Casey’s General Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ: CASY) Q4 2021 earnings call dated Jun. 09, 2021
Corporate Participants:
Brian Johnson — Senior Vice President-Investor Relations and Business Development
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Karen Short — Barclays Capital, Inc. — Analyst
Bonnie Herzog — Goldman Sachs — Analyst
Bobby Griffin — Raymond James & Associates, Inc. — Analyst
Ben Bienvenu — Stephens, Inc. — Analyst
John Royall — J.P. Morgan — Analyst
Anthony Lebiedzinski — Sidoti & Co. LLC — Analyst
Kelly Bania — BMO Capital Markets — Analyst
Matt Fishbein — Jefferies — Analyst
Krisztina Katai — Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. — Analyst
Chuck Cerankosky — Northcoast Research Partners LLC — Analyst
Brian McNamara — Berenberg Capital Markets — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q4 FY 2021 Casey’s General Stores Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Brian Johnson, Senior VP. You may begin, sir.
Brian Johnson — Senior Vice President-Investor Relations and Business Development
Thank you. Good morning and thank you for joining us to discuss the results from our fourth quarter and fiscal year ended April 30, 2021. I am Brian Johnson, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, and Business Development. With me today is Darren Rebelez, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Steve Bramlage, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I’ll remind you that certain statements made by us during this investor call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meanings of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include any statements relating to expectations for future periods, possible, or assumed future results of operations, financial conditions, liquidity, and related sources or needs, the company’s supply chain, business, and integration strategies, plans, and synergies, growth opportunities, performance at our stores, and the potential effects of COVID-19.
There are a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by those forward looking statements, including, but not limited to the integration of pending Buchanan Energy acquisition, our ability to execute on our strategic plan, or to realize benefits from the strategic plan, the impact, and duration of COVID-19, and related governmental actions, as well as other risks, uncertainties, and factors, which are described in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q as filed with the SEC, and available on our website. Any forward-looking statements made during this call reflect our current views as of today with respect to future events, and Casey’s disclaims any intention, or obligation to update, or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Now, I’d like to turn the call over to Darren to discuss the fiscal year results. Darren?
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Brian and good morning everyone. The past 12 months have been like no other, and that includes our astounding financial results, which we’re pleased to share today. Casey’s ’21 fiscal year yielded the strongest results in our 53-year history, and I’m humbled to be the one that gets to share how we delivered this phenomenal performance with you today. I want to begin my comments by personally recognizing the over 40,000 people that make our business go every day. We cannot deliver on our progress to make the lives of our guests and communities better every day without you. This past year, our team members reflected this passion more than ever before they remained dedicated to serving our guests, and what was arguably the most challenging environment of our lifetimes.
We remain committed to the health and safety of our team members who are on the frontlines serving local communities. In addition to the many safety measures, and incentive pay we’ve provided throughout the pandemic, we’ve recently implemented a wellness bonus for fully vaccinated team members, and have seen encouraging results from this effort. Beyond our team that the difficult school year wrapped up this spring, Casey’s Cash for Classrooms Grant Program announced a $1 million contribution to support projects at local schools and our communities. Students, teachers, and families have a brighter future, thanks to the support of Casey’s, and our generous guests.
Now, let’s discuss the result of this past fiscal year. We finished fiscal ’21 with an all-time record diluted EPS of $8.38 a share, an 18% increase from the prior year. The company also finished with an all time high adjusted EBITDA of $729 million. This is a tremendous accomplishment considering the extreme environment the company gas navigated through since the start of the pandemic last March. Fuel profitability was a primary driver as our centralized fuel team helped drive a gross profit increase of nearly 24%, while offsetting COVID-driven pressures on gallons sold. We finished the year down 8.1% in same-store gallons sold with an all-time high annual fuel margin of $0.349 per gallon.
Our merchandise team had to be just as agile, as they were forced to react to constantly changing guest needs. Grab and go on single-serve items were replaced with larger pack sizes grocery and PPE needs, as well as higher demand for beer, and alcohol as people began to consumer more at home versus restaurants and bars. For the year, same-store inside sales were up 4% led by a 6.6% same-store increase in grocery and other merchandise. Inside margin dipped slightly from the prior year to 40% due primarily to a mix shift of higher pack sizes and lower prepared food sales. Fortunately we’re now seeing recovery in our prepared food and fountain business as the world moves towards a normal traffic patterns.
Guest traffic is rising, and we’re seeing a resurgence in pizza slices, dispensed beverages, and bakeries, as our guests returns to their normal daily routines. The fact that our prepared food business in such a large part of our mix will create a tailwind after the pandemic that not too many of our peers will enjoy. In addition to navigate through a global pandemic and delivering a record financial results, the company also did a great job executing on our long-term strategic plan. As a reminder, the three pillars of our strategic plan are: reinventing the guest experience, creating capacities through efficiencies, and being where the guest is via disciplined store growth. All three pillars are supported by an investment in our talent.
We made a significant impact on the guest experience particularly with respect to digital engagement. Our Casey’s Rewards Program launched just prior to the pandemic now includes more than 3.6 million members and continues to grow. We now have over 700 stores that offer DoorDash delivery service, and we just recently launched Uber Eats in another 700 stores. Finally, our private label initiative is off to a great start capitalizing on the brand equity we have built up for over 50 years. We recently eclipsed 3% of grocery and other merchandise sales significantly outperforming our goal of 2% for fiscal ’21. This past year we set several capabilities that will help our company operate more efficiently.
Our third distribution center in Joplin, Missouri is now open and operating servicing over 600 stores, and expected to reduce miles driven by approximately 1.8 million miles per year. Our newly formed and centralized procurement team more effectively leverages our company’s scale, and utilizes contemporary strategic sourcing tactics to drive savings. We now have a dedicated asset protection team that provides loss prevention support throughout the entire organization. And finally, our centralized fuel team continues to deliver great results. Our performance excelled relative to the industry volumes and profitability in our geography during extremely volatile times.
