Awesome. So for our next fireside chat, we have CEO Randall Stuewe of Darling Ingredients. Basically, they are a global leader in renewable diesel, animal rendering, and very recently SAF as well. Thank you for joining us today, Randall. Really appreciate the time. So maybe to start off, I guess there's been some confusion around the 45Z credits that came out yesterday. There were some folks from the Biden administration saying that they won't be finalizing that guidance. I don't know if you have any updates there, any thoughts there on how do you think that's going to play out for Darling one way or the other? Yeah. And I guess we'll comment on it. Yesterday, about 10:00 A.M., we saw the same Reuters article that came out, and it shocked us because it wasn't consistent with what the conversations we'd had that day or the week before. So it's not consistent with what we're being told by the banking community, by the big accounting community, and by the State Department and different contacts within there. They all understand they have a huge process to follow. Yes, we're going into a lame duck session. And then you've got some really conflicted constituents out there in the sense of the plant-based oils and all. There's a lot of noise. And whether it's smart ag, whether it's which model are they going to use to calculate what is the carbon intensity of soybean oil. And so there's a lot of things to clarify here. But they also realize that they've made a promise. It's law. And nothing really new to report. As Bob and I were flying up yesterday, then at 4:00 P.M., Bloomberg came out and said, "Not so true." So we'll see. But what I want to leave everybody in the audience with today is we're agnostic to it. And what we mean by that is, yes, we appreciate for the cash flows and all of that to have subsidies. So I don't want to say that we don't in that sense. But we believe that the mandates in the world, as we've always believed, will provide enough margin opportunity to still make this a great business for us. And we weathered a pretty difficult 2024 here. But we ran, I think the sum of sell-side est is at $0.53. I won't dispute the number today, although it's not final for the year. And ultimately, we don't see the year next year any worse. Plus SAF. SAF came up a month and a half early under budget and is running at capacity today. And the margin opportunity, as we've said there, meets our investment requirements and exceeds them. So we see 2025 as setting up very nicely here. The LCFS, I mean, the credit bank seems to be pretty balanced. You won't have imports next year into this country, at least as we see it today. You've got an increasing RVO again. And then you've got some, as I would say, there's no new RD capacity that I'm aware of aside from REG or Chevron Geismar that will be operational this coming year. So essentially, the world has played out. You've got Sweden once again increasing their demand. You've got Canada increasing, and then you've got this whole change in feedstocks in the world that's going to evolve, so we'll talk more about that. Brilliant. Thank you. So maybe just kind of sticking to the policy piece of it real quick. Any kind of thoughts on if, let's say, the 45Z guidelines aren't approved? Is there any push that you are hearing on your end for the blender's tax credit to be extended? Or maybe that's just a non-starter? I think there's a reality here is that clearly there are parties in this country that would want to see the BTC extended. And ultimately, it's the ag lobby, and then it's also probably the truck stops. Truck stops were one of the biggest beneficiaries of that subsidy, and then also the arbitrage it created for the importers of the world and the traders. So yeah, there's a lot of noise there. I mean, remember, you've got to go back, what is it? It was back at the end of 2022 or started 2023 when all of this was created, gave us three years of visibility of $1 a gallon, followed by three years of the producer's tax credit that Senator Wyden put in the finance committee. And it was ultimately geared at stepping down government monies into the industry. And in the sense, you think the BTC is direct dollars to a producer. The PTC really doesn't cost them anything. So at the end of the day, I think the BTC will get some discussion. The reality piece that I was talking about is you're going to have to find a vehicle to attach it to. Those discussions are far more complicated and above my pay grade. The same people that are telling me to keep the faith on the 45Z are telling me that the soonest you could have a retro BTC is summer, fall. So the Republicans are planning a big tax package, and that would seem to be the place you would put it. Doesn't mean that, as our good friend of agriculture, Senator Grassley—and Chuck—came out and said, "Yeah, I'd like the BTC." His office corrected him within an hour. So we'll see how it plays out. But as I said, I want to leave everybody with the, "We're fine. