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Operator
over to Tracy Osh, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Tracy Osh
Tracy Osh, Vice President of Investor Relations, Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Fresh Pet's second quarter 2024 earnings call and webcast. On today's call are Billy Sears, Chief Executive Officer, and Todd Comfort, Chief Financial Officer. Scott Morris, President and Chief Operating Officer, will also be available for Q&A. Before we begin, please remember that during the course of this call, management will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements related to our long-term strategy, 2027 goals and pace in achieving these goals, prospects for growth, timing of Fresh Back Kitchen's expansion and new technology, and 2024 guidance. Words such as anticipate, believe, could, estimate, expect, guidance, intend, may, project, will, or similar conditional expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements, including those associated with such statements. Please refer to the company's annual report on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the company's press release issued today for detailed discussions of risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or filed any forward-looking statements made today. Please note that on today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA among others. While the company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to today's press release for how management defines such non-GAAP measures why management believes such non-GAAP financial measures are useful, a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP, and limitations associated with such non-GAAP measures. Finally, the company has produced a presentation that contains many of the key metrics that will be discussed on this call. That presentation can be found on the company's investor website. Management's commentary will not specifically walk through the presentation on the call. Rather, it is a summary of the results and guidance they will discuss today. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Billy Sear, Chief Executive Officer.
Scott Morris
Thank you, Rachel, and good morning, everyone. The message I would like you to take away from today's call is that we are on track to deliver the disciplined growth we committed to achieve this year. As you know, we aspire to deliver category-leading growth with outsized improvement in profitability. But as we've learned over the past few years, carefully managing our growth to about 25% enables us to drive operating improvements and manage cash more effectively, making Fresh Pet an even more attractive business. That is our definition of disciplined growth. And if we do that well, consumers will win, customers will win, and our shareholders will win. Our second quarter results demonstrate the strong progress we are making towards delivering that disciplined growth. We delivered our 24th consecutive quarter of net sales growth over 25% and did it within our existing capacity limits so we maintained exceptional customer service and strong fill rates. That enabled us to operate very efficiently and effectively, so we expanded our adjusted gross margin and an adjusted EBITDA margin. The bulk of the operating improvements came in our key focus areas of input costs, quality, and logistics, totaling 770 basis points of operating improvements. Those operating results, specifically adjusted gross margin, input, quality, and logistics costs, exceed some of the key elements of our 2027 goals as a result we are in an even stronger position to achieve or exceed our full set of 2027 targets as well as raise our guidance for this year we still need to prove that we can achieve these results consistently before we adjust our long-term targets however another quarter of strong performance has made us even more optimistic these results were driven by broad-based strength on the key business fundamentals first Our growth in the second quarter was entirely driven by volume growth. There was no impact from pricing or mix this quarter. Further, we have been seeing a steady trend towards consumers buying larger pack sizes, which slightly reduces the price per pound, but improves the efficiency of our production lines and our distribution systems. This consumer behavior is a positive indication that value-seeking consumers move up to larger sizes of fresh pet rather than reducing the size or amount they buy. Second, from a household penetration perspective, our growth rate is where we need it to be to hit our 2027 target of 20 million households. We are growing households in the low to mid-20s and increasing the buying rate in the low single digits. That combination results in mid-20s growth rates, which is our targeted level. More encouragingly, our heaviest users are growing even faster than the total user base. Third, our media plan is also delivering the way we had hoped. It is driving strong household penetration gains in line with our long-term model and at a healthy customer acquisition cost