Smithfield Foods, Inc. (SFD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Appreciate the patience. We just did how many flights of stairs Shane.

Nine flights.

Nine flights of stairs given the elevator situation, but we appreciate everybody's patience. My name is Peter Galbo. I am the packaged food analyst for BofA. We're really excited to have Smithfield Foods here today with us. Smithfield is a leading packaged meats company with brands, including its namesake, Smithfield, Nathan's Famous hot dogs and Eckrich. Smithfield is also the largest vertically integrated hog producer and fresh pork processor in the U.S. As we like to say, they recently completed a re-IPO process in the U.S. It's the second iteration as a public company after being taken private by WH Group in 2013. Since that time, Smithfield has shifted its portfolio and dramatically improved financial and operating performance. Please join me in welcoming to the stage, Shane Smith, President and CEO. Shane, thanks so much for being here. We're also joined by Julie MacMedan from Investor Relations. Thanks, Julie, for being here as well. I just want to kick it to Shane very briefly to read the safe harbor statement before we get into the discussion.

Yes. I just want to share that today, I may make forward-looking statements during this webcast, and listeners should refer to our Form S-1 filing for more details.

Great. So Shane, just to kick things off, this is Smithfield's second iteration as a public company. You've been with the company in both forms. I think the big question coming out of the IPO was just why was now the right time to go public.

Yes. Coming back to the U.S. markets is something that we've been working on for a while now. And for those of you who knew us when we were public back prior to 2013, we were really thought of as an agriculture company with some food businesses attached. And over these last 10 years of being private under WH Group, we've really changed the nature of our business. So today, we think of ourselves as a food company, as a CPG food company. During this time frame, we've grown our margins in packaged meats. We focused on that part of our business really strongly, while we've also been doing some things to prepare. So for example, closing some underperforming assets, rationalizing some hog production operations and really streamlining the overall operations. Our packaged meats business, we operate across 25 different categories. And if you look at those categories in total, they represent about a $46 billion opportunity for us. And we hold the #2 share across those categories. And we have on shelf performance of 93% ACV and 81% repeat purchase rates. So as we coupled all of those things together, looking at timing, knowing this was the ultimate goal was coming back to the U.S. market as a completely different company, the timing for us to come back was just right.

And Shane, maybe what would be just helpful. Look, this is the first kind of public forum that we've had. You've obviously spent a number of years with the company, and you've seen it kind of from all angles, having run Europe, having been in the U.S. Just what's the biggest difference that you see today with that field relative to when you first joined?

