned in flexibility, when we need to be able to move distribution around. Clearly, we're an important customer to our suppliers, so we're able to show our suppliers a large opportunity and make a important case to them that they should take good care of 32,000 customers that we have. And as the fill rates have – I think we mentioned in the script started to stabilize and slightly improve here towards the end of the third quarter. What we hope will happen is that we'll start to see further acceleration and promotional activity from our customers – sorry, from suppliers. And that in turn will drive value for our customers and the flywheel that I mentioned will be started. But Chris, why don’t you drill into a few more specifics?

Christopher Testa

Analyst

Yes. Hey, John. So absolutely our scale, if you look at our private brands business, we're able to have a very large private brands portfolio that we can pass on to our customers. We have buying power in our professional services business, where we're able to acquire services at rates of our scale that we can pass on to our customers. And then if you look at just our buying power on our fresh business, we're very, very large fresh national fresh player. And there's not many if any national fresh players and we have some purchasing power with that as well. As far as the size of the opportunity, as we laid out, that’s a $140 billion addressable market. The largest portion of that $78 billion lays with new customers. But the reality is that the $38 billion opportunity with existing customers, those are the wins that we're putting on the board every week. If you think about a conventional customer that wants to get into natural products, we can flip the switch on that, a conventional customer that wants to expand its meat and produce with us. We can flip the switch on that very quickly because we've already set them up as an account, we already have the truck going from the warehouse. And so I would say we get more frequent wins through our existing customers and we're very excited about more than doubling the business, the opportunity to more than double the business with existing customers, but from a pure scale standpoint, of course, there's more wide space of customers that we're not currently serving.

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

John, Sandy here. One other comment about scale. The other thing is the flip of the coin. A couple weeks ago, I was on a Northern Midwest tour of local customer meetings, one in Minneapolis, one in Green Bay. And in those meetings, our merchants were working on local product supplier opportunities, promotional plans for the summer. I saw our deli and specialty team bring together a cheese merchandising opportunity that leverages local cheeses in those markets. And so there's a lot of very, very local conversations going on between our regionally based sales and merchandising organization and obviously supply chain is very local as well. So on the one hand, there's scale, but the flip side is to stay really close to the independent customers in markets around the country, which is core to our culture.

John Heinbockel

Analyst

And maybe a quick follow-up. You talked about volume up 2.5%, right, which would include new customers. Is there any way to tell on a comp basis what volume or cases are doing? And is it possible if inflation stays elevated that volume could be, I don't know, flat to down on a comp basis? And I guess as long as drop sizes up, that would really impact the economics right off the drop.

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Yes. We're not going to talk on a forward basis about that, John. But what I would say is I think our volume growth has stayed pretty consistent through the second and third quarter that we just reported. And our focus as I mentioned around inflation is to work really hard with suppliers to give our customers the right kind of merchandising opportunities and price points to support their unit volume as they compete. So we'll continue to watch that and report out each quarter, but it's been fairly consistent for the past couple quarters.

John Heinbockel

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Eric Larson with Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.

Eric Larson

Analyst

Yes. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for the question. Nice quarter. John, maybe – either John or Sandy, in this environment that we're in, obviously it's pretty fluid, you've got high inflation, you've got consumers scrambling to probably pay their bills and meet their – and get their groceries at a reasonable price. Are you seeing any meaningful shifts from branded to private label to different alternatives? And then when you put that into perspective, are the CPGs actually doing more merchandising here? Are the values of the merchandising program is higher? And that's where you generally have a pretty good profit center is when you have high levels of merchandising. Can you give me an update on what those two questions kind of what I'm asking there?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Sure. And I'll make a comment. This is Sandy, and then I'll give it over to Chris. I think we mentioned that we saw some acceleration in the quarter, strong acceleration in private label brands. I think the interesting thing about our customer base and our product line is that we actually show up wherever the customer and the consumer has positioned. And so you've really got both, you've got high-end customers are still spending money on high-end things. And then there's an acceleration in own label. And then as it relates to suppliers, it's still kind of dynamic because fill rates are still stressed, but they're getting a little bit better. And the conversation with our suppliers that we had at various industry conferences and I sat through about 30 meetings is all about the opportunity that our customers bring them. Diverse channel structures are really important to CPGs and UNFI's customer base is nothing but that. And so while there's still a dampening and promotional efforts versus where we wanted to be and where we expect it to be, we're I think being successful with our merchants that working with vendors and we continue to focus on improvement to get promotional dollars to the proper places with our customers so they can be successful. Chris, do you want to add any more detail?

