General Mills Inc (GIS) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to General Mills Fiscal 2026 Q4 Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Jeff Seaman, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Finance. Jeff, please go ahead.

Thank you, Samantha, and good morning to everyone. Thanks for joining us today for our live Q&A session on our Q4 and full year fiscal 26 results. I hope you all had time to review our press release, listen to the prepared remarks, and view our presentation materials, which we made available this morning on our investor relations website. It's important to note that in our Q&A session, we may make forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions. So please refer to this morning's press release for factors that could impact forward-looking statements and for reconciliations of non-GAAP information, which may be discussed on today's call. I'm here with Jeff Harmoning, our Chairman and CEO, Dana McNabb, our COO, and Kofi Bruce, our CFO. Now let me turn it over to Jeff for some opening remarks.

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everybody. Before we get going today, I thought I'd provide a brief summary of some of of the main messages for today, really how we finished fiscal 26 and then where General Mills is headed in fiscal 27. And so recall, as we entered fiscal 26, we made a bold decision to reinvest in remarkability. And most importantly, I think, was adjusting our base prices across a meaningful part of our portfolio to strengthen the fundamentals of our business. And we certainly encountered some challenges this past fiscal year, including a more difficult consumer backdrop that impacted the pace and the cost of the volume improvement, as well as some specific headwinds on a couple of key businesses, namely Totino's and Wilderness, I can confidently say that we exit the year with a stronger foundation with encouraging improvements in household penetration and base volume and innovation that gives us confidence as we look to the path ahead, specifically to F27. So I'm equally confident that fiscal 27 will be a better year for General mills and our priorities for the coming year i think are quite clear first we're focused on improving our top line growth by driving a step change in the remarkability of our brands also importantly with with our base price investments behind us we're shifting our focus more toward innovation and renovation to packaging and brand communication that deliver the benefits that matter most to today's consumers supported by stronger price mix with a heavy emphasis on mix from premium innovation, price-back architecture, and trade efficiency. And so whether it's Cheerios or Blue Buffalo or Haagen-Dazs or Annie's, we have really good plans going into fiscal 27 and meet consumers where they are on the brands and benefits that they're delivered to their needs. And so second, as we accelerate and expand our enterprise transformation efforts to drive greater speed and efficiency and the flexibility across our business, we expect to deliver $3 billion in cumulative cost savings over the four years through fiscal 2030, primarily through our holistic margin management productivity program and our global transformation initiative. And we're expecting $750 million to be delivered in fiscal 27. These savings are critical to help offset inflation, to fund our growth investments, and support stronger earnings and cash flow over time. And third, we will stay disciplined on capital allocation. Our focus is on driving cash flow, working on leverage, and restoring profitable growth over time. While fiscal 27 will include elevated inflation and some mechanical headwinds, we believe the combination of stronger brand remarkability, sharper execution, and a more aggressive productivity agenda positions us to build momentum and create sustainable shareholder value over the long term. And so with that, operator, can you go ahead and let's get started on Q&A.

Excellent, thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. A reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand, and to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Max Gunport with BNP Paribas. Max, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks very much for the question. To start off, it seems like FY27 represents a big pivot from price-based investments in FY26 to innovation and renovation-based investments focusing on offering consumers better for you attributes in FY27. Can you talk about some of the learnings that inform this shift and your level of confidence that will deliver the results you're expecting? Thank you very much.

Yeah, Max, this is Jeff Harmony. Let me take that one. You know, I would say what we always felt like we would be pivoting based on where we started last year. Recall last year, you know, I talked about it kind of being a two-step process. The first thing we had to do was to get our base pricing back in line, Not necessarily equal competition or anything like that, but really making sure we were under key price cliffs and price thresholds. And the job to do last year when we talked about remarkability was really about value, and we have effectively done that. But that's kind of only the first step in a two-step process to get us back to profitable organic volume growth. And the second step really is with that foundation behind us, and it worked as we thought it would work, is to make sure now it allows the rest of our marketing to work even better. And Dana and her team have done a really nice job improving brand communications and packaging and price mix and new product innovation, renovation. And so all those things work a lot better when you get your base pricing. So, yes, it's a pivot from what we did, what we talked about last year, but that's only because we did the work last year. And I'm really glad that we did that. We increased household penetration for the first time in a number of years. We increased our pound share in NAR. We were competitive in the other three segments. And so the work we're doing this year, honestly, is only – we can only do it because of the work that we had done last year. And I'm pleased with how we've done that and even more pleased with the innovation we have coming ahead of us.

