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Middleby Corp (MIDD -2.63%)
Q2Â 2020 Earnings Call
Aug 5, 2020, 11:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Thank you for joining us today for the Middleby Corporation Second Quarter 2020 Conference Call. With us today from management are Chief Executive Officer, Tim FitzGerald; Chief Financial Officer, Bryan Mittelman; and Chief Operating Officer, David Brewer. We will start the call with comments from management then open -- questions. [Operator Instructions]
Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. FitzGerald for opening remarks. Please go ahead.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our second quarter 2020 conference call. As we begin, I want to let you know that there are slides to accompany our call today. They can be found on our investor page at middleby.com in the center of the homepage by clicking on the Webcast and Presentations link on the right side of the page. The slides will not lead our discussion today but are meant for informational purposes and we may refer to them during the call.
We continue to be in ever-changing times with the COVID pandemic. Before we get into earnings, I'd like to start this call by thanking our employees who continue to support our operations around the world, their safety has been and remains our top priority. Our teams quickly adapted to the new business conditions and changes to the workplace environment. During this transition, our customer support and technical service was there for our customers, while product and parts shipping was virtually uninterrupted over the past few months. I'm grateful for the extraordinary efforts during this difficult period and to the entire Middleby team around the world, I'd like to say thank you.
Now looking at the quarter. We were pleased to have maintained very strong levels of profitability across all three business segments, despite the ongoing disruption to our business operations and the sharp decline in revenues. Our actions to quickly reset our cost structure and put profitability measures into place are reflected in the results posted for the quarter. While the business environment remains uncertain, we remain confident in our ability to navigate business conditions. We will carry our financial discipline and our profitability initiatives into future quarters, which should allow for margin expansion as we see business levels improve off what we believe is the trough of the second quarter.
As it relates to our segment performance, in the commercial foodservice group, we have seen consistent improvement in the order rate throughout the quarter and into July. Our order rate in July was down 17% as compared to the prior year, confirming improvement in market conditions. Pizza and quick-serve concepts continue to do well and we've also had strong activity in other areas, including healthcare, convenience stores and retail operations. Challenges will remain for travel-related outlets and dine-in only concepts, but June and July demonstrated some improvement in casual dining as indoor and outdoor dining restrictions were lessened in many states.
We expect to see volatility in orders and perhaps greater future order declines than reported in July, however, trends of improvement remain and we do expect third quarter will improve as compared to the second. Many of the investments we made before COVID have proven to be even more relevant and critical. Over the past year, we invested heavily in technologies to drive operational efficiency in the kitchen. We are addressing emerging trends such as mobile ordering, delivery, ghost modular and mobile kitchens and we have product innovation supporting delivery and carry out. The broadest line of that was cooking solutions, supporting foodservice in non-traditional locations, the industry-leading IoT platform for the commercial kitchen and developed solutions for kitchen automation.
Despite the challenges of COVID, we are committed to continuing the investment in targeted strategic product and technology initiatives and trends we expect will further accelerate as we emerge from this period. Delivering carry out is now of critical importance to operators who have seen significant demand increases through this revenue driver. We offer a variety of solutions, including the Carter-Hoffmann pick up cabinet, a contactless station for food pickup by customers or delivery drivers, curbside pickup stations and delivery systems that keep food significantly hotter during delivery.
The activities around kitchen automation and ghost kitchens has grown significantly with operators seeking non-traditional locations with equipment solutions to support a flexible menu for delivery and carry out. Our team at L2F, our automation company, is continuing to work with customers develop -- to develop solutions to reduce labor and increase restaurant operation efficiency.
We remain fully committed to our investments in data analytics and IoT. More than ever operators have a need to understand a measure of what is happening in their kitchen. Our IoT -- our open kitchen IoT solution remotely monitors and controls all brands of equipment in a commercial kitchen. It also automates food safety processes and drives energy savings through active HVAC and lighting automation. Open kitchen provides operators a comprehensive hardware and software platform to control, monitor and measure their entire restaurant in a single cloud-based application.
We also continue to invest in our beverage platform. Most recently, we announced the formation of the Middleby Coffee Solutions group in Seattle -- in the Seattle area to bring our coffee brands together and better serve our customers as they add or enhance their existing coffee programs. We have a unique portfolio of coffee solutions, supporting the most current trends such as automated bean-to-cup, nitro brew, cold brew and traditional espresso machines. Coffee continues to be popular worldwide and we have a dedicated sales team now in place to take our innovative product line up to market.
Moving onto the residential kitchen group. We have seen recent order levels return to growth both in the U.S. and U.K. markets, recovering from a low point in April when most retail locations worldwide were closed for business. In July, our order rate was up 28% from the previous year, following the three months of decline during the initial onset of COVID. While COVID continues to cause disruption, the housing market appears to be quickly recovering both in terms of existing home sales and new home construction. Demand is increasing as consumers are making investments to upgrade their indoor and outdoor kitchens as they're spending more time working, schooling and cooking with family at home. We have seen increased demand in our refrigeration offerings as well with an increased need for cold storage for food and beverage.
Recent product introductions, including our Viking built-in ice machines and under counter beverage stations have been well received, supporting this growing demand. During the quarter, we successfully launched our virtual showroom initiative with high levels of activity as customers are researching our brands for their kitchen. We are well positioned with the products introduced over the past several years offering design, performance and technology features they are looking for. Customers and kitchen designers can go to vikingrange.com and secure their virtual appointment, where they will get a personal tour of the Chicago showroom and the full attention of our staff for a one-on-one consultation with Chef Jaime and our residential team.
In the food processing group, travel restrictions have made it challenging to complete installations and engage with customers to demonstrate equipment. Despite the near-term disruptive effects resulting from COVID, our backlog remains strong and provides stability for the upcoming quarters. The overall demand drivers remain healthy and we are continuing to see demand and recent orders from our new product innovations and as we continue to develop business opportunities as we enter into new market segments. We're also seeing growing interest for automation in food production facilities to address employee safety and labor availability issues, resulting from COVID.