And we continue to see tremendous growth opportunities in our business and remain bullish to add 345 stores over the next three years. We’re well on our way as we just recently closed on the largest acquisition in our company’s history. The Buchanan Energy transaction is a perfect strategic fit, and will pair our outstanding pizza program with our well-located high-volume stores. We expect the Circle K acquisition in Oklahoma to be completed or closed rather by the end of June. We also built 40 new stores in fiscal ’21 despite pandemic delays.
Our two-pronged balanced approach to store growth, the organic build, and acquisitions enables us to be selective, and disciplined, which we believe is the most effective way to drive shareholder value, and generate accretive EBITDA and returns on capital investment. We’ve also made great strides this year in building out the capability and diversity of our leadership team. Some of these new capabilities include technology, procurement, human resources, guest insights and asset protection. Our leadership team has an effective blend of fresh outside perspective alongside bettering Casey’s leadership. This mix of talent has been critical for us to executive on the strategic plan during these unprecedented times.
I’d now like to turn the call over to Steve Bramlage to cover the fourth quarter in more detail. Steve?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Darren and good morning. I too am pleased to be able to share and reporting some remarkable performance with you today as I mark my first year with the company. Our team deserves all the credit. We could not be prouder of the dedication, and the agility that they’ve exhibited this past year. The fourth quarter was really a tale of two quarters. Sales in the first half were muted by extremely cold weather throughout most of February, and same-store comparisons were challenging given the company’s strong performers last year right before COVID-19 showed up. As anticipated, our same-store sales comps then came roaring back once we began lapsing the shutdowns from the pandemic.
Please note that the prior year have an extra day due to leap year, but given the size of the pandemic’s impact, it’s not material to year-over-year comparisons. Total revenue for the quarter was $2.4 billion, which is an increase of $565 million, or 31% from the prior year. This was due to an increase in retail sales of fuel of approximately $445 million driven by an increase in the number of gallons sold, and the higher retail price of fuel along with an increase in inside sales of $115 million. Same-store fuel gallons sold were up 6.4% compared to the same period a year ago. Total gallons sold were up 10% to 535 million gallons.
Our centralized fuel team continues to successfully balance volume and margin, as we aim to grow gross profit dollars. Casey’s fourth quarter fuel margin was $0.33 per gallon versus $0.41 per gallon in the prior year. The company did not sell any [Indecipherable] during the quarter. The average retail price of fuel during this period was $2.70 a gallon compared to $2.05 a year ago. Same-store inside sales were up 12.8% for the quarter as guest traffic counts improved compared to the start of the pandemic. Total inside sales rose 14.4% to $913 million. For some additional context, our two-year stacked fourth quarter same-store inside sales growth is 7.2%. Inside margin rose a 100 basis points to 39.9%. Leading the increase in the quarter was prepared food and fountain with fourth quarter same-store sales up 13.4%.
Grab and go items such as pizza slices, dispensed beverages, and bakery rebounded in the fourth quarter as commutes began to return to more normal patterns relative to this time a year ago. Total prepared food and fountain sales were up 14.7% to $264 million with an average margin of 60.1%. Groceries and other merchandise same-store sales were up 12.5% for the quarter. Total grocery and other merchandise sales were up 14.4% to $650 million. Our store resets completed in the third quarter are serving us well. Packaged beverage items such as sports drinks, energy drinks, and bottled water are performing well along with snack items such as chips, meat snacks, and candy.
The higher volumes of favorable mix, our strategic sourcing initiatives along with the increased penetration of private brands, which are now over 3% of the grocery, and other merchandise category helped improve margin to 31.8% for the fourth quarter, which is an improvement of 140 basis points. Casey’s had gross profit, which we define as revenue less cost of goods sold, but excluding depreciation, and amortization of $561 million in the fourth quarter, which is an increase of $36 million from the prior year. This is primarily attributable to higher inside gross profit of $54 million, which was offset by a decline of $22 million of fuel gross profit. Total operating expenses were up 16%, or $59 million to $426 million.
Store level operating expenses, which include things such as labor, maintenance, advertising, and insurance were up $23 million due to the fact the stores were largely open at traditional operating hours versus the reduced open times during the pandemic last year. The increase from operating 36 more stores or about 2% more units than a year ago is $7 million. The company also incurred $8 million in incremental long term and short term incentive compensation costs due to strong financial performance and $8 million of increased credit card fees due to higher sales volume and an increase in the retail price of fuel.
Finally the company incurred an additional $5 million in impairment charges related to equipment upgrade, and EMV retrofit compliance costs. Interest expense was down at 19% to $11.9 million due primarily to refinancing senior notes that were completed in August. The company also drew $100 million on the line of credit entering the prior year fourth quarter as a precautionary measure at the start of the pandemic, which has obviously been repaid. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 22.2% compared to 21% for the prior year due to the reduction in favorable permanent differences offset by a decrease in the state tax expense. Net income decreased 32.8% to $41.7 million.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $140.6 million compared to $159 million a year ago, and that’s a decline of 11.6%. The decline in both earnings and adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was largely due to the outsized fuel margin a year ago that was brought on by a significant reduction in the wholesale price of fuel due to both excess supply, and the demand shock from COVID-19. Our balance sheet remains very healthy. Our financial flexibility is excellent and we have no material debt maturities coming due until 2025. At April 30th, cash and cash equivalents were $337 million and our available liquidity was over $800 million. The Buchanan Energy acquisition closed on May 13 and that was funded with cash on hand as well as a $300 million bank term loan that matures in January of 2026.
