ConAgra Foods, Inc. CAG
Q2 2012 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Andrew Lazar, Barclays Capital.

Andrew Lazar - Barclays Capital: Just two quick things from me. First, with respect to the third quarter commentary around being prudent and cautious and what have you, I want to make sure that that's not based on anything that you're necessarily seeing currently in any of the data you have from a volume perspective. So, the down 1% I think was probably somewhat better than maybe – certainly than a lot of the data that we all get suggested, and you said you're obviously somewhat pleased with that. Is there a reason to expect at this point, based on something you're seeing, that that likely gets a little worse before it gets better, or are you just being conservative?

Gary Rodkin - CEO: Andrew, I think there's really three reasons that we see the back half growth concentrated more in Q4 and that's basically the timing of inflation as we spoke year-over-year, specifically our projected inflation for Q3 is a toughest cost of goods headwind for any quarter this fiscal year. The second is that we are we think appropriately cautious about volumes as the recent price increases have only been in the market for a few months and the fact that we have more coming in some of the value-oriented areas of the portfolio, which in some cases have greater than average elasticities and the third is the timing of our marketing investments are skewed more in Q3 versus in Q4. So when we put these factors together and really the nature of the quarterly year-over-year comparisons in general, that's why we see the growth in Q4, that's really it.

Andrew Lazar - Barclays Capital: One last thing, with respect to sort of the outlook around M&A and we have even, I certainly appreciate the perspective on discipline and patience and I think that's clearly what most would want. When you listen to some of the other sort of private label consolidators, they're certainly telling a story more recently of the potential for an accelerated rate of M&A on their own parts going forward, I guess just based on what they are seeing in the market and the pipeline that's out there and such and I guess what I'm getting at is, seeing that and seeing the private label as a big part of your or one of the planks of your M&A, is it hard to balance I guess a sense of urgency that you may need in that space given where others might do versus kind of the patients and the discipline or are you ready to go ahead and do some things more quickly if they appear, because it seems like the other players are going to be going on another spurt if you will?

Gary Rodkin - CEO: Yeah. Andrew, you mentioned that it's – private label is just one of the three planks for us, so we want to make sure we keep that in mind. But we are clearly ready, willing and able when it makes sense for us, it’s got to have the right strategic fit. It’s got to have the right kind of metrics that we talked about, but make no mistake about it. We are clearly ready to jump if the right property comes along with the right kind of attributes.

Andrew Lazar - Barclays Capital: Do you feel your – it's the last thing. Do you feel like your, I don’t know, contacts and tentacles, if you will, in sort of the private label space more broadly will allow you to do some things over time? Or I guess what I’m getting at is I’m trying to get a sense of whether you feel that’s a disadvantage at all to some of the players that have been looking at maybe some of these assets for a long time, because that’s something that’s come up here and there, so I just love your thoughts on it?