Peanut Butter and Jelly Twinkies?

In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Jason Moser and host Deidre Woollard discuss:

• The synergies between Hostess and Smucker.
• Why Instacart's valuation dropped.
• Kroger's push to make the Albertsons deal happen.

Deidre interviews Jesse Singh, CEO of home exteriors company Azek, on competition in the decking space and what's next for the brand.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.

10 stocks we like better than Instacart
When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

They just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now… and Instacart wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

See the 10 stocks

*Stock Advisor returns as of September 18, 2023

This video was recorded on Sept. 11, 2023

Deidre Woollard: Are peanut butter and jelly Twinkies in our future? Motley Fool Money starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I'm Deidre Willard here with Jason Moser for a food-centered Monday. How are you doing, Jason?

Jason Moser: I'm doing great. This is my kind of show, Deidre. How are you?

Deidre Woollard: I thought about that being your kind of show too, because we've got some breaking M&A Monday news. We always like a good mergers and acquisitions Monday. It is Jelly and Uncrustables maker J. M. Smucker, which I think everyone calls Smuckers, they're buying Hostess Brands for 5.6 billion. It seems like a decent deal for Hostess. It forks out to $34.25 per share in the cash and stock transaction. Stock's been trading at 25, 26 in recent months. It's been rumored a bit, but what do you think? Does this make sense? The Uncrustables and the Jelly, you got the Twinkies and the CupCakes. What do you think?

Jason Moser: Yeah, I think it fits. I think these are two concepts that are fairly complementary. Hostess, clearly a brand with a bit of a checkered past as far as a company goes, and I think they declared bankruptcy twice in its history, recently IPOed again in 2015. Interestingly, it's been a very good investment since that IPO. But this is a brand that makes, I think, a lot of smile for nostalgic reasons, if for nothing else, but when you look at the actual business, it compounded a annual growth rate of 11.2% on the top line over the last five years. You compare that to something like a Smucker over that same stretch, you're looking at 2.4% growth there, and that's not surprising. Smucker is a very well established and "boring" business, so to speak. You look at Smucker, the growth is nothing to write home about. It's not a tremendous performer there for investors over the last several years, organic growth becomes a little bit of a concern, and we've seen this story play out with several companies like this in the recent past. Sometimes they just need to resort to smart acquisitions in order to keep that ball rolling and figure out ways to take that business to the next level. With Smucker, financially speaking, the company is well-profitable, well-established, coverage ratio of around eight, so this is something that they clearly can afford. I think then it just really depends on what they actually do with this acquisition, but definitely a collection of strong brands to play around with.

Deidre Woollard: The strong brands thing, when they did go bankrupt, I think it was in 2012, there was an outcry. People were so afraid that they were going to lose the Twinkie forever. [laughs] It's a bit to be concerned. The Twinkie lasts forever. Smuckers, they're forecasting a net sale contribution of about 1.5 billion, based on seeing mid single digit of annual growth rate, so it looks like they're getting up around 3,000 employees, some distribution facilities. There's going to be cost cutting at some point. We know that. They've already talked a little bit about some of the synergies there, but what are the things you think are going to happen as far as prepackaged Smucker offerings? They've already been testing the shelf stable Uncrustable, more Uncrustables. What are the kinds of synergies you see in here?

Jason Moser: It does feel like, as time goes on, for the American consumer at least, convenience just becomes more and more of a consideration. I think that's likely to continue with this deal. The headline here for Smucker, if you look at their investor relations page, the headline of this press announcement is that Smucker is acquiring Hostess brands to accelerate focus on convenient consumer occasions. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but again, it goes back to convenient. There's nothing more convenient than this whole host of Hostess snacks. You're going to find them virtually anywhere and everywhere around the country. You can drive from South Carolina to California and I would imagine that at any gas station you stop at along the way, you're going to find a nice assortment of those Hostess snacks. From that perspective, it makes a lot of sense, and I think that with Smucker, given the nature of their offerings, convenience fits very well into their strategy. You look at what Smucker is getting for this deal beyond just the brands. You mentioned there is distribution, there's manufacturing that comes into play, and when it comes to big scale food, really at the end of the day, once you're making things that consumers want to buy, then it's just a matter of making sure you can make enough of it and get as far and wide as you possibly can. I think that this deal certainly plays into that with the distribution and manufacturing that they're getting.