At the June quarterly meeting the Board of Directors voted to pay a dividend in the amount of $0.34 per share. The company had negative free cash flow of $37 million in the fourth quarter and we define that cash flow as cash flow from operating activities of $141 million, less purchases of property and equipment of $178 million. This compares to positive $30 million in the prior year and the difference was driven by the timing of our capital spending primarily new store construction as the company ramped up construction operations throughout the fiscal year after pausing most activity at the start of the pandemic.
Our record year-to-date free cash flow of $363 million continued to be favorably impacted by higher earnings and strong working capital performance due to proactive efforts to extend our payment terms and increasing fuel prices and the deferral of FICA payments under the CARES Act. The company opened 40 new-to-industry stores this year and completed the acquisition of five additional stores. Now, while the pace of the economic recovery post the pandemic makes it difficult to forecast for next fiscal year, we can provide some modeling information based on what we know right now. We currently expect full year same-store sales for both fuel and inside sales to increase by mid single-digit percentages.
Total operating expenses are expected to increase in the mid teen percentages and that’s primarily driven by the fact that we will operate approximately 200 more stores during fiscal 2022, that’s a 9% increase in our units as well as additional hours of labor and other operating costs associated with maintaining pre-COVID hours of operations, and higher rates of pay that we’re experiencing across our entire footprint. These will be partially offset by lower incentive compensation accruals and COVID-related spending. The Buchanan Energy acquisition is expected to add approximately $45 million of EBITDA in fiscal ’22.
The acquisition is expected to be accretive to earnings for the fiscal year. But it will be dilutive in the first quarter as we incur approximately $11 million in one-time acquisition and closing-related costs. The company also expects to incur $4 million to $6 million in non-cash tax charges associated with revaluing our existing deferred tax liabilities upon closing as the apportionment of state tax profitability will change. The acquisition is expected to add approximately 200 million retail gallons and $150 million of inside sales before any synergies. And please keep in mind these sales estimates are not included in the same-store sales outlook mentioned earlier.
Depreciation and amortization expense is expected to be approximately $300 million for the year and that includes the Joplin Distribution Center being placed into service as well as approximately $14 million for the Buchanan Energy transaction including purchase price amortization. Annual interest expense should be approximately $50 million and the effective tax rate should be around 26% and that’s inclusive of the discrete charge in the first quarter. The company expects to invest approximately $500 million from the purchase of property and equipment.
This amount excludes purchase price for acquisitions but it does include the capital spend on acquisition, remodel projects for both the Buchanan Energy and Circle K acquisitions. Looking specifically to the first quarter, we expect Q1 year-over-year earnings to be lower due to unfavorable fuel margin comparisons, higher operating expenses as well as the closing costs related to the Buchanan Energy. Our same-store volumes for fuel gallons and inside sales in the quarter will likely finish up in the high single digits and we’re currently experiencing fuel margins in the low $0.30 range.
With that, I’ll turn the call back over to Darren.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Steve. First, I’d like to congratulate the entire Casey’s team again for delivering a record year and impressive results. Their hard work and dedication are going to be called upon once again as we look ahead to fiscal ’22. Casey’s is well-positioned to not just compete but to win and accelerate our growth. Why, because our business model is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this moment given our strategic plan and specifically the momentum ahead for our differentiated food business, our recent M&A milestones and the strength of our balance sheet. I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities that await Casey’s this coming fiscal year.
We’re seeing positive momentum for our prepared food items from pizza to bakery and beverages, we expect that trend to continue. Culinary innovation within our prepared food and fountain category will also drive results in fiscal ’22. In April, we rolled out a new made-from-scratch Cheesy Breadstick product that’s been a big hit with our guests. What’s particularly exciting about this product is that leverages are made-from-scratch pizza dough that we’ve been using on our pizza for many years. Our dough, the key differentiator from our competitors will leverage this strength to springboard other innovation in the not-so-distant future. In addition to alleviating our food offerings, the stores have never been more guest-ready and merchandised to deliver product sales volume and velocity.
Resetting our stores has resulted in our in-store experience, working even harder for us just in time for peak summer traffic. A key component of that reset was to optimize the placement of our private label products. We’ve already become the number one brand for packaged bakery, meat snacks as well as nuts and seeds in store. Looking ahead, we plan to double the number of SKUs offered under the Casey’s brand to keep the momentum rolling on this initiative. We’re listening to and building deeper relationships for our guests to better serve them. Through a new, more robust guest insights and analytics capability, we’re growing our knowledge and understanding of our guests and will have greater visibility into our customer’s preferences and needs than ever before.
With over 3.6 million Casey’s reward members, we have a captive audience that will enable us to target and effectively communicate promotions that can influence guest behavior. Casey’s rewards members spend more per transaction than a typical guest. Also, guests who actively redeem promotional offers, shop at significantly higher frequency than those who don’t. Using loyalty program data, allows us to tailor segmented campaigns for our guests that will be even more effective. Finally, given our strong balance sheet, recently completed Joplin Distribution Center and the macroeconomic pressures the smaller operators may have difficulty navigating through, I’m very bullish on our ability to grow our store count.
Our dedicated M&A team is making considerable outreach and given the likely changing tax environment, the timing might be right for those operators to exit the industry. We’ll be ready to assist them when the time is right to transition of the business and we believe we’re excellent stewards in the businesses as we add our prepared foods to their stores. In closing, as you can see, I’m very proud of our team’s performance and remain extremely optimistic for our company’s immediate and long-term future. Of course, none of this will be possible without our 40,000 team members who are out there working extremely hard every day to serve our guests and each other and the communities.
Thank you for all you do for Casey’s. We’ll now take your questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Karen Short with Barclays Capital.
Karen Short — Barclays Capital, Inc. — Analyst
Housekeeping, I just want to clarify in terms of your quarter-to-date commentary on gallons and in-store comps is that — just to clarify, is that where you’re trending today? And then I had a bigger picture question.
