McCormick & Company Inc
NYSE:MKC
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McCormick & Company Inc
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Good morning. This is Kasey Jenkins, Vice President of McCormick Investor Relations. Thank you for joining today’s First Quarter Earnings Call. To accompany this call, we've posted a set of slides at ir.mccormick.com. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following our remarks, we will begin a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] We’ll begin with remarks from Lawrence Kurzius, Chairman, President and CEO; and Mike Smith, Executive Vice President and CFO. During our remarks, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These include information in constant currency as well as adjusted operating income, adjusted income tax rate and adjusted earnings per share that excludes the impact of special charges, and for 2018 transaction and integration expenses related to the acquisitions of our Frank's and French's brand as well as the net non-recurring income tax benefits associated with the December 2017 U.S. Tax Reform Legislation. Reconciliations to the GAAP results are included in this morning’s press release and slides. In our comments, certain percentages are rounded. Please refer to our presentation which includes the complete information. In addition, please note that all comparisons discussed today, both for results and outlook, are calculated from the 2018 days that have been recast for the two accounting standard updates we adopted on a retrospective basis in the first quarter of 2019, as well as for certain other reclassifications noted in this morning’s first quarter results press release. Please refer to the recast 2018 financials section of the press release and the Form 8-K, we furnished on March 11 for further details, as well as the fillings of our Form 10-Q later today, which reflects all the changes to our previously reported 2018 results and the historical financial information that has been recast. As a reminder, today’s presentation contains projections and other forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements whether because of new information, future events or other factors. As seen on Slide 2, our forward-looking statements also provide information on risk factors that could affect our financial results. It is now my pleasure to turn the discussion over to Lawrence.
Thank you, Kasey. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Our first quarter results were a great start to the year delivering sales, operating income and adjusted earnings per share growth as well as margin expansion. Our successful execution of our strategies and engagement of employees around the world has driven strong performance across both of our segments. And we’re confident they will continue to drive the momentum and success as we go through the year. Starting on Slide 4, our broad and advantaged global flavor portfolio continues to position us to meet the demand for flavor around the world and grow our business. Among our first quarter highlights across our portfolio, we drove growth on our consumer segment with strength particularly in U.S. spices and seasonings, recipe mixes and new Frank’s Zatarain’s frozen products, as well as in China, sauces and Chicken bouillon. In our flavor solutions segment, our Americas and EMEA regions drove significant growth in flavors, brand and food service and condiments with strong contributions for both new products and the base business. We are confident our breadth and reach will continue to differentiate McCormick and be the foundation of our sales growth as consumer demand for flavor continues to rise. No matter where or what you choose to eat or drink, you're probably enjoying something flavored by McCormick every day. Now let me go into more detail on our first quarter performance as seen on Slide 5 as well as provide some business comments before turning it over to Mike. We'll go more in depth on the quarter-end results and the details of our 2019 outlook. As we said on our year-end earnings call in January and at CAGNY in February, we have confidence in our strategies and are well positioned to deliver strong results in 2019. You can see this beginning with our first quarter performance, but the strong sales growth, operating profit growth, margin growth and EPS growth. Starting with our top line for the first quarter, versus a year ago period we grew sales 1% and a constant currency sales grew 4% for the total company with strengthened both segments. This growth was due to higher volume and product mix. It was entirely organic, driven by the base business and new products as we had no acquisitions impact in the quarter. In our consumer segment, sales were flat, including an unfavorable impact from currency and grew 3% in constant currency. In our flavor solutions segment, sales grew 3% and then constant currency grew 6%. In addition to our top line growth, we grew adjusted operating income and expanded our adjusted operating margin. With our higher sales and cost savings led by our comprehensive continuous improvement program or CCI, we grew the first quarter's adjusted operating income 4% or 6% in constant currency and expanded our adjusted operating margin 40 basis points. At the bottom line, our first quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.12 was 12% higher than the $1 in the first quarter of 2018, driven primarily by our adjusted operating income growth and the lower adjusted the tax rate. And this 12% adjusted earnings per share growth includes an unfavorable impact from currency. Our solid first quarter results were in line with our expectations and our outlook for 2018 performance, which we shared on our January earnings call continues to be strong. I'd like to turn now to a business update with a focus this morning on highlights from our consumer and flavor solutions segments, our exciting new products for the first half of 2019. And finally touch on some of our recent announcements. Starting on Slide 6 with our consumer segment, as I just mentioned, we grew constant currency sales 3% with increases at each of our three reasons. In the Americas, we grew constant currency sales 3%, driven by higher volume and product mix. In the U.S., the unusual impacts we had in the fourth quarter, as we previously indicated on our January earnings call and at CAGNY are behind us. Our IRI data indicates U.S. spices and seasoning scanner sales through multi outlets grew 4% for the category