that is comparable to the cost we had prior to the price increases we took over the past two years. Additionally, by balancing our media investment more evenly across the year, we have been able to deliver strong growth while living within our capacity limits. Fourth, consumers continue to believe that Fresh Pet represents a good value. The desire for value is being expressed as quality for the price, not just price. We believe consumers find value in a truly differentiated product. That is why it appears that much of the category growth is now coming from the fresh frozen segment where Fresh Pet is a leader. Further, our growth is fastest among our heaviest users, another strong indicator of the differentiated value that Fresh Pet represents, even in an environment where consumers are looking for ways to stretch their dollars. Finally, taking a step back, our growth continues to be supported by the long-term trend towards the humanization of pets. The pandemic created a pet adoption bubble, but we are now back on the same long-term pet population growth trends we have seen for more than a decade. And our volume growth comes from expanding household penetration, which is the model that has worked for us since we first launched our Feed the Growth strategy in 2017. Now I'd like to provide some highlights of the second quarter. We have strong momentum and made great progress against our long term plan, and you can see that in our financial results. Second quarter net sales were 235.3 million, up 28% year over year, all of it being volume driven, as I said earlier. Second quarter adjusted gross margin was 45.9% above our long term target for the second consecutive quarter, compared to 39.8% in the prior year period. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA was $35.1 million, an increase of approximately $26 million year over year. From a retail perspective, we are having a solid year of retail availability growth. Store count growth is in line with our long-term rates. More importantly, some of our larger customers are engaging with us on potential plans to add second and third fridges and high-velocity stores. That is where we expect to see the bulk of our growth. You will see that in TDP growth exceeding ACV growth as we go forward. Specifically, we placed 790 fridges in the second quarter, including new stores, upgrades, and second-slash-third fridges, bringing us to a total of 35,602 fridges at retail for more than 1.8 million cubic feet of retail space. As of June 30, 2024, Fresh Pet could be found in 27,497 stores. 22% of which now have multiple fridges in the U.S. Fill rates continue to be strong, and we're in the high 90s throughout the quarter, supporting fridge placement and store growth. Now I'll provide an update on KPIs we track for our mainstream, main meal, more profitable plans, what we refer to as main and more. Focusing on the idea of mainstream, Fresh Pet is becoming increasingly mainstream, but still has a long runway for growth. According to Nielsen omnichannel data, which includes e-commerce and direct-to-consumer, as of June 29, 2024, total U.S. pet food is a $53 billion category. We only have a 3% market share within the $36 billion dog food segment, which is the majority of our business today. Within the fresh frozen subcategory in measured channels, fresh pet has a 96% market share. Fresh continues to outperform the broader pet food category, and many retailers believe it is the future of pet food. As a result, Fresh Pet is now in 66% ACV in Nielsen XAOC, and we continue to add distribution breadth and depth with second and third fridges. Our household penetration gains also demonstrate that we are well on our way to making Fresh Pet more mainstream. Household penetration at the end of the second quarter was 12.8 million households, up 25% year over year, and on track to meet our target of 20 million households by 2027. Our high profit pet owning households, or hippos for short, are growing even faster, up 31% versus the prior year period. In short, the humanization of pets is a mainstream idea, and now it is our job to make fresh food the standard way to feed your pets. Turning to the main meal part of the strategy, fresh pet sales are increasingly concentrated in our heaviest users, hippos, Currently, 37% of Fresh Pet users are Hippos, and they represented 89% of our sales in the second quarter. Even more encouraging, about 300,000 of our users, or less than 3% of our total users, buy more than $1,000 of Fresh Pet per year, and this group grew 47% over the past year. They now represent about 27% of our business. There is a significant opportunity to increase this percentage and grow our total business. The key driver to convert more consumers to use Fresh Pet as the main part of their pet's meal is advertising. We need to educate consumers on the benefits of fresh food for their pets. Multipacks and larger pack sizes can also help reinforce the idea that our product can be your pet's main meal and will in turn help increase buy rate, which was approximately $100 at quarter end of 3.3% versus the prior