Central Garden and Pet Co Canaccord Genuity's 46th Annual Growth Conference

Yeah, we had a really exciting quarter. We've had an exciting year. I think if you look at year to date, we're at record earnings, record EBIT, record EPS. We just did a great acquisition that we announced, at least we signed it. It won't close till January, February of next year. But Garden posted a record quarter. It was probably our second-best EPS ever. We were lapping a really tough comp, but came through quite well. Cash is at an all-time high. We had record cash flow. So, a lot to like. Margins continue to expand. A couple of months ago, we announced the divestiture of our pet distribution business, where we're entering into a JV and taking a 20% stake in that JV. A lot of balls in the air, but all very positive.

Yeah, it's hugely important. I've been in the role as CEO for two years, and it was really the first thing that we needed to get right, where we had to get back to our culture. We've had some folks come in from the outside and try to bring a new type of command and control culture, and that got away from our entrepreneurial spirit. We're really a BU-led company. Very entrepreneurial, I would say very hands-on, and we had to get back to that. I think we've done that largely and feels really good because the whole team is sort of operating on the similar cadence and kind of the results sort of are the output of all that, of getting the culture right.

Well, for the last few years, we focused on cost and simplicity, and it forced us to become a more disciplined organization. We've really consolidated our logistics footprint so that you can withstand more volatility in the business. Especially on the pet side, household penetration has declined. We had to rein in our cost envelope with that. If you look at Garden, that's probably been the more dramatic situation where we've really reined in with our Project Horizon to four big distribution centers, kind of hubs all over the country from call it 15 or 18. That is a more consistent business now that can withstand sort of that weather volatility. It was really internally looking at how do we become more efficient? How do we take cost out? How do we focus on what's important?

All of those things were things that we looked at and really kind of were forced to look at very early. I think some of the other CPGs out there weren't as quick to react, and I think we're better for it.