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And then maybe talking about just the RVO, potentially we'll start hearing something about it in early, early March next year, on just the 2026 outlook. Given we have the Trump administration has picked Lee Zeldin as a potential EPA pick, any kind of thoughts on how that could impact RVO guidance going forward? Yeah. The discussions with OMB and the EPA, from our perspective, have been less aggressive, is what I'd say the word, on growing the RVO. But they know they got it wrong in 2024 here. So I don't think that there's any foregone conclusions there. I know Lee Zeldin has some history of whatever it is, the Staten Island ferry and not wanting biodiesel or something. But we're in discussions in New York here of moving lots of R&D that's not. We are shipping here. And so at the end of the day, there's still movements afoot there. I think you'll get some modest increase again in the RVO. There's one thing that people can agree on in DC, and that is that biofuels are bipartisan. They're not energy policy. They're not climate change. They're ag policy. The farmer is hurting in America today. If you want to lose the house in two years, then screw the farmer. That would happen with some situation here that reduces the demand for fats and oils. People forget that 40% of the corn and bean crop go into some type of fuel today. You can't mess with that without messing with your political career. Got it. That makes sense. So maybe just kind of sticking to that line of thought that you don't want to mess with the ag lobby. So when it comes to thinking about the carbon intensity for 45Z, do you think that could maybe be adjusted so that it's more favorable to the ag lobby? What do you think, Bob? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, ultimately, as long as it doesn't go to a foreign biofuel producer, then it's still very positive for everyone. Awesome. Thanks, Bob. Okay. So yeah, maybe moving on, let's kind of talk about feedstock pricing. It's been at least four Q thus far. We have seen a relatively kind of flat to slightly down. Can you see? I mean, can you share what you're seeing in your system given MPC, PSX kind of ramping or kind of already running at capacity? Yeah, and I want to look at feedstock globally and talk to you about the changes that are either developing or have happened. As we came into 2024, we really were back half the year bullish on feedstock. We said, "Well, if the sell-side's right on this capacity starting up, then feedstock prices should rise." What's happened is the capacity truly didn't operate consistently at the rates that everybody thought they would. We did, and we're going to have a record production year. Number two, China was exporting biodiesel to Europe. Europe was exporting biodiesel to America to get the $1 a gallon. That arbitrage is being shut off now here in 28 days by the lack of the BTC. And it wouldn't work under the PTC. So you're not going to put boats afloat waiting on and praying on a blender's tax credit here. So that's going to push back almost a billion gallons of imports into this country for next year. That billion gallons is equivalent to about 7.5 billion pounds of fat. Keep that number in mind. The RVO grows around 400 million gallons next year. That's another 3 billion pounds. So now you're 10.5 billion. If REG or Chevron Geismar, sorry, Chevron, comes up online, that's another 3 billion. So those three plants or three actions alone are 13.5 billion pounds. Why is that both fascinating and mesmerizing? And it better be eye-opening because the total waste fats in America or North America today are 16 billion pounds. Okay. So keep those numbers in mind. Now, as you come into the world, what's changed? Brazil has a higher mandate now for biofuels. Brazil animal fat now is higher priced than U.S. animal fat. It's not going to move here. Once Neste gets Rotterdam back up, you won't see European movements in here. Once Neste gets Singapore back up, you won't see New Zealand and Australia driving by the island to get here. It's law of commodities. So you've got massive new production demand in the U.S. And ultimately, you've got a change in the palm oil. If you follow that cycle in the APAC countries, those trees take around seven years to develop from plant to fruit. We kind of plateaued. Ultimately, two things are happening. One, you've got additional mandated biofuel capacity in Malaysia. And two, if you think about it, if the U.S. is really going to process, let's call it North America, soybeans and canola, where was that seed going before? It was going to China. China's going to buy more seed from South America to the degree they can. But they're also ultimately going to be deficit vegetable oil with either people. They'll quietly go in and start buying the palm oil. So you're watching a massive dislocation that's happening in front of your eyes. This is why we sat back and said, and Bob and I, Bob's on the front row there with Suann, at the end of the day, we've never seen a shift like we're about to see in 2025 here. Markets anticipate, but they certainly don't have this one figured out yet. And the only answer that can be out there is that the other renewable diesel producers really aren't running at the capacity they are. We know that P66 was overbought. They're still trying to sell us fat today that they overbought. And we know that their pretreatment systems aren't as effective as maybe they want you to believe they are. Got it. That's helpful. Maybe then kind of also talking a little bit about with the new administration, there's going to be some tariffs that's going to be put in place for China. We get a lot of used cooking oil from China. How