Oil-Dri Corporation of America (ODC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Annual Meeting for Oil-Dri Corporation of America. Our host for today's call is Leslie Garber, Manager of Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to your host, Leslie Garber. You may begin.

Good morning, and welcome to Oil-Dri Corporation of America's 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. My name is Leslie Garber, and I'm the Manager of Investor Relations at Oil-Dri. We are conducting this meeting virtually, a format utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic which enables greater stockholder attendance and participation, improved efficiency, increases our ability to communicate with stockholders and reduces costs. On your screen, under meeting materials, you will find the meeting agenda, rules of conduct, list of stockholders of record and Oil-Dri's proxy statement and annual report. During the meeting today, we will be covering the election of directors and 1 other proposal. Next will be the business presentations and financial review, followed by time for Q&A. [Operator Instructions] Now it is my pleasure to introduce our General Counsel and Secretary, Laura Scheland, who will conduct the formal portion of today's meeting.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I now call to order the 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Oil-Dri Corporation of America to conduct the formal business set forth in the notice of meeting and proxy statements. Commencing on October 25, 2022, a notice regarding the availability of proxy materials or a copy of the proxy materials was mailed to all Oil-Dri stockholders of record as of the close of business on October 10, 2022, which is the record date fixed by Oil-Dri's Board of Directors for the determination of stockholders entitled to notice of and to vote at this meeting. Broadridge Financial Services has delivered an affidavit, confirming the foregoing. Oil-Dri has appointed Peter Sablich of CT Hamburg to serve as the Inspector of Election for this meeting. He is present on the webcast and has taken the oath of office. As of October 10, 2022, the record date for this meeting, there were 5,075,302 shares of Oil-Dri's common stock and 2,045,415 shares of Oil-Dri's Class B stock outstanding. Holders of our common stock are entitled to 1 vote per share and holders of our Class B stock are entitled to 10 votes per share and generally vote together without regard to class. A quorum is present at this meeting if holders of a majority of our common stock and Class B stock outstanding and entitled to vote are present in person or represented by proxy. Thus, the number of votes necessary to constitute a quorum at this meeting is 12,790,255 votes. Mr. Sablich has informed me that there are more than such number of votes represented at this meeting. Therefore, I declare there is a quorum present for purposes of transacting business. Now I will present the matters to be voted upon. If any stockholder would like to make a comment regarding any of the proposals, please to make your comments through the Ask A Question field on the web portal, and we will review any comments on the proposals themselves after all proposals have been presented. As described in the proxy statements, the first item of business is the election of 9 directors. The proxy statement listed Oil-Dri's nominees for director, each of whom currently serves as a director of Oil-Dri. Those nominees are Daniel S. Jaffee, Ellen-Blair Chube, Paul M. Hindsley, Michael A. Nemeroff, George C. Roeth, Amy L. Ryan, Alan H. Selig, Paul E. Suckow and Lawrence E. Washow. The second item of business is the ratification of the appointment of Grant Thornton LLP as Oil-Dri's independent auditor for the first full year ended July 31, 2023. The Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of Oil-Dri has appointed Grant Thornton to serve as the company's independent auditor for fiscal year 2023 and has directed that appointment be submitted for ratification by the stockholders at this meeting. At this time, we'll transfer and review any comments on the proposals that have been submitted. It looks like no comments have been received, so we will proceed with opening the poll. It is 9:30 am -- 9:35 a.m. on December 7, 2022, and the polls are now open. Any stockholder who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the Vote Here button on your screen. Stockholders who have sent in proxies are voted via telephone or Internet and who do not wish to change their vote, do not need to take any further action. While we allow time for stockholders who haven't already done so to complete their voting, I'd like to remind you that the fibrous presentation and any comments other commentary by any of Oil-Dri's employees today may contain forward-looking statements of expected future performance. Any such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially. We highlight a number of important risk factors that may affect our future performance in our SEC filings, including our annual report for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2022. We urge you to review and consider those risk factors carefully in evaluating the company's comments and evaluating any investment in Oil-Dri stock. Copies of our SEC filings are available through the company or online. All right. One last minute to finish voting. Okay. At this point, the polls are closed, and I will now report some preliminary results of the voting. We will be reporting the final vote results in a Form 8-K to be filed within 4 business days with the SEC. As described in the proxy statement, a director may only be elected by a plurality of votes cast. The 9 nominees who receive the largest number of votes will be elected. We have been informed by the inspector of elections that the preliminary vote report shows that the 9 candidates nominated by Oil-Dri received the largest number of those. Regarding the second item of business, an affirmative majority of the votes represented at the meeting is necessary for ratification of the appointment of Grant Thornton as Oil-Dri's independent auditor for the fiscal year ending July 31, 2023. We have been informed by the inspector of elections that the preliminary vote report shows that such ratification received more than a majority of the votes represented at this meeting. This completes the business to be conducted at this meeting. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the 2022 annual name of stockholders of Oil-Dri Corporation is now adjourned. I am now happy to introduce Dan Jaffee, our President and Chief Executive Officer for our business presentations and financial review.