In summary, this was a challenging quarter for everyone, for us, our customers, suppliers and partners. However, we remain optimistic as history has demonstrated the foodservice centers industry to be resilient. We have taken the immediate actions necessary to manage through the current environment and as a result, we are positioned to respond to market opportunities during this period. We are confident the investments leading into this period, position us well and we remain committed to advancing our long term growth strategies. Those were my prepared comments, I'd like to turn the call over to Bryan for the financial discussion.
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Tim. For the second quarter, our GAAP earnings per share were $0.39 versus $1.66 in the prior year. Adjusted EPS, which excludes amortization expense and non-operating pension income as well as other items noted in the reconciliation at the back of our press release, was $0.55, which was negatively impacted by $0.02 from acquisitions. I'm proud to report for Q2 each segment exceeded the profitability expectations we set at the beginning of the pandemic. We also delivered on our commitment to reduce net debt having done so by $80 million.
Revenues declined 38% or nearly 40% organically as COVID significantly impacted our results. Total company adjusted EBITDA was over $74 million and represented nearly 60% of revenues, a sequential decline of only 450 basis points from the first quarter of 2020. We are clearly benefiting from the swift and aggressive actions we took. We entered this period with strong margins and we are still executing programs to maintain our leading profitability position. Commercial foodservice revenues were down a little less than 50% organically but we still generated over 18% of organic adjusted EBITDA.
In revenue in residential, we saw revenue down over 30% but generated EBITDA of 14% when excluding the impact of our recent acquisition. In food processing, revenues declined nominally and the adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by over 100 basis points to 22.6%. We were able to deliver gross margin of nearly 33%, excluding the impact of Fx rates and acquisitions. In terms of SG&A expenses, when excluding $8 million from acquisitions, we saved approximately $40 million compared to either Q2 of 2019 or Q1 of this year. The large -- this large decrease was net of incurring approximately $3 million of higher bad debt expense to increase our reserves and also having 5 million of higher stock comp expense as it was virtually zero in the prior year given the timing of equity program implementations.
Restructuring charges were relatively low for the quarter at approximately $2 million as we leveraged furlough options in various government programs globally. More meaningful charges will be seen in the third quarter as we conclude on the necessary permanent steps to be taken.
As you know, we have a very experienced management team. While the pandemic is presenting unique challenges, we have successfully managed through crisis before. The team once again is demonstrating that we have the skills to maximize profitability and cash flows when facing adversity and having to make difficult decisions. In managing through this crisis, we immediately reduced our cost structure. We are developing plans to further tweak our manufacturing footprint, we also continue to analyze our portfolio of products, customers and investment areas to ensure our focus is on the most profitable opportunities for growth. We will emerge from this environment stronger than ever.
We've also posted a presentation, as Tim noted, to our website that shows additional information about the quarter. Along with our press release, you will be able to find information about year-over-year changes in revenue on a geographic basis for each segment, as well as the reported organic sales analysis. So I'll seek to keep my comments relatively brief on the segment details as it relates to Q2 performance. For commercial foodservice, in spite of the top line challenges, we delivered gross margins of over 32% and EBITDA of 18%, excluding Fx and acquisition impacts. These levels of profitability were achieved, while revenues declined almost 50% organically.
Moving on to the Residential segment. On an organic basis, we experienced a sales decline of over 32% with high levels of decline in the U.K. Yet again, we delivered gross margins of over 32% and organic adjusted EBITDA was 14%. As I've done before whenever I talk about residential, I cannot resist mentioning our awesome products. As most of you know, my family has a borderline infatuation with our Brava cooking device, but given the good weather in Chicagoland, we're now enjoying outdoor cooking. The Brava still sees daily usage, however, a challenger for a family favorite has emerged. We also love the Lynx Napoli Oven. Well, it can do much more than pizza, I do admit that is our most frequent menu item.
While I am pondering having socially distanced visits with all of you to my backyard, virtual appointments are available through all of our residential showrooms. Our brand ambassadors and chefs are amazing, including Jathew Auburn who -- well, spoiler alert, was victorious on Chopped last night. I'm very much missing being able to sample all their creations currently, I definitely cannot keep up with them, so please go visit them virtually. Also, I probably need to procure some additional refrigeration capacity and Ss Brewtech products before personally hosting.
In any case, on to the Food processing segment, where we saw modest organic decline of 1%, while we expanded adjusted EBITDA margins. Margins here see variability based on mix between bakery and protein as well as within brands in those two groups. Having briefly reviewed Q2, I did want to provide some insights on the upcoming quarter. In order to do so, I think it is beneficial to start with discussing order rates, which we have shared in the presentation available at the Investor Relations section of our website.
For commercial foodservice, we saw improvements throughout the quarter. We started by being down 65% in April to down 39% in June and then, July orders were only down 17%. The order rates were rather consistently improving week-to-week, but the trend has moderated more recently. Recall that while the lag between orders in revenue is relatively short for this segment, order rates were not perfectly aligned with the revenues. For instance, backlog changes have an impact. We expect volatility to continue and there is still tremendous risk given market conditions. Nonetheless, we expect Q3 revenues to see a decline in between the June and July order rates we have disclosed, while EBITDA margins will improve over Q2 levels.
Residential has seen a tremendous resurgence. After April orders being down 55%, June showed a 9% decline and as Tim noted, July orders were up 28%. Volatility is the keyword to keep in mind, again as we expect it to persist. July orders were positively impacted by pent up demand after the disruption earlier in Q2, but we do believe we are on a path to strong recovery. As we consider our product environment, fill rates and backlogs, we don't expect revenue levels to be as much as July orders were. Nonetheless, there is the possibility for growth but our prudent expectation is to be thinking about nominal declines. Margins will expand as revenues increase from Q2 levels and recall that our acquisition has impacted the reported adjusted EBITDA. I've mentioned volatility a few times and it's having even greater impact in food processing. For the past four months, order rates were minus 28%, minus 1%, minus 66% and now, up 83% in July. I share this to demonstrate the lumpiness of the business. It would not be appropriate to make a forecast determination from any one or two months sample.