Yes. I first joined Smithfield over 20 years ago. And for those of you who've known Smith for a while, you know we grew by acquisition. So a lot of acquisitions. We were very acquisitive between 1980 and the early 2000s. And so the biggest change over these last 10 years is how we operate the companies. The operation philosophy prior to 2013 was really as we do an acquisition, to continue to operate those companies as independent operating companies. And so we had multiple ERP systems. We had multiple sales forces. We were supporting at one point, more than 40 different brands across the U.S. So not a real cohesive strategy. And so in 2013 and 2014, we launched what we call One Smithfield, and that was bringing all of those independent operating companies together to unlock the synergies that we all knew existed inside of the company and to really maximize the potential -- our potential as a company and it's been really successful for us. So today, we operate one ERP system. We have one sales force. We've whittled the brands that we support from 40 different brands to our key 12 to 13 brands across the U.S. from our national brands to regional brands, value brands and specialty brands. So really a focused approach to our brand portfolio. And this has unlocked a lot of potential that I mentioned a while ago about Smithfield. So if you think back to 2013 and you think about our top line, our top line back then was about $13.4 billion. At the end of the 12 months ended September of this year, we were about $14.2 billion. Now I want to take just a minute and talk about that top line because what we have done inside of the company, while it may seem a little tepid growth over that time period, we've done a lot of things inside the company that have negatively impacted our top line but have had an outsized positive impact on our bottom line. And so you can think of some of those things. We've shuttered underperforming assets. So you can think about places like Vernon, California, where we exited that market. We've sold off some noncore assets. So getting out of one of the investments we were in Mexico, selling off our spice business, Saratoga Spice a couple of years ago. We've rationalized about 40% of the SKUs in our packaged meats business to really streamline that manufacturing operation and be there for our customers. And that also -- that SKU rationalization came with parting ways with unprofitable customers, customers or SKUs that we didn't believe we could get the margin profile to where we wanted it to be, that forced some tough conversations with some customers. One of the things we've also done in our fresh pork business is we've reduced our level of harvest by about 10%. So at our high point, we can harvest 32 million to 33 million pigs. Today, we're at about 29 million, and that was purposeful to create some flexibility in our system that we could be a little bit more nimble and react with the market instead of always trying to run at 100% of capacity. So some of those things have really helped us streamline the business. If you think about the bottom line, so profitability, back in 2013, our packaged meats profitability as a segment was about $460 million, and that was about a 6% profit margin. You look at that business today, and we're well over $1 billion of profit in that part of our business and where our profit margins are at about 14% on a segment level. So really strong performance coming out of that part of our business. But we've also focused on our balance sheet. We've really built what we call a fortress balance sheet. And so if you think about in the terms of leverage ratios, we were up at about 2.5x levered back in 2013. At the end of this past September, we were at about 1.4. And today, we expect to be down below 1x. And so really focused on building a strong balance sheet that we believe is going to provide the fuel as we go forward into this next phase of Smithfield, which is really going to be about growth.

Thanks for that, Shane. So I'd like to pivot the conversation to kind of 4 really big macro topics. And as it relates to you guys, I think there's been a lot of questions that have come out since the IPO dominating the conversation. So maybe we can start with tariffs. Pork, obviously, is a large globally traded commodity. You have some exposure to China. You have some exposure to Mexico. But even just broader, your thoughts around the tariff environment and what it could mean for the industry and maybe for you guys specifically?

Yes. It's such a fluid situation, right? It changes every day. If you think about, I'll talk maybe a little bit just about our business and where we see potential impacts. I'll start with Mexico, for example. And there's really 2 sides of Mexico for our business. So first, we have our Mexico operations. That's the operations we have physically in Mexico where we raise hogs and we process those hogs and that meat is sold to the local Mexican environment. So that company, again, thinking specifically about Smithfield, that business should perform well. The other side is what we think about from what are the exports coming out of the U.S. and going into the Mexican market. For us, Mexico is a large ham destination market. And for us, our packaged meats business, we utilize a large part of our own hams internally. We do sell some hams externally, but a large part of the hams we use for internal hams. And so as we kind of look at the environment as we go forward, it's looking at the whole prism of things. So what is it going to mean to exchange rates? What is it going to mean, for example, for -- if meat is tariff going in, but -- and corn is also tariff going in, what does that mean to the underlying raising cost. So there's a lot of moving pieces that are going to come into play as we think about the relationship with Mexico and the importance of that as a destination market for U.S. meat. We also think about it in the context of China. We've built a really strong synergy with our sister company in China through WH Group to sell off all products for us into that market. Today, we don't export or we do not export any meat, any material amount of meat products. What we send to that market is the off all product. And that off all product is typically things that U.S. consumers don't need. So you can think of stomach, hearts, other products like that, head, ears, feet. And China is the best market for that in the world. And we've built a really strong synergistic relationship with Shuanghui through WH Group, where we actually have boots on the ground selling that product into the local economy or into the local environment on our behalf, trying to get the best price for us. We've been operating under a tariff system since 2018. And China, even under that current tariff is -- continues to be the best market in the world for that product. [Technical Difficulty] As we kind of think about this impact going forward, say if there's an [Technical Difficulty] includes things like quality enhancements. So through that feedback loop that we have at Shuanghui, we are understanding now that there are quality things that they can show us and teach us how to do on the U.S. side that will command a premium in that market. And so there are several products where we've changed our manufacturing process or changed our processing process that allow us to go from, in some cases, getting a discount for that product in the market to now getting a premium. But what we've built in fresh pork, specifically as it relates to overall tariffs is really a system of levers that we can pull based on how markets move. So we have access to about 40 different export markets, each of those important for a different reason or a different component of the pig. We're actively in each -- in about 30 of those markets on any given day. And so we're -- we've built a system where we can look across the spectrum, see what markets are the best, make sure we're getting that product into that market to help alleviate and move our product around the world. Inside of our fresh pork business as well, we've built what we call our adjacent businesses. And so we've built a pretty robust pet food business inside of fresh pork. We've also created a scans business, so we can use more of our scans internally. We have a pharmaceutical channel where we're harvesting different parts of the pig for different uses in pharmaceutical, and we can sell products as an active ingredient. So in fresh pork, it's really about finding a home for every piece of that. And with the tariffs coming in, it makes it more complicated as you look around the globe and see how things are moving and how exchange rates are moving. But I believe that what we've built is a pretty resilient system. We've been in business for 90 years. We're almost 100 years old, been doing this since 1936 and have built global relationships over those years that we believe we can continue to find the best markets for the products.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't ask as well, and I'm sure it's a much smaller piece, but on Canada, I think there were some headlines out about maybe some off all product going to Canada. Just kind of what's the latest there?