and 5% for McCormick branded reflecting a continuation of the strong consumption and share trend improvement realized in the fourth quarter. In fact, we grew spice and seasoning share in the first quarter. Our performance in the market is being driven by new products, expanded distribution together with our strong marketing programs and merchandising execution. Additionally, we again had strong growth in unmeasured channels, including club, e-commerce and Hispanic retail chains. Overall, combining strong consumption growth in other parts of our U.S. branded portfolio with spices and seasonings, we continued to see an acceleration in our consumption trends, which shows we're winning with consumers across our portfolio. McCormick branded dry recipe mixes continuing their momentum of consumption and share growth and Stubb's barbecue sauce consumption growth again outpaced this category. Frank's Red Hot Sauce, Grill Mates and Lowery's Marinade, all grew consumption, partially driven by leveraging Super Bowl marketing and promotional programs across our condiment portfolio. New products including Frank's Red Hot frozen wings and Zatarain’s frozen items are also gaining momentum and contributed to first quarter growth. As I mentioned, our strong marketing programs contributed to driving our growth. We've also increased our effectiveness and are getting more value out of each marketing dollar. In the first quarter, we've funded increases in our working media with decreases in our non-working spend. Our newly formed marketing excellence organization, which I discussed that CAGNY is optimizing our brand marketing spend and driving greater speed and effectiveness. For instance, with our innovative approach for Frank’s brand support, we had a big win on Super Bowl Sunday. We spent significantly less than the cost of the Super Bowl commercial and leverage the power of social media with the strong creative idea. With our plateful splat, Frank's garnered over 250 million consumer impressions and was awarded Twitter's Brand Interception award for driving the highest percentage of branded conversations during the big game without a national television ad. Not only did we win the award, we won with significant Frank’s consumption growth. Now turning to Europe, Middle East and Africa, the EMEA region, constant currency growth was driven by new products as well as expanded distribution and successful promotional activity. New product launches in the UK, in the second half of the year, First Choice, our brand renovation initiative and street food seasonings, which are adventurous flavors for millennials continued to do well, and we're excited to build on strong early results with continued expansion to additional markets in 2019. In the Asia Pacific region, our constant currency growth was led by China, driven by new products as well as the base business growth due to successful merchandising execution and expanded distribution. We're also excited by the momentum we're gaining on Frank's and French's. At the end of the first quarter, products with localized Chinese labels are beginning and we listed at retail stores and we expect distribution to build over the year. Turning now to Slide 7, in our flavor solutions segment, our sales performance was excellent. Our constant currency sales growth was 6%, driven by higher volume and product mix on base business as well as new products in the Americas and EMEA regions. We're continuing to win with our customers with the new products, expanded distribution and promotional activities. In the Americas, we drove constant currency sales growth of 7%. We had strong sales growth to quick service restaurants as well as in our flavor product categories. Our flavor sales were driven by snack seasonings, particularly due to new products and our customers' promotions and by products that deliver the clean label and better-for-you attributes our customers are seeking. We also had strong branded food service growth, driven by the increased distribution with national and regional customers, promotional activity with operators and expansion in emerging channels. In branded food service, we continue to realize the benefits of leveraging our full portfolio of McCormick spices and seasonings and Frank's French's and catalyst products across operators. Our sales growth in EMEA was outstanding, 9% in constant currency was broad-based across the portfolio both from product category and customer perspective. The momentum we built in this region last year carried into the first quarter. We grow sales growth to quick service restaurants, partially due to their strong promotional activities, and the packaged food companies with new products being a key driver. Our new products are an important point to differentiate our brands and drive growth. Now I am happy to share with you our consumer segment's robust plans for new products in the first half of 2019, as seen on Slide 8. We're delivering against consumer demand for healthy options and transparency in the quality and source of ingredients. In the U.S., we've launched the Zatarain's Garden District kitchen range. These new solutions inspired by the rich culinary heritage of New Orleans, a plant-based and high in both protein and fiber. And we continue to renovate are dry recipe mixes with simple and clean ingredient segments that still deliver delicious flavor. We’re continually improving our portfolio to strengthen our relevance for consumers. In the U.S., we're expanding our McCormick gourmet line with the range of premium salts and peppers. In France, we launched the range of Ducros, grown in France herbs, for French consumer, values, provenance and local sourcing. And in China, we're re-launching our packaging with new graphics that drive premium perception and better shelf visibility. With ease and convenience, we’re making a key driver of consumer trends. We are offering consumers convenience with flavor. In the U.S., we've launched new Grill Mates marinate flavors, which provided convenient ways to introduce more flavors to grilling and French's dipping sauces, which deliver fantastic taste with the convenience of ready to eat. We've also launched Zatarain's frozen entree rice bowls, made with clean ingredients and leverage the popularity of cilantro lime with shrimp and chicken. And we'll be launching our one product platform, instead of one dish recipe mix flavors to make dinners easy, which includes new flavors created using the combination of artificial intelligence and our consumer