Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Church and Dwight's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Before we begin, I have been asked to remind you that on this call, the company's management may make forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, the company's financial objectives and forecasts. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors that are described in detail in the company's SEC filings. I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mr. Rick Durker. President and Chief Executive Officer of Church and Blight. Please go ahead, sir.

All right. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. I'll begin with some thoughts on the macro environment and then a review of our great Q3 results. Then I'll turn the call over to Lee McChesney, our CFO, and then when Lee is done, we'll open up for questions. Starting with the broader environment, conditions remain volatile and the consumer backdrop remains mixed. Promotional intensity is elevated in some categories and household finances are stretched, which is high borrowing costs and delinquencies way on discretionary spending, including big-ticket items like cars and housing. However, there is relatively low unemployment, and higher-priced personal care categories continue to do well. Against that mixed backdrop, our categories are growing at around 2%, which was pretty consistent with what happened in Q2 as well. We're performing better than that because of our great brands. Our portfolio, with its balance of value and premium offerings, continue to gain both dollar and volume share. Our innovation is performing well, and all in all, our brands are made for environments like this. On to the Q3 results. We had a fantastic quarter in a tough environment. Organic sales grew 3.4%, exceeding our outlook of 1% to 2%. Adjusted gross margin was up 10 basis points, also exceeding our outlook. Adjusted EPS was $0.81, which was $0.09 higher than our $0.72 outlook. Lee will take you through the rest of the numbers shortly. But first, some highlights about our brands. In July, we closed our most recent acquisition, Touchland. Touchland is the fastest-growing brand in the hand sanitizer category in the U.S. It's the number two hand sanitizer in the category, with household penetration just under 7% and the category at 42%, indicating a lot of runway for growth. Touchland experienced strong growth in Q3, with consumption growing double digits, and results exceeded our initial expectations. I'm even more optimistic about Touchland today than even a few months ago. A small but mighty team doing great things. Now I'm going to turn my comments to each of the three divisions. First up is the U.S. consumer business. Organic sales increased 2.3%, with volume growth of 3.7%, being partially offset by 1.4% of price mix. Growth was led by TheraBreath's mouthwash, honey products, Arm & Hammer cat litter, and Trojan condoms, partially offset by declines in the vitamin business and water flusters. We grew share in four of our eight power brands, specifically Arm & Hammer, TheraBreath, Hero, and Touchland. Let me provide a bit of color for a few of our important categories. I'd like to start off with the Arm & Hammer brand in general. Consumers today want stability and brands they can trust. Our new campaign, Give It the Whole Darn Arm, reinforces the brand's strength and reliability. This is driving growth across the portfolio. Five of the six categories we compete in with Arm & Hammer are growing share on a year-to-date basis. Turning to laundry detergent, Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent consumption grew 1.9%, in contrast to a flat category. Arm & Hammer share in the quarter reached 15%. Beyond share, and more importantly, household penetration for the long term continues to matter. And in the quarter, Arm & Hammer Laundry expanded household penetration 0.7 points to an all-time high of 30%. In fact, the only tier of laundry detergent that was positive consumption in the quarter was the value tier. This is a sign of the times, as value was flat to declining in the previous eight quarters. This is especially impressive as our actual promotional spending for laundry was lower year over year. Moving to litter, Arm & Hammer litter consumption grew 5.3% while the category was up five. We saw heightened competitive promotions, especially in the lightweight segment by one competitor. Over to mouthwash, TheraBreath continues to perform extremely well. While the mouthwash category was down in Q3, TheraBreath consumption grew 17% and continues to be the number two mouthwash with a 21.8% share. Remember, we believe there's a lot of runway here. Our household penetration for TheraBreath currently sits at 11% versus the category of 65%. Here are once again outpaced the category with consumption growth of 5.2 percent compared to a flat acne category and remains the number one brand in acne care with a 23.6 percent share. And like the TheraBreath story, we believe household penetration growth is key for this brand. It sits at 9 percent versus the category of 28 percent. Looking ahead, we're excited about our pipeline of new products. We even announced a few today. They're a key driver of our success. TheraBreath is introducing in a new line of toothpaste. We launched online the three variants in August, and they target key consumer needs of healthy gums, deep cleaning, and whitening, all combined with long-lasting fresh breath. The brand's loyal users value its effective cleaning, its distinctive fresh but not overpowering taste, and we have a retail launch set for January of 2026. We're very encouraged with the high-quality consumer reviews we're seeing. Meanwhile, Trojan, the number one condom brand in the U.S. launched Trojan Goat, greatest of all Trojans, which is a non-latex condom featuring patent-pending ultraflex material that's soft, flexible, odorless, and colorless, designed to enhance body heat transfer to deliver next-level intimacy. Turning to international, our international business delivered sales growth of 8.4% in a quarter. Organic increased 7.7% due to a combination of higher volume, price, and mix. Growth was led by the Hero, TheraBreath, and Batiste brands and was broad-based across many of our international markets. I was just in Argentina two weeks ago with our global markets group and distributor partners, and there is a lot of excitement for the future. Finally, SBD organic sales increased 4.2% due to a combination of higher price and product mix and volume. We continue to be excited about the growth opportunities in this business. As noted previously, we're undertaking a strategic review of our vitamin business, including streamlining our supply chain to strengthen the core business, new JV partnership opportunities, and divestiture options. We're seeing improved velocities in the core, and line reviews are receiving positive retailer feedback on new products and long-term brand strategy. We continue to expect to reach a conclusion from this review by the end of 2025. Looking ahead, our full-year organic growth outlook is 1%, the midpoint of our prior range. We expect full-year adjusted EPS growth for 2025 to now be $0.349 or $0.02 higher than our previous outlook to the higher sales and improved margins, including higher marketing spend. As in past years, when we have stronger-than-expected business performance, we invest for the future. So we now expect marketing, that's a percentage of sales, to exceed 11%, and these investments will continue our momentum into 2026. I'll close by saying that category consumption remains stable, and our brands remain in a position of strength. We're gaining dollar and volume share across key segments of the portfolio, supported by a balanced mix of value and premium offerings. We're well positioned to navigate the current environment. The strategic actions we're executing will set us up for sustained success. Our go-forward portfolio has never been stronger. At the same time, we remain active in evaluating the right acquisition opportunities to further build our business. I'm excited to speak at Investor Day in January about some of the growth initiatives we have in development. With that, I'd like to close by thanking all of the Church and Dwight employees for executing well in a volatile environment. And now I'll hand the call over to Lee for more detail on the quarter.

