On Wednesday, Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.

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Summary

Kraft Heinz adjusted its strategic categories, moving frozen foods from 'win big' to 'hold' and hydration from 'win' to 'win big', indicating strong growth potential in hydration with brands like Capri Sun.

The company maintained its annual guidance despite a better-than-expected Q1, citing Easter timing and inflation pressures as factors impacting future quarters.

Significant marketing investments are planned, with at least 5.5% of revenue dedicated to marketing to support key brands and categories.

Kraft Heinz plans to continue focusing on productivity improvements to offset inflation, with a strategy to absorb input cost increases through productivity and pricing.

Management remains optimistic about the potential for innovation-driven growth, such as the Power Mac and Cheese launch and new hydration products.

Despite market pressures, the company is seeing an improvement in market share, especially in the US and expects continued strong cash flow and debt reduction.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Greetings and welcome to First Time Insights Company first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press Star 0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ann Marie Maglena. Thank you. You may begin.

Ann Marie Maglena

Thank you and thank you all for joining us today. Welcome to the Q and A session for our first quarter 2026 business update. During today's call, we may make forward looking statements regarding our expectations for the future. These statements are based on how we see things today and actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. Please see the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in today's earnings release and our most recent SEC filings for more information regarding these risks and uncertainties. Additionally, we may refer to non GAAP financial measures. Please refer to today's earnings release and the non GAAP information available on our website for a discussion of our non GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the comparable GAAP financial measures. Joining me today to answer your questions is our Chief Executive Officer Steve Cahelane and our Chief Financial Officer Andre Massiel. Operator, please open the call for the first question.

OPERATOR

Thank you. At this time we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please. While we poll for questions, Our first question comes from Peter Galbo with Bank of America. Your line is now live.

Peter Galbo (Equity Analyst)

Hey, good morning, everybody. Thanks for the question, Steve. I was actually hoping to start with Hold Win and winbig. Just comparing kind of what you said at Cagny a few months ago to what you're presenting today, at least in the slides. I think there's been a few shifts of some of the platforms or sub platforms between kind of the different categories. So I was hoping you could kind of touch on the decision to make some of those changes and then kind of as a part B to that question, just whether that signals anything in terms of how you're viewing potential asset sales of different platforms.

Steve Cahelane (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, thanks for the question, Peter. You know, as I said in the outset, you know we reserve the right to continue to get smarter. And that's what we've done is we've made some of these changes and a couple of examples we did downgrade our frozen from Win Big to Hold and we think that's based on what the category is, shoWing us what our real opportunities are and really confronting the facts as they stand and being realistic about them. Equally, we look at hydration. We move that from Wind to Win Big. We see strong category growth. We really like our brands in this space. We really like Capri Sun, its ability to go from folloWing the cohort that's young and aging with them with our new hydration platform that's coming out now. So we see a real opportunity to Win Big there based on our brands and our place in the category. Equally, we've moved cheese from whole to Win. We like the margins there, we like our brands, we like our opportunities. So those are some of the changes that we've made. I think they're all positive and they point to the fact that we're continuing to look at our portfolio challenge our portfolio, invest in our portfolio and look for those areas where we can grow.

Peter Galbo (Equity Analyst)

Great. Thank you for that. And Andre, maybe just as a follow up, I know the guidance is largely unchanged after what was probably a better than expected Q1. You called out some timing factors, but maybe just you can expand a little bit on your prepared remarks from the commentary around Q2 and how you kind of view the evolving inflation outlook. I know you bumped that up a little bit today. Thanks very much guys.

Andre Massiel (Chief Financial Officer)

Good morning Peter. Thanks for the question. Look, we expect second quarter to have top line between minus 3 and minus 5%. This is a consequence of the Easter shift that we have explained a few times combined with we still anticipate and expect this net asset position to be 100basis points headwind in the year starting in the second quarter. There's nothing that we have seen so far that indicates otherwise. We do expect continue to see the market share improving like we observed in Q1, but given softness in the category we still expect this should be a headwind in the second quarter. These will be all partially offset by continuous improvement in away from home business worldwide and in emerging markets. When it comes to inflation, we initially guided the year to be approximately 4%. In fact, our number implied in the outlook was a little lower than that. We are now seeing mainly because of the conflict inflation around energy and resins, spiking up. We are well hedged in energy for the year resins,. We are hedged through mid Q3 so so we do expect if situation remains the same, there is still a lot of volatility out there which can get better or even worse. But we do anticipate in the third quarter to start to suffer the impact from that inflation. Great, thanks very much. I'll pass it on.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from Steve Powers with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now live.