Great. And then just as a follow-up, so last year, like others in the industry, you saw your fiscal year get bented a bit by changes in the macro environment. Specifically, consumers during the middle of the fiscal year started to demonstrate an increased propensity to wait to buy product on promotion. I'm wondering, one, have you seen that behavior dissipate? And then two, what's the level of flexibility that you've embedded in your outlook for FY27 for other such unexpected changes in consumer behavior?

Thanks very much, Shelley, with that. Well, why don't I take that question? Good morning, Max. Thanks for that. What we are anticipating is that as we go into this new fiscal year, the consumer is going to continue to be pressured. And we do expect to see them continue to change their behavior because of that. being more deliberate in how and where their shop, buying more on promotion and less on everyday prices, making trade-offs between pack sizes and channels, all with value at the forefront. And actually, as we exited our Q4, we saw categories slow down by about a point. And so as we go into this fiscal year, we're not anticipating that to change. We expect the current consumer and category backdrop will continue. But even as we say that, we know that consumers are still willing to pay for benefits that matter most to them. Think functional nutrition, bold flavors, et cetera. And so for me, this really reinforces the importance of our focus on remarkability. And when we do that well, like on Cheerios protein or renovated Chex Mix snacks or tasteful and Tiki Cat offerings, we can unlock growth even in this more challenging consumer environment. So again, as we look ahead, our assumption is the consumer will remain pressured and we'll stay focused on the levers that we can control.

Okay, thanks very much.

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

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. I kind of wanted to start with maybe a bigger picture question and just, you know, ask on the category outlook. It just feels like we've been talking about growth below long-term trends for a while. So as you think about what you're seeing from a category standpoint, do you continue to view this as simply cyclical dynamics? Or as these trends continue, is there maybe some view that maybe long-term category growth rates may not be as applicable moving forward?

Yeah, I mean, let me take that one. You know, there are some trends that we know are long-term in nature. Things are kind of undeniable. I think about demographics, for example, and 55 plus consumer base growing or increasing Hispanic population in the U.S. or pet humanization, which, you know, 25 years in is probably a trend. I mean, so there are things like that that are that are everlasting. You know, there are other things that are that are certainly cyclical in nature. Consumers have always cared about things like their food tasting good and being good for them and value and convenience. But those, you know, those definitions change over time. You know, e-commerce is kind of the new convenience. We know consumers care a lot about value, which is why the base pricing worked, you know, so well last year. They care about health, and now, you know, it's really all about protein. And, you know, the question is how long will all of these things last? And the answer is really kind of a notable and a volatile environment. And so what we do know, though, is that our focus this coming year on driving improved organic growth and doing it properly is the right path. And I have confidence in our plans. Dana mentioned, you know, Cheerios Protein, and, you know, that's off to a great start. She managed, you know, she talked about Tiki Cat, which really is about pet humanization, which is growing quite nicely as well. And she also talked about Bold Plater Chex Mix, which is doing well. And so all those things that she talked about really resonate with today's consumers and kind of where we are. What it looks like over time, we will see. But our focus is squarely over the next 12 months and continuing to make progress using Remarkability.

That's really helpful. And then just maybe just some perspective on the phasing of organic sales growth. You mentioned below in the first quarter, you know, any way to put some guardrails on how much below the full year guidance you would expect to start year. And then just any thoughts on how you see that evolving as we progress through the year as well. Thank you.