insights. And finally, we continue to introduce new flavors and varieties to drive flavor exploration and experimentation. In Canada, we are renovating our line of La Grille barbecue sauces with a new bottle and reformulated flavors. In the UK, we're targeting the millennial consumer with the launch of a new range of rapid recipe mixes, which capitalize on the sandwich wraps trend at home and the restaurant menus. And also targeting the millennial consumer, we're launching a new range of co-branded tasty McCormick recipe mix blends in the U.S., Canada and the UK, which I will expand on further in a few minutes. Turning to flavor solutions on Slide 9, while we do not get specific with our product developments in this segment, we're continuing to capitalize on our culinary foundation, customer collaboration both of which differentiate us with customers. This unique combination allows us to continue our new product momentum as our customers continue to move their portfolios to on-trend flavors, and more natural and better-for-you product while ensuring that taste is not compromised. We have a broad portfolio of product platforms and technologies to deliver a range of natural solutions for our customers. Along the natural flavors spectrum, clean flavor is the next emerging space. We're excited to have re-launched our new clean and natural platform Flavor Real, McCormick is setting the benchmark for development of on-trend organic, non-GMO and better-for-you products with their unparalleled natural ingredients supply chain and technologies enabling clean label transparency. To support the consumer movement to healthier and more natural, our proprietary modulation technology called Flavor Full, solves common flavor challenges, including masking bitter or sour notes and enhancing sweet, salt or fat. We can sell for any low or no challenge without sacrificing iconic flavor. And finally, our two flavor delivery technologies deliver optimal flavor experiences. Our Patented Flavor Cell is a controlled release encapsulation technology designed to deliver flavor where and when and how you need it. Our flavor spice technology delivers flexible natural replacements for ground spices and herbs for increased concentration and solubility. Our strategy to begin with understanding real food and beverage, to create authentic flavors, combined with the breadth of our product platforms and technologies, is driving our new product wins with our customers, with sales from product launch as a key growth driver in our first quarter results. Now I'd like to highlight some recent news on Slide 10. As announced in early February, McCormick has partnered with IBM to pioneer the application of Artificial Intelligence or AI, for flavor and product development. We were entering into new era of flavor innovation. This proprietary cutting edge technology, which we have previously discussed as computational creativity, sets McCormick apart across our consumer and flavor solutions segments. Our product developers are now able to export flavor territories across the globe more quickly and efficiently utilizing technology to extract key insights for millions of data points across sensory science, consumer preference and flavor palettes. As we've continued to expand the use of this system, we've launched our first AI-enabled consumer product platform, one, which I mentioned a few moments ago in my new product comments. I also mentioned earlier a new range of co-branded tasty products, which I'd like to expand on further. During the first quarter, we launched a global partnership with Buzzfeed Tasty, the number one cooking video website in the world for Millennials and Gen Z with over two billion views a month. This partnership allows us to gain significant reach as we are now the official spice in the videos and recipes these generations used while seeking recipe inspiration through social media. In the second quarter, we will be launching our seasoning blends range, which will be available both through the direct to consumer channel and retail. We're thrilled with this new partnership, which will deliver substantial incremental impressions in reach to an audience, primarily under the 35 years of age and further accelerate our digital platform. In February, we were recognized on Variance 2019 100 most sustainable companies list for the second straight year. At McCormick, we’re driven to do the right thing for people, communities and our planet, and as such we're recognized as a leader in sustainability. On a final note, I'd like to acknowledge Mike Fitzpatrick, who is retiring from our Board of Directors after serving as a director since 2001. We sincerely appreciate Mike's contributions to our success over the last 18 years and thank him for his service. Now I'd like to provide a few summary comments as seen on Slide 11, before turning it over to Mike. At the foundation of our sales growth is the rising consumer demand for flavor. We are aligned with the consumers' increased interest in older flavors, demand for convenience and focus on fresh natural ingredients as well as with emerging purchase drivers such as greater transparency around the sourcing and quality of food. With this increased interest flavor continues to be an advantaged global category, which combined with our execution against effective strategies will drive strong results. We have a solid foundation in an environment that continues to be dynamic and fast pace we are sure that we remain agile, relevant and focused on sustainable growth. Our experienced leaders and employees are executing against our strategies, which are designed to build long-term value for our shareholders. Our first quarter financial results across both our consumer and flavor solutions segments were a great start to the year. We delivered these results according to our plans and are excited by our momentum. Our fundamentals are strong. And we're confident the initiatives we have underway position us to continue our growth trajectory. We’re balancing our resources and efforts to drive sales with our work to lower costs to build fuel for growth and higher margins. We have confidence in our fiscal year outlook and are well positioned to deliver another strong year in 2019. Around the world, McCormick employees are driving our momentum and our success. And I thank them for their efforts and engagement. Thank you for your attention. And it is now my pleasure to turn it over to Mike for additional remarks on the first quarter financial results and 2019 outlook.