Thank you, Rick, and good day to everyone on this Halloween Friday. Our Church and Dwight team members across the globe delivered a quarter to be proud of that highlights once against the many strengths of our portfolio and our team's capabilities. Let's jump into third quarter and our outlook. We'll start with EPS. Third quarter adjusted EPS was $0.81, up 2.5% from the prior year. The $0.81 was better than our $0.72 outlook, driven by higher volume, and gross margin results favorable to our outlook. Reported revenue was up 5%. and organic sales are up 3.4%. The organic sales is broad-based across the globe with volume growth of 4%, partially offset by negative pricing and mix of 0.6%. And beyond organic results, we were delighted with the encouraging start of Touchland as sales exceeded our initial projections. Our third quarter adjusted gross margin was 45.1%, a 10 basis point increase from a year ago and 110 basis points better than our outlook. our results versus last year were driven by 170 basis points from productivity programs 20 basis points from higher margin acquisitions 10 basis points from fx and 10 basis points from the combination of volume price and mix these factors offset 200 basis points of inflation and tariff costs moving to marketing our marketing expenses the percentage of sales was 12.8 percent or 50 basis points higher than the third quarter of last year and for the year we are now targeting to exceed 11 percent of net sales as we leverage our improved sales growth to invest for the future q3 adjusted sgna increased 20 basis points year over year adjusted other expense increased by 3.9 million due to the lower interest income compared to last year and we continue to expect other expense for the full year to be approximately 65 million on an adjusted basis reflecting the lower interest income following the touchline acquisition. In 3Q, our adjusted tax rate was 21.6% compared to 23.3 in Q3 of 24, 170 basis point year over year decrease. And the expected adjusted effective tax rate for the year is now 22.5%. And now to cash. We delivered strong cash results in the quarter as cash flow from operations increased 19.6% versus last year to $435.5 million. Capital expenditures for the first nine months were $67.2 million, a $58 million decrease from the prior year due to return to normalized capital spending in 2025. And finally, in the third quarter, the company repurchased an additional $300 million of shares, which brings our year-to-date share repurchases up to $600 million for our shareholders, certainly a third quarter full of accomplishments. Let's now turn to our outlook. Broadly, we continue to navigate well in an environment of economic uncertainty and, as a result, have improved our outlook in several areas. For the year, we now expect reported sales growth of approximately 1.5 percent versus a prior year midpoint view of 1.0 as we expect Touchland's momentum to continue in the fourth quarter. We also remain on track to deliver 2025 organic growth of approximately 1 percent, the midpoint of our previous outlook, and we now expect four-year gross margin to contract only 40 basis points versus 2024, based on the progress our teams are delivering from productivity programs to counterinflation and tariff hedging. And as I noted earlier, the combination of a stronger sales and gross margin outlook allows us to increase our marketing investments beyond our prior outlook in 2025. For the year, we now expect an adjusted EPS of $3.49, which exceeds the midpoint of our prior outlook. And specifically for 4Q, we now expect reported sales growth of approximately 3.5% and an organic sales growth of approximately 1.5%. In 4Q, I note that our reported sales outlook includes a larger decline in sales from our discontinued businesses as these product lines run out of inventory. And for some context, We expect $30 million of lower sales or 200 basis points to track in the fourth quarter versus last year. And also note that our organic growth for 4Q is impacted by the prior year report strike and the negative consumption trends in our BMS business. In 4Q, our adjusted gross margin will contract approximately 50 basis points, primarily from inflation and tariff costs.

