DERIVATIVE FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS

12 Months Ended

Dec. 25, 2016

Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities Disclosure [Abstract]

DERIVATIVE FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS

DERIVATIVE FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS

The Company utilizes various raw materials in its operations, including corn, soybean meal, soybean oil, sorghum, natural gas, electricity and diesel fuel, which are all considered commodities. The Company considers these raw materials generally available from a number of different sources and believes it can obtain them to meet its requirements. These commodities are subject to price fluctuations and related price risk due to factors beyond our control, such as economic and political conditions, supply and demand, weather, governmental regulation and other circumstances. Generally, the Company purchases derivative financial instruments, specifically exchange-traded futures and options, in an attempt to mitigate price risk related to its anticipated consumption of commodity inputs for approximately the next 12 months. The Company may purchase longer-term derivative financial instruments on particular commodities if deemed appropriate.

The Company has operations in Mexico and, therefore, has exposure to translational foreign exchange risk when the financial results of those operations are translated to U.S. dollars.

The fair value of derivative assets is included in the line item Prepaid expenses and other current assets on the Consolidated Balance Sheets while the fair value of derivative liabilities is included in the line item Accrued expenses and other current liabilities on the same statements. Our counterparties require that we post cash collateral for changes in the net fair value of the derivative contracts.

We have not designated the derivative financial instruments that we have purchased to mitigate commodity purchase or foreign currency transaction exposures as cash flow hedges. Therefore, we recognize changes in the fair value of these derivative financial instruments immediately in earnings. Gains or losses related to these derivative financial instruments are included in the line item Cost of sales in the Consolidated Statements of Operations. The Company recognized $4.3 million in net losses related to changes in the fair value of its derivative financial instruments during 2016. The Company recognized $21.8 million and $16.1 million in net gains related to changes in the fair value of its derivative financial instruments during 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Information regarding the Company’s outstanding derivative instruments and cash collateral posted with (owed to) brokers is included in the following table:

	December 25, 2016			December 27, 2015
	(Fair values in thousands)
Fair values:
Commodity derivative assets	$	5,439		$	1,677
Commodity derivative liabilities	(6,827		)	(5,436		)
Cash collateral posted with brokers	4,979			9,381
Derivatives Coverage(a):
Corn	2.3		%	7.0		%
Soybean meal	0.3		%	4.1		%
Period through which stated percent of needs are covered:
Corn	September 2018			March 2017
Soybean meal	July 2017			July 2016

(a) Derivatives coverage is the percent of anticipated corn and soybean meal needs covered by outstanding derivative instruments through a specified date.