year period. Adding unique value added SKUs helps do that. Based on total US pet retail plus data from Nielsen, we currently have an average of 18.4 SKUs per point of distribution, up from 16.1 SKUs one year ago. Since we have a finite amount of space in our fridge, as we increase the number of second and third fridges, we can increase the number of SKUs, amplifying our visibility and marketing impact, widening our product assortment, and broadening the appeal of our brand. Now to the more part of Maine and more, more profitable. We had another strong quarter of margin improvement. Adjusted gross margin improved 60 basis points versus the strong results we posted in Q1 to 45.9%, and we ended the second quarter with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.9%. The key items that drove this improvement were, first, quality. Our team continues to execute well. We still have lots of opportunity for further improvement, But our team has been able to reduce both the number of issues we have to manage and also the size of any issues. Second, input costs and yield. We've returned to our historic level of input costs as a percent of net sales through a combination of price increases, commodity cost management, and meaningful improvements in our production yields. Further, we believe there's an opportunity to continue to improve efficiency in this area through formulation work, supplier diversification, operating improvements, and new technologies. Third, logistics. We are clearly benefiting from some macro factors on freight, including lower lane rates and fuel costs. But our 99% fill rate in the quarter, the expansion of the service area for our Dallas DC behind increased production in NS, and new tools we put in place to more effectively bid our lanes and improve our customer service are the primary drivers of the improved performance. Turning to an update on our capacity, we have a disciplined approach to managing capacity and continue to execute on our expansion plans, while also improving throughput and yields on existing lines. In Ennis, the fourth line is still on track to start up by the end of Q3 2024. We began commissioning the line in July and feel good about the test run so far. In Bethlehem, the team is focused on increasing capacity utilization, or OEE, and our seventh line in that campus will test new technology and its expected startup in the second half of 2025. In Kitchen South, we continue to evaluate ways to add more lines and or shifts. We continue to evolve our capacity expansion plans to drive greater capital efficiency. As we've discussed previously, we are intensely focused on, one, maximizing the throughput of our existing lines, two, maximizing the capacity of our three existing sites, and three, developing and implementing new technologies that generate more throughput per line. While we've come a long way since our first facility in Quakertown, PA, the manufacturing systems to make fresh pet food are still not where we'd like them to be. We've invested and will continue to invest heavily in both technology and talent to make our production more stable, reliable, and efficient. We've made tremendous progress, but still believe the opportunities for improvement are sizable. In summary, I think we are making good progress at delivering the disciplined growth we promised at the beginning of this year. We are highly focused on managing the business to live within our capacity and believe this has led to the progress we've made on our profitability. We believe our model works very well at approximately 25% growth, generating the right balance of growth, capital investment, and cash generation. And we are increasingly confident that we will be free cash flow positive by 2026. I'm incredibly proud of the progress we have made and the results we have delivered, especially since NS is still subscale and we have some exciting new technologies under development that could meaningfully enhance the economics of our bags business. Now we need to continue to execute at a high level and keep raising the bar. Before I turn it over to Todd, I want to point out that the press release announcing our earnings today has a dateline of Bedminster, New Jersey, instead of our previous home in Secaucus. We've outgrown our corporate offices in Secaucus and have moved into a temporary office space in Bedminster, New Jersey, while our new purpose-built leased corporate office is under construction right down the road in Bedminster. We expect to move into the new office in the first half of next year. Our new location in Bedminster will allow us to attract and retain the top marketing and finance talent we need while making it much easier for our team members to go back and forth to our technical base in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, enabling much closer collaboration and planning. Our new office will embody our pets, people, planet mantra, and we look forward to sharing it with you when it opens next year. Now, let me turn it over to Todd to walk through the details of the Q2 results and our updated guidance. Todd?