Thanks, Lawrence, and good morning, everyone. As Lawrence indicated, we delivered strong growth with our first quarter results. I'll begin with a discussion of our results and then follow with details of our full year 2019 financial outlook. Starting on Slide 13, we grew sales 4% at constant currency. And as Lawrence mentioned earlier, this was entirely organic growth, driven by the base business and new products as we had no acquisition impact in the quarter. Both our consumer and flavor solutions segments delivered strong top line constant currency growth, driven by volume and product mix. The consumer segment grew sales 3% in constant currency with growth in all three regions. On Slide 14, consumer segment sales in the Americas rose 3% in constant currency versus the first quarter of 2018. As Lawrence described earlier, this increase was primarily driven by higher volume and product mix across several product lines spices and seasonings, dry recipe mixes and frozen products. Pricing related to the incremental impact of 2018 actions also contributed to the increase. In EMEA, constant currency consumer sales were up 1% from a year ago. Higher volume and product mix were driven by new products, distribution gains and promotional activities. This growth was partially offset by pricing actions, including those related to planned trade commercial activities for new products and a holiday season. We grew consumer sales in the Asia-Pacific region 4% in constant currency led by China growth with strength in new world flavor sauces and chicken bouillon as well as herbs and spice. Turning to our flavor solutions segment and Slide 17, we grew first quarter constant currency sales, 6%, attributable to a strong growth in the EMEA and Americas region. In the Americas flavor solutions constant currency sales increased 7% with broad-based growth across the portfolio, driven by quick service restaurants and continued flavors momentum. New products, expanded distribution and our customer's promotional activities all contributed to the sales increase. In EMEA, we grew flavors solution sales 9% in constant currency, driven by new products and volume growth on the base business. Sales increased to both packaged food companies and quick service restaurants, partially due to their promotional activity and spanned across all categories. In the Asia-Pacific region, flavor solution sales and constant currency were flat to the year ago period due to the timing of our quick service restaurant customers' promotional activities. Across both segments, adjusted operating income, which excludes special charges, and for 2018, the transaction and integration costs related to the acquisition of our Frank's and French's brands rose 4% in the first quarter versus the year ago period, and excluding the impact of unfavorable currency rose 6%. Adjusted operating income in the consumer segment rose to $135 million. And in the flavor solutions segment we rose to $64 million. Both of which we’re at 4% increase. In constant currency, adjusted operating income increased 6% in the consumer segment and 7% in the flavor solutions segment. For each segment, the increase was driven by higher sales and CCI-led cost savings. As seen on Slide 22, in the first quarter, we expanded adjusted operating margin 40 basis points. This expansion was driven by the leverage from sales growth, CCI-led cost savings and lower brand marketing, partially offset by investments to drive future growth. Turning to income taxes on Slide 23, our first quarter adjusted effective income tax rate was 13.9% as compared to 18.9% in the year ago period. Our first quarter adjusted rate was favorably impacted by discrete tax items, primarily one related to our entity structure as we mentioned in our January earnings call. We continue to project our full year 2019 adjusted effective tax rate to approximate 22%. Income from unconsolidated operations was $10 million compared to $8 million in the first quarter of 2018 with the increase led by our joint venture in Mexico. For 2019, we continue to expect a low-single-digit increase in our income from unconsolidated operations. At the bottom line, as shown on Slide 25, first quarter 2019 adjusted earnings per share was $1.12, up 12% from $1 for the year ago period, mainly due to higher adjusted operating income and a lower adjusted income tax rate. And this increase included an unfavorable impact from currency. On Slide 26, we summarize highlights for cash flow and the quarter-end balance sheet. Our cash flow provided from operations was $104 million in the first quarter of 2019 compared to an outflow of $21 million in the first quarter of 2018. This increase was driven by higher operating income and working capital improvements. As we execute against programs to achieve working capital reductions such as extending supplier payment terms and inventory management programs, we continue to see improvements in our cash conversion cycle, finishing the first quarter down four days versus our fiscal year-end. We returned $75 million of cash to shareholders through dividends and used $25 million for capital expenditures this period. We expect 2019 to be another year of strong cash flow, driven by profit and working capital initiatives. And our priority is to continue to have a balanced use of cash making investments to drive growth, returning a significant portion to our shareholders through dividends and to pay down debt. I'll now move to our current financial outlook for 2019 on Slide 27. We are reaffirming our 2019 outlook for another year of strong performance with our broad and advantaged flavor portfolio, effective growth strategies and focus on profit realization. We continue to estimate, based on prevailing rates, a two percentage point unfavorable impact of currency rate on net sales, adjusted operating income and adjusted earnings per share. We expect unfavorable currency impact will be greater in the first half of the year than in the second half. At the top line, we reaffirm our guidance to grow sales 1% to 3%, which in constant currency is a 3% to 5% projected growth rate. As a reminder, this will be entirely organic growth driven, primarily by higher volume and product mix as well as the impact of pricing to offset any anticipated low-single-digit cost increase. We continue to protect our 2019 gross profit margin to be 25 to 75-basis points higher than in 2018 in part driven by our CCI-led cost savings. We reaffirm our adjusted operating income growth of 7% to 9% from $930 million in 2018, which in constant currency is a 9% to 11% projected growth rate and reflects our continued focus on profit realization. Our cost savings target is approximately $110 million, and we expect the brand marketing to be comparable to 2018. As I previously mentioned, we continue to expect our 2019 adjusted effective income tax rate to approximate 22% based upon our estimated mix of earnings by country, in addition to our state tax rates. This projection is lower than our underlying effective tax rate of 24%, due to the favorable first quarter discrete impact, I mentioned a few moments ago. Our full year 22% outlook versus our 2018 adjusted effective tax rate of 19.6% is approximately a 300-basis-point headwind to our 2019 adjusted earnings per share growth. We reaffirm our guidance for the adjusted earnings per share in 2019 of $5.17 to $5.27. This compares to $4.97 of adjusted earnings per share in 2018 and represents a 4% to 6% increase, which in constant currency is a 6% to 8% increase. This increase includes the expected tax headwind, I just mentioned. In summary, we are projecting strong growth in our 2019 constant currency outlook for sales, adjusted operating profit and adjusted earnings per share following record double-digit performance across each objective in 2018. I'd like to now turn it back to Lawrence for some additional remarks before we move to your questions.
Thank you, Mike. Now that Mike has shared our financial results and outlook in more detail, I'd like to recap the key takeaways as seen on Slide 28. With the first quarter results, we have a strong start to the year. We’re delivering against our plans for both sales and profit realization and are confident in the momentum of our business. We're reaffirming our strong 2019 outlook for sales, adjusted operating income and adjusted earnings per share growth. This outlook reflects strong operating performance driven by our solid foundation and continued momentum. We’re confident 2019 will be another successful year. We're sustainably positioned for growth, and are continuing to deliver differentiated results, while also investing to build the McCormick of the future. Now, I'd like to turn it to your questions.