Christopher Testa

Analyst

Yes. Just a quick addition is, look, we saw the fill rates decline from Q4 to Q1 and then again, Q1 to Q2, but they stabilized in Q3, actually slight uptick sequentially. The promo dollars have a lag behind fill rate. So it's not immediate to the fill rate improvement and we fully expect as fill rate continues to approve and we're hearing from manufacturers there's less temporary unavailable. They're feeling optimistic about get healthy dates and the promo dollars will follow, but there's a lag called a three-month lag between the fill rate improvement and the promo dollar improvement. In the meantime, as Sandy mentioned, we are seeing a shift towards private brands and we had private brands acceleration, and we are working with our suppliers to get those key value items and all the promo dollars we could secure through our shows, for our customers to help them get through this period.

Eric Larson

Analyst

And thanks for those comments. So without actually talking much about any kind of fiscal 2023 guidance or anything, it sounds like the promo environment could be a bigger tailwind for you in F2023 than in F2022. And can you quickly compare F2022 to F2021 on the promo rates and the programs? Has it been a big benefit this year or no?

Christopher Testa

Analyst

Well, no. Our promo dollars are slightly above flat year-over-year. And that frankly wasn't two expectations, right. We expect that fill rates to continue to improve like they were doing through the end of the last year at this time. But they're roughly flat year-over-year.

Eric Larson

Analyst

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Mark Carden with UBS. Your line is open.

Mark Carden

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. I wanted to dig into the market contraction you mentioned that continued into 3Q. So we've heard from some of the large pronounced merchants, they've seen some wallet share shift from discretionary categories into consumables. Does this showing up with what you're seeing and how does it impact your view on market contraction over the next few quarters? Could the degree of contraction ease more than you were anticipating? Thanks.

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Yes. I mean, as we mentioned, the volume that we saw in the quarter really was consistent from Q2 to Q3. And in fact, we saw – independence actually start to gain share a little bit in February and March and April. And I'm not sure whether the dynamic is that fuel prices are going up and therefore, the drive to away from home is kept people closer or just that independents are continuing to do a really good job of staying close to their customers with meal replacement and other unique offers. As I've traveled around the country, I have seen some extraordinarily agile and very, very creative approaches to customer attention in the independent customer base. And so the general outlook that we would have is that the winners are going to continue to win. And our job is to be front and center to try to help them, whether it's core execution or value added programming or connecting with suppliers. And that's exactly what we're going to do.

Mark Carden

Analyst

Great. And then another follow-up on inflation. I know there's a ton of variability, but if you plan out your business, how long are you now expecting for these kinds of elevated rates to last? And then if we do start to a year from now, we see deflation, how much of an impact could that have on your margin structure?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Yes. We spend 100% of our billable hours looking at how we can get better for our customers and very little at playing amateur economist. They certainly are elevated right now and we don't see a real change. Having said that as you would expect, we scenario plan multiple potential scenarios, and interestingly enough, the actions that we would take in virtually every scenario are approximately the same. We have to make sure that we're showing up for our customers and buying right and keeping them competitive. We have to work hard on our execution so that we're a partner of choice. And then we've got to keep our cost structure tight, so that we stay agile in the face of whatever the scenario is. And that's been our focus as we prepare for next year, and I think we'll be in strong shape regardless of the scenario.

Mark Carden

Analyst

Great. Thanks so much guys and good luck.

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from Kelly Bania with BMO. Your line is open. Kelly Bania, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Kelly Bania

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking our questions. I wanted to ask a couple about retail. First, the retail growth of about 2% was just a little lower than the rest of your segments. And I was wondering if you could just help us unpack that a little bit and understand the factors driving that maybe cross-selling could explain some of that as that benefits your other segments. But any color you can comment on there?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Sure. I mean, our retail business has been performing really well since the acquisition and has held and I think in some cases grown share, particularly in Twin Cities. Sales in the quarter were solid from a market perspective. It was very competitive up there. We invested in promotional dollars, but more importantly for that business, we invested in capability, in digital capability to craft more personalized promotions to understand pricing and revenue management capability and several operating initiatives. So the net-net is we're pleased with our retail business. The volume in the quarter was market competitive, but a number of initiatives that give us confidence that the outlook for our retail business is strong.