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
No, that’s where we expect to land for the entire quarter. We’re actually a little ahead of that quarter-to-date today and that’s a function of just the timing in the prior year of the shutdowns and the re-openings. So, the shutdowns were more significant at the beginning of the first quarter last year. It’s a little easier comp, so that number that we gave is where we expect to land for the first quarter.
Karen Short — Barclays Capital, Inc. — Analyst
Okay and then, so I guess I just want talk a little bit about your — the mid-teen commentary on opex. So, obviously you pointed out, I’m assuming rank order what the contributing factors are on the mid-teen guidance for growth. But I guess, obviously you have an algorithm of EBITDA of 8% to 10% growth and with this comp guidance and your opex guidance we’re getting to kind of mid single-digit to high single-digit decline in EBITDA for the year. So, wondering if you could kind of press that out a little bit more because it doesn’t seem like you should be getting higher sales growth I guess for the opex that you’re guiding to.
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
I’ll maybe start with that. There’s a couple of things embedded in there Karen. So, the easiest way — I’ll do opex first; the easiest way for me to think about the components of the opex is we’re going to get 9% more units coming in with that approximately 200 stores and 75% of those units are going to come in essentially now, right? We’ve already closed Buchanan. We’re closing Circle K this month. So, that’s coming in, in the early first quarter essentially fully loaded and so that’s a big component of that increase. And so, if that’s — if you’re doing a little bit of averaging on the rest of the unit 7% to 9% of the increase is just the timing of the new units coming in and that leaves somewhere 7% to 8% for the rest of the opex on what we would call the mothership.
And if you go back to the fact we will definitely have more hours in the system because of the way we’re scheduling this year versus COVID and you’ve got rising wages. You’re actually — you have opex going up somewhere in that mid-to-low high single-digit number which is not terribly far off from where our medium term algorithm would have us to be. And we have not obviously made any comments specifically around EBITDA expectations. Clearly, the acquisitions are bringing incremental EBITDA associated with them but our commitment to that 8% to 10% EBITDA growth over the medium term is — we are fully aligned behind that. I think we feel very, very good about our ability to achieve that. We just happen to have a pretty big slug of acquisition-related operating expense coming into the system all at the same time in this fiscal year.
Karen Short — Barclays Capital, Inc. — Analyst
Okay, but just to clarify in the wages, I think you’ve talked about kind of 5% being a standard pressure year in, year-out is that — has that changed into this year or is that still the right kind of number to think about?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
I think we’ll have higher than that this year. I think we’re currently running about 100 basis points or so higher than that number with our current forecast, right? We’re dealing with the same dynamic that you’re reading about in the paper for all retailers. There is clearly labor pressure in terms of both availability and wage rates in the system. So, that will be reflective of what we know today and I think it’s a touch higher than what we had in the last year or two for sure.
Karen Short — Barclays Capital, Inc. — Analyst
Okay. Thanks very much. I’ll get back in the queue.
Operator
Our next question comes from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs.
Bonnie Herzog — Goldman Sachs — Analyst
Thank you. Good morning every one. I guess, I had a question this morning on your prepared foods, same-store sales — it ended up much stronger in the quarter than it was trending early-on where I think your trends were actually negative. So, could you share how each of the months in the quarter maybe for us were trending and really when things turned positive resulting in sales up being 13.4%? And then if you could provide how this business has been trending so far in May, in early June? I think that would be really helpful. And curious also to hear how consumer behavior has evolved in the last couple of months, especially with vaccine counts increasing. Has conversion been increasing a lot and what about basket sizes and maybe some comments on shopping hours? Thank you
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Bonnie. This is Darren. I guess trends throughout the quarter, if you recall in our March call, we were just coming out of February and February we had some really adverse weather situation throughout the Midwest. And so that got compounded by the fact we’re cycling over a really strong prepared foods performance the prior year. And so we were a little bit depressed on the prepared foods going into that call. Of course, right after that, we took the back half of March and all of April we’re cycling over the shutdowns from COVID. So, things materially shifted and accelerated. That was also up to a certain extent by the fact that things were starting to reopen a little bit and relax.
So, we saw great momentum in the prepared foods business and we continue to see that momentum moving forward and so what we’re seeing from a consumer behavior standpoint is, the morning day part is trying to recover a bit. We’re not all the way back to pre-COVID levels but if you look at our traffic patterns we have had some significant improvement in the morning day part and in the overnight day part, which affects the breakfast category as well. People are starting to go back to work. We’re now in the summer, so of course, schools are out, so we don’t think that that full recovery in the morning day part is really going to kick in until the fall when the school’s back in session, but at the moment we are experiencing some nice increases in the prepared foods and we expect the momentum to continue throughout the summer.
Bonnie Herzog — Goldman Sachs — Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Bobby Griffin with Raymond James.
Bobby Griffin — Raymond James & Associates, Inc. — Analyst
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. Just one quick housekeeping, I wanted to check on the opex, does the mid teens commentary for FY ’22 includes the $11 million of acquisition costs?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Yes, it’s a fully loaded number, yes.
Bobby Griffin — Raymond James & Associates, Inc. — Analyst
Okay. And are you going to one-time out that cost or should we include that in, when we arrive and everything’s going to be on a GAAP basis, just want to make sure we get the model apples-to-apples in the first quarter?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
We will convert to our report on a GAAP basis and just quantify the impact of all the transaction related activity.
Bobby Griffin — Raymond James & Associates, Inc. — Analyst
Perfect, I appreciate the detail. And then I guess, bigger picture kind of wise for me, just diving into the fuel margin a little bit, fourth quarter in a row, I believe a pretty material outperformance versus the industry, as well as in a rising crude environment as well, going on this quarter. So just curious, when you look at that is, do you believe that’s still somewhat of a function of the “COVID environment” or at this point, is the out-performance really a function of all the work, the fuel team has been doing on sourcing and pricing, and that type of outperformance could be somewhat sustainable going forward?