[Operator instructions] Our first question is coming from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning, everybody. Lawrence, you'd mentioned that flavor solution sales in EMEA benefited from new product activity from package food companies. And I'm curious if you've seen any of these trends develop yet in the U.S. as so many packaged food companies do seem more committed at least versus the past few years to getting back to top line growth and seem to be thus far reinvesting to get there?
We have seen improvement in that part of our flavor solutions business in the U.S. really through the second half of last year even and continuing into this year. It's hard to tell whether it’s their trend is improving or whether it's us gaining share. One of our advantages is that we are very strong in the whole area of creating natural flavors, clean flavors systems. And the huge amount of the work that we do with our customers involves kind of making their ingredients statement more consumer friendly and more in line with the trend towards consumers not wanting to see anything unnatural or artificial sounding on the label. So a lot of our work is in that area and we think we're advantage there. So we have to think that part of the strength that we’re having there is gaining share. I'll say the European part is also partially driven by the acquisition of Giotti a couple of years ago, which gave us some greater capabilities in the area of developing, fresh and natural flavors in Europe, in particular.
That's helpful. I appreciate that. Thank you for that. And then just one last one would be, typically in your fiscal first quarter there's always a little bit of retailer inventory reduction that's typical that you typically even budget for each year. I am curious if any of that sort of normal type of inventory reduction might have taken place such that maybe you expect your consumer Americas' organic sales to perhaps accelerate more in keeping with what you see in terms of consumption maybe going forward? Thanks so much.
That's a great point Andrew. And if you look at the consumption data, you can see that we -- although I'm certainly not going to apologize for the organic sales growth in the Americas on the consumer side, which is really strong. If we did ship below consumption, our consumption rate as measured through the scanned channels was higher, and we know that from unscanned and unmeasured channels that they would have been additive about another percentage point of growth over what the scanner would suggest. So our underlying consumption is quite a bit stronger then. And shipments, we always see some inventory reduction in the first quarter. As we said, we plan for. I’d say what happened in the first quarter was really in line with what would be normal activity, nothing like the extraordinary activity. We saw in the fourth quarter of last year which is well behind us.
Great, thank you.
… wasn't impacted in the first quarter.
Our next question comes from the line of David Driscoll with Citi. Please proceed with your question.
So I had two flavor solutions questions, and just a little quick one on pricing. On flavor solutions, margins were flat in the quarter. But there was a 6% increase in constant concurrency sales growth, a terrific number, and it's volume-led. So I'm just curious about the effects of volume leverage through the facilities. And it was -- two of the bigger pieces of flavor solutions that seemed to have it. So can you just maybe bridge the gap and maybe why we need a few more margin expansion within the segment? And then just related to flavor solutions, is there anything to be learned about the very strong constant currency growth this quarter in terms of what it might mean for the next several quarters? Is there anything quirky in the year ago comparison? Or I'm just asking questions like that, so I can understand maybe the cadence of sales growth within flavor solutions?
Hey, Dave, this is Mike. I'll answer the margin question. I mean, we were really happy with the performance we did in the first quarter, which is the smallest quarter of the year for us, with 6% constant currency sales growth and 7% operating profit growth as you said. So we're basically flat, slightly up on our margin. But we did -- we had some unfavorable product mix. If you look at -- we talk about this some of the QSR sales we had. We mentioned it specifically with regard to Asia where these limited times offers, which we generally make higher margin on, were a little bit down this quarter, little bit similar to last quarter, and the base business was up. That's where we're growing. So there is a little bit of a product mix within that segment for the first quarter, but for the full year we feel real good about these margin opportunities there. And from a growth perspective, we used the term lumpy for sales with flavor solutions because we’re relying on promotions from -- and new product launches from customers. But we're really happy after some of the -- if you remember the fourth quarter, we got a lot of questions about Americas sales growth, which I think, in that quarter was 2%, that rebounded nicely. So we’re going to have some variability throughout the year. We're still comfortable with our general 4% to 6% excuse me, 3% to 5% constant currency growth.
Overall.
Overall.
One quick follow-up on pricing. I think what you said is that you indicated on the sales guidance that it also expected to include the impact of pricing would be taken to offset anticipated low-single-digit increases in the costs. However, first quarter pricing was flat. Is this mean that there is some more significant pricing coming later in the year? Can you give us any sense on scope or timing?
Hey, David, this is Mike again. You really got to look at the segment and the regional level. And while you're right the total company isn't just flat. If you look at it by region, for example, consumer, Americas was up almost 1%, which was the same as it was last year, same with flavor solutions. The other segments and regions are similar. One area that was down with EMEA consumer, where we had significant trade promotions around the holiday season and we’ve launched a lot of new products in the first quarter, and we see that moderating the rest of the year.
We got our complete re-launch of our core business over there behind the first choice initiative. And so there are some costs associated with that in terms of promotional dollars and listing fees that run through the difference between gross and that's reflected as pricing.
The next question is from the line of Alexia Howard with Alliance Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.
So great to see the improvement in the consumer Americas business this quarter. I'm curious about the slowdown on the Asia-Pacific side. So that the China is still doing very strongly over there, but we can see a slowdown in the constant currency sales growth, I think, from 10% process and this time around. Maybe a little bit of color on what's doing well in China? And can you quantify how quickly that segment or that country is growing? And then maybe what is going down elsewhere in there? Thank you.