Yes, that wasn't tariff related. So that was a scenario where we had sent a load of off all products. There was a customer pickup, and there was a problem when it reached the border. And so we're working through that process now. We're bringing that product back. But that's not -- that wasn't anything related. Nothing related to tariff issue.

Nothing related to tariff. Got it. Okay. So that takes care of, I think, the first pillar of what we've been hearing. Maybe to pivot, and this has been a much larger industry question, again, with a lot of trade press around it, has been how the industry is going to grapple with labor and immigration. And specifically, I think the question around legal immigrants who are here on temporary visas or have worker status that may see that status change. And again, it seems like a moving target, but how do you feel the industry is prepared potentially to grapple with that level of change?

For us, for Smithfield, we actually started a process a couple of years ago with our workforce. And I think what you have to understand is we're in 19 states, 41 different locations and each of those locations have a different labor profile, have a different labor dynamic in the local industry. What we sought to be in each of those locations is an employer of first choice. And what that does is it allows you to really get the best of the best in each of those areas. For us, of course, we follow all federal and state hiring guidelines. We use E-Verify. We use all of the things necessary to make sure we have the right workforce. But the things we've done inside of the communities to make people want to work for us to become that employer of first choice has really paid off. And the best metric of that to see it is in your turnover rates. Our turnover is down to about 35%, where it was a high of more than 70% just a few years ago. But this industry is reliant on immigrant labor. And so we're paying close attention to all of the things that are coming out, whether it's visas or other scenarios that are taking place. So we're very close to it. Our HR team is very close to it in each of the communities that we operate in. We personally haven't seen a big impact where we think maybe some others have, but we're staying very close to it. But it is something that we'll need some cohesiveness around as an industry as we move forward.

Great. And before we turn maybe to more fun topics, I think the last kind of big macro piece that's come up quite a bit has been the ownership structure. It was really important during the process when we visited with you, I think you made it very clear, we're a U.S. company, the importance you have to the community in Smithfield. But just juxtaposing that against the current administration's view on specifically ownership of agricultural assets by China, your relationship with WH and the ownership structure there. What do you see as the path forward? Is there a dialogue that's ongoing as you all think about where the administration can move on specifically Chinese ownership of agricultural?