Steve Powers (Equity Analyst)

Great, thanks and good morning everybody. Steve, if we just look at the improvement you started to show through and exiting the first quarter, as you dig into it, are you able to parse out where there is more meaningful true underlying progress that you think can really is momentum you can build on versus maybe some transitory impacts, just areas where Easter timing or weather or what have you flatter the quarter. Just is there a way to parse out what's most promising versus maybe where we should just kind of temper our thinking a bit?

Steve Cahelane (Chief Executive Officer)

Yes, Steve, definitely we benefited from Easter shift, there's no question about that. And the winter storms caused some pantry loading, no doubt about that. But underlying that, we've seen real improvement in our share trajectory and performance. As we said in the prepared remarks, the total business last year held or gained share in only 21%. In the first quarter that moved to 35% and in March that moved all the way up to 58%. And then if you look at our taste elevation, where we were investing earlier last year, that moved from 24% holding or gaining share last year all the way to 81% in 1Q26 and exited March at 87%. And that's really a function of the investments that we've made, the product improvements that we've made, the distribution that we've been able to hold or gain based on the activities that were put in place and the totality of the business and the good start to the quarter, I think can also be attributed to the fact that for the Last at least 60 days this organization has been maniacally focused on on growth and execution. Pausing the split freed up lots of resources as we said it would, and we turned our attention and the attention of this entire organization to get off to a strong start. And that's exactly what we did. So we're being very realistic about what flattered the quarter, as you said. But we also see the underlying strength that's building and that's important because that's where we're going to continue to invest. And the vast majority of our 600 million is still dry powder that is being deployed as we speak from now through the rest of the year. So we're holding guidance but we're very encouraged by the start to the year and we plan on continuing our maniacal focus against our consumer and our customer

Andre Massiel (Chief Financial Officer)

and execution to complement a little bit with the numbers. So last year we started the year losing 90bps of market share, mix adjusted which was really the bottom the last 10 years as you started to step up investment. The second half were able to exit last year losing 50 to 60bps of market share and now year to date we are at 30bps. So there is definitely a good improvement happening right now led by taste elevation but also by hydration as Steve mentioned and desserts. These places where you have step up investments in marketing, in renovating the product are starting to show some signs of paying off.

Steve Powers (Equity Analyst)

Great, thank you. And Andre, while I have you just on free cash flow, obviously a strong quarter but some working capital, you know, and marketing, accrual timing, benefits just obviously you've, you've called, you've maintained the free cash flow outlook for the year. But as you think about the the balance of year 2q through 4q anything to call out in terms of timing of year to go free cash flow,

Andre Massiel (Chief Financial Officer)

look our cash flow remains very strong. I think all the changes we have made to incentives a couple of years ago, we have now the organization focus on really being disciplined in deploying capital expenditures and managing working capital better. So we're seeing that translated again in the first quarter because of the step up in investments happening in the second half. We should expect cash flow potentially to go down in the second half of the year. But I mean that's anticipated now. We exited the year, exited the quarter with a very strong cash on hand. So you will see us now in the second quarter paying down debt. The debt is maturing now in Q2 and we are strongly considering anticipating paying back part of the debt that is maturing next year have $$1.9 billion next year again. So we are considering anticipating a portion of that as well. And there are a couple other things we are doing in terms of managing better our debt tower which will allow us to reduce interest expense. But I think it's a good position that we put ourselves in and allow us even to invest $600 million in the business and still generate strong cash flow. Yes. Okay, very good. Thank you so much.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from Michael Laveri with Piper Sandler. Your line is now live.

Michael Laveri (Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning. Just curious how to think about the pricing environment. You've obviously started the year with plans that include price adjustments and it looks like there's early signs in this quarter that where they look like they're in place already, that's working. But then there's of course, shifts in the input cost environment. Does that do anything to change how you think about your plans or how fluid and dynamic would your pricing expectations be?