Marketing will be lower compared to last year.

When you bring it all together, we expect an adjusted EPS $0.83 per share, which is an increase of 8% versus last year's adjusted EPS. And my final 25 comment on the outlook really covers cash flow from operations. As noted in our press release, we've increased our outlook from $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion in consideration of our progress on several fronts. As our teams look forward, we are optimistic. Our teams across the globe have delivered significant accomplishments. We continue to fuel share gains. We've made strategic choices to exit brands in our portfolio. We've acquired Touchland, which is off to a great start. And we've returned $600 million to our shareholders through share repurchases. A big thank you to our employees across the globe for leaning forward and executing through the first three quarters of the year. Very well done. Eric, let's move to Q&A.

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Morning, Chris. this morning uh touchland is coming through better than expected which is great to see can you talk about how you might view the benefits of touchland going into 2026 and specifically how might the positive contribution from touchland help offset any of the potential profit outcomes you could envision from actions you you may take on the item in business, and I have a follow-up.

Yeah, I mean, we're going to, I guess the first thing is you're right. Touchland is doing fantastic, even better than we expected, better than our double-digit comment last quarter. Consumption is strong. Units per store per week are really strong. Innovation is strong. Collaborations are strong. I'm not going to really talk too much about 2026 at this point. I would just say 2025 is doing better than we expect. It means there's going to be a stronger baseline. And as we grow, that, of course, will help offset anything from the discontinued businesses or potentially anything with vitamins as well.

And Chris, I would know, just, you know, do keep in mind we had, you know, a good amount of cash on our books we were earning interest on. And obviously, that will be a little bit of a headwind versus touchline next year as well.

The follow-up is just on the competitive environment picking up a bit. I think you mentioned that your laundry promotional activity was actually down a bit relative to last year. Just love to confirm that. And in general, how would you view the competitive backdrop right now and your potential need to respond to any activity that you're seeing? and maybe just a level of competence that the really strong, you know, volume share performance that you've been delivering is, you know, sustainable and what might be needed to sustain, you know, that level of execution. Obviously, you have – you kind of teased innovation plans for next year, but also just the potential level of brand support. Thanks so much.

Yeah, thanks, Chris. yeah for laundry I you know my prepared comments I said it and I think it's such a impactful statement you know for the first time in eight quarters the value tier of laundry grew and that was if you look year-over-year on amount sold on deal which again remember that depth and frequency that is where we were down 400 basis points year-over-year. Our competition was up between 300 and 600 basis points, depending on what brand. So I believe that is a trend that's starting to happen in the category as consumers are pressed. They're kind of slowly moving to value, which is great. That is one piece of it. you know, another indication is even the pods category, which is, you know, around 23% of the category, it's the most expensive form of laundry detergent, right? Two times liquid. That's been flat, the category, for the last six quarters. So those are just indications that the value matters. And so if promotional intensity does tick up, I think overall we're in a great spot. Value is doing well, and even some of our higher-priced competitors, they're twice the cost of our laundry detergents. So they would have to do massive discounts to move any elasticity. So, again, I think we're well-positioned. I think this is starting to be a little bit of a trend in the category for consumers seeking value.

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Grom with UBS. Please go ahead.

You're breaking up a little bit. not really or you try to reconnect and we'll make sure you get back in your next question comes from the line of Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer please go ahead good morning and thanks for taking my question so I guess just going to international another strong quarter even on a difficult comparison so just curious are you guys seeing any changes there you know macro consumer wise and how do you feel about the same momentum in the international segment for the balance of the year Yeah, as I said, I was just in Argentina a couple of weeks ago with 300 plus people, and there's a ton of excitement about our brands and the growth profile of some of our, even our new brands like TheraBreath and Hero and Touchland. So even as the macro, you know, GDP starts to slow in some of these countries, the tailwind of these brands, which bring, you know, problem solution brands, innovation, new categories, a lot of excitement to continue to deliver against our really our evergreen model for international. So a lot of momentum in our international business.

Great. And then maybe just one quick follow up, you know, to share buybacks again, you know, another quarter of significant buybacks, you know, your stock is obviously pullbacks. So does anything change in terms of your priorities, share buybacks versus M&A, or should we just expect you to continue to be opportunistic based on what your stock does?