do you think that could potentially play out for Darling specifically and then just the overall feedstock oil system? And then do you think that could also have some ripple effects from importing fats from Brazil, for example? I'm going to give you a couple of scenarios here. Number one, as Darling, we are absolutely supportive of free trade in the world. So I'm just going to leave it at that. I think that the commodities need to feed the demand that's out there. And tariffs typically aren't real effective with that, and they have unintended consequences. That's one side. Second side is for the DGD model, imports are a critical part of our economic advantage. And ultimately, as North American fat prices moved up at the end of 2022, keep in mind when I sat in the room in 2021 or early 2022, there wasn't anybody in the room that didn't believe that renewable diesel margins were going to zero because of feedstock prices would move up and compress margins. Anybody really ready to admit you're wrong? Okay. You were wrong because of what happens in the law of commodities. If you're $1 a ton or EUR 1 a ton higher than the next best bid, the commodity gets aggregated and delivered to that point. So we freed up European fat that didn't have a home. Never in my career has European fat ever worked in here. We brought in South American. We brought in Chinese. We actually import from 16 countries today. And we've created more economic value in those countries in our rendering businesses. So we've benefited from that. So imports are critical. For us, at the end of the day, it creates another advantage because the products we produce, whether it's R&D or SAF that are being exported, we get duty drawback. So once again, the word agnostic is, "Okay, give me a 1,000% tariff on Chinese UCO." If you're P66 or you're Marathon or you're PBF and you're not re-exporting, you can't afford to bring that product in. So then you love Uncle Darling as your supplier domestically. So we're positioned to win under the tariff side as it plays out. I'm sure there'll be some disruptions here. But keep in mind, like in China today, while we're the largest importer of UCO in North America today, and we're re-exporting the products, at the end of the day, China really doesn't want to export low-value products. They want to export higher value. You always in China, when all of a sudden you see somehow a widget showing up or a UCO or a bicycle or whatever, you always have to ask, "What changed?" Typically, it's in some type of tax structure subsidy that's quietly been put in place, and as you've learned here a couple of weeks ago, they got rid of their 13% export subsidy to the UCO side, so now what's happened? Well, now BP's in there, joint venturing. They're going to make SAF. So that product should stay in China today. Long answer, I know. No, no. That's helpful. That's That's definitely helpful. And then maybe kind of pivoting just to the, I guess, to the feed segment a little bit. I know that in the call, the CEO colleagues talked about having some improvements in operations in the Eastern Shore and some of the procurement strategies in South America. Could you kind of talk a little bit about how far along are you in that transition? And then how can we think about at least margin improvement for the feed segment? The feed segment has probably the highest exposure to commodity volatility, and so at the end of the day, and if you look back over the last three or four years, not only have we done some acquisitions, but we've seen incredible volatility in that arena. So the feed segment margins range 21-26 should normalize in that 23-24 range, 23.5. At the end of the day, that's the procuring of fat and bone from grocery stores, slaughterhouses, abattoirs around the world, and then making fats and proteins, and ultimately, some of it's commodities, some of it's pet food, some of it's human proteins, and then all of it's basically animal fat. We've gone back now and looked at all of our contracts around the world and our procurement methods. The cost of running this business, I think this is true for probably every business that's probably here this week in multiple conferences. Post-COVID, we've lived through massive wage inflation that's out there. The cost to build a tilt-up building went from $300 a sq ft to $600 a sq ft. Piping's gone up. Wire's gone up. The replacement cost of our asset base is up substantially. The hard thing is to go back with your management team at different levels in the organization and say, "It's okay to be paid fairly on that." So as we kind of joke, or if I had my North American COO up here, he'd say, "He's pretty sure he's not getting a lot of Christmas cards from the poultry industry this year." Because we've gone back and started these renegotiations to say, "We need a better return," which predominantly goes into that feed segment. That's not a January one deal. That's not a June one deal. That's an evolution deal as we go forward here. But they get it. They understand it. And that's why we've been able to grow because we've been willing to put the capacity and the capital in for them over the last 10 years. The meat production industry, I don't see it slowing down in the world. I see it only increasing over the next 10 years. Got it. That's helpful. So maybe kind of digging into that a little bit, how