Steve Cahelane (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, thanks, Michael. I'd say the pricing environment can be best characterized as very rational. You know, we've come through this inflationary cycle which was obviously unprecedented. The consumer is under a lot of pressure. And so our focus is very much on value, creating value and affordability. And we have looked at opportunities to adjust pricing where we think it's gone a little too far and you're seeing some results in that. But we'll always look at the input cost environment and say our first line of defense is productivity. And we're really looking to ramp up our productivity and have a top notch productivity year this year because it's really needed because the consumer can only absorb so much price. And so we'll be looking at productivity. Ideally, a business like ours would take about half of input cost inflation in price and then the rest in productivity. And if we can do better than that, this is the year to do it. Because the consumer is under a tremendous amount of pressure and we look at it as very much our goal to be affordable and be there for our consumers in an environment like this.

Andre Massiel (Chief Financial Officer)

And I think that Steve said in the guidance for the year we have contemplated initially that would price only 20% of the inflation. Okay, so this was already anticipated and interesting Steve's point. We are relying on another strong year of productivity. We started Q1 is strong again above 4% of COGS. And we do expect to be able to maintain that pace.

Michael Laveri (Equity Analyst)

That's really helpful. And related to that, I just wanted to follow up on. I think it's slide 8. You flag a simplified operating model as part of the turnaround for the US And I guess want to make sure we understand kind of some of what that means. And it has the Orida logo there. It could be referring to the simplot. But how much opportunity is there to simplify the operating model? And I guess part of the question is through the lens of history, knowing the cost cutting can obviously go too far. So how should we just think about what opportunities there are and maybe the risks and how you think about that approach?

Steve Cahelane (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, you know, we made a terrific hire in bringing Nicolas Amaya to run our North American business. And he has been hard at work looking at the operating model, as have we all and we see real opportunities to have stronger accountabilities, stronger empowerment at the people who are running the business. We also see big opportunities to supplement our commercial activities, our commercial people. And we've been doing a lot of that hiring people in sales and marketing, but really with a focus on the consumer and the customer and very strong objectives that are aligned around our business objectives. The chief one is growing organic sales and improving market share performance and so simplifying everything that we do in service of the consumer and the customer and our goal to drive profitable volume led value market share.

Michael Laveri (Equity Analyst)

Very helpful, thank you.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo. Your line is now live.

Chris Carey (Equity Analyst)

Hi, thank you everybody for the question. If you just, you know, think about the back half acceleration in top line that you're embedding for the year, can you just unpack that a little bit across the most meaningful drivers, you know, as it pertains to the lapping of Indonesia, the step up that you're expecting from investments, the improvement and the subsequent improvement in market share that you're expecting, perhaps some of this acceleration in Western Europe post pricing. Can you just give us a sense of how to think about the complexion of the major contributors to the back half improvement that you would expect in the top line?

Steve Cahelane (Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks Chris. I'll start and Andre can help with more details in the numbers. We're not really calling for an acceleration. You know, we got off to a very good start and we're being prudent about the way we think about the rest of the year. Of course we'd always like to over deliver on our top line goals, definitely would like to over deliver on our market share objectives. But we're being prudent in the way we think about the rest of the year and not embedding the first quarter over delivery into our guidance for the top line.

Andre Massiel (Chief Financial Officer)

And in terms of the building blocks you mentioned Indonesia, that's certainly a contributor. Like in the first quarter for example, Indonesia alone was a 7, was a 70 basis points headwind to top line growth and do expect that all to go away in the second half. As we lap all the adjustments we have made in the business market share in the US as we step up the investment should see an improvement versus where we are today. Similarly, we feel good about our European plans. Everything that we're doing behind Heinz, there is a lot of step up investments as well as part of the 600 million that is going against Heinz in Europe, we're going to see that also helping improve performance over that and away from Home. Even though there is still overall softness in the category, we are now seeing signs of market share improvement in the US which is quite encouraging, especially in the sources portfolio. So I think all of those factors should allow us to see the step up so there will be a balanced contribution across those levers.

Chris Carey (Equity Analyst)

Okay, thank you. And it's been touched on a bit. But just as you think about the inflation exposure in Q4, obviously this is going to imply bigger exit rates going to 2027.

