General Mills (GIS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending May 28, 2023

June 28, 2023 9:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the General Mills Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal '23 Earnings Q&A Webcast. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Wednesday, June 28, 2023.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeff Siemon, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Jeff Siemon

Thank you, Malika, and good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today for our Q&A session on our fourth quarter and full year fiscal '23 results. I hope everyone had time this morning to review our press release, listen to our prepared remarks and view our presentation materials, which were made available on our Investor Relations site. It's important to note that in our Q&A session, we may make forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions. Please refer to this morning's press release for factors that could impact forward-looking statements and for reconciliation of non-GAAP information which may be discussed on today's call.

I'm here with Jeff Harmening, Chairman and CEO; Kofi Bruce, our CFO; and Jon Nudi, Group President for our North America Retail Segment. So let's go ahead and get to the first question. Malika, can you please get us started?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first one question is from the line of John Baumgartner with Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

John Baumgartner

Good morning, thanks for the question.

Jeff Harmening

Good morning, John.

John Baumgartner

Maybe just to start off, just big picture Jeff. I wanted to come back to this transition you're speaking about in the environment in this new fiscal year. Last year, you made some pretty material investments back into the business. And with those now in the base and conditions getting back to normalizing, how are you sort of adapting and evolving those resources? I know there's a lot there. There's innovation, quality, promo, productivity. But how do we think about the next steps for growth and what a more offensive strategy looks like for mills going forward?

Jeff Harmening

Yes, John, thanks for the question. And I'm glad to take a half a step back. I mean, if you look at our last year, I mean, I think it's important to remember that, we grew sales at 10%, operating profit at 8% and EPS at 10% while investing in the business, double-digit growth in marketing and double-digit growth in capabilities. And so the -- as we look ahead, and our guidance also reflects our continued investment in growth.