Yes. I think it's -- to kind of set the stage, I think it's important for everyone to know that when we were purchased by WH Group in 2013, it was a CFIUS-approved transaction. So it was approved by both houses, by CFIUS and by DOJ. So this was an approved transaction that took place. The relationship with WH Group has been, in my opinion, fantastic over the last 10 years since 2013, we've been able to do things that we hadn't done before. So I'll give you a few examples. First, over the last 10 years, between 2014 and 2023, we invested over $3 billion into our U.S. infrastructure into CapEx, and that's for maintenance, that's for capacity expansion. So we've been an investor into the U.S. infrastructure and the U.S. economy. We've also remained even more active in philanthropic side. So investments in our communities, food security, education and those type of things. So WH Group has really invested back into the U.S. infrastructure. The other thing I think is important to note is that Smithfield as a company, 95% of everything we produce is sold -- is sourced and sold here in the United States. So if you think about that in the context of our packaged meats business, it's built for the U.S. economy or U.S. consumer. The manufacturing operations are here, the raw material is sourced here and the product is sold here. Same in hog production across the farms that we hold across Missouri, North Carolina and the Midwest, all of that grain is sourced here, the soybean meal and the corn and the hogs are sold here. So we are as American company today as we have been at any other point in our history. And that relationship works really well with WH Group. My expectation is that WH Group will continue to be a long-term shareholder of Smithfield. And I think that's a good thing because they have been very -- the word I'm looking for. They've really allowed us to invest into our business to grow our business and to run our business. WH Group's philosophy on management is that local teams run the local companies. So the U.S. team runs the U.S. businesses. The European team runs the European businesses. And it's really worked well over the last 10 years. And I think the proof of that lies in the numbers that we're hitting today. We're doing things that we've never done in our history, and we're achieving records that we've never achieved or levels that we've never achieved before. And it's because of that relationship, I believe, whether that's the synergy or the competitive advantage that we have with Shuanghui in China or the freedom to continue to run and operate and grow the businesses here in the U.S. and Mexico.

Great. And I know we're still waiting on official 4Q results. We did get the flash numbers, but we'll be talking on March 25.

March 25, we will come out with our first report.

Great. So I do want to pivot now just to a much broader topic, and that is what seems like an insatiable appetite of consumers for protein. And we have a discussion internally about, look, we're all trying to consume our body weight and grams of protein, however, format that comes on a daily basis.

So when you climb 9 flights of stairs [Technical Difficulty].

And we're in Miami. They had -- I don't know if anybody had the media no chase last night at the hour, but those were -- we've been pork forward at this conference. So I just -- I want to get your perspective on the advantages you see to the portfolio of consumers moving more towards a protein-rich diet. And maybe that's GLP-1 driven, maybe that's more dietary trend driven as a first point. And then maybe you can juxtapose that against what we're hearing out of MAHA and RFK around ultra-processed foods as it relates to your portfolio and some of the products that you compete with?

Well, for protein, protein is recognized as just an integral part of any healthy diet. And animal protein provides that level of all the amino acids and things that your body needs. And so I think from a protein basis, we're well positioned for GLP-1s, for example. We do get a lot of questions on GLP-1s. And what I believe and what we see where we are able to see scanner data is that people who use GLP-1s are staying with a protein diet. So where we see the impact on that is snacks and sugary drinks and those type of things that they're not buying, but they're really focused on maintaining a good level of protein and high-quality protein in their diet. So we think we're set up well as we go forward. The thing with ultra process, the reality is I don't think anyone knows what the definition is. And so you get asked what part or percent of your overall portfolio is ultra process, and there's not a definition. So it's really hard to answer that question. I think even the Brazilian scientists who coined the phrase doesn't even have a real definition for what it is. But the reality is it is something that's being discussed and it's something that we're paying attention to. For us, we actually began a process a few years ago, we moved health and wellness into one of our pillars of sustainability. And so we've set a baseline against 2019 levels to reduce sugar and sodium by more than 10%. And for most of our products or a large percentage of our products, we've already achieved that. And in many cases, we've gone beyond that. And so we'll continue to focus on the products that we produce, reducing the sugar levels, reducing the sodium levels and making them overall cleaner label type products as we go forward. But I think we will hear more about what this means and how the industry is reacting as we hear more about MAHA and what's coming out of the federal government. But until those clear definitions exist and the parameters around those, it's really hard to opine on what exactly that will work out to.