Deidre Willard: It is a favorite road trip snack. For some people, it's an everyday snack. But I was listening to the call about the acquisition, and one of the analysts brought up a question about people on GLP-1 weight loss drugs, like Ozempic or something like that, craving less sweet food. Is the rise of this an existential threat for snacking? It doesn't seem like it yet, but could it be?

Jason Moser: Anything's possible. It certainly could be. I think there's still a lot to be learned about these weight loss drugs, the longer term impacts and exactly how they'll resonate with the broader consumer base. I think there's still a lot, we just don't know there. But ultimately I think, at the end of the day, when it comes to food, it's about giving consumers what they want. As long as you're giving consumers what they want, then that's the key. I think that the CEO, Mark Smucker, on the call there, I think he answered the question pretty well there and then just talking about the multiple ways that consumers will want to continue to snack, and they'll continue to pay attention to that. If they see some shift in consumer behavior, then they have the ability to pivot and change the makeup of their snack portfolio. If consumers are craving less sweet food, then they can ratchet that back a little bit. They can alter that. They can change things a little bit. I think still a lot to be learned from the ultimate impact of these weight-loss drugs. But at the end of the day, I do believe that the company will have an answer, regardless what consumers actually want.

Deidre Woollard: Yeah, absolutely. A few weeks ago, we had Campbell's buying Sovos, which is the maker of Rao's and some other things. Now we've got this. I know two deals isn't necessarily a trend, but one of the things I'm looking at is increase in private label consumption. Do these brands have staying power? Are we going to see more of these acquisitions as maybe some of these brands face some economic pressure?

Jason Moser: This was exactly what came to mind when I saw this headline this morning. When you and I started talking about in pre-production, we did a show on the Campbell deal just a little while back, and we talked about this even then, so yes, I do think this is another example of what we were thinking then in regard to consolidation in the industry. Food is tough. Pricing can be exceptionally difficult, especially in inflationary times. It's not necessarily like a restaurant where, in a restaurant, they can realize pricing and growth more, thanks to the experience, thanks to what they're actually doing with the food. From a taste perspective, they can change menus up. There is obviously some brand power there. There's some loyalty levers they can pull there. Grocery, for lack of a better word, can be far more commoditized. To me, again, scale is something that really helps in this line of work. Whether, you know, they pursue the private label or the branded, I mean, I think we'll see as time goes on, some of these brands that we were very familiar with growing up. I mean, some of them just fall off. They don't live on forever, some do seem to have a little bit more longevity than others, but ultimately, I think scale is what helps these companies compete in this line of work.

Deidre Woollard: Yeah, absolutely. Let's keep the food-chain going. Let's talk a little bit about the Instacart IPO because we've got an offer price now. So company is going to set an offer price between $26 and $28. They're going to issue 22 million shares in total, which is 14.1 million new, 7.9 million existing, being sold from shareholders. They want to raise 616 million. This valuation of 7.9 billion is below the original valuation when they were talking about the IPO a couple of years ago. What are you thinking about the valuation now?

Jason Moser: You look at the valuation today, and let's just call that $9 billion, and that's significantly down from the $39 billion valuation this company had garnered in 2021, and I think it's fair. The mindset in 2021, it was considerably different than it is today.

Deidre Woollard: Yeah.