I know the comp to Q3 of 2019 is easy on a relative basis, however, that is admittedly a dangerous word to use in these markets. We are seeing disruption in our customers' businesses and some difficulties being encountered with installations, especially outside of the U.S. Delays are occurring but only limited cancellations have arisen. Backlog is back to levels about even with the beginning of the year. So my near term expectation is for sequential quarters to be relatively flat to Q2 for the remainder of the year.
So having covered the three segments, I do want to elaborate on cash flow, leverage and liquidity. We generated strong cash flows, $78 million from operations with benefits from lower accounts receivable levels as well as some other net benefits from working capital changes. Optimizing our working capital in the current environment remains a key focal point. We will continue to manage capital expenditures well below prior year levels. Overall, positive free cash flow generation will persist. For the past 12 months, free cash flow has exceeded $400 million, a record level for us. Over that period, EBITDA as defined in the credit agreement is nearly $600 million.
Our leverage ratio is now just below 3 times. We also have over $600 million in borrowing capacity under our credit agreement. While we generate industry-leading margins and cash flows, leverage will exceed 3 times for the upcoming quarter given the year-over-year revenue declines. Recall that we are currently able to borrow up to 4 times bank EBITDA, we expect to be below that level for the remainder of the year.
We closely monitor our current and projected cash and debt levels, ensuring we have sufficient availability and flexibility within our credit arrangements and overall capital structure. We were confident in our ability to demonstrate strong Q2 results and believe this would afford us better options than what the credit markets had previously offered. We've obviously not yet formalized any new arrangements, however, our financial strength also afforded us the opportunity to be patient.
Having delivered that strong financial performance, we will benefit from improved capital markets and are ready to take advantage of better options currently available to us. We will have sufficient access to capital. Any solution we implement will provide financial flexibility and allow us to make strategic investments, it is not solely about our financial covenant. We will continue to responsibly deploy capital and to provide solid returns over the long term.
In conclusion, as we work through the second quarter, we insured employee safety, maintained continuity of operations to meet customer demands and took actions to cut costs. Additionally, we invested in innovation to further our development of leading technologies. So along with Tim, and I know the same holds true for Dave, who is sitting here 6 feet away from me, I also would like to thank our employees for their relentless efforts to achieve positive outcomes. We have incredible teams that rise to the challenge and generate industry-leading results during these unprecedented times. We will continue to deliver best-in-class results.
With that, Joelle, please open the call to questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Joel Tiss with BMO. Your line is now open.
Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Well, I am not used to being first. So I wondered if just one, I guess, I don't know -- anyway, are you seeing any signs of distress or inventory dumping or anything coming out of the dealer distributor channel that would cause maybe the recovery to be delayed a little bit?
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
So we're pretty well positioned with, I would say, our strongest partners are the larger, more stable dealers or at least that's where our revenues are I guess, more concentrated and I think they're pretty well positioned as we go through this period. I think they're well capitalized, we've got broad businesses in. We really have not seen that, I mean certainly, they've got challenges, much like we do and they're adjusting to the new business environment, but certainly, they are managing through this much like we are. We don't really see kind of distressed actions that you might, kind of be describing there, including credit risk. So I know that would be a concern to some of you, but that really hasn't been an issue from our perspective.
Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
And then, as you guys think about emerging from this period with like some momentum ability to maybe take a little bit of share or play a little bit of offense. Can you give us a couple of -- maybe a couple of examples or directions you're thinking in that you could really come out of this in a much better market share position three years from now?
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I mean -- Well, so certainly, I mean, one of the things that I -- on the prepared comments and those are not new comments because we've been talking about it for a long time -- but it's certainly, our investment in differentiated technologies, right. I mean, so certainly, across the brands in the portfolio, we feel that we've got leadership positions there and are continually investing in innovation, but as we brought a number of these other broad-based initiatives on which is kind of the brands of the kitchen, which is -- controls IoT, automation, solutions to address growing trends.
Again, talking about things such as delivery, that was solutions and beverage, those are the things that we'll continue to invest in, right. And we do view those as higher growth opportunities that are emerging trends and in many cases, they are higher ROI to our customers, so they should help us expand margins. So those are really some of the things that we've been planning for in the long term and we've put dollars against them. I mean, last year we had a $15 million to $20 million budget, which I would say is incremental and then, we've -- and we've carried that through to this year, I mean, that was really the run rate that we had in Q1. And although, we adjusted our cost structure, we've really been committed to not shutting that down. I mean, because we do see that, that is not only the future, but that is really where the future is getting accelerated right now.
I mean, all those things are starting to come online, probably more quickly as our customers are kind of rethinking what does their operation need to look like, what is the demand driver, delivery right now. So if you look at the restaurant revenues right now in this period, 90% of it is order-ahead delivery, drive-through or carry out. So some of that trend is here to stay and our customers are adjusting to that. So we're pretty well -- uniquely positioned for that.
I would say the other thing and didn't mention that in this call, but in other calls, I mean, we've really been evolving our sales processes as well. So I mean, investments in digital marketing, training and support tools, so we can better engage with end-users and educate those customers. That's very important to us. So that is something that we were doing last year, continued to do through the second quarter and as it's more difficult to get on airplanes and see customers face-to-face, those types of communication are increasingly important and I think we've been very effective with that. So those are the things that are going to help us not only get through this period but really accelerate where we wanted to be and how we were thinking about the world even last year coming into this year.
Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
And then, one last one. I don't want to take up all the time. I just -- with all your decades of wisdom, can you give us a sense of what you think over like same thing like next three to five years. The -- Do you think there's going to be a lot of menu changes where maybe more of the quick-serve guys are seeing an opportunity to take some share from the casual space or anything there that could really lead to maybe a little more of a surge of business a couple of years out?