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah Bobby, this is Darren. I would say it’s a combination of both of those things and certainly our fuel team has done a fantastic job navigating this environment and it’s a challenging environment to say the least. But we still are executing on pricing very well. The team is doing a great job there and on the procurement side, we’re at 75% of our fuel volume under contract at this point, and we have opportunities to continue to refresh and renew some of those contracts and we think we have some favorability there as well. But I’d have to say, at this point, I think which is where you were going after a year of these kind of margins, I have to believe that the pressures on the smaller operators are not going away.
And we just talked about labor pressures, that’s certainly coming, the EMV liability shift just occurred, that’s happening, credit card fees are arising, those are all pressures that smaller operators simply don’t have a lot of levers to mitigate, and so they’re forced into taking that in fuel pricing and that’s constructive to margins for the industry. So I’ve said all along, I think that we probably won’t continue to stay at this level of margin, but I don’t think we’re going back to pre-COVID levels of margin either. They’ll be somewhere in between there, but as long as these challenges in the industry persists, I think we’re going to see that reflected in more elevated fuel margins.
Bobby Griffin — Raymond James & Associates, Inc. — Analyst
Okay, great. And I guess lastly for me, real quick on prepared food, great to see the sales trends really start to pick up as we start to lap these comparisons and the country reopens, just the pathway back to kind of the 62% gross margin range, if that business was then before COVID, is that all just sub-function of volume or given some of the inputs, is it pricing and mix of business, like anything there just to help us think about how we can return back to that pre-COVID gross margin range?
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things there, certainly velocity helps the margins as the write-offs as a percentage of the sales volume decrease. So, certainly that’s a component of it. There’s a mixed component as well, where, the breakfast day part tends to be a little bit higher margin, but we’re losing– or we’re not losing, but we’re — we haven’t completely regained the velocity in the morning day part that we had once before. So, we’re still working on that, but, and then there, we’re assessing whether we have, retail pricing opportunities as well, but, we think all of that is, part of the equation to getting those margins back to more historic levels.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Bienvenu with from Stephens.
Ben Bienvenu — Stephens, Inc. — Analyst
Hi, thanks. Good morning, guys.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Good morning.
Ben Bienvenu — Stephens, Inc. — Analyst
I want to piggyback on Karen’s questions about opex. You stated your commitment to the long-term EBITDA growth algorithm. I’m curious, you’ve– I think within that you’ve targeted a high single digit opex growth as a component of the EBITDA, if we continue to see an inflationary wage environment, would you expect that level to be higher and would that potentially imperil your ability to deliver the EBITDA growth, that you would like to? And then I’m also curious, as you think about the variability on opex this year, if you deliver upside growth to your same-store sales, would you expect your opex growth to accelerate as well or could we get a little bit better leverage on that if your same-store sales growth accelerates, more than you expect?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, good morning Ben. This is Steve. I’ll start, maybe handle the first question first. We’re not walking away from our algorithm commitment at all. I think we feel very good about our ability to continue to generate, EBITDA consistently over the medium-term and long-term in that 8% to 10% CAGR range, we feel good about that. I mean, to the extent, there is incremental wage pressure in the system, and for sure that there is, right, we’ll go back to what Darren talked about before. What would you expect us to do, right. We have a lot of tools given our scale to how do we counteract that we can– we will schedule smarter. We will obviously look for ways to automate more within the store environment. There are pricing levers at certain price points available for us to take.
And then, so we will take all of the actions you would expect, anyone to take. You has a decent size of labor, component of their cost of sales to take. And so, I don’t feel like pressure on opex in any discrete period of time, puts us into a situation that all of the other levers available to us, aren’t able to offset. I think we may have to run a slightly different play for sure, but there’s plenty of optionality in our model to keep us on the path of generating the EBITDA targets that we have.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
And Ben, I would just add to that, those targets of 8% to 10% EBITDA growth. I mean, those are CAGR numbers. And so over a period of time, there’s a lot of timing that goes into that. Obviously we had a very strong year this past year that we’re wrapping up. We’ve got some unique things going into this year where we’re closing two big acquisitions and there’s costs associated with those early on, all those stores early on. So I don’t think that the algorithm is at risk at all. There is just a timing and sequencing element to it. And to Steve’s point, around the increased costs, these costs are not unique to Casey’s. This is — a lot of the cost pressures that we’re experiencing are cost pressures that the entire industry is experiencing as well.
So we do think there’s going to be an inflationary component to what goes on. We’re currently assessing that. The good news for us is that, we were proactive in negotiating on cost of goods for this fiscal year, for this calendar year, rather. So we’ve already got costs locked in for through the end of the year in a lot of our major categories. So we were to a certain extent immune to the cost pressure that’s coming on some of our in-store categories, but the rest of the industry may not be in. So we’ll be able to leverage that. And, as prices move up, we’ll be able to move that up as well, and be able to counteract some of the cost pressures we’re experiencing.
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
I think that maybe the last thing I’d add, Ben, to that point is just a reminder that, a quarter of our opex is not store-related. And so I would fully expect, on that component of the business, we’ll work very hard to keep that flat, right? We’ll get the benefit of spreading, overhead, over a larger and larger base of stores, right? We don’t need to add overhead at the same rate that we’re adding store units. And so that, that will provide some natural offset to anything that is happening in the field.