Sure. This is Kofi. So let me just start by saying I'm probably not going to satisfy your question because I don't want to get too much more specific and get in the habit of providing quarterly guidance other than just reiterate kind of what we said in our prepared remarks. We would expect the shipment timing headwinds on PET to continue in the Q1. We would expect some reversal on North America retail as we step into Q1. Those will have both top and bottom line implications obviously versus as expectations. And then as a reminder, we divested yogurt this end of June last fiscal year, so fiscal 26. And so that'll be a comparison headwind along with the fact that we would expect our cost savings, i.e. our net inflation, the impact of inflation net of all of our cost savings initiatives to be negative and progressively improve as we move through Q2 and into Q3 in the back half. So other than that, I wouldn't get too much more specific.

Great. Thanks so much. That's it on.

You bet.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Andrew, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody. Jeff, I was wondering, I guess, what should our expectations be around both sort of volume share and value share as we sort of move through this year. I know that, I guess, the sort of transfer from volume to sort of value share is really the key point in a lot of the work that you did last year around the price points and such. So trying to get a better sense of what your expectation is so we can kind of track that in market data and whatnot as we move forward. Thanks so much.

Yeah, I mean, I think for us, Andrew, you're right. this past year, we focused on volume share in NAR, I would say. We focused on dollar share in the other three segments, but in NAR, we focused on pound share because of the pricing actions that we took. And so having those largely behind us as we enter this new year, our goal is going to be to make sure that we're competitive across dollars here, across all four of our segments. And that doesn't mean we completely abandon what we do with pounds. there's always a mix. And I like to say we like to stay in the middle of the boat. And I think the same would hold true on pound and dollar share as we enter this year. And so it's not as if we're abandoning one and looking at the other. Our job is to do both, is continue to grow household penetration and generate the price mix we're looking for so that we're competitive on a dollar basis. And so as we look at this year, we'll want to make sure whether it's in NAR, whether it's in PED or Food Service or International, that we're competitive on a dollar basis. And that doesn't mean we'll completely abandon what we think of pounds, but the job to do really is as we pivot to the innovation we have, the renovation, and the price mix, which is heavily focused on mix, really we'll be looking for dollar competitiveness.

Got it. And specific to NAR on DollarShare, I guess as you think about where some of the share weakness has gone, it doesn't seem like private label is kind of that big a factor in this. And then I guess it's more, you know, just like looking at what the other options are. Some of these smaller, right, you know, insurgent players and things of that nature. Like what's, as you diagnose, like where some of that share has gone and then all the work you're doing this year to step up the remarkability work to try and sort of counter that. How do you see that dynamic, you know, playing out and how the work you're doing can address that more fully. Thank you.

Hi, Andrew. Thank you for the question. As I look at NAR and think about Remarkability, when we were sitting here on this call last year, from a share perspective, we had seen private label get stronger in pretty much all of our categories. They were stealing share, and we also saw small brands stealing share, and we were squarely in the middle and had to take action in order to become more competitive. And as we diagnosed where we were struggling the most, it was really on affordability and value. And so that's why in fiscal 26, we focused remarkability with most of our investment on price. And we saw it work. That was about fixing our base volume. Sitting here last year, we were looking at base volume, which is our most profitable volume. It was down about 10%. Now we're entering the year with our base volume where we invested on price up about 1% and we have household penetration growth. So we are entering this fiscal year with a much stronger foundation. And now it is all about making sure that we are delivering the benefits that consumers are willing to pay for. So making a significant step up in innovation, in renovation, in packaging in terms of format and functionality, which will allow us to get a modest improvement in price mix, and emphasis on that is on mix. And that will be a difference maker in terms of our ability to improve dollar share performance. So I'm confident that we will see improved organic sales results in NAR as we go into next year.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Tom Palmer with JP Morgan. Tom, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thanks for the question. Maybe I could move off the sales line a little bit and ask on the cost savings, the $3 billion in planned savings over the next four years. I think elements of the savings that were laid out were maybe already in place, although maybe not fully quantified. So could you maybe provide a little bit of detail on kind of what pieces such as HMM were kind of underway and maybe to an extent already embedded in your expectations versus the pieces that are new and we should, you know, kind of look to ramp over the next four years?