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes, so I'll kick it to Dave in a second, because he has got even more decades of wisdom than I do. But the answer to that is yes, right. I mean, if you look through this period, 75% of the traffic is going through limited service locations, right. So it is kind of the non-traditional, I mean certainly quick-serve, fast casual, C-stores, the retail offering. So there is a shift in that direction, because they really are geared toward that delivery, drive-through and take-out. So I mean, I think as dine-in is rethought, the pilot probably shift a bit and we think that bodes well for us because that is where we're positioned. Those customers are looking for kind of technology solutions and all the things that I mentioned really that kind of goes into those segments. And so.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, let me add to that. Thanks for the comment on the decades of experience. I was counting the years as you said, there are 40 years in this business. About three quarters of that running food processing and beverage plants and then restaurant operation and engineering and restaurant development outside the United States. So thanks for that comment.
The last 13 years I would say here at Middleby, I've watched, we've pushed technology for the adoption of speeding up -- speed of service and food -- lowering food costs and lowering labor costs. During this crisis, if -- I was just in a restaurant couple of weeks ago and they've reset their drive-through menu for speed of service, for customer convenience and for profitability. And so, the franchisees are -- 10 franchisees, different franchisees, I've talked to over the past three weeks are making more money per dollar sold than ever before.
And so, while the operators in this business love to serve food and take care of their customers, they'd love making money more than anything. And what is going to change permanently is their ability to think through operationally, how the kitchen operates and how they can safely take care of their employees and increase their profitability, thanks to the learnings that have occurred in the last six months.
There on the quick-service side through drive-through and carry out and delivery of these guys that are making more money per dollar sold than ever before and they are not going to let that learning go. That learning translates right into what Tim talked about in the last answer about the automation that we've been developing over the past three years or four years. I remember the PUC, the delivery carry out solution two years ago, we were so far ahead of the marketplace. Well, guess what, that's a huge success right now, everybody's attracted to that and adoption.
Ghost kitchens, commissary kitchens, dark kitchens, we had that two years ago and when we were promoting it at Napam and guess what, now everybody -- all our competitors are saying they're coming up with a new original idea, they weren't even thinking about it a year ago. So it's exciting right now to see the change. We're bringing the future to the present and it reeks of automation and technology around controls, systems and processes to improve profitability of the restaurant operator. It's probably one of the most exciting times I've ever seen in last 40 years.
Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
That's awesome. Thank you so much.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
And if you want me to talk about food processing, I can tell you the same story, but let's go.
Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Yeah, I don't want to take up all the time.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
All right. Thanks, Joe.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Thanks, Joe.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
We appreciate it.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mig Dobre with Baird. Your line is now open.
Mircea Dobre -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst
Yeah, good morning guys. Thanks for taking the question. So I'm looking at slide deck. By the way, thanks for all the detail in there. I'm looking at the slide with recent order trends, so the 17% decline that we've seen in July, I'm looking to get a little more context around that. Can you maybe first and foremost, tell us a little bit as to what you're seeing on the parts side of the business versus just the outright equipment? I'm wondering if maybe there are some variants here that would kind of explain this sequential improvement?
And then, related to this, I guess, my question -- as you're sort of looking at your distributors around the country, have you noticed any variance in demand trends in July between say, the folks that are operating down in the states that have been harder hit with the virus like a Texas or Florida, California versus kind of the rest of the country? And also, across the various verticals that you have, are there some that are getting to the point that they're operating closer to pre-COVID levels from a demand standpoint, because I would imagine that within your mix, things like travel and leisure and the casual dining, I would imagine that that's still flat on its back. So it'd be helpful to understand kind of some of the moving pieces here. I realize that's kind of a lot, but thank you for hearing me here.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Thanks won't do it. I think, parts were...
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, so I -- as you kept going, I started to jot some of that, because I'm sure I'll forget it. So maybe kind of unpacking it. So the first thing is parts, right. So we did see demand drop in Q2, which might be counter-intuitive, given you would think the servicing equipment, but as you kind of think back to April, restaurants were really, entirely shut down that was kind of the original mandate. So people were not turning on their equipment and even where service was discretionary, things such as preventive maintenance programs, they -- restaurants were cutting their business expenses much like we were. So those things were kind of coming off as we were in a period of uncertainty.
So as we went through the quarter and then, certainly, as we kind of look into Q3, restaurants are opening. I mean, certainly, on the quick-serve, some of the -- there's a lot of restaurants that are fairly busy right now. So services kind of come back onto the plate. I mean, it's -- so I would say, it was really a, a little bit of blip up if there is no service then b, the channel was destocking relative to demand levels, I mean, particularly, service agents didn't want to refill their trucks when they really weren't sure what was going to happen in the world.
So kind of getting into July and Q3, we anticipate that that service will be back to levels that are kind of similar to pre-COVID, it's hard to say, maybe not, but it will be less down, right. So it was down as much as equipment in the quarter. So I think that kind of is a little bit of a tailwind as we come into Q3. So...
Mircea Dobre -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst
So I'm sorry, just to clarify, you're saying that parts were down as much as equipment in the quarter and maybe better than this down 17 number in July?
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, so I do not know the July parts numbers, so I'm giving you kind of a macro view of -- parts were down more than you would expect in Q2, but can't do what equipment was. You typically say, hey, service is going to be resilient, we had destocking in the channel and immediate disruption. It will be back on in Q3, maybe not to pre-COVID levels, but it is going to be in a much better situation in Q3 than it was in Q2. So that's a positive.
All right. So kind of already forgetting...
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Geographic distribution activity.
Mircea Dobre -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst
The geographic, yeah.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. So as you look at that. Yeah, there is a dichotomy there and so not all regions are performing the same. So maybe surprising, the Northeast is actually the one that's down the most. But as you kind of think about week-to-week and month-to-month, what we are seeing is that when you have restaurants that are retrenching because of the shutdown of the dine-in in California, obviously, and some added restrictions or hotspots in places like Florida and Dallas, yeah, we are seeing that kind of move up and down. I mean so California, a couple of weeks shot back down as the government put new restrictions into place, but then, it actually started to improve again, even as much as a week later.