Todd
Thank you, Billy, and good morning, everyone. As Billy mentioned, we are very pleased with the second quarter results, particularly our ability to deliver on profit improvements. Now, I'll give you some color on our financials and updated guidance for the year. Second quarter net sales were $235.3 million, or 28% year-over-year. Nielsen measured dollar growth was 24% versus prior year period, with broad-based consumption growth across channels. We saw 26% growth in XAOC, 24% in U.S. food, 9% growth in pet specialty, and over 100% growth in the unmeasured channel. It is important to note that Nielsen IQ has expanded their coverage beyond what we previously called the Nielsen mega channel to a new US Pet Retail Plus channel that adds online sales via Amazon Chewy, neighborhood pet retailers, and farm and feed stores. Wherever possible, we will use the expanded definition to provide the most comprehensive view of our business and the category. We estimate that this new channel covers more than 85% of our U.S. business today. Second quarter adjusted gross margin was 45.9%, up 610 basis points year over year. This was driven by improvement in input cost, yield, throughput, and quality cost. Specifically, input cost as a percent of net sales improved 460 basis points with better yields, throughput, and lower commodity costs, while quality costs improved by 90 basis points. Second quarter adjusted SG&A was 31% of net sales compared to 34.9% in the prior year period. We spent 12.2% of net sales on media in the quarter, down from 14.8% of net sales in the prior year period. Total media investment was up 6% year over year. Recall our media plan is less front-loaded this year than in years past so that we can manage our growth to live within our capacity limits. Logistics costs continued to improve and were 5.8% of net sales in the second quarter, a decrease of 220 basis points compared to the prior year period. Like Billy stated, the majority of the improvement was due to strategic actions we have taken to increase bill rates Reduce miles driven by increasing the number of states served by our second distribution center and negotiate with vendors, with the remainder being macro-driven with more favorable lane rates. Other SG&A, which was 13% of net sales, increased 90 basis points driven by higher incentive compensation. Please note that our GAAP P&L includes an $11.1 million true-up of non-cash share-based compensation based on multi-year share-based awards granted in fiscal year 2020. This year's unexpectedly strong profit performance has increased the likelihood of greater vesting on those awards. Excluding this charge, we would have generated $9.4 million of net income. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA was 35.1 million, or 14.9% of net sales. compared to $9 million or 4.9% of net sales in the prior year period. This improvement was primarily driven by higher gross margin as well as improved logistics costs. DAPL spending in the second quarter was $48.3 million. Operating cash flow in the second quarter was $42.4 million, and we have cash on hand of $251.7 million at the end of the quarter. We continue to believe that we have adequate cash to fully fund our growth through 2025 and will be free cash flow positive in 2026. Our strong improvement in adjusted EBITDA this year also makes it unlikely we will need additional capital. Now turning to guidance for 2024. We are updating our outlook to reflect our outperformance in the second quarter. as well as our conviction in our ability to execute in the second half. We are raising our net sales guidance from at least $950 million to at least $965 million, or growth of at least 26%. We are able to do this because of the strong improvements in our operating efficiency, particularly in Bethlehem and Kitchen South, that will allow us to sell a bit more this year and still maintain strong customer service. However, we still need the new roll line in Ennis to start up by the end of September and ramp up production in order to have the supply we need to meet demand. We are also keeping in mind the capacity needed to support next year's growth and do not want to get too far ahead of our original plans. As far as cadence, we continue to expect net sales to have sequentially lower percentage growth throughout the remainder of the year as we intentionally manage our growth rate while expanding capacity. Our more balanced first half, second half media investment this year has been critical to delivering the growth we have experienced while also living within our capacity constraints. As the first half media really dictates the demand we have in the second half of this year and the second half media investment will drive the demand we experienced in the first half of next year. For this reason, our second half media investment will be significantly larger than the investment we made in the previous year. For adjusted EBITDA, we are raising guidance from at least $120 million to at least $140 million to reflect the over-delivery in Q2. We now expect adjusted gross margin to expand by approximately 500 basis points for the full year compared to 300 basis points previously. Capital expenditures are now projected to be approximately $200 million compared to approximately $210 million to support the installation of capacity to meet demand in 2025. The modest reduction is due to the timing of certain expansion projects. In summary, the second quarter results demonstrated disciplined growth and our ability to execute the strategy we laid out. We are very pleased to see our investments in capacity and organizational capabilities are paying off, and we are gaining significant scale advantages. That concludes our overview. We will now be glad to answer your questions. As a reminder, we ask that you please focus your questions on the quarter, guidance, and the company's operations. Operator?
Operator
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you please limit to one question and one follow-up question. Our first question is from Ken Goldman with JP Morgan. Please proceed.
Ken Goldman
Good morning. Thank you. When it comes to the outlook for 27, I think you're skating about as close as possible to raising it without officially doing so, if that's fair. Can you just please remind us on or update us rather on the, you know, the guideposts you're looking for that will allow you to, I guess, proverbially pull the trigger. I guess I'm also asking what gives you pause today that makes you maybe think you can't necessarily deliver some of these results consistently. You know, I think some people are hoping that within the next couple of quarters, you'll raise that outlook is kind of what I'm getting at.