Thanks for the question. I think as we talk about transformation, we have to start first with reminding everyone that our primary goal is to restore profitable organic sales growth. And all of our cost-saving efforts are in service to that goal. So when you look at the $3 billion, we have approximately $2 billion of that that's expected to come from HMM. And that really is at a rate consistent with what we've delivered over the past few years. HMM is a really strong capability. Our commercial teams lead. It's about understanding what the consumer values and putting back in what they do value and taking out what they don't value. And so that's something that's been consistent over the years. The other billion is expected to come from the acceleration that we've talked about from our global transformation initiative and other cost-saving actions. And that's really about improving our end-to-end business processes and identifying new ways of working when you think about new tools, technology, operating models to be more agile. So one of those areas that we talked about on the prepared remarks that we're thinking about is our supply chain transformation. And I really want to emphasize that our supply chain is truly, I think, the best in food, very good at what they do. But our supply chain was also built for a different time, a little bit lower volume. We've seen that we need faster innovation, more packaging flexibility. And so it's really about thinking, how do we reimagine the supply chain for the future so that we can get at profitable growth? And we are still really in the early phases of this design, so we don't have more to share. but we will come back and share more as we get more details.

Thanks for that detail, Dana. I also wanted to ask on cost inflation expectations. It is a dynamic environment, obviously, on the fuel side. How did you, I guess, make your assumptions here just on how the year progresses from an inflation standpoint, how you're assuming, you know, kind of fuel costs look, and then how much visibility versus given hedges and things like that versus assumptions are embedded in that four to five. Thanks.

Sure. This is Kofi. Just to give some perspective, our inflation outlook of four to five percent assumes about a hundred dollars a barrel on oil on the uncovered portion of the year and conversion costs based on a lagging PPI. So we're covered about eight to nine months out. So the uncovered portion of the year is relatively small. We're fairly locked in. You know, what I would say is that as we work our way through the year, we would expect that, you know, any meaningful change in oil on its own would fall within that range of our guidance, just given the amount that we've got covered through the year. Okay. Thank you. You bet.

Your next question comes from the line of David Palmer with Evercore ISI. David, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Just to follow up on your previous comments on dollar market share trend, which you anticipate improving in fiscal 27, Any more specifics you can offer on that? What sort of dollar category growth do you think will happen this year? And do you anticipate mills starting to grow in line with the category by the end of the fiscal year? Is that what's baked into your guidance? And I have a follow-up.

So thank you for the question. I don't think that I will predict dollar share on all of our categories. That would probably get me into trouble. But as we said in our prepared remarks, we're assuming our categories will track roughly in line with F26. And for NAR, that's roughly flat in dollars. So we expect to deliver improved NAR retail sales performance with a combination of remarkability. We do think that we'll see some modest price mix because, remember, price mix was a real headwind for us this year. And that will help us from a dollar share perspective. And then, again, this modest price mix is going to be driven entirely by mix. and with packaging formats, innovation, renovation. I also think when you look at our dollar share performance for NAR, you can miss the fact that Totino's was a real problem for us this year. We just didn't execute the way that we need to or at our standard. We had a price pack architecture conversion that wasn't great. We didn't have the innovation that we needed to. And so going into fiscal 27, we've improved almost every lever of remarkability. We have a strong merchandising now. We've got this price pack architecture fixed. We have really good innovation. Think blasted Totino's Rolls, Ultimate Pizza that's doing really well. And then in the frozen segment, we see Asian snacks and Mexican snacks growing really well. So we're launching an old El Paso frozen snack. We have Juan Chai Ferry that is coming over. And so I feel like we've diagnosed that business well. We're already seeing an improvement into June. Now, four weeks is not necessarily a trend, but we've improved our hot snacks trend by a point and our pizza trend by almost five points. And just stabilizing that business alone, we're not going to turn it around overnight, but stabilizing that alone is going to have a big impact on our dollar share performance.

Thanks for all that. I'll ask you one more tough one. You guys are really good on consumer insights, and I was just seeing some data that showed that very low-income consumers, call it the under 50,000 crowd, was actually spending more on at-home food. It was decent dollar growth because they're trading down from restaurants. And then the over $100,000, which might be the upper third, they were also spending more on at-home because they were trading into higher-priced, often smaller brands, protein-centric, whatever the wellness news of the day. The middle of the third is a little bit more compressed because they're making choices all over the place, restaurants and at-home. I wonder how you think about your consumer. You know, where are the trends by income cohort today, and where do you see the improvement coming in 27 and beyond? And thank you.