So I mean, I think the take away from that is, we're going to be kind of in a period of whack-a-mole here for a while as we go through third quarter, because I think we've got to come up to a level because people want to eat out and are finding ways to do that and whether that through all the different avenues we talked about, but I do think we're going to have volatility here driven by the dynamics if COVID hotspots going down. And you think about school systems starting to open up and what the implications of that can be. So I think, that's where -- as we think about July because that was your other question, we don't necessarily think a, we're -- it's very difficult to predict the business right now, but sure, I've been very transparent giving month-over-month order rates, so we can kind of in real-time tell you what's happening.
Our expectation is that, it's not the -- the order trend doesn't kind of continue in a positive fashion from July. We think that we've seen the lows in Q2 and we probably stay better than what we've seen in -- and as recently as June, but then I think we kind of get to this period where we start to bounce around at levels that are in the -- that are better than June, not necessarily perhaps as good as July, although we'll see what happens. So the other thing I just mentioned in July, we are seeing some of the pre-COVID activities that like -- that we were working on kind of strategic initiatives when our customers start coming online. So I mean there was new menu development that -- and product adoptions.
Some more recent technologies that have gone into, some customers that have had confidence levels to kind of bring those back on and those have happened in -- we had them in C-stores, we've had them in retail, we've had some in fast casual and then, the other thing that's in there is, we've had some restaurant remodels. So there are customers who are taking this opportunity to refreshen and remodel their store. In some cases, it could be elements of thinking about dining rooms and employee safety in there as well.
So those were activities in July that certainly we did not have in April and May. And I'll just also kind of say, April and May was again the initial shock as we went through June and into July. So even though that we've got a slide in the deck of where we're at with dine-in, remember, that was all shutdown in April, right. So even though it's not great across the country, dine-in is really open everywhere except for a couple of states and you can see pretty much have outdoor seating available and then you've got anything from six foot restrictions to capacity of 25% to full capacity. So although that is not great, it's allowing our casual dining customers that are also looking at offering more and more curbside pickup, it's allowing them to really start driving revenues on that dine-in and that was not there 90 days ago.
Mircea Dobre -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst
Right. Yeah, that's great color. Thank you for that. Then my follow-up maybe for you, Bryan. On the gross margin side, maybe you can help us think about the progression going forward. I mean, looking at the quarter here, you had call it 510 basis points of compression on a 40% decline in volume. Obviously, the decline in volume are getting better going forward...
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
Right.
Mircea Dobre -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst
Is there a good way to kind of link the year-over-year change in volume to the year-over-year margin compression in the back half? Thank you.
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, no. I mean, so margins will improve slightly from here, right. But the impact of each better performance going forward from where we are, should be slightly better than what we've seen, right. I'd say like the contribution margin for each dollar better from the trough should get slightly better, right. So I would, I guess I'd start with modeling and kind of what we've seen already and if you want to kind of tweak that to a slightly better side than how the Q2 math worked out, that would make sense to me.
Mircea Dobre -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst
So lower decremental margins on a gross margin side going forward.
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
Right.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes.
Mircea Dobre -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst
Great. Thank you for that. Good luck.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Mig.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Jeffrey Hammond -- Keybanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, guys.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Jeff.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Hey, Jeff.
Jeffrey Hammond -- Keybanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Great color and great performance here. So just want to come back to the July orders here. Is there -- was there anything in terms of lumpiness that kind of makes you feel that it's unsustainable because what we were hearing in the channels that we were getting this plateau, but clearly, July was a step function up. And I just want to understand and you're putting a little bit of caution around that, so I just want to understand it better.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Yeah, I mean maybe to just reiterate. I mean, we are thinking that we probably see some retrenchment and volatility from July, but certainly, we stay kind of north of June. And again, I -- mentioning some of those activities, that I did, with C-stores retail, fast casuals, I mean, that's real business that came through in the month of July. And again, those were initiatives and rollouts that we were anticipating pre-COVID. So again, we were pleased to see those come through. But that gave us a little bit of a boost in July. If you were to back that out, we still would have been ahead of June. So I think that's maybe gives you a little bit more color. It's hard to put a number on that but that was one of the reasons why we think that as we go through August and September might retract a bit, plus some of the dine-in locations that are closing down. However, we are -- some of the things that we saw in July doesn't mean it's not going to happen again, there are other projects that are out there and we're engaging with customers, so we're kind of more -- broadly, we are seeing some of the pre-COVID things come back online. And Dave, I don't know if you want to add some color further.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, I think it's going to be -- listen, three of us love beating your expectations and I think we'll continue to do that, but it's going to be tough business over the next three to six to nine months and it's our financial discipline and our operations and our connectivity to the customer that allows us to outperform the competition. But it's going to be month-by-month because people are starting, we're very connected. One of the great positives that have come out of this terrible situation is our connectivity to the customer and we're seeing customers start and stop, start and stop. But the bottom line is, they're buying into our solutions. And so, I think it's going to be lumpy, it's going to be tough business, it's going to be very aggressive business. I think, we'll clearly outperform our competition, but it's going to be tough for the next six to nine months of lumpiness.
Jeffrey Hammond -- Keybanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Yeah. And so just on the, I think you said $40 million of cost saves in the quarter. Can you just confirm that and then split out what you think is structural versus temporary and when you start to think some of that temporary stuff starts the leak back in.
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, the -- it will leak back in as revenues and business levels justify it. You'll see of that $40 million and again, that's after increasing our area reserves and taking some stock comp, around $25 million or so of it was from comp and commission. So kind of feeling people related in such and probably, $10 million to $15 million of active actions around travel and advertising and professional services and trade shows in the light and then, there are additional pieces about other things that were just changing in the business. So it certainly feels like again, most of it is structural and I'll call it semi-permanent. I say semi-permanent because the people side has a variable component to that. And also, as I noted in my comments, we know our levels going forward aren't the exact same as they were before. So more will be forthcoming about how much of that becomes permanent versus how much of it becomes I'll call it short-term variable.
Jeffrey Hammond -- Keybanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay, great. And then, just final one on res kitchen. There has been all this talk and a lot of investment in home and home is kind of a sanctuary and just can you talk about how that's resonating and I see your chart on like the appliance data. But it just seems like as people invest more on their homes, that there is a real opportunity here and just as you see this shift, what's your ability to kind of ship -- react and ship product on time, etc?