have those conversations been in terms of, or how far along are you in terms of your three-year contracts and having those discussions around price increases? Are you pretty much done? Is there some more room to go? Yeah. I would kind of separate or bifurcate them into kind of the four rendering regions in the world. Canada is on a system that can move them as necessary. Europe pretty much looks at the returns that they want to make, and they then look at the palm oil market, and they look at the protein market, and they say, "This is historically what we've been able to earn per ton," and they then adjust as necessary. You don't want to go into the slaughterhouse every week or every month or every 60 days. You try to do it. In rising markets, of course, we don't go in very often, and we try to pocket that. In declining markets, we try to get in there. South America, we're making lots of progress down there. The earnings are starting to improve there. It's always fascinating, as we buy private companies, what it takes them to teach the management team how to make money. They never had visibility to it before because of the owner. The owner's desires are very different. A private owner is about tax avoidance. A public company is about earnings. So in South America, we've gone in and made the adjustments that are necessary there. In the U.S., because it's the biggest piece of our global supply unit, those are ones they come up. These are three- and five-year agreements. As they come up, we're transitioning. Got it. That's helpful. So I guess maybe thinking about that soft 1.5 billion guide that you have kind of shared during the GS call, how do we, given, I guess, the recent developments of the 45Z, given just the thoughts on where you think about margin cadence for the feed segment and across all the segments, what are some puts and takes that goes into those assumptions? Are you assuming that, for example, for the feed segment, you're assuming 23%, 24% gross margin that gets you to that 1.5? How do we kind of break that down? Yeah. As we look, it's December or something here, whatever. I don't know where my watch is this morning. And I was sharing the story with our one-on-ones here a few minutes ago. One year ago today, we were sitting in our annual operating plan meeting. And really, it's the five business units of the world that come in and really pitch the amount of cash that they're going to generate for the year. And the exercise has really a very small number of inputs into the spreadsheet, if you will. How much raw material are you going to run? Are you flat? Are you up? What's the mix of raw material? Because everything yields a little different. What are you planning for OPEX costs? What raises are you given? Where are you pegging diesel fuel, natural gas, electricity? Then the two big things are what is the protein selling price and what's the fat selling price? And so we pushed the button on the Cray supercomputer, and Oz came out and said the core business would generate $1.1 billion. We nailed the protein price, and we missed the fat price by $0.20 a pound. On January 1, less than 30 days later, boom. And so when we gave the guidance last year of $1.8 billion, it was built on a $1.1 billion and a $700 million EBITDA out of our share of EBITDA out of DGD. And that was at a $1.05 a gallon. So let's talk about the $1.05 a gallon. Where's that? We thought that's our competitive advantage against the industry. And that's logistics, inbound, outbound, carbon intensity, operating costs, hydrogen costs, etc., etc. And ultimately, we have that advantage. We just didn't think that the industry would run below variable costs against us, so we're going to put up in the 50s. They're going to put up in the minus 50s. So directionally, we were correct there, but in aggregate, we weren't, so as we come into 2025 here, we see the core business improving. I'm going to say it's back halfway to here because ultimately, the noise you have in the front here doesn't give people a lot of courage to start chasing feedstock at this time when they don't know how to operate. But ultimately, I think that'll get sorted out. Whether it's the 45Z, whether it's the BTC, it will sort itself out. As we come into Diamond Green for next year, I don't see it as any; I see two components. I see the R&D business and the SAF. R&D business is solid out there. Demand is great. The margin structure will rectify and normalize itself. I mean, if the biodiesel industry, if there's no 45Z and there's no PTC, you have to ask yourself, are they willing to run at minus $0.80-$0.90 a gallon? My belief is no. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But I believe they won't. So what's going to happen? RINs'll improve. They have to. They always lag and take some time. We already know LCFS is accelerated. I mean, at the end of the day, you look at California today, and there's roughly a 4 billion-gallon diesel pool out there, of which 2.5-2.7 billion gallons of it's now RD. Part of that was biodiesel. Part of that was imports from Neste coming in out of Singapore. There's a lot of demand here that's going to have to be priced in physically to be made. And the only way that happens is if the marginal profitability to produce is positive. So then you look at it and you say, "So R&D can't and shouldn't be any worse than it is today. Probably better." And then, oh, by the way, our SAF plant is up and online. We have customers. We have a sales book. It's building. We're excited about that. We're excited about thinking about the construction of a plant number two there down in the future here. And those margins are meeting our investment case and exceeding them. So we see the combination as better than 2024. In February, I'll come out and try to give my crystal ball a little clearer guidance with more on it. Because, like I said yesterday at 10:00 A.M., no 45Z by 4:00 P.M., 45Z. 45Z gives, Darling, a huge advantage from both the carbon intensity, and it gives a wall around the country in the sense of a producer's tax credit. So that's clearly part of what's going to need to be clarified to have a big year next year. Got it. That's helpful. Then maybe kind of pivoting more to talk about, I guess we could talk about SAF. You have talked about that you guys are now running at capacity, and you're building your order book. So maybe could you share a little bit about how far along are you in that, if you can? And then historically, you've talked about margins for SAF for $1-$2 above renewable diesel. Is that what you're seeing right now? And then kind of how that changes given the sensitivities around 45Z, for example? Yeah. What I can tell you about SAF, and I think we've been pretty open about it, is that as we would say, we would look back and rewind the movie a year ago today, we thought we would have some type of bidding war to get for just hold an RFP for SAF. And if you listen to all the airlines in America, there was none made. I mean, I think made 23 million gallons at World Energy last year. We're real now. We're going to make 250 at least million gallons this year. The fact that it hasn't been available is, number one, been the key driver of getting this off the ground. Number two, the supply chain is more complicated than I understood. And I'm going to say it's probably because of my lack of education in that world. But the supply chain, as you've seen in our JetBlue announcement, is DGD sells to Valero Marketing Services Corporation. Valero Marketing Services Corporation then buys Jet A from Valero Refining. And then they sell World Fuel Services, and then World Fuel Services sells JetBlue. Well, that's four law departments. That's a complicated sale. It's one airline, I can't remember, three or five million gallons, one airport, JFK. So now you start taking each airport and each you'll see an announcement here again of our shipment of SAF now to the Florida Peninsula. We're seeing some of the FBOs. Who should be the buyers of this stuff? Obviously, the mandated side is Europe. That's going to happen. JetBlue clearly wanted to be the leader of making a statement out there. We're seeing it happen with the other airlines right now. Southwest is moving. The question will be what's the percentage that they want to blend? In Europe, it's pretty straightforward. It's mandated. But who's the obligated party? The obligated party is big oil. They have to provide the fuel to the airline. So now you're really into Heathrow, Schiphol, de Gaulle, the big airports, right? Frankfurt. And that'll happen. The mandate starts January 1, but doesn't have to be "fulfilled" till December 31. So that's when I say it's going to be back half loaded here. Our book's building where we thought we would be. And we're excited about it, the margins. We agreed with our colleagues and partners to not discuss that. And it came out of more of a joke in the room was we were given a range of $1-$3 over R&D. And my colleague said to me, said, "Well, how would you like to be the guy that paid $3 and you're saying you're selling it for $1 out there?" So he says, "Why don't we just say it's meeting our return standards and exceeding it?" And I would tell you it's more than doing that. We're very excited about it. Got it. That's helpful. I know that we are close to time, and I have a lot of questions, but I do want to open it up to the floor as well. If anybody has questions, please let us know. But I guess so let's quickly touch on the renewable diesel piece of it now. We have seen Neste facilities offline. And we have also seen that R&D margins in Europe have been going through the roof. How does Darling think about exporting to those markets? Are they exporting to those markets, or is it primarily, say, Canada? Yeah, so let's talk about that. There's a couple of things that are relevant here. One is the renewable diesel is now one of the largest consumers of waste fats in the world. And when you turn off one of these big units, you really disrupt the supply chains that are out there. Whether it's our European rendering plants, whether it's our South American rendering plants. The Rotterdam fire, absolutely unfortunate, still down. I don't know what their timing is there. Singapore, as I understand it, is a technology issue that they're down for two months. Ultimately, so you got a little disruption that's creating some real volatility in Europe on the supply side. What I will tell you in the renewable diesel business, it is a very limited spot market business. So when we go into, if we say we're going to run 95 or 98,000 barrels a day, we want to be in the high 90% sold of that or committed. When I say it's, when we always talk, these are typically index