Jason Moser: It's worth remembering as we look at some of these companies that we still own and like, but the sentiment has shifted. It's not necessarily something fundamentally wrong with the business, but it's a reminder. The valuation is something we need to keep in mind. You're looking at the numbers. When it comes to Instacart, last year they recorded $428 million in net income, this year $242 million the first six months of the year. Let's just say they're going to generate $480 million net income this year. That puts the company, if they IPO around this pricers, it puts them around 20ish times earnings, which I think is a little bit more interesting. To me, the growth question I think is still, what is up in the air? We talked about in regard to that Instacart IPO a couple of weeks back, I think one of the interesting parts about this particular market is that grocery is still so immature. It's not a mature market. There's still so much untapped opportunity in the grocery delivery space. That's the argument. If you buy that argument, if you believe in that, then you're believing that growth will persist with a company like Instacart, and that makes this valuation look far more attractive than even just a couple of years ago. I think the counter to that is, I look at these delivery companies, and I put instant cart in the same category, there is your DoorDash and Grubhubs and whatnot, and Uber Eats even to an extent. They're very convenient, but I don't find them to be so compelling. One thing I noticed is the more that I look at these delivery apps, and I don't necessarily use them as much because I do start to notice some serious pricing disparities. That can only go so far. I think convenience is something the consumer values, but that doesn't mean price be damned, and so I just don't think they can push those prices up to infinity, and that is something that is going to play out on their model. Definitely a more attractive looking opportunity, at least at today's evaluation versus just a couple of years ago, but I'm not necessarily saying I'd give it the green light yet either. [laughs]

Deidre Woollard: Let's wrap up by talking about traditional grocery. Kroger reported their results on Friday. They're the biggest peer play grocer. I wanted to talk a little bit about their merger with Albertson because this has been going on for a long time. They announced a key step as part of their earning is they're going to sell over 400 stores, some distribution centers. They're selling private label brands to CNS wholesale. The part that I thought was really interesting was that they're selling the licensing rights to Albertsons in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Wyoming. That feels like a lot of concessions to me. It seems like they really want this deal to go through, right?

Jason Moser: Yeah. This is really making me think just of something like Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. Obviously, two very different markets, we're talking about grocery versus tech essentially. But I do think that when you look at the bigger picture, there's just a lot of political will right now in certain pockets to fight big mergers. By the same token, you hear Kroger's rationale. They'll say that they really need this deal to go through in order to be able to compete with the likes of Amazon and Walmart, and so it goes to show, Number 1, the investments that Walmart has made all of these years into grocery, understanding that that is a fairly reliable, if not low margin market. Amazon making the acquisition of Whole Foods back in the day. They did that before. It was really in a period of time where it'd be questions so much. If they tried to push that deal through today, regulators would have taken a much closer look at it. But I think when it comes down to this deal, I feel like they're on the right track. I think it just boils down to the concessions and what ultimately constitutes enough in order to make this go through, but it does feel like leadership with Kroger is more than willing to make whatever concessions are needed to make this deal go through, and we're seeing consolidation again on the all the side too, I think. All the snapping up some of the Winn-Dixie franchises out there. Yeah, absolutely. Going back to that consolidation theme, I don't think that's anything that's slowing down anytime soon in this space.

Deidre Woollard: No, absolutely not. You mentioned Amazon and Walmart, and those two companies are both doing something that Kroger is doing which is getting deeper and deeper into healthcare. Kroger's got Kroger Health. They have about 225 clinics. They've got pharmacies in most of their stores, so that's like 2000 or so pharmacies. They ended their partnership with Express Scripts last year. I'm wondering, as I consider Walmart or Kroger, I think I'm starting to have to consider the healthcare part of this business more and more.

Jason Moser: Yeah, I think it's something worth keeping an eye on. I think for something like Kroger, it's probably more incremental than anything else. It's definitely a value add for consumers, and like with any of these grocery concepts, you have your Kroger Card, or whatever, it may be any loyalty program that can help encourage consumers to come in there and do more of their shopping at the store. You look at Kroger, the footprint they have compared to something like a CBS for example. Look at CBS, was something close to 10,000 stores, or Kroger at the end of January of this year, they were operating somewhere there neighbor just over 2,700 stores total. If you look at the Pharmacy division, as a percentage of over overall sales for Kroger, in 2020 was 8.6% of overall revenue, and then in 2022, that bumped up a little bit to 9%, and that's been 9% in the last couple of years, and it's worth noting there's some specialty Pharma that makes up another small, little bit of that revenue and that's constituted in the other bucket. But generally speaking, it's essentially 9% of the business. It's not insignificant.

