HUNT VALLEY, MD. — Consumers seeking restaurant-quality meals at home and foodservice operators choosing premium brands benefited McCormick & Co. in the third quarter ended Aug. 31.

Net income of $223 million, equal to 83¢ per share on the common stock, was up 31% from $170 million, or 63¢ per share, in the previous year’s third quarter. Net sales of $1.679 billion were down slightly from $1.684 billion. A negative impact from price partially offset volume growth of 1%.

“We turned the corner in our growing volume, which was obviously, as we started the year, our goal in the second half of the year,” said Brendan Foley, president and chief executive officer, in an Oct. 1 earnings call. “I think importantly, we’re outperforming private label and volume across all of our core categories, and I do like the progress that we’re making in Flavor Solutions, especially in the last quarter in the Americas regions.”

In McCormick’s Consumer segment, net sales of $937.4 million were up slightly from $937.1 million in the previous year’s third quarter.

“Foodservice traffic remains soft across most restaurant types, particularly in QSRs (quick-service restaurants),” Foley said. “These trends are starting to benefit growth in food at home, and this shift is driven by older generations as well as lower income households. Consumers overall continue to cook at home, and they are increasingly shopping the perimeter for (proteins). This further reinforces their demand for flavor and McCormick's categories, including spices and seasonings as well as condiments and sauces.”

He added that the Cholula brand continues to drive growth and bring new consumers into the recipe mix category.

More Gen Z consumers are cooking at home, Foley said.

“They’re interested in seasoning blends that make cooking easier and convenient,” he said. “Interestingly, they are leaning into higher quality and premium flavor items. We're seeing velocity pick up on our gourmet line, and it's coming from Gen Z as they seek to recreate restaurant-quality meals.”

In Flavor Solutions, net sales declined 1% to $742 million from $748 million in the previous year’s third quarter. The impact of divesting a canning business offset a 1% increase from pricing. Slower QSR traffic, particularly in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, negatively impacted volumes in Flavor Solutions, Foley said.

“Our flavors business in the Americas region, we saw good results across those areas that we consider like high innovator growth customers,” Foley said. “So that plays out in categories like performance nutrition or alcoholic beverages or non-alcoholic beverages, but we believe we outperformed the category broadly there, and then we did see strength in our branded foodservice business.”

Branded items from McCormick are appearing on more tabletops in the foodservice category, he said.

“Brands like Cholula or Frank's RedHot tend to be brands that we’ve seen operators like to leverage as ways of driving interest and excitement on their menu because those are obviously flavors that are quite appealing to consumers,” he said.

Foley was asked about the International Longshoremen’s Association, a union representing about 45,000 workers on the East Coast and Gulf Coast, going on strike Oct. 1.

“On the East Coast port strike, from an inbound supply planning perspective for us, we've been contingency planning on this on the potential for this since like April of this year,” he said. “We really have been thinking about this as maybe something that could happen, and so we’ve been planning our actions around that possibility. We’ve also coordinated mitigation plans with our domestic suppliers because they might be counting on inbound supply coming from outside the United States.”