Thank you, Laura. And welcome to our shareholders, our Oil-Dri teammates. I know they tune in, and I know we've had some parents of teammates that are tuning in today. And so welcome, everyone. Thank you. Proud of the quarter, proud of how the team performed in a very dynamic environment. Those of you who have owned our shares for a long time, know what I like to do at this point in the presentation is cover new promotions of current -- of existing people in new positions of importance of the company and then also Vice Presidents who have joined us during the year or people that have been promoted to the vice presidential level during the year because an investment in Oil-Dri really is a twofold investment. Number one, you're investing in our mineral and its value and our ability to understand that. But then you're really investing in our team, who is going to help communicate that value to our customers and then share in that value with them. So with that being your twofold investment, you know about our mineral and you'll hear more about our opportunities as we move forward. I'd like to cover our new Vice Presidents and senior promotions that occurred during the year. First, Chris Lamson, is our Group Vice President of Retail & Wholesale. We feel very fortunate that Chris joined our team almost a year ago. He received his BS in Finance from St. Mary's of California. He then spent 18 years with Clorox in many positions, including VP, General Manager of the Food and Charcoal division and Vice President of the Walmart customer team. He spent 4.5 years as a Senior VP at Central Garden & Pet, again, giving him knowledge not only of the consumer products arena, but the actual pet arena that we compete in. And as I said, he's been here a little bit under a year. Currently, in Oil-Dri, he has full oversight of our domestic and Canadian consumer product businesses, our industrial and sports turf businesses and one of our co-pack relationships. And he's leading our S&OP process, which is really how we run the company now, and it's had a major positive impact on our ability to supply our customers in a very dynamic environment. So welcome Chris to the team. Next, Aaron Christiansen, you've seen him before. So this is an old face and a new job. He was promoted during the year to Vice President of Operations. He received his BS in mechanical engineering from WashU in St. Louis. Before he joined us, 5.5 years with Procter & Gamble as a processing engineer, quality assurance manager and then 10 years with Unilever. And the last 2 as manufacturing manager at their largest consumer product plant in Jefferson City, Missouri. He's now been with us 7 years, which is amazing. It's just -- he's been a great addition to the team, and his current responsibilities include: oversight of all of our activities relating to mining, manufacturing, engineering, logistics, procurement, customer service and planning. And if we had any more, we give them to him. My dad always said, if you want to get something done, find a busy person and assign it to them. So that's what I've done there. And then his promotion opened up a promotion for David Downs, who is now our VP of Manufacturing, taking Aaron's former role. David received his BS in mechanical engineering from VMI. His past experience include our VP and Plant Manager at Lime & Minerals -- U.S. Lime & Minerals, lots of mining experience. He then was a senior engineer at Nestle Purina's Cat Litter plant in Virginia. And he's now been with us 6 years as our plant manager first in Ripley, and then is our regional manager in Georgia. His new responsibilities include oversight of all manufacturing at our 8 plants in the U.S. and Canada, and we're very fortunate to have David on our team. Next, I've fired myself as the Head of Amlan. I missed a plan for a month, so I terminated myself. No, I'm just kidding about that. Really, what I did for a couple of years was just get the strategy, get the people in place, get the team in place. We added a lot of teammates. And one of the major additions was Dr. Wade Robey who joined us at the time as our VP of Marketing. And so now he's being promoted to President of Amlan International. He received his BS in Ag Sciences from Auburn. His masters in Avian physiology from Auburn and is PhD in Animal Nutrition from Virginia Tech. So you can see he's absolutely got the educational experience to lead our team. And then he has the work experience, which really has been stellar, 30-plus year career in Animal Health and Biotech. He's been with such notable global multinational companies at Monsanto, Novus, where he was Director of Nutrition Research. Cargill, he was an R&D Director; Syngenta; and then POET, Senior VP and Chief Technology Officer. I mentioned, he's been with us 2 years. He recently also began overseeing product development at PIC. And now he's got an oversight of our entire global Animal Health business, and he has an incredible team beneath him. And we're just really excited about the future and appreciative that Wade is on our team in leading our business. So Wade, thank you very much for that. His promotion opened up room for another promotion. So Reagon Culbertson, who's been with us for 15 years. She received her BS in media arts and design, communication studies from Northeastern in Boston. She's been us a long time. She has been promoted to Global Marketing Director in 2020, and she led the turnaround at Amlan by clarifying our message and promoting the efficacy of our mineral as our unique selling proposition. That is our reason to be in the category, and we are leveraging that heavily, and a lot of that is with her help and communication. So her new role will be oversight of all of our B2B strategic marketing, so that includes our Ag division and our Fluids Purification Division, branding communications and product management. Reagan, congratulations, and thank you for taking on these new responsibilities. Next, again, as Wade was promoted to President of Amlan, he gave up his oversight responsibilities out of PIC. And so very happy and proud that Aldo Rossi, who's the DVM, has been promoted to VP of Innovation and Tech Service. Aldo received his BS in Biological Sciences from the University of Cal Davis. Also is Doctorate, of veterinary medicine from the University of Cal Davis. He has had over 20 years of experience with Cobb-Vantrass, those including 5 years as VP of R&D, 4 years as world Q&A, vet and lab services and then 5 years as GM of North America. Just incredible work experience that fits right in with our mission and vision for the Amlan team. He's been with us 6 months. And as I mentioned, he will have oversight of tech service, regulatory affairs and the Innovation Center. So Aldo, thank you very much and very, very happy to have you in that seat. And then last but not least, we have a new Vice President of Human Resources, Pat Walsh. Pat received his BS in Psychology from the University of Illinois, has masters and HR and industrial relations also from the University of Illinois. He spent 14 years with PepsiCo/Frito-Lay. He was a senior HR Director, HR Manager. He's been with us a little under a year and has already had a major impact on our company, really embracing our lessons learned in our core values and leading the charge from that and then also spearheading our talent management program, which we are -- really is nascent, and he's been doing a great job at that. So Pat, really happy to have you on the team. And investors, you should be proud of the team that is every day trying to maximize your shareholder value. I'm not going to get into any of the details because that's what Susan Kreh is for. So I'm going to turn it over to our CFO and Chief Information Officer, Susan Kreh.

Thank you, Dan. So we're going to talk a little bit about fiscal year 2022, but that's history. It was a tough year. We're glad to have that behind us, and we'll look at the results here for the first quarter of 2023. If I start fiscal 2022, our net sales were up 14% over the prior year, with a lot of the trajectory and momentum coming in the back half of the year. And that momentum carried forward into the first quarter of fiscal '23 when we achieved record sales of $99 million, representing 19% growth over the first quarter in fiscal 2022. And that 19% growth is entirely attributable to pricing. Now we did have some shift in mix in volume, meaning that we were down about 5% in volume in the quarter in our retail and wholesale business, but that was offset by the same amount of growth in our B2B business. And I think Chris, can you give us a little color on what happened here in the first quarter?