Scott Morris
Yeah, Ken, thanks. The way we're looking at it is we feel really good about the progress that we've made, particularly on the operations side. And at the same time, we're very mindful that we operate in a fairly volatile environment. So what we'd like to see is we'd like to see us deliver the full year at the rates that, you know, would be embedded in our 2027 targets. And when we get to that point, we'll take a look at it and say what makes sense going forward. But we'd like to see the, you know, see us deliver the full year. in a consistent way and way that could support those 2027 targets. And that particularly is on the operations side. On the net sales side, we feel really good about where we are. We're, as we said in the comments, we're trying to drive our growth to live within the capacity limits and plan capacity. You know, we plan capacity out 18 to 24 months. So you should expect us to be very, very close to the guideposts as we go from here through 2027. and expect that on a long-term basis that our growth rate is going to be driven by our ability to add capacity and the rate at which we want to add capacity.
Ken Goldman
Thank you. And then a follow-up. Billy, you know, you haven't really talked, I think, in specifics about where your capacity will be next year in a little while and where you expect sales to exactly be, although I think people still expect kind of a 25% increase there. Can you just give us a little bit of an update, perhaps, the path ahead for the next year or two as you see it in terms of capacity versus sales? Is there a rough utilization rate we should think about? I think one thing that kind of confuses investors a little bit, and there's not much confusing about the story right now given how well everything's going, is just try to kind of think about those paths ahead in terms of capacity versus expected sales and how they may track each other in general.
Scott Morris
Yeah, historically, we've talked about it in the context of total capacity, but we're at the point now where it really is driven by, you know, capacity for bags versus capacity for rolls. So, for example, this year, the capacity limitation that we've had to work with has been on our rolls lines. And as we're starting up another rolls line in Ennis in this quarter, we've had to keep our total business or total net sales underneath the limit that that rolls capacity implied. As soon as that line is up and running, we flip it over, and then the next capacity limit that we'll run into probably in the first half of next year is bags. And so we have new bag lines coming on in the first quarter of next year. And so I don't think of it in terms of total capacity. I tend to think of it in terms of the limitations that we have on bags or rolls, and we kind of flip flop back and forth between the two, but in a very steady cadence. And if we keep adding capacity At the steady rate that we plan, we keep improving capacity utilization on the existing line and operate really well. We feel very comfortable about our ability to deliver the net sales growth that's embedded. I think people who look for us to go way above that are missing the fact that we're trying to stay very disciplined and very close to the guideposts that our capacity provides. That's really where we're focused.
Todd
But, Ken, just to be clear, we have next month, you know, the new line coming up in Ennis. We have a line, a bag line coming up at our Kitchen South facility in Q1. We're also going to add some shifts to some existing lines in Kitchen South. And then we're anticipating better performance and a ramp up in Ennis across the entire facility. So we feel very good about the amount of capacity we will have for next year, but as Billy pointed out, we're not going to get too far ahead of our speed. We're trying to manage cash flow, capacity, earnings, top line all together, and that's the trick. But, you know, we literally review this every month, and we have a clear strategy and path to get to our, you know, 1.8 billion in 27.
Ken Goldman
Thank you very much.
Operator
Our next question is from Bill Chappell with Truist Securities. Please proceed.
Bill Chappell
Thanks. Good morning. Good morning. I just want to follow up on your kind of comment about the consumer buying more bulk or larger sizes and trying to understand, you know, we hear so many mixed signals over the past three months of what the consumer is doing. Are you seeing a real change, or is that more reflective of just your recent expansion in the club channel, which naturally they're buying much bigger bolts?
Scott Morris
Clearly, there's some piece of that in it, but we do see it across the board that there is a migration towards the larger sizes. The way I think about it, if you're taking a step back on the macro market, if you have consumers who are value-seeking and you are in the staples business, meaning consumers want to buy your product in every day, they need to keep it in their pantry or an inventory, you should expect to see them migrate to larger sizes because that's the way they exercise value-seeking behavior. If, on the other hand, you're in the impulse purchase business, you should expect to see consumers moving to smaller sizes as a driver. But in our business, we view ourselves as a staple. We're part of the everyday diet of the dog. And so we see consumers moving up into larger sizes. It's not a huge shift, but it is enough of a shift that it's noticeable.