And maybe before we dive into kind of the business in each of the segments, one question that we just get as a broader part of our protein coverage is kind of advantages that each of the animal proteins have where we are in the cycle. So just what advantages do you see today that pork has relative to beef and chicken in the current environment? Maybe that's a supply cycle dynamic, maybe that's a demand perspective, but kind of what are the advantages that you see for pork?

Yes. When you think about the 3 proteins, for pork, I think one thing that sets pork apart from beef or chicken is its versatility. If you think about pork offerings, they're offered at breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks across all of the dayparts. They're very receptive to different recipe styles. So if you think what's growing now, Asian cuisines and Hispanic cuisine, growing very quickly across the U.S. Those cuisines typically tend to be dominated by pork offerings. And then you get into the ingredient category. So pork being used as an ingredient. So you can think of pepperoni on a pizza or any type of charcuterie board, it's really heavily pork dominated. So I think pork as a protein is really well positioned for those reasons as well as the different price points. Beef is really expensive right now. And I think the recovery has now pushed out even longer than was anticipated. Chicken, if you look at the price of chicken breast versus pork loin, chicken breast tends to run a little bit or run higher now. And so I think we're really well positioned from a pricing perspective, from a versatility perspective and from a consumption perspective as we go forward. I'm really bullish on pork consumption over the next few years.

And just supply dynamics, just kind of can you compare this pork market relative to what you've seen in past cycles kind of where.

I think we're pretty balanced right now. It's -- we saw in 2023, which was one of the worst hog cycles that we've seen in a while. We saw some rationalization. We saw [indiscernible] intention rates were down and actual [indiscernible] were down. So I think as we sit today, we're pretty well supplied. I feel like we're in pretty good balance as we go forward. We see that in -- if you look at the future strips, for example, for corn and soybean meal versus hog prices, that indicates that the industry is back to profitability in 2025. So I think it's really well positioned. I don't think there'll be a rush to go out and see expansion in hog production numbers. One of the things that we're watching that will be interesting to see, and it goes back to the tariff discussion, Canada is a net exporter of about 90,000 weaned pigs per week into the U.S. market. So that represents on an annual basis, about 5 million market animals. And so it will be interesting to see how tariffs play out on those 90,000 a week and what we see that impact in hog prices and profitability across the board as well.

So let's maybe pivot then to packaged meats. It's kind of the value driver of the business. We talked about that 10-year span where you were maybe away from the U.S. public eye, the expansion opportunity that you actually realized in the business. Just talk a little bit about some of the actions that you took specifically in packaged meats. And I think one of the big questions we get back from folks is just what's the opportunity left kind of going forward?

Yes. Packaged meats, our packaged meats business has really become the cornerstone of our business, and it's what we're focused on, as I mentioned earlier. We have done so many things inside of that business to improve it. If you go back to 2013 and look at the compounded annual growth rate in the segment profit, it's grown at about a 10% CAGR over this time period. We crossed $1 billion of profitability back in 2021, and we haven't looked back. I mean, so we're still continuing to improve that business. And it's not just been one thing. It's been many. So I mentioned the SKU reduction. So really streamlining the business. We focused on our mix, getting our mix right. So moving from some of the old traditional heritage commodity style packaged meats products. So you can think of a holiday ham into a higher-margin everyday use type item. So taking that holiday ham and converting it into a net quarterweight ham or a freshly sliced deli or some other product that, that consumer can pick up every day at a much higher margin profile. The reality for the holiday ham category, it's declining annually at about 5% a year as an industry, as that category exists. So what we're challenged with is how do we offset those volumes into other products. And what we've actually seen since 2019 is about a 2% increase in the volume in hams in the ham category. But more importantly, we've seen about a 19% increase in the velocity of those new products coming off the shelf. So instead of selling 1, 12-pound item, now we're selling 12, 1-pound packages of some other product. And that transition has worked really well. And that's just one example of how we're thinking about mix to continue to improve our overall profitability. And then lastly, and this isn't specific to packaged meats. It's in every part of our organization. We've really developed a relentless focus on driving inefficiencies and cost out of our system. So we set every year with cost savings initiatives designed to more than offset the impacts of inflation so that as we go forward, we're continuing every year to improve the underlying cost structures in those businesses. And the 3 of those things combined is really how we've driven our margin from 10.5% in 2021 to about 14% at the end of 2024. So a lot of really great work has taken place inside of our packaged meats business. You asked how far it can go. I don't think we're done yet. We still have cost savings initiatives in front of us. We still have mix opportunity. So we still have -- while the SKU rationalization -- the heavy lifting is done. We're mainly done. We're always evaluating what SKUs are in the portfolio, what level of complexity and cost does it add? And is there a better way to do that by maybe replacing that SKU or adding another SKU or combining. So the heavy lifting part of that is done. But of course, we can't give guidance, but I think you can look to the historical trends and see that we still have some runway in front of us.