Ben Bienvenu — Stephens, Inc. — Analyst
Okay, understood, very helpful. I want to ask about your commentary that you didn’t sell any RINs in the quarter. Obviously, we’re in a very inflationary RIN price environment, SMB is tight in that market. I’m curious are you holding at bay your RINs and expecting to sell them in future quarters? And on the same lines how is your increased contracted fuel levels impacting your ability to generate RINs? Does that have any bearing on the number of RINs that you are able to sell?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, I’ll start with the second part first. Our contracts with our suppliers really doesn’t impact the number of RINs that we collect. So there’s really no impact there. With respect to selling the RINs, our team monitors the RIN market closely everyday and the fact of the matter was RIN prices were going up pretty ratably throughout the entire quarter, so we didn’t see a need to sell into a rising market. So we just — we held — we’re waiting to opportunistically assess when that — those RIN values were kind of leveling out. And then we do protect ourselves on the downside as they start to slide back, we can sell them at a certain price. So that’s kind of how we’ve approached it. We’ll continue to do that opportunistically, and so that’s where we’re at on that one.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from John Royall with J.P. Morgan.
John Royall — J.P. Morgan — Analyst
Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my question.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
John, good morning.
John Royall — J.P. Morgan — Analyst
Can you talk about the cadence of synergy capture on Bucky’s in the first three years as we see it now? I think, the fiscal ’22 guide suggests probably not much hitting in the first year and then do you have an EBITDA estimate on the Circle K stores if you can speak to it?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, hey John, good morning. This is Steve. I’ll start with that around — your premise is right. I don’t think there is going to be a significant synergy capture number associated with Bucky’s certainly not in the first half of this year obviously as we get our feet under us. We had committed to about $23 million of total synergy capture over a three-year period of time. And if you think about the pieces we’ll get some of the G&A and the fuel-related procurement synergy that I think some of that will come through in the current fiscal year albeit again probably not in the first half.
But the majority of the synergies are going to be associated with uplift around inside the store mix as we put kitchens into a lot of those stores. And obviously, it takes time for us to permit those sites and to do the actual renovation, so I would expect our PP&E number this year reflects the fact we’ll be spending extra money to remodel those stores. I think the synergy capture associated with that spend probably is more of a fiscal 2023 item, but it will — we’ll probably get a couple million dollars this year, but I think that will be back half loaded.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, the only thing I would add to that is when you do these acquisitions you build your synergies target’s pro forma based on what you believe. You are now going into and then once you own it then you get under the hood and you get to really see everything that’s going on. And I’ll tell you our team on the ground is even more optimistic now about the potential synergy capture than we were probably going into it. So, we feel very, very confident that on both of these that our synergy targets are well within reach and perhaps have some even further upside.
John Royall — J.P. Morgan — Analyst
Okay, that’s helpful. Thank you and then can you parse your guidance for inside sales of mid-single digit between prepared foods and grocery maybe just high level? And then any commentary on margins on the grocery side in fiscal ’22, just this coming off the drag from the mix you had during the pandemic?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
We’ve – I mean directionally I would tell you if you just think of what we’re lapping from a comp standpoint, I would expect the prepared food number for the year to be stronger on a year-over-year basis than the grocery number. If you just start thinking of those two you have to average back to the inside sales. We’re not going to quantify those two, but mathematically prepared food should have an easier set of comps frankly than the grocery side of the business. And I think from a margin perspective on the grocery side of the business I think we feel very good about that, right?
There are a lot of the initiatives that influence the good performance on margin we had in the fourth quarter around strategic sourcing. Darren referenced a lot of the cost of goods sold, contracts are sorted here for this fiscal year, and I think they are sorted in a favorable fashion for us. Obviously, private brand penetration is only going to help us here. The mix has a general role of merchandise resets is going to help us and so I think not sure we would — it’s reasonable to expect quarter-to-quarter outperformance like we had in the fourth quarter every time, but I think we feel pretty good about — there is some momentum behind margin accretion in the grocery side of the business going forward.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Anthony Lebiedzinski with Sidoti & Company.
Anthony Lebiedzinski — Sidoti & Co. LLC — Analyst
Good morning and thanks for taking the question.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Anthony Lebiedzinski — Sidoti & Co. LLC — Analyst
So, in terms of the increased wage [Indecipherable] that you are seeing as everybody else — as far as the ability to offset that I mean — you touched on a little bit that as far as your small operators are feeling the pain too and as far as just wondering about like your ability to offset that whether you’re looking at higher gas margins or increasing pricing inside the stores, how should we think about that?
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Anthony this is Darren. I don’t want to get into the specifics of what exactly we will do, but we have a pretty wide range of tools at our disposal, right? We do have retail pricing that we can always take. We have fuel pricing that we can always take and manage. Our prepared foods business presents a unique opportunity for us in that those food products are not commoditized like a lot of other categories within the store where the consumer walks around knowing what the right prices of certain items in that category versus perhaps on some of the other center store categories. We can always be more efficient with our general operations and with labor, and so we put a lot of effort behind optimizing our schedule to make sure we’re providing the right amount of labor for our stores and meet the demand of guests. So, again there is a lot of different levers we’ll pull and we continue to monitor that and operate as efficiently as we can.
Anthony Lebiedzinski — Sidoti & Co. LLC — Analyst
Got it. Okay, thanks for that. And then just wondering if you could quantify as far as the Casey’s Rewards Program as far as spending per transact or per visit as far as how that is different from a new member and frequency that you’re seeing so far from your loyalty members?
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, and with respect to that, we have a deferred revenue impact on the grocery category about 20 basis points. On prepared food and fountain, it’s a little bit higher about 60 basis points. And certainly our rewards program guests are our most frequent shoppers and our most loyal guests. They come to the store more often and they tend to spend more money when they do. And so that’s been a real positive for us as we continue to grow that database, we continue to learn more about them and their habits and that we can more directly market to them and their cohorts and drive more frequency. But we’re up to 3.6 million members, that number continues to grow, and we’re really pleased with how quickly that ramped up considering we just — we launched that program just right before the pandemic started.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Kelly Bania with BMO Capital.
Kelly Bania — BMO Capital Markets — Analyst
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Hi Kelly.