Yes. And I think it's noted in the management discussion as well, Susan, primarily in our Co-man business. Our Co-man partner exited really the entirety of the international piece of their business. I expect we will lap that in March. So really single biggest driver. If you look back at our consumer business and our industrial business, volumes were flat to slightly.

Thanks, Chris. Internally, we assess our profitability on a per ton basis to ensure that we're generating the most value out of our nonrenewable resources, our mineral, as Dan mentioned earlier. The volume was up 6% in terms of tons in fiscal year '22 with volume gains in both, the retail and wholesale, and business-to-business channels. Moving forward to the first quarter of fiscal '23, volume was essentially flat. And again, with the shift in mix, B2B being up, retail and wholesale being down for the reasons Chris just gave you color on. When we look at net sales per ton of $421, that highlights the impact of our pricing actions in fiscal 2022 and dial forward to the first quarter of fiscal '23, and that number is a record $473 per ton. And you can see that compares to $394 in the first quarter of 2022. As we talked about throughout all of fiscal 2022, gross profit per ton was adversely impacted by the timing of cost increases that hit us versus the timing of when we were able to get pricing into the market and into our customers. So a challenging year on a gross profit per ton basis in 2022. But we are excited about where we are sitting in 2023 with the first quarter gross profit per ton to $107 per ton, an increase of 62% over the first quarter a year ago. That flows through to net income per ton, both in the year and for the quarter, and that slows due to our basic earnings per common share, which you see in Q1 at $0.80 per share is almost equal to fiscal 2022 full year number of $0.83 per share. So momentum is on our side. We're seeing the impact of our price increases, and we continue to be committed to our dividend. So dividend per share at $0.28 per share here in the first quarter. So that's one cash outlay. And if I take a look back the past couple of years, our significant cash outlays, you can see our continued investment in our plants, in our infrastructure with our capital spending being the largest commitment of our cash outlay. We intend to invest at a similar rate here in fiscal '23. And if anyone is interested in some comments, I saw a question on that, we can get that a little bit later. So the challenges of this team -- and Dan talked about team, and it really does take the team. The challenges this team faced, and you can see looking back for the last several quarters, during fiscal 2022 where we're quite large as costs came out as very -- [indiscernible] increases came out as rapidly in an unanticipated level. So you look at fiscal '23's first quarter. And you can see we've got momentum on our side. And that is what we said in the fourth quarter when we were talking to you as we were feeling that the momentum was there, that we had price increases going into the market in the first quarter, and we have some more going in the second quarter of fiscal 2023. So just to wrap it up, we know where we've been. We talked a little bit about cash investments in our business. There's one further one. In the first quarter, as you noted, in the cash flow statement, we made some investments in inventory, pretty significant to the tune of $5.1 billion. So I thought I'd invite Aaron to just make a couple of comments on what we're doing there and how we're supporting the business with that investment.

Thanks, Susan. Happy to field that question. As we've alluded to in prior quarters, service has been immensely challenged over the past year. One of our priorities has clearly been to restore service levels to historic levels. And one of the ways we've done that is with very intentional and selective choiceful addition of inventory in the right places in our highest value-added products to ensure that we can leverage our superior service as an advantage compared to our competitors and other customers.

Wonderful. Thanks. With that, I'm going to wrap it up and actually turn it over to you, Aaron.

Thanks, Susan. Today, I'd like to take a few minutes, and I'm really excited to have the opportunity to talk about how Oil-Dri is investing in our future. We invest in many ways. We invest in our brands, we invest in our culture, we invest in our minerals and reserves. We invest in the environment. We invest in new products and innovation, and we invest in our teammates. Today, I would specifically like to talk about how we invest in our infrastructure. Oil-Dri is an 80-year business, producing facilities are a foundation to what we do. I'm going to provide some really brief insight into our capital outlay, not in depth, but some examples of how we have invested and are continuing to invest in our facilities through our capital spend, both Susan and Dan made comments, and there's a note in the disclosure and press release about our ongoing commitment. First, I'd like to talk about our philosophy. Any business finds itself with a continual conflict between investing in business growth endeavors, cost savings and business continuity. And by business continuity, I mean, savings, environmental compliance, safety and the ongoing simple maintenance of our facilities. Oil-Dri looks for very intentional and intelligent ways to find investments that align with our growth strategy, but also deliver on cost compression and continuity of this. In fiscal '22, Oil-Dri spent just less than $23 million. I believe there's a question that's been fielded in portal. Susan alluded to it earlier. We fully anticipate and expect investing in a very similar way, similar philosophy and similar level in the years ahead. Later today, you're going to hear from several of our commercial leaders about our growth strategies in those areas, specifically in the area of litter and animal health. I'm going to take a few minutes and show some examples in these 4 areas of investments we have already made that deliver on all 3: Cost savings, business growth and business continuity. I hope they're insightful in ways that are meaningful to our investors. Before I talk through those 4 areas, I'd like to talk about our mine operations. Oil-Dri at its core is a mining and minerals company that is foundational to our business. We make substantial investments every year in our mine assets and mine equipment. It is essential that day in and day out, we can deliver clay to our factories in a way that's reliable. We look for ways to do so that are more efficient, more modern, every -- each and every year. It is a continual commitment. I'd like to take a moment to also talk about how we reinvest in the land that we have leveraged and used. Oil-Dri has a substantial commitment to land reclamation every single year. You can see images on the screen here, a land that we have mined and used. It's been restored to hunting and fishing property, lakes and ponds that are used for the years ahead. Oil-Dri has an annual commitment to restore land that we use to its natural state. So now I'll take a few minutes and talk about examples of where we've made investments in front of our growth agenda. The first is the renewable diesel area. Oil-Dri looked at ways to debottleneck our milling operatings, prepare for the future years in advance and build capacity that we fully anticipate needing. We also take advantage to do so in manners that also improve our environmental footprint, reducing particulate matter and emissions. We've been able to leverage our environmental agenda at the same time that we deliver capacity for growth. Chris will talk shortly about lightweight cat litter on a multiyear journey to add capacity, reduced cost and modernize our lightweight cat litter packaging operations. It's also an area we've invested in ways that are better for our teammates, modern robotics, line layouts, lighting, ways that make us an attractive employer for our teammates, and ultimately help build and develop the culture that we want to flourish in our producing facilities. Thirdly, I'd like to talk about how we have and are investing in our agricultural products. What's shown here is an image of investments made in one of our facilities that supports our highest value-added agriculture products. We've used modern design techniques, 3D modeling, advanced methods to optimize design and construction, and grow our producing base in ways that are rapid. We chose equipment selection that reduces maintenance costs long term as well as electricity and utility costs, so that we can reduce costs from those products and ultimately reduce both, utility and repair costs. Last week, and you'll be hearing from Dr. Wade Robey later, like to talk about how we've invested in our animal health producing footprint. This is really the most transformational area over the last 12 months. And we expect it to be similar over the next year or 2, a very wide-ranging scope of investments made are really fundamentally built to add capacity. We've added air handling capacity, which also shrinks our environmental footprint, automation and modern drying assets, such that we're prepared for the growth ahead instead of being behind the [indiscernible]. Hopefully, this has been insightful. We've answered some questions that have been fielded on the portal about our plans in the years ahead. We continue to look many years into the future to make sure that we are well in advance of our commercial team's plans to grow the business. Speaking of plans to grow the business, I'd like to hand the baton to Mr. Chris Lamson, who is our Group VP of Retail and Wholesale.