Thanks for the question. When you look at at-home eating consumption, we see that in the last quarter pretty stable. It's at 86%. We didn't see it move around. We did see the middle-lower income households eat a little bit more at home and spend a little bit more on staples, so thank cooking from home. but but nothing significant and again i'll come back to when you have brands as big as ours you have a wide consumer base that you have to serve you have to make sure that your everyday shelf price is right that you have opening price points that are are that are easier for for lower income households to access that it's done with packaging innovation and then also for the larger families that you have large packs that deliver value and so what we're being really smart about is making sure that we understand how stressed the consumer is going into this fiscal year that we don't take that for granted and that we make sure that we're bringing the right value and then as you said there is a portion of the economy in this k economy that that will spend more and so we've got to make sure that we have the benefits and the new products and the renovations are willing to spend against that is functional nutrition bold flavors and so we're bringing a significant amount of new product innovation think the example of cheerios protein that we had this year in almost every category. Our humanization trend in pet will continue, and cats are on fire, cat growth is on fire, so tiki cat, and our blue tastefuls and our wilderness cat we think will continue to perform. So to me, it is about understanding exactly where the consumer is, not underestimating how stressed they are, and making sure we have the benefits in the right places to deliver for them.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Galbo with Bank of America. Peter, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks. Thanks for the question. Dana, in your prepared remarks, and you talked about it a bit on the call today, you spent a lot of time on innovation and renovation. And I think we would all agree that that is probably the right kind of next move to improve product quality or attributes. But obviously, that comes at a cost. And so if we just think about, you know, the cost associated with innovation and renovation against what you've announced, you know, probably more incremental cost savings from an HMM perspective. Just can you help us bridge how those two ideas can kind of coexist within General Mills? And we often think of, you know, the HMM cost savings coming from, you know, the cost line that you're obviously boosting on product.

So any kind of further clarity there would be helpful. um well good morning peter um and why don't i start with that question and then kopi can do a follow-up i mean i think it comes back to what i talked about from an hmm perspective so this is led by our commercial teams it's really about making sure that we understand what the consumer values and is willing to pay for um and what they don't value and taking that out and we start with the consumer um it allows you to have benefits that you launch that they're willing to pay for and you can manage margins appropriately. So, for example, Archerio's protein was a benefit that consumers were willing to pay for. And we were able to premium price that to the core and offset the cost of that innovation and renovation. And that is really our focus going into next fiscal year is what are consumers willing to pay for? We're going to see a little bit of price mix appreciation, and the majority of that will be mixed. And then, of course, as we always do with HMM, the teams will focus on what are things they don't value and take it out accordingly in order to make sure that we can reinvest that back into the things they do value. So that is our approach. It's been consistent over a number of years, and it won't change going into next fiscal year.

And I would just add from a sort of annual financial modeling perspective, we would expect every year to see some significant portion of reinvestment back in the product. either through renovation, new product innovation with costs. And to the extent that those costs come in, we're relying, by and large, relying heavily on HMM. In fact, the genesis of our HMM discipline was all about being able to reinvest back in the business, both in product as well as marketing, messaging, and other ideas to drive growth. So fundamentally, this is the step up that we're seeing last fiscal year, 26. this fiscal year that we're expecting in fiscal 27 all contained within our sort of normal gearing of HMM. And, you know, we can comfortably cover it even with a little bit of the step up in the inflation pressure.

Okay. Thanks. Thanks for that, Kofi. And maybe if I could just follow up there and to Tom's question, you know, around inflation, your HMM numbers for this year, the four to five kind of matching the inflation number. I guess, you know, on a like-for-like basis in 27, if we're kind of ignoring the 53rd week, are you thinking about just gross margins as being relatively flat for the year? I know you've given kind of the sales and operating, you know, profit ranges for the year, but if we're just trying to bridge kind of from gross down to operating, is that the right way we should think about it?