Deidre Woollard: Right.

Jason Moser: It's also not something that ultimately is going to make this business. I think it's a nice value add. I think it's a nice incremental boost, but I don't know that it's something that they really need to over-invest in because of all of the different options that are out there today.

Deidre Willard: Makes sense. Thank you for breaking this down with me today, Jason.

Jason Moser: Thank you.

Deidre Woollard: Wood decks are increasingly being phased out for more long lasting alternatives. I sat down with Jesse Singh, CEO of Azek to discuss his company's long term plans for growth. Let's talk about Azek in the business your competition. You're a top competitor in decking with Trek, which is also in the composite decking space. I love this because it's like Coke, Pepsi, or maybe more accurately, Lowe's and Home Depot. But I know one difference between you is that you're really focused on the pros relationship so far versus marketing to the consumers. How does one to the pro, because that seems like a tougher market to reach sometimes?

Jesse Singh: I'll just give you a couple of data points that might help put things in perspective as you look at the two of us as you point out, we're probably a bit more like Pepsi and that we have the Brown Water, but we also have a Snack Foods Division which is our exteriors business. In that respect, we've got two platforms that play into the market exteriors is about a third of our residential business and deck, rail and accessories is about two thirds. That gives us enormous strength in the market. Then as you look at our progression, we talked about starting 25 years ago in this market, over an extended period of time, we've built up a really strong network of contractors, professional dealers, and channel partners that have allowed us to penetrate the market. More specifically, we operate with 200 salespeople, direct salespeople that are working with contractors, working with architects and working with our channel partners. That's actually given some recent disclosure yesterday about double the size of our competitors. We are heavily focused on driving growth in the pro. Then if you just step back and you look at the differences in our share position, we're relatively equal on the composite decking side in the pro.

As you mentioned, the main area that we are under penetrated is in the retail side of the business, although that has been a creative growth. Then if you step back and say, what does it take to win in this market? You're marketing to millions of consumers that are buying from tens of thousands of contractors, that are buying from thousands of channel partners. For us, it's really important to cover the whole. I'll leave you with one thing on the consumer side, as we have recently over the last five years continued to invest on the consumer. The TimberTech brand has continued to show very strong elevation in the marketplace and we continue to gain traction. I think there's only two of us that market aggressively to the consumer. We ran out during the NBA finals. We continue to invest on the consumer side, but as you say, that's on top of an enormous strength within the pro. The other thing on the pro, as I highlighted earlier, by having these two divisions, exteriors and deck rail and accessories, it gives us enormous strength in that we're able to offer a contractor and a pro dealer and a retailer a broader offering that fits within what they need.

Deidre Woollard: Looking to the future, do you think you'll be doing more consumer marketing with the TimberTech brand?

Jesse Singh: Absolutely. We've elevated it. We've got the TimberTech Championship which is a golf event we've been sponsoring over the last few years. As you look at digital metrics, brand metrics, what you would see is very aggressive step up on our side relative to consumer oriented metrics and we would expect that to continue to progress.

Deidre Woollard: Well, I think that everyone understands the value of composite decking, but let's talk a little bit about the exteriors. You mentioned railings, cladding, siding, things like that. Are you expecting those areas to grow over time?