Thanks a bunch, Aaron. Good to be with you all this morning. And we're going to talk about staying the course and our focus on lightweight litter, would have loved the double on [ Tundra ] if we were talking about staying the course with our course litter, and we feel good about that business, but really we see our growth coming in the lightweight litter business, both on the branded side and on the private label side. As Dan talked about me being about a year into the role and as I came in and looked at strategy. Sometimes, the new person wants to come in and candidly make bunch of changes and really this presentation's about why we're not. We'll talk about a few new tactics and a few things that we're excited about in terms of lifting both, our brand and our private label business. But fundamentally, we are staying the course of private label because, one, highly consumer relevant. Who wouldn't want -- all other things equal, who wouldn't want a product that is a lot easier to shop for, a lot easier to handle at the point of consumption, incredibly customer-relevant, significantly lower than a freight laden business for our customers? And virtually all of our major customers are also driving environmental programs, takes trucks off the road, and we're advantaged here. Our mineral is the best natural way to achieve lightweight litter. And in a couple of slides, the focus here is working. So we'll share that as well. So again, a few tweaks, but we are staying the course in terms of our focus on lightweight litter. Overall quick look at the growth in the overall cat litter business since 2018, you see an impressive, compounded growth up at the top. I did a little math, what's also impressive and I would think investors would want to take note of, the growth has been remarkably consistent here. And I think it ranges between 8.8% and 10.9% annually, and it's accelerating a bit with the last couple of years up, 9% and 11% year-on-year. So love the consistency. Next slide would show us why I shared with you that we're staying focused from a results perspective on lightweight. So you just saw the 10% CAGR or so on our total litter business. Our overall compounded growth on the lightweight business is 50% higher, at 15%. And I would also share with you, when you look here also accelerating. So the 15% is in the [ 10 ] and driving solid growth year-over-year. I will say, if you're looking at close details and Leslie would probably wants me to note this. This slide is looking at our U.S. business, the previous slide have the Canadian business in it, which is the difference within the two CAGR. So why are we staying the course? It's working. You see the growth here. So fundamentally, most of our tactics are staying pretty darn similar to where we've been on lightweight growth with a couple of modest tweaks that are really centered around making sure that our activities and our investments, our activities on the consumer side, our activities relative to innovation benefit both, our branded business as well as the private label lightweight business, okay? So we'll share with you our continued focus on base product performance. Our -- the end-to-end benefits that we drive with customers as we sell to customers in terms of why they should be driving lightweight at the shelf, our innovation that we're really amping up [indiscernible] against our base and some innovatives, both product and packaging ideas, and how we're moving from focusing on litter for good on our brands to lightweight at the center of our consumer messaging. Starting with this fundamental focus on product quality, all this work preceded me. But as a company, I think we're very proud of us here and look at Aaron, who you just heard from, enormously proud of the folks in our manufacturing facilities and the support that we've also gotten out of our innovation center in terms of driving fundamental product quality. And I think why would we be so focused on something like a dust index, right? Is that really that exciting? Well, it's a key consumer attribute or really a key consumer dissatisfier? And I can tell you that other consumer attributes like clumping would show exactly the same sort of progress over the last several years. And that's why on the churn on the right, you see a significant decline in consumer complaints below really kind of a targeted threshold of that 0.05. Again, why does this matter? And I think the old adage, right? Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. And of course, that's always been important, but I'm not telling you anything you don't know. But social media around word of mouth has been an absolutely exponential multiplier or maybe a super spreader if you will, of word of mouth. So particularly important in terms of our focus on the fundamentals here on product quality. Additionally, we are more longer-term focused on reaching absolute parity or better performance of our lightweight litter to heavyweight litter. I'd say we have a little bit of a in the clumping space. But overall, when we look across consumer attributes, we're on our way and continue to look for further break -- or real breakthrough in addition to focusing on the fundamentals and product quality. This slide you've seen. And again, in terms of staying the course, we're not going to apologize for that. The -- really the first 2 buckets here deal with our ability to help the customer -- the retail customer understands the benefit of lightweight. And while the idea hasn't changed, very proud of the team over the last year in terms of its ability to actually go in a model for customers, how lightweight litter actually grows their profitability. And then a business that is -- where the total value of the litter is 30%, 40% wrapped up in freight by being able to get 30% to 50% more product on a truck, the customer and ultimately the consumer win from that. And we're going into major customers, modeling that benefit, showing them why -- whether it shows up on the buyer's scorecard in some cases or doesn't in the case of other retailers, why that benefit of lightweight litter flows to their bottom line. And then I'm going to speak in a moment to really amping up our consumer message on the latter half of the continuum around consumer usage and shopability in the benefits of lightweight there. This slide is really intended to trigger. These last couple of ideas are not just about branded but about raising both boats. As I talked about raising both, the private label business and the lightweight business together. So our innovation that we'll get into here in a moment, looking to apply to both, our branded and our private label business. And by moving from consumer messaging on the brand that was centered around the litter for good messaging to a message that focuses on lightweight. We're really driving a subcategory benefit around lightweight that benefits our private label business as well as our branded business. That's really, as you double-click on what we're doing, the key changes in terms of our go-forward plan on driving lightweight. Innovation. So we're being a little [indiscernible] or something like that here. These -- the couple of big innovation ideas have yet to hit the street. I would say, within the next couple of quarters when we visit with you all again, we'll be able to share specifics. But a couple of things that we're excited about, and one, you might say, okay, a value branded player or a private label player, should you be innovating? Hey, we innovated the lightweight litter segment over a decade ago, arguably with our co-man partner, we innovated the lightweight segment, in course, more than 35 or 40 years ago in partnership with them. So really a great track record of innovation. We have