Well, first of all, I'm not going to apologize for the 4% sales growth in Asia-Pacific, which I still think is pretty good. But the China continues to be strong …
I think you just came back, but we lost you right at the beginning of the answer to that question.
Well, sorry about that. I'm not sure what you heard. So I'll just start from the beginning. China's growth continues to be strong. We had some softness in couple of the other minor markets around the region that dampened the results for overall Asia-Pacific. I think 4%, it's a little bit lower than we've been reporting, but it's still pretty solid. We don't have any -- really don't have any concern over there that there's a meaning -- that there's any kind of meaningful change in the trend line for that region. If there is any part that might be a bit slow, it’s the food service portion of the China business where there's some, I think, there is a bit of a slowdown in the economic growth in China. I think that that is impacting food service more than anything. But I'm sure consumer part of that business is still rock solid.
And then as a follow-up, can I just ask about where the leverage is at the moment? You're obviously paying down the debt from the RB Foods acquisition pretty quickly, but wondering what the number is right there? And how actively are you looking out for other either bolt-ons or possibly, essentially broader M&A or larger scale M&A opportunities? Thank you. And I'll pass it on.
Yes, Alexia, it's Mike. We’re right now four at the end of the first quarter and we still plan as we said to be three times in 2020. So we're still very confident. And we had really strong cash flow in the first quarter, and we think that's going to happen for the rest of year. So we're still bullish on that. Now, I'll turn it to Lawrence, for the second part.
Yes. So as we've started to get below four and into the 3s, we're pretty optimistic that we're going to be in the low 3s by the end of the year. It is time for us to start taking a look at opportunities again. So while I will continue to say that our priority is paying down debt, we are starting to look at some acquisition opportunities.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Jonathan Feeney with Consumer Edge. Please proceed with your question.
You've commented about some low single-digit input cost pressure. And I guess I'm wondering how those beyond what you said? Any detail you could give within the commodity, how that's trending? And how that input pressures specifically you see over the course of the year, because, obviously, there's some expectation for improved margin realization over the course of the year. I'd like to see how that plays in.
Yes, I mean, obviously, we have a huge market basket of different commodities. Some of the major ones like pepper have come down, vanilla stayed very high. We've talked about that in the past couple years. But there's a lot of other items that have gone up. And that's kind of builds into the low single-digit costs inflation. We also have in their freight costs, which, as you know, last year, for most of the industry way up. You see those how stabilized to be up in order to be up, but that’s included within that low single-digit guidance. When I say from a margin perspective throughout the year, early in the year, and we’ve talked about this before, the first half of the year we're getting hit from a currency perspective. In the first quarter was 3%. If you look at last year, we were getting a benefit of foreign currency in that same range, in the first half of the year. That drives some FX trends and that's the translational impact on our P&L. If you look at the transactional costs, that is an underlying headwind early in the year for us, which we see reversing in the second half. So that's a little bit of the color of why we think margins will improve throughout the year.
The next question is from the line of Robert Moscow with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question.
This is actually Jake Nivasch on for Rob. Just a couple quick questions for you guys. One, do you - due to the late Easter, is there going to be any impact for you guys this year?
Yes, it is. It's going to be washed within the quarter because our second quarter is March, April, May. So as Easter moves around, I would expect there may be -- there’s some impact on our month to month timing, but within the quarter, it's not -- it’s just not going to -- it's not going to matter. So whatever difference there is not going to be material.
Got you, okay. And then, just one more, just quick one. For the margin expansion, is that going to be more 4Q loaded than 3Q? Or just kind of evenly split in the back half or maybe the growth as well?
I mean, we're not going to get into quarterly guidance or anything. But I would just kind of keep it in half's at this point?
Got you. I'll …
We expect them to be strong in the second half. And again one of the drivers is that transactional impact on our costs, transactional FX impacts on our costs, which we expect to moderate in the second half.
And we also did see, as you know, some of the challenges that we had in the fourth quarter in the consumer business of our high margin products. That will reverse hopefully in the fourth quarter and be positive too.
The next question comes from the line of Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Maybe going back into the flavor solutions side and just wanted to think about the organic growth side and the pieces there. It sounds that this quarter had some upside benefit especially in Asia from some of lower margin seasoning business. I mean anyway to characterize the growth by the different kinds of businesses that you have kind of where the legacy seasonings business versus the food service supply business versus the flavor side, just the growth between those different buckets?
Well, I'm going to say that in this quarter, we did have strong growth in some of our really quick service restaurant customers and on their core business side and less on their promotional items. And so, that was the mix that Mike was talking about that had the impact on margin. So, it wasn't consumer -- it wasn't the consumer food manufacturers, it's really quick service restaurants. Those are mostly condiment product, not seasoning. We're huge supplier of condiments globally to the restaurant industry, well beyond what we do on the consumer side of the business. But our performance on flavor solutions overall was pretty broad based with both branded food service and quick service restaurants, showing strength and the packaged food manufacturers, not just food and beverage manufacturers showing strength, I'd say it was pretty broad. The margin story there was around a mix within U.S. quick service restaurants that drove -- was meaningful enough that it kept our margins flat during the quarter. Mike, do you want to add anything to that?