Jesse Singh: Absolutely. If you think about the macro value proposition of our company, it's to take, recycle materials and replace wood on the outside of houses. There's a fundamental growth platform there. Of course on the composite decking side and decking in general, by the way, we view it more as synthetic decking. We have two different decking lines. We've got a PVC decking line. We're the only player with substantial strength in two different lines that are both made out of recycled material. Our definition of decking is broader, but however you define it, 75% of the market is wood. It is very similar in the exterior. If you think about exterior trim, 40+% of that market is wood and every day that goes by, we are working with contractors and consumers to have them convert. If you think about the dynamic, it's the exact same issue, where if you think about what makes a house look aged, it's the trim, paint peeling, not looking right. I happen to be in an old house right now, and prior to us converting everything to Azek, when it was wood, we had a annual budget of a painter that would come out and scrape and paint and fix it. It's the exact same value proposition because of that, it gives us a very similar growth profile. I think one of the differences that's a positive is there's actually more adjacent space in the exteriors business. You think about trim, you can move into niche siting, you start thinking about other cladding on the outside of houses where that value proposition works. Our strength in the market, the top two brands, Azek and VersTech in the market give us an opportunity to continue to really drive growth in that area. They are both equally growing and have equal margins and profitability.

Deidre Woollard: I love that you are using your own product in your home. That is fantastic. You mentioned two types of decking though. Can you break that down for us a little bit?

Jesse Singh: Yes. If you think about the composite decking overall, typically the solution has been a combination of recycled polyethylene and wood flour mix and then wrapped with an outside that gives it the aesthetics. That has been our competitors growth trajectory and most of our competitors growth trajectory. We have that technology and we continue to be the leader in the aesthetics on that technology. But we also have another technology which is recycle PVC. We're the largest vertically integrated recycler in the US, perhaps on the planet, where we do our own PVC recycling. We take back PVC pipe, anything that's out there that's going to a landfill that's PVC. We take that, we process it, that goes into the inside of the PVC deck board and then it is wrapped again. There are significant benefits to this recycled PVC technology in that it is inherently cooler. It typically is 20-30% cooler than a composite board. It is also inherently flame retardant. We're the major player in the market with a Class A flame spread product. Then lastly, we're able to get unique aesthetics that look a lot more like high end products. If you look at the way our portfolio stacks up, we've got composite products and these PVC products. In the premium part of the market, we define the market in decking as good, better, best premium. In that premium segment right now, our PVC products and in the market in general are incredibly strong and have a really unique position.

Deidre Woollard: Last question for you, we're long term investors at the Fool. What do you hope to see from Azek in five years?

Jesse Singh: I'm really proud of the team over the last five year journey that we've really been able to build out the company from 2019 to now, we're 80% bigger, 78% bigger through 2022 on the residential side. That's meaningful growth. We've given targets so I can give you a financial view. We'll be at 27 plus percent EBDA margins. We'll be in the range of generating 600 million of EBDA. But I think more importantly for us as a company, we want to be known as the company that uses recycled material and as the player that's using that material to replace wood to create a better aesthetic on the outside of homes. If I sit here in five years, there's going to be a number of product areas that we play in on the outside of homes that we are not communicating now where we are bigger players. We love our core. We're going to go from 25% composites to hopefully closer to 50% in decking. But that'll be a part of the story and I would expect us to continue to be the proud player that is the recycler that drives wood conversion on the outside of homes. We've got a bunch of happy consumers because they don't have to paint, stain, and maintain. We're really excited about the future and I'll tell you personally, there's very few places you can work where you make an impact by taking stuff out of the landfill. I'm excited by what that model might yield us.

Deidre Woollard: I love it. Thank you so much.

Jesse Singh: Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Deidre Woollard: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about. The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Deidre Willard. Thanks for listening. Let's see you tomorrow.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Deidre Woollard has positions in Amazon.com, Lowe's Companies, Microsoft, and Walmart. Jason Moser has positions in Amazon.com and Home Depot. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Activision Blizzard, Amazon.com, DoorDash, Home Depot, J.M. Smucker, Microsoft, and Walmart. The Motley Fool recommends Kroger and Lowe's Companies and recommends the following options: long January 2024 $47.50 calls on Coca-Cola. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.