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, that's a great question. So I mean, we do feel pretty good about the demand environment. I mean, relative to this -- the situation we're in, certainly, we saw orders turned up pretty significantly in July. We do think there is some pent-up demand in there and obviously things were down in the three quarters before. So whether that's -- project is getting completed, orders getting placed with dealers, some things that maybe you would have expected to happen in April and May kind of gets pulled to that period somewhat, but however, a couple of things. I mean, we've got some slides in there. I mean the appliance industry overall is seeing kind of a recovery and a forecast that's on the positive side of things for the back half of the year.
As we went into the period, the market was pretty good. New home starts were up double-digit, when we were coming into the year. Existing home sales activities, which kind of then help support remodels, which is kind of the strongest piece of our business. We're doing pretty well. So as you kind of look at the data over the last three months, it -- there has been significant improvement. The existing home sales is a little bit V-shaped, I would say new construction kind of surprising in a period like this that were only down 4% in the month of June relative to last year and new permits are actually ahead of last year, so that kind of gives you a little bit of a look ahead of what might happen.
So that dynamic seems pretty good given the environment, but then you add on that other element what you said is, the world is shifting, some of it may go back to where it was, but a lot of it won't and people are spending time at home, the kids are at home being school, and we are eating more at home. Even when we're ordering in and we're taking delivery, we're putting the food in the refrigerator and then we're reheating it and certainly, people are spending more time cooking again both indoor and outdoor. So we've really seen strength across the different product categories. So it started first with outdoor and then, we've got indoor cooking and refrigeration, so it's pretty much across the platform.
I don't think we're going to maintain similar to what you just said in commercial, residential being up 28% by any means, but we think it's possible that we would see us being on the positive side, ledger for the rest of the year and then, kind of baked underneath it, I mean, much like we talked about with commercial, I mean there has been quite a bit of heavy lifting over the past several years, certainly, new product introductions and that continued into throughout last year and into this year, really across the brands, so that is exciting.
And then, really our infrastructure investments that we've talked about for a long time, I guess long time being three years here with our service team, our sales team and we've come light years and thanks to the great teams that we have there, relative to where we were before and really as we kind of go through this period that also plays well for us, because we've really been able to kind of support the customer because we've got that much better infrastructure.
Now the demand that you pointed out, that is a challenge. So I just kind of say that, look, one of the things that we are caution is that as we went into this, number one, we kind of locked down pretty hard, I mean and so we did that with residential, we really didn't anticipate orders to recover as quickly. So that's number one. Number two, employee safety is a real focus here and I will say, unfortunately, at some of our residential divisions, particularly Viking and Lynx, which is in Mississippi that's been a hotter spot and when we have cases of COVID or suspected COVID, we locked down the factory. So I mean, we've had inefficiencies that have been running through our Q2 numbers and that may continue into Q3. So that not only impacts our profitability, but also our ability to ship orders when we have a demand environment that's actually increasing not decreasing.
So I think we're -- our backlog has been building in that area. We've been thinking very hard about how do we increase throughput and capacity, while ensuring that we've got employee safety because in the other factories, it is a bit easier when you've got less people and you can distance then. So that's one of the challenges that we probably have in the third quarter, that's a -- it's a good problem to have from an order production standpoint, not a good problem from a COVID standpoint, but that's something, as I mentioned that's priority one. So that could impact how revenues rollout relative to incoming orders.
Jeffrey Hammond -- Keybanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay, thanks, guys.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Tim Thein with Citigroup. Your line is now open.
Timothy Thein -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Thanks, good morning. The first question is on commercial margins and just looking at the EBITDA margins there and compared to your global peers, I think the gap at least from what I looked at this morning and the gap is probably as wide as it's ever been, so hats off to that team. I'm just curious, was there anything you'd call out, Tim, in terms of maybe, I mean, you talked about the cost actions, was there anything that maybe helped you on the plus side or any restructuring or engineering expenses or projects that maybe got pushed to the back half, just anything you would call out that maybe won't repeat as a benefit?
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Well, we certainly were rather aggressive in the actions we took and we were trying to be very measured with how we did attack things in engineering given innovation is so critical, but we will continue to adjust that as the demand comes through.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I mean, look, I would say a couple of things, one, we're heavily focused on profitability, right, so that's kind of one of the hallmarks and I think it's also -- it's not only how we operate the business and our urgency toward delivering the bottom line, but I mean, it also goes to the strength of the brands and the products and that's something that we'll continue to focus on. There will be some costs that we took out, that's is probably not sustainable to take out if we see growth happening, so that will come back on, it will probably come on relative to volumes increasing.
I'll just add, maybe I'll let Bryan kind of clean this up a little bit. But I would say, although certainly there's a lot coming up, we did have some, probably some incremental costs in the quarter, relatively, so there's kind of some netting there and I'll kick it over to him, but particularly, bad debt like I know, maybe I'll just ask you to comment on that.
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
So I did mention, we did take $3 million of bad debt expense and it doesn't mean to indicate that we had $3 million of restructurings into write-offs, but we wanted to make sure that we took a prudent position on our reserves given the risks in the market. So that's one that we did have that may not recur.
To Tim's point, we may be bringing back online expenses that aren't directly immediately revenue generating in the very short term. However, with orders and then revenues improving, that provides contributions and where we can afford to get back to the fast and full pace we had before. Now, as I say that, I don't want you to think that we completely stopped our efforts, that wasn't the case, we were just looking everywhere we could and making sure we had a balanced viewpoint of things. I mean, I think it's also probably important to think about the cost and the supply chain side of things too. So let me have Dave add some commentary here.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. Thanks, Bryan. Great point and I'm glad you recognized the separation versus our global competitors. I think it's specifically a recognition to the people at Middleby that are making a difference in engineering and purchasing supply chain and manufacturing. The work that's been done over the past three months is clearly showing up in the numbers, it's separating us from our competition, it's allowed us not to do rolling shutdowns. We've actually put the customer first and supplied products and I can tell you that not only have we had financial performance outpacing our competition, but our customer service, it's outpacing our competition and I can tell you that I've had a half a dozen phone calls from CEOs and COOs of our end users thanking me for the delivery of equipment, because we chose to take the customer first and at the same time, these great people in purchasing and supply chain, and manufacturing, engineering maintain these financial performance numbers. It's a remarkable feat that we're going to hold on to.
