Changes surmises baseball tickets in foreign ivan rodriguez shows exchangerates negatively impacted profitability by approximately $11 million. The company is confident that its innovation, marketing, and cost-savingsinitiatives, combined with more manageable input cost inflation, will result instrong year-over-year operating profit growth and operating margin expansion forthis segment in fiscal 2010. Commercial Foods Segment (37% of Fiscal 2009 Sales)Specialty potato products, dehydrated vegetables, seasonings, blends, flavors,and milled grainproducts sold to foodservice, retail and commercial channels worldwide.For the fiscal fourth quarter, sales for the Commercial Foods segment were$1,160 million, down 2% from year-ago amounts; the decline reflects lower flourprices due to lower underlying wheat costs at ConAgra Mills. Despite challengingfoodservice industry conditions, Lamb Weston specialty potato operations postedgood sales results due to favorable mix as well as pricing actions that followedraw product cost increases Acquisitions also contributed to Lamb Weston`s salesgrowth.
The company estimates that the extra week added approximately 7percentage points of growth to the overall segment`s sales detroit tigers . Segment operating profit was $155 million for the quarter, 35% above year-agoamounts, reflecting strong sales, efficiencies, and mix at Lamb Weston, as wellas better flour milling margins due to plant efficiencies, mix, and effectiverisk management at ConAgra Mills jason varitek . Profits for Gilroy Foods and Flavors werebelow year-ago amounts given the impact of the weak economy on somefoodservice-related customers kaline autographed bat . The extra week also benefited current quarterprofit growth for the overall segment miguel cabrera . The company expects this segment`s operating profits in fiscal 2010 to beroughly in line with those of fiscal 2009, largely reflecting operatingefficiencies, as well as challenges for some restaurant and industrial customersthroughout fiscal 2010, along with a fiscal 2010 forecast for less favorablemarket conditions for flour milling.
Hedging Activities - This language primarily relates to operations other thanthe company`s milling operations.The company uses hedging activities to manage the risk in its plans for the costof various commodity inputs and, to a lesser extent, foreign exchange detroittigers . Toimprove the transparency of segment operating results, the company beganutilizing a new methodology for presenting derivative gains and losses in thefirst quarter of fiscal 2009 ivan rodriguez . This methodology temporarily classifiesmark-to-market gains and losses as unallocated Corporate expense jason varitek . The companylater transfers the gains or losses to segment operating profit when theunderlying item being hedged is recognized in cost of goods sold for theapplicable operating segment (with a corresponding offset in the unallocatedCorporate results) . Prior-year amounts utilized a different methodology, whichimmediately classified the hedge gain or loss in the segment operating resultsregardless of when the underlying item was expensed. Prior-year fourth-quarterresults include $41 million of net derivative gains ($25 million in ConsumerFoods and $16 million in Commercial Foods other than the milling operations).This change in methodology was discussed in detail in the company`sfirst-quarter fiscal 2009 earnings release dated Sept 18, 2008. An example ofthe new methodology is presented in the written Q&A document accompanying thatrelease.
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