It was broad based -- yes, when you get -- we had over 6% growth in flavor solutions in the U.S. and 9% almost in EMEA. So across all the categories, but there was a little bit of a mix issue as Lawrence said.
Okay and just maybe more, not…
Almost not called it a mix issue by the way…
Taking a step back from this quarter specifically though, I mean, I would look at the mix businesses within the flavor solution side, the opportunity in flavors both from a margin opportunity as well as a growth given kind of where you are devolution of that business. I mean, do you have a target on the long-term kind of opportunity your growth side on the flavors piece specifically versus branded food service and condiment ingredients.
Well, first of all, I completely agree with you that the opportunity is to increase the proportion of our business and to grow most quickly, the most value added parts of the portfolio and that is indeed our strategy and has been overtime has generated both an improvement in operating margin for this part of our business, particularly over the last few years with the strategies been in place and has enabled us to grow faster because the wins that we get tend to be stickier and longer lasting. So that is our strategy, but we have not put a specific target out there for our kind of the final call for margin, but I will just -- we have said and I'll say again that there's a very long runway for margin expansion. Our margins for this segment of the business are quite a bit lower than some of the pure play flavor companies. And within those segments, our margins are very comparable to their. So as that part of the business comes to be a bigger portion of our flavor solutions business, I would expect to see our margins -- we not only expect, we're driving to have our margins moving in that direction. So, I think there's still quite a long runway of margin growth ahead of us, not just for this year but for years to come.
The next question is from the line of Akshay Jagdale with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
I wanted to ask about the impact of retail disruptions. Can you help quantify that the top-line margin, need to know what that was?
Hey, Akshay, let's try and understand the question. When you talk about the impact of retailer disruption, I'm not…
Yes. So, I'm talking about, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm talking about the issues that you have within specific retailer on the inventory system, et cetera. Like that you talked about the last quarter, and you said, it's behind you now, but it did have an impact on the quarter. That's what I'm asking about. Sorry, I wasn't more clear.
Well, it is impact on our last quarter. I don't -- I will disagree that had an impact on this quarter. We did get our customers back in stock. And so, the out of stock situations that occurred last quarter were resolved. But retailers don't need the same. It's not a just we got it back. Retailers don't need the same level of inventory in the first quarter, which is the lowest seasonality period as they do in the fourth quarter, which is the highest. And the mix of products that they need on hand is different in the first quarter than the fourth quarter as well. The shelves are restocked, but Thanksgiving isn't going to come again until fourth quarter. And so, it's not -- so while the situation at retail has recovered, it really didn't have it. All that meant was that we didn't have an ongoing impact from the out-of-stock situation into the first quarter.
But anytime…
And you can see the underlying consumption was really strong.
Yes, and then just to follow up on gross margin. So, can you give us some sort of puts and takes, I know, you said more stronger in the back half and we talk about the FX impact being less in the back half. But to get 25 to 75, I think you saw this quarter was flat right with accounting new restatements. So can you give us some sense like, what are the other big pieces that are going to accelerate in the back half? And maybe how much of that is dependent on mix in the fourth quarter?
This is my Mike, Akshay. I mean at high level, our pricing and cost expectations are in line for the year is what we've said. So, we're comfortable there. You've highlighted some of the unfavorable transactional FX, which is going to be a timing issue as is a little bit of a recovery of some of that fourth quarter challenge we had. You talked about some of the product mix. So, it was also in the first quarter little bit of segment mix because as a flavor solution segment grew at about 6% constant currency sales and consumer was 3%, the margins are slightly higher within consumer. So you can get some mix there. I will remind you though that ROIC return on invested capital for flavor solutions is comparable to consumer. So, it is really just on the P&L you see that impact. So, these are the kind of factors I think about as you model.
The next question is from the line of Rob Dickerson with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.
So I just want to go back quickly to just a conversation around retail trends, consumption, which continue to accelerate very strong, obviously, relative what we saw in reported results, just really more, more specifically to the Americas consumer division. And what I want to ask is not just the healthy shift in the inventory and what happened in Q1 relativity to Q4, but really more specifically around pricing. It seems like the guidance for the year total company is more volume driven. The results, we saw the quarter in that region, were more volume driven. So, that's a very positive. But at the same time, we did see a little bit of a deceleration in the region in relativity to Q4 on a two-year stock basis because just to compare in the year ago, before relative to Q1 was massive. But what's been -- what's driving the deceleration is really pricing, right? So, there’s less price year-over-year. So I am just trying to get a sense as to, like, why is that pricing kind of a little bit software than we've seen before? And then why is reporting results more volume driven versus price driven which is what we're seeing in the regional trends, if that makes sense?
Well, those are the longest questions. So, let me take the first part. I think you're focusing on Americas consumer and our pricing, and I don't know that the number you're looking at reflects what we've actually reported because the first quarter of 2019, we’ve recorded about 1% pricing positive in the first quarter of '18 was the same number. So, we're not seeing an increase in pricing activities year-over-year for the Americas or difference at the same number.
Yes, I was just trying to compare. So in Q4 '17, you were at 3%; in Q4 ’18, you're at 3.6%; Q1 ’18, you’re at 1%, you’re right; in Q1 ’19, you’re at 0.9%. So it's 1.9, relative to 3.6. So, the way I look at it is I have to compare, I have to think about the year ago and that's the deceleration.