Steve Cahelane (Chief Executive Officer)

Just. And Michael kind of, you know, Avery touched on this a bit, but what does the toolkit look like for you to work through a sustained higher inflation environment? Obviously there's a pricing discussion, productivity sustaining relatively high levels. Would you look at maybe harvesting some of the investments that you've made in SG&A to protect the bottom line going to 27? Obviously this is a fluid environment and inflation can certainly change. But can you just give us a bit more insight on how you'd be planning from a cost offset perspective? If we look out 18 months. Thanks much, Chris. So we wouldn't look at our investments, the $600 million and otherwise, as a way to protect profit. In fact, we're looking at opportunities to even invest more as we see good returns against those investments and good outcomes in terms of the top line. So we'll protect that and in fact even lean into it. As we said earlier, the first line of defense is always going to be productivity. But you know, it's unknown what the fourth quarter and 2027 will bring. It could be that the whole environment moves towards needing to take more price. I mean, we can't predict what the outcome will be in the Middle east and how that will, you know, affect. But it's going to be something that affects the entire environment. And you know, we would be looking to, you know, go with that. But again, first line of defense is productivity. Investing in our brands and driving a good top line outcome is what we'd be looking at.

Chris Carey (Equity Analyst)

Okay, thank you.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from Thomas Palmer with JP Morgan. Your line is now live.

Thomas Palmer (Equity Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for the question. Maybe could just start on the marketing side. You noted the 37% increase in the first quarter on a year over year basis. Also the plans for 5.5% spend. But maybe any framing on where that level of increase in the first quarter kind of takes you relative to that annualized percent of sales. And then when we think about the magnitude of the increase, are there any timing considerations such as having that early or Easter impacting how that marketing spend flowed through and last, any detail on where that spend has really been focused. And if you're seeing when we look at the share improvements, disproportionate spend in kind of the areas that have inflected the most. Thanks.

Andre Massiel (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. So as we said in our prepared remarks, we do expect marketing for the year to be at least 5.5% of revenue. And Steve mentioned we have been looking very close on how our performance is shaping up. And if things end up better than we anticipated, we will be willing truly need more on the investments. Marketing being one of the key drivers. The reason why we see 37% in the first quarter. You might remember last year we step up market investment in the second half of last year. So then you have this effect of now we have in a certain way an easy comp on the marketing front. So year over year we're going to see that gradually reducing that impact because of the step up in the second half. But overall in the year we do expect at least 20% of increase in terms of where this money is going. We have been prioritizing our win big categories. So there is a disproportionate amount started last year that went against sauces, cream cheese, Mac and cheese hydration. But the reality is we do have the opportunity to step up marketing across the whole portfolio. So we have been gradually stepping up the investments across different parts of the business to different extents. But we do believe that will be healthy to the whole portfolio.

Thomas Palmer (Equity Analyst)

Okay, thank you for that. On the snap side, you've noticed expected headwinds especially ramping this quarter. I know it's still early in the quarter. Are you already seeing signs of this incremental impact as we think about the second quarter? And just to confirm, there was not really impact in the first quarter. I know it wasn't a call out. Thanks.

Andre Massiel (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. So we definitely see an impact from Snap already happening in February and March. So if you look at Snap transactions, they are already down in line, if not even a little more than expected. On the other hand, we saw strength in the known Snap households which helped to offset that in the first quarter. But it's hard to predict at this point if that strength that you saw in the non snap households will hold into remainder of the year. So what we are anticipating is that we're going to start to see that more that Snap household impact more pronounced into sellout year to go. And that's why we have been calling for 100bps headwinds. Obviously they're not sitting on the problem. So we do expect that have been stagnant for a while. So that's why part of the pricing investments that we have deployed in the $600 million were put against opening price points. This part of the consumer base is definitely under a lot of pressure.

Thomas Palmer (Equity Analyst)

Understood, thank you.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from Megan Clapp with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live.