Yeah, so good question. So to your point, we definitely took advantage of the value opportunity there. You know, we typically try to just, you know, you know where our priorities are. We want to focus on M&A. It's our number one focus of our cash, and, you know, we're out in the market accordingly. But if, you know, opportunities come up to maybe accelerate a little bit of our share buybacks, you know, we'll do that. As we sit here today, you know, we've done everything we've done with the $600 million. We bought Touchland. You know, we've got great cash flow, balance sheets in a good place. As we look forward, you know, we're still focused on M&A. There's still opportunities out there. And, you know, we obviously have an opportunity to do M&A. I mean, and we've just gone through, you know, a review. We just recently saw our wallet sheet get upgraded as well. So, I mean, I just think on many fronts, we've got a quality balance sheet, strong cash flow, gives us a lot of optionality. So, you know, frankly, we have the potential to do both things.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

All right. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I had a question on the promotional environment, hoping just for some more color on that. And then, you know, your volume growth was quite strong in the quarter, but, you know, price mix was slightly negative. So I guess just could you kind of drill down on what sort of drove that? You know, was it the higher promotions and the need for spending behind, you know, some of your brands? And, you know, if so, should we expect that to continue in Q4 and possibly next year?

Yeah, thanks, Bonnie. I would kind of characterize it as really when we talk about promotions, we talk about laundry and litter. I already went through the laundry category. Litter is a little unique right now as well. The category over a long period of time has bumped around between 16% and 18% sold on deal. It hit what we think is almost an all-time high at 24%. One competitor significantly discounted their lightweight litter business, And that's driving, you know, a couple thousand points of promotion. We actually were pretty much consistent year over year. We were up slightly 60 basis points and still managed to grow 5%, which was fantastic. So our brand, our Arm & Hammer brand, kind of what I said in my comments, we think the advertising, the halo effect, the seeking value is leading to Arm & Hammer to an incredibly well in this environment and for the future. Then you look at negative price mix. Part of that is some of our other businesses, right? We're doing, whether it's a rollback or price adjustments on Batiste as we fix value for the consumer or vitamin business to make sure that we have the right velocities. So not as much in the laundry and litter business.

All right. Thanks for that. And if I may, I just wanted to, you know, ask a quick follow-up question on Touchland. Could you give us a sense of, you know, maybe how the brand has been performing in the different channels, you know, DTC and then certainly at Sephora, and then maybe talk a little bit more about your strategy to expand the brand and additional channels, and I don't know, possibly other special retail channels, you know, maybe how has that evolved since the transaction is closed?

Yep, sure thing. Touchland's, again, doing fantastically well. That business is really at three retailers, right? Sephora, Ulta, and Amazon make about 90% plus of that business. And we don't really have much plans in the short or medium term to change that strategy. We believe that there's prestige in being in that category. There's examples of brands that have been able to grow by hundreds of millions of dollars in that channel and expand to slightly adjacent categories over time. We think that's a good model. There will be some niche plays at other retailers. We're not ready to go through that yet. Maybe that's a good question for January. Internationally, we're really excited about growth behind Touchland. And we believe that it can – we're already seeing how fast it's growing in Canada, as an example, at just one retailer. So we're going to probably duplicate that approach across many more countries and make sure we hit the right channel, the right partner, and to make sure that we keep that kind of cachet of the brand.

Okay, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Grom with EBS. Please go ahead.

Any better now?

Oh, maybe.

All right. Let's run this back a little bit. So I guess I wanted to do two questions for me. So first, just on the implied step down in 4Q, and I appreciate the commentary around the poor strikes and weaker VMS. But, you know, I would imagine some of that was contemplated as you were thinking about the back half of the year, which you mentioned is unchanged after a strong 2Q. So can you maybe just speak to why it stepped down and would come in below the 2% category growth you mentioned?

Yeah, I'll give you a couple comments, and then maybe Lee has something to add as well. I think the port strike is a reality, right? There was one week that the categories were up 11%. So when you do that math, all of a sudden, you know, October will be negative, as an example, for categories and for the brand. um so support vitamins you know q4 is a larger uh business seasonality for vitamins so as consumption's um going backwards there even though we have some green shoots that's just a little bit more of an impact um and then and then finally i think we were probably a little conservative on our on our q3 outlook and we were very confident in the two and a half percent for the back um we're very confident and over time we're going to grow faster than categories but we feel like Q4s and Q3 and Q4 together is a good number.

And, again, I think just to Rick's point, we go back to what we said on August 1st. We're in great comfort in the 2.5% organic outlook. That's what we're still saying today, despite, you know, the macro doing what it's doing. That speaks to the categories, how we're performing. There's always pluses and minuses, but we're still sitting at that 2.5% organic. And, you know, if you do think about 3Q to 4Q, you know, So, you know, just on the total sales perspective, I mentioned it in my prepared remarks. You know, we are running out these discontinued businesses. You know, we're getting to the point now where that will be a bigger pressure point in the fourth quarter. So I noted that that was kind of the $30 million or 200 basis points of drag. And then, you know, I think we covered very elegantly the organic piece. You adjust for that, we're right on track and certainly gives us this confidence for the fourth quarter, but certainly as we look beyond that as well.

Yeah, and that is, you know, it's partially the port strike. So, we don't feel like that's a kind of roll forward as you look into 2026 at all.

Okay, that's super helpful. And then, Rick, you've had some good perspectives on category growth for some time here. So, I want to get your views on kind of how you see category growth and your portfolio performing as we look out over the next 12 months or so. So, and then just maybe specifically on the top line, and I get, we'll get official guidance in January, but do you need category growth to accelerate from 2% in order to hit your evergreen target?