agreements, which are 3,000 barrels a day, 10,000 barrels a day, ratably over the next 12 months, three years, whatever, priced over heating oil for the prior seven days, plus the LCFS, plus the RIN, plus the tax credit. So they're all a little bit different in how they work and which feedstock can make them. So the answer, a long answer is yes, we're arbitraging into Europe as we have non-committed barrels. Yes, Europe, yes, Canada, they're all great markets for us. Brilliant. Thank you. And then I just want to also touch on food real quick. I know that you guys launched Nextida. Any kind of initial feedback, thoughts there? And how do you think about commerciality for that going into 2025? And then what's next? Yeah. The collagen businesses, I always take 30 seconds and say, "Where does that fit into the Darling platform?" It's made out of animal bones and animal skins that are food-grade that come out of the slaughterhouse. 80% of that bone or 80% of that skin is animal feed and fat. The other 17%-20% is collagen. So very natural fit, very natural supply chain allows us to make a procurement process and proposal to a slaughterhouse that's superior over everybody else that's going to commingle everything. So at the end of the day, that's why we're in the business. We bought it in 2015. In 2015, we made about 90,000 tons, made about $90 million. Now we make 150,000 tons. And two years ago, we made around $300 million. So we've done that through innovation and creation of products away from confectionery and pharma commodity gelatins to water-soluble peptides now, which most of you would know as Vital Proteins. That little blue jar was, I'd like to say it's ours. I know what's inside it is ours. Comes out of Brazil and has for 10 years. Great brand has separated us from the world with the quality of product that's in there. We've now taken the product that we've been making Nestlé and Vital. And within that collagen molecule, we've learned to concentrate the individual peptides for application. So about three weeks ago, I think we were in Vegas with our entire global team, and we launched the Nextida brand. Nextida is a portfolio of products geared at health and wellness that will allow consumption of a pure protein in the body instead of a pharmaceutical. The first one that was launched is basically a GLP type of product. It's called Nextida GC Glucose Control. As you eat food and you take it in your body, you cause glucose spikes, peaks, and valleys. This is meant to level off the glucose spikes in your body. It's been clinically tested by us. It's got great results. Levels it off by, I know, in the mid-40s. It's got a lot of endorsements. That's number one. We're in some other trials and clinicals right now on dementia. I don't know. Yeah. Women's health, gut health, hair, nails, skin. I'm hoping there's one for hearing eventually, but we'll see. But no, it gives us, as we look at that portfolio of products, it's a great business for us. It fits our model around the world. It's probably not properly valued in our portfolio. We'll continue to evaluate that as we go forward. But the critical point here is building the Nextida platform, and then we'll see what we've got. Got it. And then maybe, I guess, the food segment has also faced some, I would say, there's been some customer destocking that needs to kind of happen. And then there's some additional supply that's come online that's kind of probably disrupting the balance a little bit. Could you maybe provide an update there how that's coming along? And then how can we think about margins for that segment going into 2025? Yeah. The global collagen business is one that is probably the closest thing we have to the consumer. So you get to see some of the results of recessionary behavior in countries, especially emerging markets. That's one thing. The second thing is it's a micro market in the world. Really not a lot of good data out of the gelatin manufacturers. It's 500,000 tons. And we watched as margins improved because of hydrolyzed collagen peptides for us. We watched some pretty substantial capacity additions, both in Brazil by JBS, by Gelita, and in China, that added anywhere from 5%-10% new capacity. That, in turn, has pressured that market a little bit. When you're the new guy on the block, at the end of the day, what do you have to sell? Price. And so they've started a price war. It's a spread business out there, but we're very well insulated from that with both our customer base and our product mix. Awesome. Are your contracts, I guess, within the food segment, I would say longer term, that's what kind of protects you, or? Yeah. And there's spread management. If you think of the risk side, there's two parts. They're flat price sale contracts to food companies, right, and pharma companies, right? But then it's how you buy the raw material, which is no different than any other of our business. We think we've hit a floor there on that business. Earnings could be down a little bit there next year. Depends on how quickly Nextida and the collagen peptides take off out here. Clearly, the price of gelatin is lower in the world today, but the margin's pretty similar. Awesome. Sweet. Just want to open the floor to see if anybody has questions. If not, then I think we are running out of time. So Randy, thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.