General Mills Inc Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Andrew Lazar - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Jeff, maybe picking up on your comments. The ongoing debate in the food space, right, continues to be whether or not the current challenging volume environment is more structural this time around than it has been in the past, or whether more of it is just a result of the significant pricing the industry was required to take combined with sort of a consumer that's under pressure? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 17, 2025 / 1:00PM, GIS.N - Q1 2026 General Mills Inc Earnings Call And I realize it's super early in your efforts. But as you've gotten some of the key price points in the right place and the other marketing levers can kind of start to work, as you said, you're starting to see some volume share improvement in a bunch of categories more recently. Yet I guess, if we look at NAR, right? Volume did not yet improve sequentially from fiscal 4Q. So I guess what I'm wondering is, do you think recent results sort of support the thesis that while there are some external factors for the industry, maybe some of them are a little bit structural. There's still a lot more that in the industry's control and your control in terms of getting sort of volume back to bright?

Question: Robert Moskow - Cowen and Company LLC - Analyst : So a couple of questions. One is, I just want to make sure I understand the path back to volume growth. Are you still expecting that to happen by fourth quarter of this year? And I'm trying to reconcile. So if your category volume is flat, but you're holding or gaining share in 8 out of 10 categories, why is your volume reported down negative 1. It would seem just optically that you would be a little bit above category volume growth, not a little bit below? That's my question. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 17, 2025 / 1:00PM, GIS.N - Q1 2026 General Mills Inc Earnings Call

Question: Leah Jordan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Just if you could provide more detail on your trends in dog food. I guess what can you attribute the slowdown in wilderness to? And how are you thinking about your ability to drive an improvement there? And then I was just also curious, on trends on pet treats, just excluding Whitebridge acquisitions there, just given the discretionary nature?

Question: Leah Jordan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : That's very helpful. And then I just wanted to step back, and I have a higher-level question. There just seems to be a bigger debate around the industry, scale versus complexity, and what's the right balance? I mean -- and you guys, you sound confident in the plan that you're putting forward today, but you've been battling a number of fronts over the last few quarters. So just maybe how do you think about what's the right balance? And as you go through driving better remarkability across your portfolio, what have been advantages, or disadvantages, with your portfolio mix today?

Question: Matthew Smith - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Inc - Analyst : Kofi and Jeff. Kofi, I wanted to talk about the margin performance in the quarter. It was above your expectations. Can you provide a little more detail on the gross margin composition? I believe you called out the international timing benefit was about 3 points of that segment's net sales, or is that like 50 basis points to the overall company? And then how we should think about the phasing of inflation investment through the year from here?

Question: Matthew Smith - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Inc - Analyst : And as a follow-up, you called out the trade expense phasing in North America retail was about a point of drag in the first quarter. Is that similar as we get into the second quarter, and then normalize as we get into the second half?

Question: Michael Lavery - Piper Jaffray Inc - Analyst : Can you touch on what categories or brands drove the household penetration gains? And maybe how broad that was? And how much you feel like was driven maybe by pricing adjustments versus innovation or other factors?

Question: Michael Lavery - Piper Jaffray Inc - Analyst : Okay. That's helpful. And I just wanted to follow up on some of the comments in the prepared remarks around demand planning. I think it can be maybe an underappreciated challenge. But it sounds like you've got improvement there. Can you maybe elaborate on kind of how that worked and what some of the benefits are? And it's maybe a little surprising the human touch seems unhelpful. Can you just kind of bring that to life a little bit?

Question: Alexia Howard - Sanford C Bernstein & Co LLC - Analyst : Can I ask about your efforts on reformulation. You're obviously ahead of the game on the elimination of the artificial dyes, getting rid of those by next summer. But there are other state-level legislations that have been approved, for example, in Texas, I think there's something that's already been ratified by the governor. It's gone through, that's about 44 additive. So it's a broader list. First of all, I guess, as you've gone through your remarkable efforts with some of these brands, are the ingredient list and additives coming up as concerns for some group of consumers? And is that something that you're working through the portfolio to actively drive out not just the dyes, but maybe other additives that people are concerned about? Or are you going to wait until the regulations and the legislation settles, which could be a year or two down the line, and then you'll do it once everything is very, very clear? Just trying to get a sense for how aggressive you're going after that, or whether it's really not something beyond the artificial dyes that you're focused on at the moment?

Question: Alexia Howard - Sanford C Bernstein & Co LLC - Analyst : Great. As a quick follow-up, you mentioned that the pace of innovation is stepping up, I think, 25%, I believe that was in North America Retail. Are you able to say what percentage of sales are now coming from new products introduced over the last year, or over the last three years? Where are you at in absolute terms on that front?

Question: Megan Alexander - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I have a quick follow-up and then another question for Kofi, if that's okay. So the first is just following up on some of the earlier line of questioning. Jeff, I think you mentioned you don't need massive share gains to hit the guide. But based on some of the things I think Dana mentioned later, it sounds to me like maybe some category trends are softer than you expected. So could you just clarify how category performance has evolved thus far year-to-date relative to your initial expectations? And whether we need to see improvement in areas like cereal, for instance, to deliver on the guide? And just related as well, since you brought it up, Jeff, can you maybe just expand a little bit on the GLP-1 comment in terms of what you're seeing in the data that you track? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 17, 2025 / 1:00PM, GIS.N - Q1 2026 General Mills Inc Earnings Call

Question: Megan Alexander - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Great. That's super helpful. And then just a follow-up for Kofi as we think about pet phasing into the second quarter just because there seems to be a lot of puts and takes. Can you just help us understand a little bit what these -- how to frame these puts and takes? Just to keep in mind, there was lumpiness in 2Q last year. Wildernesses may be a bit softer. You also have the Fresh pet launch. I also think maybe the shipment headwind was a bit bigger in the first quarter than you had talked about last quarter. So just with all those things in mind, if you could just help us think about how to frame phasing in 2Q, that would be helpful.

Question: Peter Galbo - Bofa Merrill Lynch Asset Holdings Inc - Analyst : Kofi, maybe just one clarification. I think you said based on the puts and takes on operating profit in the first half of this year would be down kind of similar to Q4. I think that lands Q2 operating profit down like 25%-ish, but I just wanted to make sure that my math on that was correct.

Question: Peter Galbo - Bofa Merrill Lynch Asset Holdings Inc - Analyst : Okay. Super. And Jeff, maybe just a broader question, and this probably goes back to Andrew's first question. Dana spent a lot of time talking about getting below certain price clips, driving value. And I guess what we haven't really talked about is your competition, not so much on the shelf at retail, but the away-from-home channel is getting a lot sharper in terms of price points, in terms of trying to drive value in their messaging and even in the pricing that they're charging. Whether it's $5 boxes, $8 boxes. Just -- is the industry, or is the retail packaged food industry adapting fast enough in your mind to be able to compete effectively against away from home that, again, seems to be much more focused on driving a value price point? And whether you've noticed just any share shift there that's become more pronounced as we've gotten just a plethora of kind of these offerings?