And maybe we can talk about innovation within packaged meats. It's a category, frankly, that I think has been kind of sleepy for quite a period of time. And you guys maybe have been the outlier in that. You've brought whether it's packaging solutions, whether it's creative offerings, the Carando ready-to-cook meatballs, I think, are probably the biggest innovation that's launched. But -- do you -- how much of a competitive advantage is that and what you bring to the table from an innovation standpoint, maybe relative to where the competitors have, I don't want to say ignored the category, but been less focused and maybe that lends itself again to you as a single-focused protein company, but would love the perspective there.

Yes. Innovation is something that we're -- I think we're good at, but we're getting better. We still have some room in innovation. I do think we're leading the area. Meatballs, you gave the example. That was a category that only existed in frozen form, right? So we came up with a way to serve or sell those meatballs fresh, work with our customers. And now we have, I want to say, a 65% market share in that category. You look at marinated pork loins, that's an area that we dominate now. That's something that came out, freshly sliced deli for those of you who've seen that product at the grab-and-go package, that was actually a combination of working with our customers who coming out of COVID were having a problem staffing their delis. And we were able to slice and package that deli where it looks like it was sliced that day in the deli, and it worked for both of us at a much higher margin profile, again, than coming out of that ham category. So sometimes innovation is something that we do internally. We have an idea we run with. And many times, it's with our customers who are looking to us to help solve a problem for them. I think one thing that we're able to do that maybe some other people aren't is really leverage the size of our business. If you think about our footprint, we have -- one, we have redundancy for every product. And so our customers like redundancy. We also have scale. Not many people can deliver the amount of product that we can. And so what that leads into is our conversations with our customers are different now. What used to be a price and volume discussion is now we're talking about what's coming 2 or 3 or 4 years from now and how we're investing and helping them prepare for that. And that gives us, I think, some degrees of freedom inside of the retail store to try new things like the meatballs and see if they work or taking a Nathan's hot dog and putting it in an enrobed pretzel format and selling it into the frozen aisle. So we have some degrees of freedom that we can operate across the -- you like the enrobed Nathan's? I think for us, our private label relationships have really become a competitive advantage for us because of the relationships we're now able to have. Private label represents about 38% of our retail sales. And so it's an important part of our business, but the real importance is in the doors it opens the conversations we're now able to have, the degrees of freedom we have to try new things in different parts of the store, and then to piggyback some of our fresh pork innovation on the back of our packaged meats innovation. So again, you can think marinated or case-ready or meatballs and use some of the same techniques and relationships on the fresh pork side where we've seen real success on the packaged meat side.

And maybe just the last one on packaged meats. Obviously, the deli category went through major disruption over the summer. Just in your conversations with the big customers, clearly, there's been some opportunities. Maybe it's been on Prime Fresh, maybe it's been on some of the other premium brands that you have. But you've been able to take a fair amount of share. Just how kind of sustainable do you see that? And what's just been the overall consumer attitude to the category in light of kind of what transpired over the summer?