So, look, I think for a long time, we've been very clear on how categories are doing and how our brands are doing. And categories, I know we heard some of the competition say one and a half to two. For us, it's around 2%. And that's because, in my mind, we've been very picky about what categories we go into. Our categories are doing a little bit better than most, which is great. And our long-term track record over many, many years is around 3%. And we hope to get back there for categories for sure at some point in time. Meanwhile, we're kind of planning that it's going to be around 2%. And so, as you saw this quarter, we, you know, despite 2%, we grew faster than that. And it's because of all the great work we're doing on innovation, on marketing, on driving share gains. So I'm not going to talk about 2026. I'll do that in January. But I would just say, you know, we've been growing faster than category growth.

Awesome. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrea Texera with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I was just hoping, Rick, if you can kind of decompose a bit of the price mix, and then you mentioned you have, you know, obviously a good position in the value segment, but thinking as the consumer continues to speak, in particular in laundry, that value segment, how to think about the mix effect. And then just as a clarification on the effects going forward, I mean, this is something that is benefiting you know some of the companies like that moving in the other direction how to think about international finally getting those those tailwinds as you go into 2026 think yeah sure I'll take the price mix and then then Lee can take the currency question so I had said I think it was to Bonnie and we do have a negative drag on price mix from you know our pricing and promotional actions on vitamins we have a negative drag as we're fixing some value equations on Batiste.

Our share gaps are closing. We're making improvements, which is great. What is value? It's also the cross-section of innovation and price. And so we're making adjustments as needed for Batiste. And then it's also the consumer is value-seeking behavior. And that means larger sizes. And when you have larger sizes, that's also typically a little bit of a drag on price mix, whether that's in laundry or litter. So those kind of three things really impact the price mix line.

And I'll go from there. I mean, you know, and to Rick's point also, I mean, it's a pretty nominal amount for us. I mean, I think the big call in our organic is also just this continued momentum with volume growth really driving the piece there. Hey, on FX, in terms of international, I mean, I'd say this. You know, the international team's doing a really nice job of growing. They, you know, they very, they're very much focused on margins. So yeah, FX, you know, can be a pressure point, you know, tariffs, you know, inflation fee, and then we combat it. We combat it with, you know, with good, with RGM practices. So yeah, if FX turns out to be a little bit of favorable, that could be helpful. But you look at that business, they've been growing, and they've been doing a good job of also, you know, bring gross margin forward as well. So if that happens, we'll take that as a positive.

And if I can, this is super helpful. If I can just go back to Rick's comment on, and thank you, Lee, on the effects, but Rick's comment on the pricing and promo back when you're saying promo has been technically benign for you and you're gaining share in particularly in lounge, you continue to gain share, and your competitor has been increasing more promo. I understand that they also are kind of going into a more value proposition. Are you seeing any pressure on that most recent launch in Liquid as you exit the quarter?

I wouldn't change any of my comments. I'd say, in general, the value tier continues to do really well. That's almost like a macro trend, more so than what any one competitor is or could do. And so that's why I believe that despite us going lower in promotions, to have the value piece of the category expand is just a really good indication of that. And so that's the trend we're seeing. I expect it to continue.

Okay, great. Thank you, Rick. Thank you, Lee.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Powers with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Two questions, which I guess as I look at my notes is kind of three, so bear with me. Rick, on the first one, laundry, not to beat a dead horse, but can you just help me square the circle just a little bit more? There's definitely a narrative out there that Church and Dwight's been more promotional through the third quarter. We've certainly seen price mix, dip negative, kind of accelerate negative in the quarter. So what explains that? Is it mixed within your portfolio? Is it where you've been directing the promotion? Just any more color there and how that's likely to trend going forward, number one. And then on vitamins, you mentioned some green shoots. Could you just elaborate a bit more on what those are and then just update us if you think you'll have kind of a more comprehensive outlook and business strategy around that segment come January? Thank you.

Sure. Yeah, the first one, price mix negative on laundry. There is no better metric to look at than amount sold on deal. That's what we've been using for many, many years. And the reason we say that is that is the intersection, again, on depth and frequency. Like, it really shows what's going on in market. So all I can do is point you to the actual numbers that come out of whether you have Nielsen or Shikana, and we are down year-over-year in promotion. Our competition is up anywhere between 300 and 600 basis points. When there's negative price mix in laundry, that can be a whole host of things. It could also be, again, as I said before, as consumers trade up to larger sizes, that mix impact can be a negative in that line. So that's kind of what I would say consistently. Number two, on vitamins, the green shoots, two examples. I think one would be, you know, it's kind of hard to see, but sometimes when you have consumption go backwards at a retailer at 20%, 25%, you think the world is ending. But, you know, some of that is discontinuations that have happened, so we have to lap some of that. But when you go look at the core SKUs, the ones that are remaining, you know, they're declining at a much lower rate, which is always encouraging. The second one probably is a couple of food retailers are actually doing really well, and we've heard distribution gains there as well. So those are a couple of green shoots. On the strategy, it was the right thing to do to publicly announce this about a quarter ago. We've had even more interest externally as we look at different options and then meanwhile internally we're focused on how we kind of have a plan b on on our cost structure and and right size that business so i would say by the end of the year consistently again that we'll have more to say and i'm optimistic okay thank you on all that appreciate it your next question comes from the line of anna little with bank of america Yep.

Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thank you so much for the question. I have two parts to a question. First, wanted to ask on retailer presence and pack size. We're continuing to hear from peers in your space about the movement of sales to club and online, which have seen better growth versus food, drug, and mass. So I was curious if you could talk about this dynamic within your categories. And then secondly, on the M&A front, while you're still digesting Touchland, it has performed better than expected. And it's an interesting acquisition given Touchland is in some of the specialty beauty stores like Sephora. You've done well in acquisitions the last few years and personal care. And I'm sure you'd like to get back to your more regular cadence of one tuck-in acquisition annually. So I was wondering if we should expect to continue to focus on personal care, or maybe if you'd be willing to explore more in the adjacent duty space. Thanks.

Yeah, Anna, good questions. I think, you know, actually very similar questions to, again, when I was in Argentina that our distributors were asking. I would say we're, again, very encouraged with TouchLend, and you're right, a little bit more of a niche in terms of distribution and kind of go-to-market. From an M&A perspective, we're typically agnostic on what categories we go into. It could be household, could be personal care, has to be more like functional beauty. Like we are not a beauty company. We can't perform. We don't, we don't have the, there's a lot of dead bodies on the road to trying to be a beauty company. We don't want to do that. We want to be right in the middle where there's a personal care slash beauty component. We think there's a lot of goodness there, problem solution, yet emotive advertising and connection. So we're laser focused on that. Our new president, Chuck, is laser focused on that as well. Retailer pack size, not surprisingly, different channels are performing at different levels, right? The club class of trade is doing extremely well. We continue to have offerings in club. Our strategy internally is how do we make sure that that's always a proactive strategy and not a reactive strategy. They have to be on the forefront of pack sizes and innovation. But you also have to meet the consumer where they're at and different channels, like at the drug channel or the dollar channel and have the right pack sizes and right price points. So it's not either or, it's both. And we have to be good at both. And we've historically done that really well.

Okay, great. Thanks so much.

Your next question comes from the line of Filippo Salornia with Citi. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, everyone.

Two questions for me. One on the retailer inventory levels. Obviously, you had some de-stocking in the first half of the year. Did you see any impact in Q3? Are you assuming no impact in Q4? And then as we think about 26, should we think about the first half of the year having particularly easy, competent retailer inventory So maybe faster growth in the first half. I know you haven't given guidance, but just a high level, how to think about it. And then the second question on the margin, can you review the drivers of the lower tariff guidance? And maybe if you can give some color also on the broader commodity outlook.

Let's try that. A couple questions in there. So on the retailer inventory side, to your point, beginning of the year, we had some pressure points there, about 300 basis points in the first quarter, maybe 100 basis points of pressure in 2Q. Not really seeing that. We're seeing kind of stable levels here in the back half. That's what we experienced in the third quarter, and that's what we're kind of expecting as we go forward here. I'll say a balanced way. We'll watch it closely. In terms of moving on to tariffs and commodities and things like that, you know, let's just go back. We've made a lot of progress on tariffs. So if we go back to April, we're looking at a bill, you know, that could have been as high as $190 million. We quickly rallied the organization around that. We made some tough strategic decisions, but we've also really, you know, focused on, you know, what can we do about it and, you know, additional productivity, the targeted pricing actions. We've now moved that down to what essentially is a $25 million 12-month number, and, you know, when we released back on August 1st, that number was about 60. It's moved, you know, really threefold. It's moved because we've driven more actions around the globe in terms of, you know, whether it's negotiations, movements, anything in the supply chain side. There has been some targeted pricing, and then, frankly, the rates change, but, you know, that puts us in a really good place. As we kind of look forward to 2026, you know, we should be able to just have an environment of, I'll say, normal commodity inflation. And, you know, tariffs should not be a drag. You know, it could actually turn out to be an opportunity. You know, commodities have still been sticky. You know, we sit here today with what our commodity view was for the year. It's still slightly up from what it was in the beginning of the year. I think as we look forward, you know, we're kind of expecting more of the same. but we'll leave the rest of the 26 commentary until later.

Great. Super helpful. I'll pass it on.

