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00:00Alex how are you. Good. Good. So give us a perspective on it and set us basis. Where are we. How do you deal with your workers. How do you do a vaccination. How do you feel about where the country is right now. Yeah. So let's back it up. We'll start with Chobani first. I'd look at it in two parts. One was keeping our employees safe and secure from the very beginning and the other is our company's role and the private sector's role in helping the country get back to normal. On the first we mandated masks very very early on 14 months ago back in March last year. And both of our factories are rural areas and there were no cases at that time. And there was confusion around masks. And are they effective. Do you need to wear them. And we created some really good compliance and behavior from the very beginning. And then we quickly did a child care subsidy because our plant workers or hourly workers and their kids were home from school and then we did special bonuses. So keeping your employees safe and secure is good for business and it's just the right thing to do. Fast forward the movie to the backs vaccinations being available. The first thing we did is we gave six hours paid time off. All of our factory workers are hourly workers. So we gave three hours paid for the first shot three hours paid for the second shot. And then what we did most recently is three weeks ago. We did an onsite vaccination clinic in the largest yogurt facility in the world in Twin Falls Idaho. Great turnout. And then last week we did another one. So we have vaccinated over 300 people in one of our factories in Idaho. And this week we're doing upstate New York in South Edmonton and we're gonna do another one next week. So we feel really good about where we are with vaccinations. And we're gonna continue to do onsite vaccinations until we get everybody who wants to be vaccinated vaccinated. And I think the company job to make it accessible. You just said something really interesting. Everybody that wants to get a vaccine. What about those who don't. We're going to keep making it available and keep educating around the topic and what we're finding is the more people that get vaccinated them or good word of mouth spreads. We also have education sessions with local doctors so that they can talk to the community about the benefits of being vaccinated. So I think more and more people get vaccinated over time. And of course making it accessible and actually paying people to get vaccinated only helps. Yeah I've heard about that sort of word of mouth thing as well. That's gonna cost though. And I'm wondering if you could help put in perspective the cost you have to put out for that. In addition to any sort of other increase in costs that you see as we look ahead to tomorrow's consumer price index. Sure. And I know you cover inflation a lot. But so so the cost of keeping your employees safe and secure is a large cost. But we don't look at it as a cost. We look at as an investment. And if you have a happy healthy happy productive workforce. You're going to perform well as a company we have not closed our factory down our factories run 24/7 uninterrupted. It's a pandemic again because our employees have been safe and productive. You can't put a price on that and we perform well as a company as a result because the demand for healthy snacks are increasing exponentially. They were before cobia but they are in a big way during coated. So I think that's an investment. And whether that be a special bonus or a child care subsidy or paying people to take time off to be vaccinated cost a lot of money. But it's an investment and it's the right thing to do. Inflation has gotten. Sorry. How much does it cost to train an employee. I'm warning what the relative cost here is vs. trading up somebody new and I'm wondering whether or not you're struggling to find people to do the jobs that you need doing. Are there plenty of people out there who still got relatively high unemployment in the United States. Is that a problem or is it actually hard to find the people that you need with the skill set that you need to do the jobs. It's a great question guy. We don't have any issues on the Labor side. Unemployment is relatively high but we have very high retention rates. And that goes back to doing right by the employees which is something you know Hamdi has been a big part of from the very beginning. Right. Being a human company. So our retention is very high because we kept people safe and supported and they wanted to go to work throughout the pandemic. So we've had very very low attrition. So we've been able to meet surging demand because of our retention. And we're a sought after brand when it comes to hiring and unemployment rates are still relatively high. So no issues in that regard. So then finish the conversation about cost pressures. You were mentioning how this costs money but what about any supply chain issues. Yeah and Alex I know this is an area near and dear to your heart and it's affecting everybody all companies and it transcends Chobani it transcends the U.S. it's a global issue. So labor. You're seeing steel lumber milk distribution all seeing inflation across the board. You're also seeing equipment delays because of border closures. I'm happy how we performed and navigated this because you know what companies need to do is execute the fundamentals well we happen to be in it a food company and there's high demand for healthy better for you snacks. So we just had to execute well. So we demand planned and forecasted very accurately and leaned in. So we were able to secure our raw materials without any nura without any interruption and very little inflation. The one thing we're never going to do as a company is pass those inflationary costs onto the consumer. In the end we're a modern food company that wants to make better food more accessible delicious nutritious natural food that's accessible and affordable good foods a right not a privilege. So we want to keep that accessibility. And if you perform well as a company you should not need to pass that on to the consumer. Let's talk about the consumer. You talked about the pandemic accelerating a process that was already underway. Do you see some deceleration when people go back to the office go back to something that is akin to what was normal life. You've done a deal with PepsiCo as well. I'm warning what impact that's going to have in terms of the channels you've got to be able to access. What does demand look like now that more and more people are getting vaccinated. It's a great question guys. So we we saw a surge in demand like many food companies did early on in the pandemic. With us the surge became the baseline. So healthy habits had been created as more and more people seek out better for you snacks and healthier for you snacks. When we look at Nielsen March over March this past March over a year ago March we actually grew when many companies did not. And that's exciting to see that behavior behavior's been created. And there's a new baseline. So we've not seen any slowing demand at all actually. And we we think that will continue because healthy habits have been formed. The PepsiCo partnership pilot program in the Northeast which was geared around drug convenience and colleges goes back to that making good food more accessible. Mission vision. And they have very sophisticated distribution network that can get into certain pockets that our products were not available in. And so this is two weeks old and it's really encouraging. So far we're seeing an uptick in sales and excitement in areas that our products weren't as available before. So that's super encouraging right now. It's only two weeks into the pilot but so far so good.

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Chobani Will Educate Workers About Benefits of the Covid Vaccine

Chobani President Peter McGuinness says the company will make sure every worker that wants a Covid-19 vaccine can get one. He also says they'll educate workers on the benefits of getting vaccinated. He appears on "Bloomberg Markets." (Source: Bloomberg)

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