Timothy Thein -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Okay, got it. Maybe Dave, staying with you, just what's the tenor of the conversations that you're having with your large chain customers as they have clearly been the relative winners here from the traffic and volume standpoint. And so, just what are you hearing in terms of their investment plans and I'm assuming new store count is not really high on the list, but I don't know what, from a menu standpoint just what you're hearing from an overall -- the activity and how that plays into the pipeline of activity in the back half?
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, let me give you two sides to that coin. So we are very connected. Our sales team, our -- the people on the frontline of customer relations are more connected than anybody in the industry and we're learning a lot. The customers were learning a lot about menu, menu management and speed of service and profitability. The ones that are being successful, the operators that are being successful, whether it's the franchisor or the franchise, I constantly have conversations with very large franchisees and it's like they're talking about making more money than they've ever made in their life and I'm like, hey, come on spend some of that with us since we're a good friends and they're like, no, I am going to hold onto it for now, because I'm not sure what's going to happen in the next couple of months, but let's figure out what we're going to do when I release that money. So that connectivity is really important.
The activity around C-stores is growing, grocery store and retail are stepping up their process around foodservice and using more automation to deliver products to their customers, so they are in shopping for groceries. So the C-stores, the cruise lines are revamping a lot of their kitchen equipment as they're refurbishing, getting ready for launches late next year, but they're refurbishing the fine white tablecloth and the dine-in. They're active, they're not giving up their businesses, these guys are not going to wait, they're going to reemerge better and stronger and they're going to -- our connectivity with them and helping them emerge stronger is better than ever.
But it's going to be a tough three, six, nine months here and that's where I think the difference between us and our competitors is really going to shine. And our ability to run this company and stay connected to the customers so that we can pull solutions through our channel partners, our trusted channel partners, our trusted dealers will pull solutions through them. We're going to deliver them to the end users that we sell directly to, the big large chains globally. So it's -- but it is really a testimony to the people in engineering and manufacturing and purchasing, the performance we've gotten and our ability to stay with our customers, while they are struggling in some cases and succeeding in huge ways in other areas.
Timothy Thein -- Citigroup -- Analyst
All right, thanks for the time.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Tim.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Todd Brooks with C.L. King & Associates. Your line is now open.
Todd Brooks -- C.L. King & Associates -- Analyst
Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Just a two-part question for you. If you look at -- and this is on Slide 11. If you look at 26% of the business typically being fueled by new builds. Of that 26%, if you look back over last year, how much of that is made up by the segments that remain currently strong. So QSR, Pizza and maybe to a little bit lesser extent fast casual?
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
So we probably don't have it broken down just in that quite that detail, I'll make a couple of comments. One, international, I just kind of think about emerging markets and where store growth is coming, so it's not only the segment but where in the world is that happening. You probably have kind of an oversize piece of new stores coming from outside of the U.S. in the emerging markets. So I mean, I think we feel confident that that's going to come back on in the longer term.
In the near-term markets such as India, Brazil, Latin America are more disrupted where we expect some of that would occur, but other markets such as Asia, in China, specifically, we're seeing some of the activity picking up. So I think as -- I don't know if it's a third -- it's certainly greater than a third of what our geographic mix is coming from the new stores. So it might be half of our new store activities is from international. So I think that bodes pretty well. But certainly, in the U.S., I think I actually don't know how it breaks out. Although, over time what's happening is, you've got less in independents, less in casual dining, so you really over time QSR, and what was going on with C-stores, that -- those trends were kind of causing more of the new store openings to be there. So look, I mean, I think that's going to be more impacted clearly than the installed base, but it's not entirely off the map.
Todd Brooks -- C.L. King & Associates -- Analyst
Okay, and then, just the second part of the question. Any sort of -- as you're looking at '21, whatever the hole is in new builds, whether it's like you said, casual and independents aren't back as quickly as some of the healthier segments, maybe some international disruption, but whatever that hole looks like, if you can talk about the combination of probably more menu activity at once than we've seen in the industry just through the pandemic and how much that could drive from the menu-driven side of the business. But also, secondly, how much of that hole can be filled by emerging channels and I'm thinking kind of ghost, virtual some of the new emerging locations. I'm just trying to think new build, the puts and takes over the next year, if you net out the opportunities with just some balance sheet realities for some operators. Thank you.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, let me take those initial start and you can wrap it up, Tim.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah.
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
The -- I think the hole will be filled, frankly. And just like -- our customers are just like we are at Middleby, right, they're taking advantage of this slow period to reset how they operate. It's known to everybody on this call that a lot of measurements of the restaurant industry are new store openings. And so, they will come back in and fill that void in their performance, in their business performance. I think it will be and I agree with your point that you applied is that the smart customers, the smart chain customers and regional chain customers are going to think about how they run their restaurants differently and whether that's the use of a commissary or a ghost kitchen or a dark kitchen and so, they create an effectively better operating system.
I think that will be filled and that's going to happen next year and the following year. They're going to backfill that void and fill it in with technology not only in their existing kitchens to maintain distancing for their employees' safety, for their employees, but better -- more importantly, better customer service for their customers. And so, I think the void will be filled, I'm seeing tons of really smart activity out there by our customers on filling that voids. So they can bring back that financial performance of their corporations by filling that void that you're talking about.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I don't know -- that's a good answer. I mean, I think it's tough to predict right now but I agree with Dave, I mean, I think what's going to happen is, they are going to invest in their existing store locations, right. So they're going to bring technology and that's going to be the first priority before they get to the new stores. There are going to be some of the concepts that we're working with. Some of -- that they see this as an opportunity because they do have a unique differentiated advantage and if they are very well positioned for the trends right now that will actually accelerate some of the store openings going after that. And also, we're working with a -- at least there's a dozen ghost kitchen, mobile kitchen operators that we're engaged with very actively. It's very difficult to say how large that is going to be, but the reality is it's relatively small in the overall number. But it's not only those guys, it is the existing operators and Dave, kind of alluded to this that are also adopting those same practices. So I think that's actually the bigger opportunity that will impact revenues here over the next year or two.