Kelly Bania — BMO Capital Markets — Analyst
Just want to go back to the questions about EBITDA, CAGR and I think maybe the better way to ask the question is just are you thinking about growth from fiscal ’21, usually a very fuel – a lot of volatility but a very fuel margin driven year for EBITDA and earnings. Is that a good base that we can think that we can continue to kind of have that algorithm of 8% to 10% off of that or is there any anomalies that we should think about or look maybe at the prior year to think about a more normalized algorithm of growth from?
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Kelly, this is Darren. I’ll take that. I think when you’re looking at the algorithm, I would say and then kind of the way we think about is that certainly fuel margin has been a favorable tailwind for us, but throughout the pandemic. Again, we expect those margins to be elevated from where they were a couple of years ago pre-pandemic. We don’t expect them to necessarily maintain at the levels that we experienced in the last fiscal year, and so that we think will start to equalize as volumes start to come back. And then on the store side, we expect volumes to recover over the course of the year to more something we’re resembling pre-pandemic levels, and so that’s really how the algorithm works.
So I think both of these things, the same kind of shifts from one side to the other, but ultimately planes out at 8% to 10% EBITDA CAGR that we’ve committed to. And again when we made that commitment, we said it was a CAGR, because things happen, and there is variables from a year-to-year standpoint. Certainly the pandemic created one variable. We have acquisition integration creating another variable, but we still feel very bullish about the idea that the algorithm works. It’s just going to be some timing and sequencing as to how that recovery ultimately plays out, and the acquisition integrations play out as well.
Kelly Bania — BMO Capital Markets — Analyst
Okay. Thank you. That’s helpful. Just a couple of more questions on my end. In terms of the gallon, the comp gallon outlook for mid single-digit I guess. Just curious how you think about how your share is tracking in gallons? What your strategy is? I guess maybe we were thinking maybe that would be a little higher next year just looking at kind of the national average data, but maybe just curious what you’re seeing in your market, and how you’re kind of managing that kind of comp gallon strategy at this point?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, what we’re seeing in our geography frankly is based on all the information we can gather is we’re outperforming our competitors from a gallon standpoint as well as a margin standpoint. So recall our strategy has been to optimize gross profit dollars, and that’s a balancing act between getting growing profitable gallons. And so I think we’ve done a good job with that so far, and again based on the indicators that we see in our geography, we think we’re out performing, so we don’t believe we’re losing any market share from that standpoint. The cadence of that growth is going to largely be dependent on one, how we execute with regard to I talked about, and the other piece is just how things resume to more normal.
And so what we’ve seen in our geography is traffic is starting to improve, people are starting to go back to work, but now we’re in the summer, and the school is out, and so we think that the summer will probably normalize a little bit, and then we’re going to get back to the fall. And from we’ve seen, and heard so far, it appears in most school districts are going to go back to in person school, so we believe that more people will be out, and about, more people will be going back to work, because daycare challenges would have been addressed, and so we’ll think we’ll start to see some of more of that recovery feather in throughout the course of the year. I still believe ultimately that there is going to be a bit of a dynamic with some virtual work as in addition to people coming back to work, so that dynamic is going to have to play out over time. So we think that certainly from a gallon standpoint, we’ll continue to grow, but we’re also cognizant of the fact that this recovery is going to take a little bit of time.
Operator
Thank you. Your next question comes from Matt Fishbein with Jefferies.
Matt Fishbein — Jefferies — Analyst
Hey. Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Can you remind us where these acquired stores are in terms of cost per store relative to the base? And I think you said a quarter of the opex is not store related in terms of total company. In terms of the expected wage pressure next year, store wage is probably the larger contribution to the total increase, but which is generally seeing more pressure right now. Is it store wages or warehouses, and distribution? And also if you could provide any color on maybe how much of the mid teens increase in opex is owing to the full year of Joplin being up and running?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Hi Matt. This is Steve. I’ll try to deconstruct that. I mean generally speaking I would tell you we are — I think it’s just as tight, and tough of a market for us on the warehouse distribution side in terms of wages, and just labor availability as it is store labor. I’m not sure, I would draw much of a distinction between that. There is certainly less wage pressure as a general rule on salaried staff, but on the distribution side I think it seems like it looks a lot like the store environment based on what we see right now.
To your question around the acquired stores, it’s a little bit of a mix. On average I think a typical Bucky’s store is a little bit bigger than an average Casey’s store if you’re just using it across the system, so those stores would come in with a little hire per store opex number than what we have an average, but they’re also going to generate higher EBITDA per store, so I think that would be my point there. The Circle K deal those would tend to be a smaller stores generally than our average footprint stores that you probably have just on the other side of the Buchanan conversation. And can you remind me? There was one more question I think in there.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
It was Joplin.
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Oh, Joplin. Joplin is going to save us money on a year-over-year basis just, because we’re taking the miles off the road, so we have several million dollars of distribution savings from Joplin in fiscal 2022, which is embedded in that overall opex number. That’s what’s helping us offset on that 25% comp store related. Joplin has given us a benefit there.
Operator
Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul Trussell with Deutsche Bank.
Krisztina Katai — Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. — Analyst
Hi. Good morning. This is actually Krisztina Katai on for Paul. Thanks for squeezing us in here. I just want to follow up a question. I mean you talked about your outlook for inside comp sales to be up sort of in that mid single-digit range, and you touched on this earlier, but can you just walk us through against the various puts, and takes for gross profit margins for inside sales as we really think about the various cost components like cheese, and any potential planned promotions that you might have?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
I’ll start with cheese. Right now based on, we’re about 70% locked in the first quarter. I think we’ll have a little bit of deflation on cheese in the first quarter, a couple of pennies a pound that would be a modest tailwind for us on margin. As you look out for the rest of the year, the turn strip would be very comfortable, and for a total year in terms of cheese cost. So on a full year basis, I don’t think cheese will have a significant impact on margin one way or the other for us though it will be a little bit of a benefit in the first quarter. And then when you’re back to product cost on the grocery side of the business, I think we’re well insulated from inflation on the product cost standpoint.