Well, I would expect a modestly less pressure on gross margin than than operating margin. But I think given the shape of the P&L, there would be some modest pressure on gross margin.

Okay. Thanks very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Smith with Stiefel. Matt, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. Kofi, a follow-up question on the cost outlook. When we think about the 4% to 5% net inflation, can you clarify if that includes any tariff refunds, and your expectation for timing around that?

Sure, Matt. It does include expectations for tariff refunds. I think as a reminder, our biggest tariff exposures on steel and aluminum, so those tariffs are still in place and not subject to refunds. We are and have been realizing some modest amount of tariff refunds that have frankly been somewhat immaterial. So, I would not expect a material contribution that we'd be talking about on a go-forward basis for fiscal 27.

Thank you. And as a follow-up, going back to the discussion around the expectations for organic sales, how do you think about the gating factors for getting back to positive growth for the year at the high end of your range. Is that dependent more on your initiatives around innovation and renovation and driving favorable mix? Or would you kind of weight that more heavily towards the overall category performance as we move through the year? Thank you.

I would say the former more than the latter. Our expectation would be that if we're in the more upper and more favorable end of our range, that we would see better price mix accretion and less volume pressure from the places where we're expecting that appreciation. So all things equal, we view that as largely within our control and somewhat independent of category development. Appreciate it. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities. Chris, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much. The context around the improvement in market share, realizing you certainly don't want to be overly specific, which makes complete sense. I wonder if you could just contextualize the relative importance of improving share trends in Totinos and improving wilderness dog feeding you called out in Prepare to Marks that these businesses were pretty material impacts on pound volume declines. And so when you think about the outlook in these two businesses, specifically relative to the rest of your portfolio, again, maybe just a bit of context on how important share gains are here and some more detail on expectations.

Yeah, I would just, you know, look, I appreciate that. And I think this is like the third question we have on market share. But I think the, you know, as I think about it, you know, it's an ant. You know, we need to improve the things that haven't been working as well. And I think, you know, Dan was pretty clear on that in Totino's and Wilderness. Totino's was a bigger challenge, by the way, than Wilderness, just due to the absolute size of the business. And so getting that, you know, more stable will be helpful. So it's a matter of doing those things. But then even more importantly, I think, is doubling down on the things that are working. And Dana talked about Tiki Cat and cat food, which is working, or Love Made Fresh, which is up 80% in the last quarter from where it was before, continuing to improve that, or Cheerios Protein, which I think is now $100 million business for us, and doubling down on that and Cheerios Granola and kind of getting that back to growth. And so for me, our ability to get back to growth and improve share is kind of an ant. It is improving the things that we needed to improve, like Totino's and Wilderness, and doubling down on the things that are working. I would also cite our international business, which is return to growth, and specifically the Haagen-Dazs business, which has done well there. And so that's how we think about it, is really doubling down on both sides of the equation. And I think we can do both, and we certainly have the plans to do both. and it is now up for us to execute. And I think importantly, we stated this before, but we're not anticipating an improved consumer environment or an improved category environment. We're going to make our own success this year, and we're confident that we can do that.

Okay. All right. Thanks. The follow-up is just around pet. Consumption trends have been okay, certainly better than reported results in certain quarters. So the inventory volatility has been a kind of – it happens here and there, right, intermittently. I realize some of that has to do with channel and specific retailers. Is there some visibility in the smoothing out of this inventory volatility? I know that it's going to remain a dynamic in fiscal Q1, and I think the guidance implies that it's going to get better. I just ask in the context of the business has actually been improving better in the consumption data than what we've seen if we kind of smooth out recent quarter averages. And I just wonder if there's some visibility in a narrowing of this inventory gap over time and maybe a bit more context on why it's lasted as long as it has.

Yeah, thanks for the question. And we are pleased with our pet performance. We finished the year with retail sales up 1%, growing share on our life protection formula, on our cat businesses, and obviously we've seen a significant improvement in Love Made Fresh. So as it comes to our retail sales versus our inventory or sell-in, as we've dug deeper, as you mentioned, we've seen a consistent headwind from customer mix. With our fastest growing customers, think e-com and mass, carrying significantly less inventory than our traditional customers. So this was really the key component of the two-point gap between our organic sales and our retail sales in Q4. For the full year, our channel sales, as I said, were up 1%, but organic sales lagged about four points. So we think it's prudent as we go into next year to assume a low single-digit headwind from the retail inventory in F27, with customer mix being the contributing key factor.