some product innovation that I can tell you, and I probably can't tell you much more, but it takes a fundamental category benefit and takes it to the next level in terms of how we can talk about it. And again, initial plans are to bring that into branded, but also use it as an opportunity to drive premium private label in the marketplace. And then those of you that keep up on particularly consumer packaged goods specifically see a move towards packaging that hones in on the things about packaging that are particularly consumer relevant and the consumer is willing to pay for, that strips other costs out and ensures that the value is in the saucer and the clay, if you will, in this case. And we've got some things in the works that we're studying very hard now from both, a manufacturing perspective and of course, a consumer perspective that we're feeling very excited about, particularly as a value brand and private label producers where we think we will -- that will have particular impact on driving value for us in ways that maybe the larger 3 brands could not. Really lastly, and there's a few slides that illustrate this, we are just getting rolling on shifting that message. And to be clear, we're very proud of our social platform around Litter for Good. It will continue to be a secondary message. I was comparing a couple of the brands have similar programs. I can tell you that our impact, we can sit around this table and as shareholders and employees, you can be very proud of. We're making significant impact in our Litter for Good program vis-a-vis some others that are driving similar programs. With that said, the primary message is going to lightweight litter. It's celebrating our performance. I showed you a few slides -- a few pages ago that enables us to do that with the progress that we've made on core quality over the last few years, and we're doing it. This is kind of a typical CPG 360-degree marketing slide. It could be in other companies in a lot of ways. But we're really emphasizing digital shopper influencers that I'll talk about in a minute, social and e-commerce and the reason I talk about those, those are all places where, I look at Susan, it should make her happy, we can measure return and really drive to, I think, the pop industry term right now is performance marketing. But -- we're excited to drive the business in places where we could see reasonably immediate results. Start to see a little bit of copy, I'd tell you, this is actually temporary. We're really looking to leverage our influencers, who are pictured here and really the Kitten Lady has been a long-term partner with over 4 million followers. Dr. Evan Antin, almost as handsome as our CEO. Dr. Evan Antin is newer to, out of both have driven the Litter for Good platform for us, but both -- and authenticity is important here. Both are very much bought into the lightweight benefit as well, and we're beginning to drive that content, which -- this is actually an illustration of that. So there's Kitten Lady with over 4 million followers, [indiscernible] a bottle or a jug rather of our lightweight litter. We were going -- I wanted to show a video. But in our kind of approval culture, Leslie didn't want to spend the extra $3,000 to put that out there. Anyway, we feel very good about where we are in terms of developing some rich content around that shift to lightweight. And you'll start to see this out on the Internet over the next few quarters. So finally, wrapping up, staying the course. And you saw the results that drive to why we're staying the course. And yet, I think the big strategic takeaway is really tactics that drive both, our branded and our private label business going forward, particularly around consumer messaging and importantly around innovation. So with that, my pleasure to turn things over to our -- as Dan spoke of, our newly promoted President of the Amlan business, Dr. Wade Robey.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. It's a real privilege to be able to speak with you this morning and to represent the Amlan, Amlan Nutrition and Health team globally. Very excited about the opportunity we have with Amlan to build another very strong element of Oil-Dri's business and really bring a tremendous amount of value to an industry that is in really great need of innovation as we continue to meet the challenges to feed a hungry world. As we -- as I talked this morning, I want to focus on our North American team and really highlight 1 of the key regions of the world where Amlan has tremendous opportunity to grow our business. But before I do that, I'd like to start where we always like to start, which is the advantage that Amlan has being part of Oil-Dri and the legacy that the Oil-Dri Corporation brings to our business. There are a number of key elements to that. First and foremost is the leadership that we have with Dan and the Jaffee family. Dan is the third-generation leader of our business. And because of that, we have a very consistent strategy, focus and our strong core values that we bring to this business. Oil-Dri also has, as I've mentioned, a very diverse portfolio. Amlan and the Animal Nutrition Health business is a great addition to that. We leverage the very strong vertical integration of Oil-Dri, being able to control the product from the ground, all the way to the customer, ensuring that we have quality and traceability and sustainability in our products. We use a single-source mineral, a number of locations, but a single-source mineral that brings tremendous technology to this space. And Oil-Drihas been very consistent over the years in the investments we have on innovation, building out our innovation campus and a strong team of R&D professionals that really allow us to create differentiating value for the marketplace. As we look at the type of products and portfolio that Amlan is developing and where we focus in the market, it really is around 4 key areas that are reflected on the left and then the illustration of the value opportunity in the animal diet on the right side of the slide. As antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals are removed very rapidly now from animal diets driven both, by regulatory compliance requirements as well as strong consumer preferences. There's a tremendous opportunity for Oil-Dri, Amlan to develop products that can meet the need as these products -- pharmaceutical products are removed for diets. These self-support animal growth and productivity and improve the efficiency of animal production. The pharmaceutical products that are being removed also help prevent disease in animals and allow producers, veterinarians, nutritionists to have high productivity and reduce the challenges that disease in their operations. Oil-Dri has a whole host of natural products that can help support an animal's natural immune system, support the natural development of the microbial ecology in the gut of the animal and really improve the performance as an animal digest and utilizes nutrients for growth and reproduction. So again, Oil-Dri Amlan has a tremendous opportunity to target this segment. The other areas that we focus on are a little harder to quantify in terms of the absolute value, but we know that maintaining an optimal gut health and immunity in the animal really improves its utilization of nutrients and allows for optimal productivity. And then, of course, animal welfare and sustainability. Healthy animals are animals that have a much more productive life. It allows us to produce animals in a much more sustainable way for food production. And it's the absolute requirement now that consumers have that we are mindful of animal welfare and sustainability. And Amlan is a big part of helping the industry achieve that. Now I'm going