I think that’s going to probably be a tailwind for us in that grocery category. We are more exposed to commodity cost on the prepared food side of the business beyond just cheese where we’ve got proteins, etc, that have a little bit more pressure, but I don’t think there is more product cost inflation in the system today than we’ve dealt with in the last couple of years. I think our remarkable inflationary pressure generally is going to be on the wage side more than on the product side, as we sit here today.
Krisztina Katai — Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. — Analyst
Got it that’s helpful. And secondly I just wanted to ask about your capital allocation prior days. Obviously you have just completed your largest acquisition to date. Stores growth will be accelerated here as we exit COVID, but you do have a $300 million share buyback authorization. So how you think about the balance between all of your strategic initiatives, paid down debt, and resuming a share buyback program at some point?
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, this is Darren. I’ll start with that. Our strategy has been, and continues to be that we’re going to invest all of our discretionary capital towards growth. And so after we certainly satisfied the dividend, we’ll go ahead, and invest in growth opportunities, and that’s what we have, and that’s what we’ll continue to do from, so as long as those growth opportunities present themselves. We don’t have any short term plans to take advantage of the share buyback authorization that we have. It’s out there.
We don’t have those opportunities from a leverage standpoint. The balance sheet is in great shape. We’re about two and half times debt-to-EBITDA as we sit here today post closing the Buchanan transaction. We will pay down some debt over the course of the year. We like to have that debt-to-EBITDA down in the low two’s, but aside from that’s how we’re looking at it. First invest in growth. Certainly take care, and protect the dividend. We’ll delever a little bit on the balance sheet, and we have the share price authorization, or the share repurchase authorization out there if we choose to use it.
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
And just maybe to reinforce Darren’s commentary from the prepared comments, the reason we’re over index in our growth is because from a value creation standpoint and if we can drive incremental EBITDA and we can improve returns on capital with growth investments. We think that’s the right play to run from a shareholder perspective and we don’t see an end of those opportunities here in the near-term and so that feels like the right place for us to put the marginal investment dollars, certainly for the next couple of years based on what we see right now.
Operator
Thank you. our next question comes from Chuck Cerankosky with Northcoast Research.
Chuck Cerankosky — Northcoast Research Partners LLC — Analyst
Good morning everyone.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Hi Chuck.
Chuck Cerankosky — Northcoast Research Partners LLC — Analyst
In looking at some of these inflationary trends especially in your cost of goods areas, are there any opportunity for inside margin, i.e., forward buying to help you out other than fuel?
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
Just can you ask that question one more time, Chuck. When you said inside margin and buying to help us?
Chuck Cerankosky — Northcoast Research Partners LLC — Analyst
Forward buying. Forward buying, you might not have heard that part.
Steve Bramlage — Chief Financial Officer
I’m sorry, yeah, listen, we do — we obviously do some of that with the cheese commodity. We occasionally will do that with some of the other commodities. The fact though by locking in supply agreements with a lot of the grocery providers on the CPG and DSP side of the business right we have locked in our cost of goods for the calendar year for beyond the calendar year for several of those. So, I think we have essentially done that on the grocery side and where it makes sense for us we will do it on the prepared food side but it’s probably there is the less forward certainty on that side of the business today than there is on the grocery side just by the nature of the contracts that we have.
Chuck Cerankosky — Northcoast Research Partners LLC — Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Our last question comes from Brian McNamara with Berenberg Capital Markets.
Brian McNamara — Berenberg Capital Markets — Analyst
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. So you’re a quarter removed from the big store reset and I’m curious how the private brand rolled out, it’s just trending internal expectations? You exited Q3 at a 3% penetration, it seems like you stayed there as of Q4. How do you see private brand penetration a year from now?
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Brian this is Darren. Yeah, we’re really pleased with how that’s progressed and more recently we’re getting a little bit closer to that 4% mix of private brands as we go into the summertime and some of the beverage category start to accelerate, water in particular. We’re nearly a 50% share in bottled water within our stores for Casey’s brand. We’ve also got another 100 plus items in the pipeline that we expect to roll out over the next four to six months. So, we feel like we’re well on track to continue to grow that business. We haven’t given out any real targets for this year but suffice to say we feel really good about the innovation around those categories, the pipeline that we have and the continued roll out of it. So, we expect to continue to grow that share at a pretty meaningful clip.
Brian McNamara — Berenberg Capital Markets — Analyst
Got it. And then just one quick last one from me, speaking with another C-store industry participant recently, they opined at least to me that 2021 could be the biggest year ever in terms of industry consolidation. It sounds like you guys are optimistic as well but I would be curious on your thoughts on the opportunities you’re seeing in M&A and the drivers of those opportunities? Thank you.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, we’re pretty bullish on the opportunity within the industry as well and we have talked about some of those drivers during the call with increased cost pressures, increased regulatory pressures, you need to have scale and capability to really compete effectively in this environment. The other thing that I think is really going to create some tailwind from an M&A standpoint is the potential tax changes and tax treatment of capital gains. And so if that ultimately comes to pass and capital gains rates double, which is some of the discussion right now there is a lot of these independent operators that are — if they were on the margins before, they’re probably looking to sell right now. And so we have seen some increased interest. Our M&A team is actively reaching out to candidates throughout our geography to see if there is interest and so we’re having conversations right now. We think there will be more opportunities to come.
Operator
Thank you. This concludes the Q&A portion of today’s conference. I’d like to turn the call back over to Darren.
Darren Rebelez — President & Chief Executive Officer
All right, well, thanks everybody for joining us this morning on the call and we’re looking forward to visiting with you again on our first quarter conference call in September. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]