Your next question comes from the line of Olivia Tong with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. First, just a clarification. I assume there wasn't any pull forward from Q3 to Q4 or any other change in timing that helped contribute to the top line upside this quarter? no perfect um very easy um and then just um thinking about a different way in terms of laundry um given the strength there and obviously a consumer desire for value how do you think about the options that are in front of you clearly um you've um you've done very well in the category you've driven greater profitability in the category um is there you know as you think about the options in front of you, is there a thought around potentially being more aggressive on price or things for those consumers who are struggling, potentially looking at it from a share perspective, given the opportunity that you have in front of you and the fact that gross margins have actually shown some pretty nice upside?

Yeah. I mean, for laundry, I think, look, the promotional levels, plus or minus, are going to be what they are. And we'll always be competitive i think overall the medium to long term we love where we are in the intersection of value that's fantastic innovation is always the reason why we perform well over one period of time right we're at a 15 or so share these days we're in 30 of households uh we we lead uh in in wash loads like there's a reason for that we're right there at value in innovation so So our deep clean innovation, while our most expensive form of arming hammer is still 70% the price of premium laundry detergent. And so innovation matters. We're going to have some more laundry innovation next year. And so that's why over a long period of time we've been able to grow our business.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Javier Escalante with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. A high-level question from me. Why do you think that the broader personal care sector is premiumizing in an environment like this? They're a red hero, continue doing great, compounding. There is no poor strike impact for them. Why is that? Is this differences in channel? Are these different consumer sets? Is it because there is legacy brands from which you can gain market share? Anything that you can tell us to explain what's happening and what does it mean for your future growth into 2026? Thank you.

Yeah, it's a good question, Javier. You know, it's never one thing. It's a few different things, in my opinion. I believe these are great problem-solution brands, right? TheraBreath really works for BadBreath. However, it also appeals to the young and old consumer. Great packaging, great story, social media presence, hero. It's a problem-solution brand. It really works. It's the best-performing acne patch out there. And Touchline, you know, it really works, and it premiumizes kind of a tired old category with fragrance and scent, on-the-go convenience. So I would say there's a problem-solution aspect to it. There's a great branding aspect to it. some of the competition in those categories isn't it's been around for a really long time isn't as new and fresh I would say so it's not just one thing it's a it's a it's multiple things that's why we believe at the end of the day that there's a lot of opportunity in those three businesses right night and I said in my prepared remarks household penetration for hero 9 category 28 for air breath 11 category 65 teslan 7 category 42 and that's why we keep getting tdp growth as well so

again it's a mix of all those things thank you your next question comes from the line of lauren lieberman with barclays please go ahead great thanks good morning guys um just one thing i want to talk about was was couponing and just how much couponing um is currently part of your strategy how much activity there's been because this is something that kind of shows up you know differently right it's in market you can't necessarily see it um in the nielsen data so i was curious if you could talk about couponing um and then also just looking specifically at laundry in the data it does show price per eq is down low single digits so even though So like you said, the percentage that's on promotion is low. Just curious broadly about pricing in the market and if the depth is worth talking about.

Yeah, I'll take the second one first. When you look at EQ, that really means wash loads. And so as you have consumers trade up to larger sizes, as you have channels like Club that are growing faster, then that means the larger sizes are doing more sales, which then translates into a lower price per EQ, and that's part of it. And then if you go to a few of the different retailers, you see not just us, but also others, you know, having some rollbacks at math. But in general, I think the biggest thing is the trend on larger sizes, which is channel-specific in part, but also pretty broad-based. The second one on couponing, we've been very consistent on couponing. Year over year, we're flat on couponing. I think in general, we believe that our competitors link to couponing a heck of a lot more than we do. And you're right, that's not shown in Nielsen. The way you kind of look at that is maybe through numerator or what receipts are actually being scanned is really maybe the best way to look at that. But usually our competitors rely more heavily on couponing than we do.

And that's the case in laundry as well?

Yes.

I mean, we obviously have a lot of questions here on discounting, couponing. You know, we've shared what we're doing here as measures, depth, breadth, all that. And I guess I'll bring it back to gross margins. gross margins are doing what they're doing, which speaks to obviously, you know, all these elements here. So, I think, you know, it's a good story. We're doing things the right way here.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Moscow with TD Cowan. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for the question. You know, I think the messaging here is that despite a lot of challenges for the consumer. You know, your categories have been pretty stable in the aggregate, you know, running around 2% and, you know, adjusting for some things you're gaining share. But, you know, when I look at your retail tracking data, at least in my metrics, you know, things do get weaker in October. Can I assume that that's a comparison to last year's port strike? and maybe just refresh me on why that influenced consumer spending in your categories rather than just, you know, timing of shipments.

Yeah, Robert. Yeah, in my preparing remarks, I kind of talked a little bit about October. But remember, we looked it up last night. We believe that for the category and for Trish and Dwight will be a little bit negative in October. A year ago, the port strike had 11% growth in one week for the categories. That meant the month was around 5%. And that wasn't really real. That was pantry loading, probably massive pantry loading that was happening, probably more so in other categories as well. But we think that's pretty clear.