to shift my focus to the North American market and talk to you a little bit about why we're so excited about this region for growth for the Amlan business. As we look at the opportunity in North America, it really starts with our team there. We have a team of professionals with over 100 years of collective experience in this industry, team members that are well known by our customers and that have high credibility in this market. Heath Wessels is the VP of Sales for the Americas for Amlan. So that includes not only North America but also our Latin American business, where we also are going to see tremendous opportunities for growth in the future. Dr. Aldo Rossi was mentioned earlier, being promoted to VP of Innovation and Technical Service. Aldo also has a long experience in this industry, well-respected veterinarian and will help us align and develop a world-class technical service team as well as manage our regulatory affairs and innovation activities for Amlan. Jay Hughes is our Director of Technical Service for the Americas. Jay also has a long history in the industry working at both, a primary breeding company as well as an agricultural statistics company. Jay is well known by our customers and will be optimizing our technical services programs for the Americas, helping customers utilize our products and also helping to manage field issues that they may be experiencing in their operations. And then Chuck Snipes. Chuck is our key account manager in North America. Again, well known in this industry, tremendous relationships across the various species that he's covering. Chuck has been a great attribute to the team and is really helping to drive the growth that we're seeing in North America. Now why are we interested in North American market? Why is it a focal point for Amlan? This chart illustrates that. On the left Y-axis, you see the 2021 feed production in 1 million metric tons. And on the bottom of this chart on the X-axis, you see the compounded annual growth rates. Swine and broiler production is tremendous in the United States and beef also with a tremendous volume of feed that is required on this market. The North American region is the world's largest broiler meat producer per capita, and there's a very high correlation, as you see in this chart between the poultry and the swine industries. The top 10 producers in North America dominate the market. This gives us a very focused access to the market and the opportunity to grow. These companies are large, global, vertically integrated cross-species food and feed companies, which again gives us the opportunity to grow not only in poultry but also the other species that are important to us. The U.S. is the world's largest producer of broiler meat and of fresh milk, and we're second in the production of pork meat and beef meat. So tremendous opportunity in the North American market and why Amlan is focused here. As we reported earlier, we launched our new product portfolio in North America about a year ago at the International Poultry exposition in Atlanta. You can see here on this slide, the portfolio that we're bringing to the U.S. market. Sorbiam is our single ingredient or our core clay technology. And this product really provides broad efficacy in animal nutrition. It helps producers support optimal gut health and the optimal utilization of nutrients in the diets they're providing. Then below soybean, we have a range of formulated products that utilize our clay as its backbone, but also bring in other additional compounds or adjuvants that allow us to have a broad portfolio, focusing on a range of opportunities. Again, as pharmaceuticals, other drugs or chemicals are removed from the diet driven both by regulatory requirements as well as consumer demand for clean food and feed. So this is a portfolio we're bringing to the United States, very excited about the opportunity that it offers, and we're seeing good acceptance by our customers as we roll this out. Year-over-year, the Amlan global sales have increased approximately 18%. Tremendously strong growth, again, driven by growth in all world areas, but also our rollout of our U.S. products, our North American products that are starting to penetrate the market. As feed prices rise in the state, we currently have of high commodity prices, with the ban in Europe on meat being fed antibiotics. All of these are helping to drive the need for natural solutions that can provide the value that products previously utilized once did. So we're seeing growth that we believe will be sustained and rapid across North America. Our sales have doubled in this region as we launched our new branded portfolio, as I mentioned. And this, in large part, is due to the team that we have and the strong efficacy that customers are seeing as they test and begin to utilize our products. I do want to mention that Asia still remains important to our long-term growth. We expect our sales in China to stabilize in fiscal year 2023. We saw a lot of challenges in the region from the pandemic, from supply chain, from the African swine flu. But all these are starting to stabilize, and we're starting to see growth again in this region. The balance of Asia is expected to show significant growth in 2023 as demand rebounds. And really at the bottom line, the world's demand for high-quality protein will continue unabated. We have to be more efficient. We have to produce more and higher-quality protein to meet the demands of the world, and Amlan is going to be a key part of that for the industry. So finally, looking ahead, North America is going to be a key element to our success. And within the Americas, North America, is going to be a strong focus for us in the next coming years. Our customers are global food producers, as I mentioned, and our sales and marketing approaches are key to that and focused to the fact that these companies produce feed for multi-species and have multiple end markets that they serve. We're currently in field testing with some of the largest producers in North America. We've completed a number of trials. We're seeing good adoption, and we're seeing growth in our business as a result. The growth will be rapid. It will be stair step and volatile over the first year or 2 because some of these customers are extraordinarily large. And as they come online, we'll see dramatic step ups in the volume that we sell into this market. We've also, on the marketing side, done a great job with the team that we have. We've launched a new global website that will provide support for our products internationally, but also with a new focus in North America. And we have filled that website with a lot of information our customers can utilize from research articles, the blogs and expert advice, not only on the use of our products, but addressing the reason why our products are necessary. The underlying situations or conditions that producers deal with every day. And we're providing information to support our customers in targeting those elements. We have our upcoming IPPE convention here in January in Atlanta. It is the launching pad, as I mentioned a moment ago, for our North American portfolio a year ago, and it's a conference that attracts people from all around the world. So we're exciting to be demoing there, again, an IPPE with both, presentations as well as a booth to service our customers. And then lastly, coming up in March, the VIV and Bangkok is 1 of the largest international shows. Amlan will be there again with a booth, again, with a full complement of staff to support our customers, to meet with new customers that are interested in our products and really helped drive the growth of our business. So with that, I'll conclude my remarks, and I'll hand it back over to Dan for Q&A.