Kelly Bania

Analyst

Okay. And can you also just expand on the factors driving the EBITDA margin rate decline there? You mentioned some of these investments, but could you help unpack that between gross margin, SG&A? Were these planned, or how reactionary were these two – the need to maybe do some more promotions?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Yes. I think in general, one of our KPIs is to expand EBITDA margin and we expect to do that and have actually year-to-date. In the quarter, we invested in supply chain as we continue to make sure that we're giving our customers the best possible service and what continues to be a pretty dynamic operating environment. And the operating margin contraction was really minor. That said, we have a number of initiatives through value path and we expect as we look forward and there's a little bit of a crystal ball, but our strategy to continue to make our operating expense more efficient should be back on track as we go ahead.

John Howard

Analyst

And Sandy, if I can build on that a little bit, there were some specific items that were cycling in 2022, that we've talked about before, including, that monetization of Riverside, which creates a rent expense, which didn't exist last year. We knew health and wellness expense was going to come back on us in 2022 as more people are going back for medical procedures. And we've been open about the save a lot transaction that that service fee that we were providing them for the past five years that also ended in FY2022.

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Yes. John, thank you. And importantly, I guess the last point to share with everybody is that as the business is proceeded, is it is performed in line with the expectations that we had in that regard.

Kelly Bania

Analyst

Okay. That's very helpful. And I guess, I'm sorry if I missed this, but did you just provide the inflation rates and any color you are seeing across the different customer segments, and if you can, are willing to just help us understand a little bit more what you're hearing from your supplier landscape in terms of more price increases on the horizon?

John Howard

Analyst

Yes. So I'll start with the number on the inflation. So as we talked about for Q3, our 9.2% growth, roughly 2.5% of that was volume-driven. So when you think about inflation making up the rest of that and that's net of elasticity and other aspects related to our pricing and business model, but volume was roughly 2.5%. And then the rest of it would be attributed to the inflation. As it relates to some of the supplier information, I'm not sure if we have, or if we disclosed that before.

Christopher Testa

Analyst

No, we haven't all. Hey, Kelly, this is Chris. It's not inflation, isn't really a channel thing. It's a product segment thing, right. So it's based on the suppliers and the fresh business you're seeing, changes happen daily, as the commodity prices go up and down, depending if we're talking about produce or proteins or so forth. With the center store, the thing that we are focused on is making sure we have enough lead time to inform and adapt to our customers and making sure we're doing everything we can to get corresponding promo dollars to keep our customers, keep the volume and our customers going. I can't pinpoint any single category in the center store grocery where inflation is higher than the other, as you've read and we've all heard. It's really across the entire segment. Certainly there's been some certain categories, sunflower oil for example, that have been impacted by the war. But those are sort of really, really small targeted segments, but in general, it's been across the entire center store.

Kelly Bania

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And I guess, as you look across your customer base between the different retail strategies that you have – that they have between value or mainstream or premium, are you seeing some shifts in terms of trends, particularly on the volume standpoint or promotional standpoint, as you just communicate with your retailers?

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Yes. Kelly, this is Sandy. I think, again, we're seeing some macro trends on categories. We're seeing acceleration in owned brands in particular as almost in parallel to the spike up in inflation. Relative to retailers, they're really operating where they're positioned. And as I mentioned earlier, the situation with the customer base is bifurcated. Upper-end consumers are still spending money and they're spending money on upper-end things. Now, there maybe a little shifting between restaurants and there's dynamism between restaurants and meal replacement strategies with retailers, and then as sort of mainstream retailers. And then those that are more value oriented are certainly seeing that side of the customer base emphasize value for money. And there's a lot of price sensitivity, and time to month sensitivity as folks move away from their snap payment. So, the net effect of all that is, is that we have to show up where the retail strategy – retailer strategy is. And we're seeing the winners win. And we are fortunate enough to be doing business with a lot of winners.

Kelly Bania

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

That concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. And I'll now turn the call back to CEO, Sandy Douglas, for any closing remarks.

Sandy Douglas

Analyst

Thanks, operator, and thanks to everybody for joining us this morning. I hope you've heard and take away from today's call that UNFI is growing and performing within a changing environment by steadfastly focusing on our four operating principles that underpin our execution of the fuel the future strategy, bringing value to our customers, improving the way we partner with suppliers, creating unmatched career opportunities for our associates and supporting our communities and the planet. And through all of this, our ultimate focus is on adding significant value for you our shareholders. For our customers, we thank you for your continued partnership and the business we do together and for our suppliers and UNFI associates listening today, my thanks to each of you for everything that you do for our business, our customers, our communities, and each other. And for our shareholders, thank you for the trust you put in us through your continued investment in UNFI. Thanks, everybody.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.