Okay. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Rob Dickerson with BTIG. Rob, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks so much. Maybe I can just try to like recap and summarize a little bit on the organic sales outlook for the year. Just kind of given all the comments already stated, right? like just like jesse said you know focus on dollar share uh you know price mix supposed to be more of a contributor um flat category assumption rather than q1 i guess is a little bit below algal for the year um and then the guide still actually down year over year um so i kind of when we wrap all that kind of up and then we frankly combine it just the dynamic of you know trying to figure out what's working and what consumers want and, you know, shifting the mix some and maybe going a little bit more premium. Is it kind of like fair to one, I guess, just, you know, frankly assume, you know, obviously, you know, volumes will still be down for the year. And I don't hear kind of any commentary around like, you know, maybe turning positive in the back half. And maybe that's just a function of like, this is the year where you say we're kind of just shifting that mix to get to a point such that we can actually grow the volumes later. But in some of our core brands, there might still be a little bit more, you know, volume contraction necessary to find that base. And then when we get into 28, you know, yes, like that, like the hope here, along with the cost savings is for the volume to come back. I don't know if all that makes sense, but a lot in there. But thank you so much.

Yeah, there's a lot in there. You summarize a lot of what we're doing. So I appreciate that. You know, I just I would I would kind of back it up to the first principle, which is, you know, our job is to is to improve our organic sales trajectory and to do that profitably. That's really the job. That's what we're looking to do. And all the things you just mentioned are in service to that, as well as the transformation that we also discussed. And so for us, we made improvements in household penetration and our base business this year. And so the next step in that evolution is really to improve the trajectory of organic sales and then do it properly. And that's what we're looking to do this year against the backdrop of a consumer environment, which we still think will be stressed this year. So I think it's really important to reiterate, which I think I've done, but to reiterate that, you know, we're not expecting that environment to improve. improve. And so that's the main objective. And we feel confident that we can hit that objective. And to the extent that that leads to even better things in 28, we'll leave that for another day. But the job to do this year is to improve upon what we had last year.

And we feel like we have the plans in place to do that, both on the sales line and HMM, as well as the transformation. okay okay fair enough and then maybe just a very easy question um you know you clearly have made a fair amount of portfolio adjustments over the past call it you know three five years um heard a lot of commentary about you know excess cash would go to deleverage you know kind of just where you sit now you know would you say like we feel great about the portfolio don't foresee anything um else kind of in the in the near term uh or you know are you still looking at certain parts of the portfolio um strategically thanks no that's fair that's a very fair question and i'm glad i'm

glad you asked you know as we first of all we're very proud of our portfolio shaping over the last number of years and we think we've been effective at it we know we've been disciplined at it so whether that's additions like blue buffalo or geeky or whether that's dependencies like um like yogurt or what we've announced with Brazil or our Haagen-Dazs shops. We've been very disciplined on both sides of the acquisitions and divestitures. And we have an always-on capability when it comes to M&A. And we haven't really changed how we think about M&A or, in that sense, how we think about capital allocation. But what I would say is that our focus really now is squarely on organic sales growth and doing it profitably. And so to that extent, and as you look at the balance sheet and where we are, you know, our bar for M&A is going to be very, very high, and, you know, specifically on the acquisition front. And so while we haven't changed how we think about it, the bar for portfolio shaping is high, and our number one priority is getting back to organic sales growth and doing that profitably. All right, super. Thanks, Jeff. All right, thank you.

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. Jeff Seaman, for closing remarks, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Samantha. So I appreciate everyone's good discussing this morning. Thanks for the engagement. I know we didn't quite get to everyone's questions, so please don't hesitate to reach out for any follow-ups. Wish everybody a great summer. Go U.S. national team today. And we'll talk to you all soon. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. you may now disconnect.