Wade, thank you very, very much. Thank you to the whole Oil-Dri team. As I opened up an investment in Oil-Dri and investment in our people, and I'm sure you're as impressed with our team as I am. And so we have a lot of momentum heading into the next quarters and the next fiscal years. We're going to open up the floor for questions. [Operator Instructions] Leslie will read the questions, and then I will either answer it directly or direct it to a specific Oil-Dri teammate to field the question. So Leslie, number one.

Okay. The first one in the queue is, can you please address the implications of the Albertsons-Kroger merger on Oil-Dri specifically and the branded private label cat litter market more broadly? As I recall, Nestle has a plant in California that is dedicated to supplying Kroger's private label that may or may not still be the case.

Great. Thank you, Chris?

Yes. Thanks, Leslie, we -- and Dan. We do business with both customers. Today, we see the -- I think we see the impending merger as having both some potential for a real upside. Candidly, and I think probably others are across CPG that selling to -- sell into one or both like we do, I would say there's a little bit of risk as well. I think most importantly, our existing business with them is in the litter. Sorry, in the lightweight segment of litter with our existing business within the context of both, where and hopefully took this from the last presentation or from my presentation. We have significant advantage, probably as evidenced by our private label market share being north of 70%, our private label market share within lightweight. So that gives us confidence. I'd also say the question alluded to California in terms of our private label producer of lightweight. But even, of course, I've put our footprint up against -- really against anybody we compete with. We have a great footprint, which is particularly important given the freight cost driver that we talked about before. And specifically, we too have a manufacturing facility that's vertically integrated like all of ours in California.

Great. Thank you. Okay. So we have 2 questions related. One is from John Bair. And then the second one is from Robert Smith. So I'm going to read them sort of together and have a joint answer. What is your outlook for Amlan sales growth that is driven from the combination of both, from repeat orders from early adopters of products versus new potential customers? And then secondly, are you able to reaffirm your $40 million revenue budget target for Amlan this fiscal year?

Great. And I'll field this, Wade, because you covered a lot of it in your presentation, but we're in a very dynamic state with Amlan because it's truly a start-up. We are in test with major customers. And as Wade said, if any one of them begins to roll out, and we have every confidence that they will, it will have a dramatic impact on the overall -- not just the division, but the whole business. So we do -- we have communicated that our plan for the year is $40 million. We did $5.5 million in the first quarter, which only annualizes to $22 million, but it was a 52% increase over the prior year. But we're still not -- we're still in trials with these companies that could flip the needle pretty dramatically. So if you put a gun to my head, would I say we're going to do $40 million this year? I'd probably take the under. But the momentum is in the right direction. So let's say, we hope at the very least, we'll have a run rate of $40 million in the fourth quarter. But I'd like to actually make it. I just -- it's so dynamic that I'm not willing to bet my life on it. But we're still very, very, very bullish on the short, medium and long-term future of Amlan.

Okay. Great. The next question comes from Ethan Star. Congratulations on a nice quarter. Dan, you mentioned last quarter that Amlan products are in numerous trials. What's the average length of the trial before a decision is made to buy or not buy Amlan's products? What percentage of companies that try Amlan's products end up purchasing them?

Yes. Wade, I'll turn this over to you. And it's very subjective because this is all new, but I would like to tap in your experience here and have you answer that question.

Yes. Thank you, Dan, and thank you for the question. And it will depend a lot by world area, but let me kind of give you a general sense. And this really plays off what Dan mentioned a moment ago. The runway or the time necessary to trial the products and to convince customers that the efficacy and the value really takes a number of months. We've generally worked through a presentation of information and data and R&D to move into field trials with customers and then gradual adoption in their various complexes as they roll it out across an operation. So understandably, that can take a number of months to achieve. I can report to you that we're well into that process in North America and certainly around the world, both with existing products and the new products that we have launched. We've consistently seen excellent performance and not only retrialing but beginning of commercial use by these large customers. So as Dan said, we're very bullish on the year. We believe the volume will come in large tranches as customers adopt and begin utilizing across their commercial operations. And we hope, by year-end, it would be at a run rate that is consistent with our targets.

Great. Thank you, Wade.

The next 2 questions that are related come from John Bair and Ethan Star. Fluid Purification sales growth. Is this a result of higher domestic demand? Or is there much of this attributable to international sales. If mostly domestic, what are your opportunities internationally? And then the second related question, it says, Dan, in your annual -- sorry, in your letter to stakeholders in the 2022 annual report, you noted that several renewable diesel plants are scheduled to begin operating in 2023. How many plants do you expect to begin operating and what's the size of the opportunity for Oil-Dri?