Megan Clapp (Equity Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Thanks so much. Maybe to pick up on Tom's first question on the marketing investments. And Steve, some of the comments you've made. Clearly you're seeing some benefits from things that were done kind of prior to you making this new plan. And Steve, I think you mentioned 600 million is still dry powder. So as you see the improvements you've made in the first quarter and then some of the areas you highlighted, meats in particular where there's still opportunity. Can you just talk about whether anything you've seen so far has changed how you're thinking about concentrating some of those investments? Particularly as we've talked about a lot, the macro continues to shift and perhaps the cost inflation outlook gets more challenging as we go into the back half. Thanks,

Steve Cahelane (Chief Executive Officer)

Megan. What we've seen is good returns on the investments that we've made and that's where we're leaning in. If you look at some of the exciting things that we have going on right now, you can follow our investment against those. So for example, Power Mac and Cheese, which just came out in April, too early to see any sellout data, but the sell in was outstanding, 35,000 accounts right now as we speak. And I think that's a function of the commitment that we made to increase our investment substantially led to better distribution and we're going to be investing against it. And so we anticipate a good launch there. We've got in our variety business a nice shapes innovation that we're investing in, the Capri sun hydrate that we mentioned earlier. I think a big opportunity to continue the momentum that was built last year on Capri sun and new distribution and new doors there. So investing against that, we've got a Lunchables renovation which is coming next month. We'll be investing against that. We've seen good turnaround in Lunchables which started at the end of last year. And we've got things in the back half of the year like Philadelphia, lactose free, which is as we mentioned in the in the prepared remarks, we think a big opportunity given the number of people who suffer from lactose intolerance in the US And a great innovation there, that we'll be investing against so you know the brands where we think we have a real right to win we'll be investing in. And you mentioned meats, you know where we have things that we need to turn around. Clearly we need to make some investments there. You know, we don't like leaky buckets and we're going to look to plug those at the same time as we lean against our biggest and best opportunities. Opportunities.

Megan Clapp (Equity Analyst)

Great, thank you. And Andre, maybe just a quick follow up on the gross margin performance. You know still down in the quarter but significantly better than you know I think what you were expecting certainly what the street was modeling. Understand there was probably some you know, fixed cost leverage benefits there just on the top line. But anything else in the quarter just in terms of you know, the upside maybe versus your expectations to call out.

Andre Massiel (Chief Financial Officer)

There is about 40 to 50 bps of gains in the quarter that are non recurring portion of that is selling excess by products. So we don't expect that to be to be repeated year to go. There is some small contribution from. We're expected to do a maintenance in a certain factory and then have to move production to a copacker temporarily. We decided to move that to later in the summer. So that's like a phasing thing. Cheese commodity came a little better than what we anticipated. So we did see the peak in inflation that we expected across most of the commodities including coffee and meats. But we had those other upsides that help in the quarter. But that's why we are maintaining also our expectation for the year ahead. Wind of 25 to 75bps.

Megan Clapp (Equity Analyst)

Perfect. Thank you

OPERATOR

operator. We have time for one more question.

Scott Marks (Equity Analyst)

Okay, our last question comes from Scott Marks with Jefferies. Your line is now live. Hey, good morning. Thanks so much for squeezing me in here. In the interest of time, I'll just ask one wondering if you can give us a lay of the land in terms of the away from home environment. I know you called out some pressures in the US business have certainly some clear paths to growth there. Just wondering if you can kind of help us understand what's happening both in the US and abroad and how you think about the improvements within that part of the business. Thanks.

Steve Cahelane (Chief Executive Officer)

Yes, Scott. So I'd say from a macro perspective away from home is under a fair amount of pressure based on the macroeconomic environment both in this country and around the world. Having said that, we see tremendous opportunities for us in away from home based on the strength of our brands and the opportunities in front of us. And this is one of the areas we're investing in. So we see Away from Home as a strategic outlet. We see it as a strategic opportunity for us. We like the momentum that we're building early this year. And we see a lot of opportunities, both in this country and especially around the world to continue to gain share in away from home. And, you know, we've got one of the greatest away from home brands in Heinz, and we can do a lot more in leaning into Heinz and not just in ketchup. You know, Heinz has been successful in mayonnaise and other spreads as well. So big opportunities for us to continue to leverage our brands, especially Heinz, as we think about the away from home opportunity. Appreciate it.

OPERATOR

We'll leave it there. Thanks very much.

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