Are going back to '17? So we had vanilla, there were some commodities I mentioned before that was really spiking up at that point. So, as I mentioned, we will take pricing when we need to cover commodity cost increases. The last few years, we've had low single digits, commodity cost inflation.
So, there's nothing that's in there you're paying more to the retailers, et cetera. Because I mean, if I'm seeing 4 plus percent pricing in the scanner data, I'm seeing less than one reported results.
You’re troubled by this, we’ve bit reflects ourselves by what is what we're seeing in the scanner, which is a for continuation of the disconnect, that we've been experienced with the scanner, data services and some regards know, clearly we're reporting strong volume and mix for the only 1% pricing was some of the scanner services are in our reporting huge price increases and actually declining volume and mix. You know, we can't reconcile it to Nielsen but I've seen the data I can simply say we did not take 5% price increase, which is…
Okay. Fair enough. So, I'll look at the data. So, I have to ask
No, no, we'll look at it too. But we do have really strong underlying volume growth and I think that's what the key is you know. I mean, we've had strong consumption as we've talked about across all of our financial. Fourth quarter was very strong and strength has continued in Q1. We focused on the dollar volume growth, but if you look at units and herbs and spices, we're up 4% as well, and that's really solid growth.
Fair enough, I agree. Quick question too, for Mike. Just in terms of the other income line this year, I don't think I may have missed it before today, if there's guidance just given the recast is kind of what we saw last year plus or minus about what you think you come in this year or just any incremental color would obviously be helpful, that's it?
I'd say all those other items below the line like interest expense and other income would, to your point kind of mashed together and be approximately the same at this point.
Thank you. Our final question this morning is from the line of Ken Goldman with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.
One question for me, I don't know, I'll let it go. Some of your biggest customers, they're openly talking about their desire to drive revenue and alternative sources, right. They'll mention in store advertising, data analytics things like that. I think the idea is from these retailers they can convince vendors like McCormick, like other CPG companies to spend more of their marketing budgets directly with their customers rather than on more traditional areas. I know obviously every CPG company is shifting away from traditional, but I'm just curious specifically. What McCormick's appetite is to sort of meaningfully ramp up its marketing budget, directly spending with its customers to buy things like analytics or in store advertising from them or whether it's more a sort of share gain, where you might say, we’ll give a little bit here and take away little bit there? I'm just trying to get a sense of how important that is to you because some of your customers are talking as though vendors will start spending a lot more with them over the next couple of years?
So, let me comment on that, I may ask Mike to joint in as well and we're hearing some funny noises, so are we still connected?
I can still hear you.
Okay, so in terms of our overall spending first of all, we're comfortable with the overall level of A&P spend that we have as a business system we've guided to, our spend being comparable into last year, we're very comfortable with the overall level of support that we have behind the brands. We've been one of those companies that never really disinvested in marketing. We're increased our A&P expenses year-over-year pretty consistently and last year was the tremendous growth that we experienced at the top and bottom line through we took it as an opportunity to make a significant ramp-up of our expense of over 25% last year. So, we don't view the level of spending as an issue for us, as a core issue for us at all. The mix of that spending is driven more and more towards digital spending and the same is less visible but true on a trade promotional expenses as well. And so, this is an area where we have done what I will call more advertising like promotion activity with our customers really repurposing in your funds that might have previously been spent on price promotion that such much more efficient vehicles, efficient and effective vehicle that they offer. Particular those customers to develop strong omni-channel and digital marketing programs have their own, these programs. We've seen a tremendous, can have a tremendous ROI, particularly compared to traditional trade promotion, which I think everybody knows, it is ROI negative. So we have made some of those changes, and some of the retailers do have programs that we believe are legitimate advertising vehicles that I'm going to want to names, but if you think about your pure play e-commerce providers, I think a pretty good case that consumers make some of their brand choices looking at their sites. So, we do have some of that going on generally is a shift from traditional free promotion to digital social programs that are offered by the customers and all that's in the context of our, us being comfortable with our overall spending models. Mike, do you want to.
No, I think. I mean, I can tell you from personal experience. We've been doing this for a long time, five years ago, in the EMEA, we're using trade funds to work with a brick-and-mortar customers to be more efficient on our trade spend. So, I think you're Ken, it's continuing to move in that direction.
At this time, I will turn the floor to Lawrence Kurzius for closing remarks.
So, I just want to say, this was a solid no drama quarter for us. We had good sales growth at over 4% and attracted bit behind consumption and align with our expectations. Our operating margin expansion is right in line with our algorithm. Our EPS growth of 12% included a tax benefit that we expected and signaled. And the underlying EPS was strong too. It's a solid start to 2019 and we're confident in our outlook. I'd like to thank you all for your questions and for participating in today's call. McCormick is like a global leader in flavor and we're differentiated with a broad and advantage portfolio, which continues to drive growth. We have a growing and profitable business and operate in an environment that is changing in an never faster pace, responding readily to changes in our industry with new ideas, innovation of purpose with our relentless focus on growth, performance and people. We continue to perform strong globally and build shareholder value. I am pleased with the strong results to start the year and I have confidence in delivering our 2019 outlook, while continuing to make investments and fuel our growth to build both the McCormick of the future and shareholder value.
Thank you, Lawrence, and thanks to all for joining today's all. If you have further questions regarding today's information, you can reach us at 410-771-7140. This concludes this morning's conference call. Have a good day.