Yes. And I'm going to turn this over to Bruce Patsey, our Vice President of Fluids Purification Division with the 1 caveat, he's not in the room with us here. So Bruce, just stay general, we don't give specifics on absolute numbers of plants or absolute dollars. But your general comments would be appreciated.

Sure. Thanks, Dan. Basically, we had growth mostly in our domestic in North America. And Latin America is where we saw our growth this year or the first quarter, I should say. And we do have opportunities internationally going forward. I think both, in the fats and oils business and the renewable diesel business, we'll have opportunities as we look out in '23 and '24. With regard to the second question, there's going to be -- there's not going to be 1 million plants coming on. These are very large facilities. So there'll be several plants in the next 2 years that will be built and be up and operating. Of course, Oil-Dri will be going after as much business as we possibly can in this marketplace. If I would take a guess that we might have a chance to get 15% to 30% growth in terms of production of our bleaching clay products in this market space. But we'll see. We'll be working hard to earn that business.

Fantastic. And for those of you who are, I guess, new to the Oil-Dri investment, in many of our businesses, it's very much like the game of risk, if you played that when you were growing up, meaning you can only attack contiguous properties. So our plan is in Georgia. And so we have a unique competitive advantage in North America against our competitors who are in Malaysia or Singapore or even in Europe. Conversely, they have a big advantage to us in those markets. And so it's not a coincidence that a lot of our growth comes in U.S., in particular, in North America in general and then South America in the bleaching or business because we are closer to those markets than many, many, many of our competitors. But then the opposite is also true as you cross our moats of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. So thank you, Bruce.

Okay. Next question. Are you seeing any meaningful improvement in your logistics bottlenecks? What are the biggest pressure points, meaning trucking, rail, maritime shipping, so on?

Great. And I'll call on J.T. Harrison, our Vice President of Logistics and Procurement.

Can you hear me, Dan?

Yes, we do. Thank you.

So maritime shipping is still the biggest bottleneck that we face. Our freight procurement strategy is executed for domestic trucking, for rail, for North American intermodal shipping are all driving great successes to prevent or alleviate any bottlenecks. The maritime market is still a difficult one for us and most shippers. The global vessel schedule reliability is continuing to hover around 40%, which is a huge challenge. And despite that, we have unlocked some successes. And by our internal metrics, we are outperforming the market by 30%. And some of that success is the inventory we have built that was mentioned earlier, not just having that inventory but also positioning it closer to the key export ports that we utilize to give us agility to meet the constantly changing vessel schedules of the ocean carriers.

Awesome. Thank you, J.T. We have -- and a question actually came in, to me which is ironic, but I got it. And the question is, we've talked in the past about how Canada has gone all lightweight for Nestle Purina and how -- I think, what, about 55% of the market is now lightweight. And the question is if the U.S. replicated that lightweight percentage, what would the growth be potentially in the United States?

Yes. So Dan, I'm doing a little back of the envelope math here, but we've obviously looked at this. And you're right, the #1 player in Canada with -- we're benefiting significantly in that market. If the same thing were to happen in the U.S. -- by way today is around a $400 million at retail category, it would more than double that. So -- sorry, the growth would be more than double that. So the growth would be about $800 million. So the lightweight category is really -- if heavyweight lightweight were roughly split would grow to over $1 billion. So $800 million or so of growth.

Fantastic. yes. So great opportunity. There's no reason to believe that U.S. cats are that different from Canadian cats. Having lived in Canada, I can tell you they look pretty much the same.

Consumer might be even more like up there. We'll trickle down.

Exactly. So we're very, very bullish. Like I'm going to summarize, we're out of questions and out of time. But you can see all of our business units are thriving and doing very well, even our industrial and sports business, which are the granddaddy of the division is doing well. And then some of our strategic initiatives are all starting to hit at the same time. You've got renewable diesel. Our Ag business is booming. You've got a lightweight cat litter. And again, we've talked about in the past but it's very much an ESG effort. I mean if the whole country adopted lightweight cat litter, like they did with detergent with concentrated detergent, they force the shelves to go concentrated for carbon footprint reasons and logistical reasons. If the whole country went lightweight, it would reduce the carbon footprint of cat litter about 40%. And so that genie is not going back in the bottle. I don't see people in the future saying, "I want heavier. I want to have a bigger impact on the environment." I see the exact opposite, where I want lighter and I want to do things that are good for the environment, especially if they don't cause me money and don't suffer from performance. So I've always said all things being equal, if it went lightweight, and we believe it is, is at the right price and the right performance, the whole category is going. And so very exciting in the health business. Again, genie is not going back in the bottle. They're not going to reverse field and say, "Okay, you guys, you're going to all start pumping antibiotics back into food production for humans." It's not happening. So we're in the right place in the right time, and we believe, again, we have the best non-antibiotic, all-natural solution to a lot of these issues, which is why -- you've seen the team, these folks with 20-plus years' experience in this industry are all joining us at the same time because they believe and we believe, we have the best answer. And nothing sells like confidence. And they are very confident in our product line. So I'm very confident in the future of the business. You will see -- and I always get chastised for selling shares to pay taxes. On my restricted shares that vest and I always say, what sort of an idiot test because if I didn't pay my taxes, I'd go to jail. But this year, I actually wrote a big check and paid all the taxes out of cash, which my financial adviser would say was not a great idea. But my heart, gut and brain all tell me, and you can decide I'm either insane or I actually know something, tell me that the future of Oil-Dri is very bright. And so that's why I did it. And so I'm very -- was happy to keep all my restricted shares this year, and I'm very bullish on the future. So thank you for your attention, your loyalty, your support, and we'll be back at you after the next quarter finishes, but wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season.

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining and have a good day.