Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs.
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
Steve, a couple of things; you talked about the softness in November, how broad-based is that? If you look at your distribution channels, you look at geography, you look at product categories; fairly broad-based or is it more concentrated?
Steve Spinner
No, I think generally speaking we are seeing the softness across all the channels. Obviously we have some product categories that are increasing. I mentioned that in the commentary a little bit, some categories that are decreasing, but generally speaking, there was an overall softening in November across supplements, produce and organic and natural.
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
Is it significant enough where you need to do something different tactically or it’s not that material?
Steve Spinner
It’s premature I think John, for us to make that kind of a judgment. We’ve seen a lot of volatility in the sales; swings up and down week-to-week. We really want to take a look and see what happens over the holiday season. Thanksgiving is a week later this year. We want to see what happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas before we’re really in a position to give a real good feel for where we see sales going throughout the rest of the year.
So in answer to your question, right now we are pretty comfortable with the projects we have going on and we are not in a position to modify those as of yet.
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
Sort of as a follow-up to that, how do you think moderating inflation is going to play through the P&L next year? When do you think that’s going to happen? I assume you will think it will be a little bit of a benefit, but where is it going to be a benefit on the P&L and when do you think that takes place?
Steve Spinner
Well, number one, we’ve seen elevated inflation now for a while. Our hope is that we are seeing the last of kind of the supply, the manufacture catch-up in this quarter with the hope that inflation will start to trail off in the third quarter. It seems unlikely, with everything that is going on that we would have these kind of unprecedented levels and inflation continue beyond that.
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
Do you think manufacturer trade spends go up and promotions go up and that’s how you capture it?
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