In this area, we have taken a lot of share. And it's -- I do think it's sustainable because of the way we've taken it. And it's been a scenario where our customers have come to us and said, we want to replace the deli set. We want you to come in. We'll give -- we'll do half private label, half Smithfield brands or our Kretschmar brands, for example. So really replacing the competitive set that was in there to really focus on our set. One thing I think our customers appreciate is our focus on food safety and quality. Each day, we have 600 people across our organization whose sole job in every plant and every distribution center is ensuring food safety. And I think our customers appreciate that. When we saw over the summer where we saw competitors lose large amounts of market share, we saw the category lose large amounts of market share or large amounts of the market, we actually saw an increase. Our share actually increased. Our volumes actually increased. And I think that's a testament not only to the customers and how they think about our quality and our ability to provide the products they need, but it's also the consumers who are still picking up our products and our brands that they've known for 30 years. And so it really showed a lot of people in the industry, the strength of the Smithfield brands, the strength of our food safety and quality programs. And I think it's really appreciated by the customers.

Great. I just want to pause there quickly to see if there's any questions in the audience before I ask about hog production because I want to talk about it.

We talk all day about hog production.

Sure. Here we go.

Bullish on pork, by the way. That's the takeaway from this. Shane, thanks for taking the time with us. Just on the packaged meats, getting back to that for a sec. I understand the margins have doubled, right? I think you've talked a little bit about the SKUs and maybe the mix being different. And Oscar Mayer has really struggled with Lunchables, some of it kind of footfall on their own, some of it just some stories written, I guess, about it. So are kids an opportunity in terms of what's effectively like a shut board for kids? Is there an opportunity for Smithfield there? It's a high-margin product. Is that the type of.

Well, we have the LunchMakers. So we do have a product similar to the Lunchables that Oscar Mayer has. So we do have a presence in that market. But whether you're talking about kids or adults, and I'll go back to the health and wellness pillar. Really, what we're focused on is the overall product, all of the products that we produce, so lower sodium, lower sugar and those type of things. So I wouldn't say it's just indigenous to or just specific to kids as much as it is the overall portfolio.

And then I don't know if you're going to get to this later, Pete, but dividends, I know you're going to report earnings in a couple of weeks. So can you just give us a perspective on just how you're thinking about returning cash to shareholders, how dividends play into a.

Yes. I would -- we haven't announced the dividend yet. I would refer you back to the statements we made in the S-1 regarding the dividend. And I would just tell you that the announcement of that, Julie, will be coming relatively soon, March 25.

But that's part of the return profile for investors.

It is.

Okay. And then I guess just one last one. And it gets back to Pete was mentioning the listeria with Boar's Head earlier this summer. Just your perspective. I mean, I think one of the surprises there was just how little investment there had been made in some of those plants and maybe some of the reason why they've had the issues they've had is just I don't want to say negligence, but it hadn't been invested in. You've talked about having the ability to -- I think you spent -- you said $3 billion of CapEx. Oscar Mayer has been kind of all over the place, right, in terms of their investment. Pete, I don't think Tyson -- I'm not sure where Tyson is on this. But just has that investment also set Smithfield up in packaged meats to maybe have a competitive advantage, both in terms of just quality, but -- and also maybe different product forms.

Yes, I think so. And again, we've invested since 2013, about $3 billion. So that's across all of the U.S. infrastructure. So I believe our plants are really well invested. As we go forward, our typical CapEx spend is probably going to range between $400 million and $500 million a year. And you can think about half of that going to infrastructure going to maintenance and those type of capital projects and the other half going to ROI projects. So whether that's capacity expansions or cost savings type investments that will take place, but there will be an ROI return on about half of that CapEx. So I think we're really well invested. WH Group has been really supportive of the capital investments we believe we've needed to make in the company. Those investments, again, they span the spectrum from food safety and regulatory to infrastructure, all the way through capacity expansion. So I believe that our plants are really well invested.

All right. I think we have to cut it there. We'll save hog production for the next discussion. But Shane, thanks so much for being -- I really appreciate it.

Thank you Peter.