Sure. I understand. But by November and December, I would imagine the pantry loading would be kind of over. so I guess I'm just you know unclear like how that would affect your overall results in a quarter and then when I look at your quarterly results last year it was very stable you know third quarter fourth quarter were exactly the same so you know or did it did it is it is it that much of a tough comparison to a year ago despite despite that yeah it's we can get into a little bit more detail it's three things okay so the port strike that happened in October if you recall there was a threatened port strike I believe in

early January that also had an impact so and then you got to go figure out how much pantry building really happened was it one unit was it two units was it three units and then you got to go figure out for the category how long you know that that normal usage goes through it but I would tell you October was extremely elevated a year ago like when categories are up uh up five percent a year ago that's not normal um so that's that's one the second thing we said in the release was vitamin business for us in q4 when it's down in consumption in the low 20s then q4 is a seasonal business for vitamins and so just have a little bit more of a of an impact uh and then the third thing that i think Lee mentioned was just our international business in Q4 a year ago had a bit a bit higher of a comp so all those things are true I guess but the biggest thing for us and what I said earlier was we think the order of magnitude is really it's more in the port strike and some of the timing on vitamins and we don't believe there's a roll forward issue in the 2026 so that's kind of how would button it up okay thank you very much your last question comes from the line of kevin grundy with bnp parabas please go ahead great uh thanks morning everyone and uh congrats on the on the good

result this quarter um two for me uh if you don't mind the first one to kind of revisit the portfolio and trade down risk and then the second one is going to be on on ai so the first one rick how How do you assess the portfolio today relative to, say, like the global financial crisis? And I think, you know, the view would be that Church was a big beneficiary. I would agree with that of trade down risk. Arm & Hammer did well. Value Laundry Detergent did well. But it is a more premium portfolio today than it was. And brands that you've had success with, like Batiste and TheraBreath and Hero and Touchland, are more premium price points. So, you know, how do you assess trade down risk, particularly in those parts of your portfolio today? How do you sort of square that with, you know, some of the trade down that we're seeing? And granted, it's in household product categories, which you do tend to see a little bit more trade down. But I'd just be kind of curious to get your thoughts on that, Rick. You know, granted, it skews higher to higher income consumers. It does offer unique benefits. But can you kind of have it both ways where the consumer is weak, but then the higher ends of the portfolio are going to continue to sustain? And then I have a follow-up.

Yeah. And it's a good question. Maybe we were 40-60 around the financial crisis. Now we're 60-40. And I do believe that, you know, we will do well in most in the economic environment. And that's what we've kind of shown over time. Household, for sure, as folks trade down. And what's been unique a little bit, Kevin, is these premium personal care categories, I would say, in some cases, are accelerating during this time. And it kind of goes back to what I was thinking about earlier. It's just to have the air. There's just two or three or four reasons why. But the problem solution, but even the macro behind that is the high-end consumer is still doing well. And maybe it's a barbell. Uh, that's why the club class of trade continues to do well. Um, that's why, you know, if anything, the trade down is happening a little bit into mass, um, and those trends look, look pretty good. Um, so I would, I kind of view it as the company's position to do well and, and good times or bad times.

The portfolio shifted a little bit, but the, the, the, what brands you have matter, matter more than anything uh more so than the category itself on uh on mouthwash as an example um so that's kind of my short answer i think that uh there's more than one reason those brands are doing well and it's a bigger bigger tailwind than the than the category headwind potentially got it thanks rick the quick follow-up is just around uh artificial intelligence and what that evolution is going to mean for the cpg industry matt like to sarah used to refer This is the crystal ball kind of questions, but, you know, particularly on the heels of the Walmart announcement and its collaboration with OpenAI, I'd be curious to kind of get your thoughts, Rick, you know, in a world where AI is naturally going to see much, much greater levels of adoption, do you see this evolution as a favorable development for big brands and your portfolio specifically? And relatedly, on the heels of this Walmart announcement, how do you assess the risk here that this potentially leads to a balance of power shift to retailers as they exert greater control over the virtual shelf?

Yeah, I think, you know, my crystal ball would probably say our company is laser-focused on our brand. How do we make sure that we have brands that consumers love? And through our advertising, through our marketing, through our innovation, if we do those things well, then that is an enabler for how we show up online. And at the end of the day, recommendations in the future are going to be based on how well we're selling, how well consumers love our products, what the reviews say, what new news we have. But same way that advertising has shifted over a long period of time, we have to make sure we're nimble enough and fast enough to adjust with speed to the new way of playing the game. And we've shown that we can do that. You know, when Matt and I talked back in 2016, we were 2% of sales for e-com. Now we're 23%. We have adjusted and changed the way we play the game. And so that is a competitive advantage for us versus our larger peer set, in my opinion. And so we have to make sure that we're on the forefront of that, and I have no doubt that we will.

Makes sense.

There are no further questions at this time. And I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Rick Dirker for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Eric. Well, thank you for all the questions and look forward to getting together next year as we talk about our go forward strategy on Investor Day. And thank you and see you in January.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining and you may now disconnect.