Todd Brooks -- C.L. King & Associates -- Analyst
Okay, great. Thank you both. Thank you. Our next question comes from Walter Liptak with Seaport. Your line is now open.
Walter Liptak -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll make them quick because we're running a little bit late. But I just wanted to do a follow-up on the cost reductions, and I think it was Bryan, in your presentation, you talked about how small the charge was for restructuring in the second quarter and I think alluded to some restructuring for the back half of the year. I wonder if you can provide us with more detail what might be going on.
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
The quick and blunt answer is, no, I can't yet. So I think I've made it clear that we need to take some actions and it will be forthcoming, but given the necessary steps around finality of decisions and employee impacts of such, I'm not going to elaborate it at this time.
Walter Liptak -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Okay and then -- thanks for that. The...
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah.
Walter Liptak -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
In the process business, it sounds like there is -- there may be some need for some new capacity with those projects out there. Is it possible to book orders using kind of digital sales methods instead of just kind of the face-to-face walking around the factory and -- or do you think those bookings will push out maybe into 2021?
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I mean, so is it possible? Yeah, we have a lot of long-standing customers that we've had relationships and they are very familiar with our equipment, they know our equipment and we've got great teams that support them every day. That being said, it is helpful when you can test equipment, particularly if it's a new customer relationship or a project where they're putting in new technology or innovation and then, we've come up with a lot of new products over the last year and a half. So that gets to be a bit of a challenge. We had opened up our innovation center, actually our second innovation center, we had a bakery, one that we opened in 2018, followed by the protein processing center in 2019 and that -- those yields are great tools really to demonstrate the equipment, the performance and validation to our customers.
So it's tough right now to get those customers in there, so does that mean all of the business goes away? No, but there is just kind of an element of orders that will be kind of dependent on us engaging with them. And I just kind of -- Bryan mentioned in his comments but that is a very global business, I mean, certainly, Middleby overall is -- but kind of think about food processing, we got systems going from the U.S. to Russia from France to the Middle East and that -- there is also the element of being able to do the installs and a service, which is really just a function of people being able to get on airplanes right now. I mean, certainly, safety is an element that we're considering in what we do. Send people, but it is very hard when you've got the cross-border.
So I would chalk both of the [Technical Issues] up to near term disruption in kind of tactical matters rather than demand, because coming into the year, we had an all time back -- record backlog Q1 that continued to build, new product innovations are being well received. We were trying to address new markets such as pet foods, dried beef, drive needs, alternative proteins, bacon was an area that we were already in, but we are really continuing to expand our solutions and footprint there, including with recent acquisitions such as Pacpro that we did about a year ago.
So all those things are still very relevant. So I think, they will come back on line once the business conditions -- so we're still very positive and optimistic on the business, but we might see a couple of quarters here. We're truly just -- the disruptive factors going on in the world make it tough to get some of the stuff done.
Walter Liptak -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Okay, thanks for...
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
The only thing I'd add to that is, I agree with everything Tim just said, but there is an inherent need for food manufacturing to be maintained around the world. And so, the governments and the people that are doing it do get some exceptions when there is a need to keep a food processing plant up and running and they call us to help them bring in some new equipment or keep, maintain a piece of equipment, exceptions are being made, so I agree with everything Tim said, but don't underestimate just the inherent need to ensure food supply to the population.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. And I mean just maybe to further add on that, the demand at those customers generally is strong right now, right. I mean, people are eating generally more by the way. So as you kind of think about all of our segments, whether it's food processing, whether it's residential or whether it's commercial, food consumption is going up. I mean, I think there is -- the one of the things that stand out there is the COVID-15[Phonetic] I think many of us have gained 15 pounds during the pandemic, so the consumption food is not going down. It is going up so that demand really starts with our food processing customers and we've seen kind of resurgence in things like hot dog consumption and meat consumption generally, which is good for our business.
And I think the other element and certainly one of the things we bring to our customers and this is true, as we talked about in the commercial foodservice, where the food processing is automation, right. I mean, we are bringing highly automated systems and more and more complete solutions and as we become more important not only for the reasons we had coming into COVID, but now you add the element of employee safety. I mean, they've got -- it is difficult to have people in these -- in the production facilities to the extent that you can automate and space people out. And then also, there is availability of labor issues as well. So food automation is going to continue to be more important and during this period, we are getting more inquiries on solutions to address that, which we have.
Walter Liptak -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
That's great. And let me just squeeze one last one in.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Sure.
Walter Liptak -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
I think that you had taken a question on M&A yet, I wonder if it's possible to get a deal done now, if you've got a pipeline?
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, so a good question. Obviously, that's also one of the hallmarks of Middleby and we expressly said, we would be deferring that in the second quarter as we kind of lockdown and make sure we understand where the world was. Certainly, we're still working through current issues, but I mean, I think as we've gotten our legs under us and a better view of the trajectory, we're keeping kind of the pipeline of activities alive and I think, our expectation is as we kind of move through the second half of the year, it may be possible to start bringing some of the kind of prudent type of business development opportunities back online and certainly, our expectation is in 2021, we'll be back into kind of the M&A swing.
Walter Liptak -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Okay, thank you.
Operator
Thank you. That's all the time we have for questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for any closing remarks.
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, I'll just kind of wrap it up and say thank you to everybody for attending today's call. We appreciate all the time and the questions and discussion. So we look forward to connecting with you again on the Q3 earnings call.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 74 minutes
Call participants:
Timothy FitzGerald -- Chief Executive Officer
Bryan Mittelman -- Chief Financial Officer
David Brewer -- Chief Operating Officer
Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Mircea Dobre -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst
Jeffrey Hammond -- Keybanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Timothy Thein -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Todd Brooks -- C.L. King & Associates -- Analyst
Walter Liptak -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