Bill Chappell
got it and then just bigger picture so we hear a lot of noise from the direct-to-consumer new players in the market mainly it's frozen direct-to-consumer and you know frozen has been fairly stagnant category since even before you started to exist and so i'm just trying to understand are you seeing anything new is it a threat is it an opportunity Just as you look at the other players that are certainly making more noise from the advertising front, I'm not sure on the sales front if they're having much impact.
Ben
Hey, Bill. So, look, we're always keeping a really close eye on everything that's going on in the market and kind of where the new entrants are coming in, how it's playing. We're testing basically different types of direct-to-consumer in three and four different ways. We think it's really interesting we love our model and long term we really feel positive about the way our models developing and progressing.
Bill Chappell
Okay, thanks so much. Thanks.
Operator
Our next question is from Robert Moscow with TV cow and please proceed.
Robert Moscow
hi Thank you philly you might have kind of answer this question already but. I wanted to fast forward beyond 2027. I mean, if your growth rates continue at a rapid pace, what's the implication for capital deployment and therefore cash flow? Could you foresee like having to take a step backward on your cash flow momentum in order to fund another tranche of significant growth? What's the appetite for that? And then secondly, I had a question about the buying rate in the numerator data. It looks like last year got restated. It's not by a lot, but compared to first quarter, it's down a little. And then your buy rate growth this year is 3%. I think last quarter it was 5%. So, you know, it's small numbers, but I want to know if you're watching that and if you have any reason for those changes.
Scott Morris
Yeah, Rob, we do, on the first question, we do look at the capacity planning out through, in fact, we go out to 2030 and beyond, and we pay very close attention to it. We have construction and line installation projects going on right now on all three of the campuses that we operate, and we're very comfortable that we have adequate capacity to meet the demand that we can reasonably project through 2027 and beyond on those sites. The thing that we've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out is at what point does our existing footprint require us to go and add a new site, which would be a fairly sizable capital expense. And at this point, we don't see that happening inside of the 2027 window and probably out to the 2030 window where we would not require it because we can get enough capacity through technology improvements and adding lines to the existing site. So we feel very good about it, and as a result, Todd can comment on the cash flow that comes from that. But we feel pretty good about the cash generation capability of the business and more than able to meet the needs of the capacity planning expansion we have. Let me just jump to the numerator piece for a second. On the numerator piece, numerator restates the data literally every month. And so they readjust their panel. So you should always expect the numbers to move a little bit. And that's why the previous periods will change. What you can also expect is that a year ago we had some pricing that was in the 52-week numbers. This year there's no pricing in the 52-week numbers because we've lapped all that pricing. So you should expect that the buy rate is not benefiting from anything other than consumers migrating to higher value products or their increased purchases of the products. It is not benefiting from pricing. We feel really good about the combination of household penetration growth and our buy rate. I mean, in fact, It's running slightly hot right now versus where we would have expected to be, and we feel very, very good about it. You should expect that. We will always run in the call at low 20s on penetration and low single digits on buy rate, and that'll get us our total growth rate. I don't know if Todd wanted to give you any more commentary on the cash flow.
Todd
Yeah, I mean, look, it's a really valid question, Rob. Look, we're very bullish on this business growing nicely over the next several years. Do I think we're going to grow a 25% clip in 2035? Yeah. Probably not. It's possible. But even under that scenario, we will be generating enormous amounts of EBITDA that will come into fruition and plenty of operating cash flow to cover what could be a lot of CapEx based on those kind of growth in dollars year over year, which is, I think, where we are getting at. But it also goes to we're spending so much time. We know we have to get better on operating efficiencies at our plants. That's why we spend so much time looking at new technologies to make the ROIC on new capacity better and better as we go in the future. And look, we will need a new facility at some point in time. We are not averse. We're looking at every possible scenario, whether it's another greenfield like Ennis. We're very comfortable with working with partners that can minimize the amount of capital out there. But we will manage that cash flow impact very, very closely.
CapEx
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Brian Holland with DA Davidson. Please proceed.
Brian Holland
Yeah, thanks. Good morning. I guess just to start with media spend, which looks like still projecting to grow in line with the top line. I know year on year higher in the second half than it was prior year. You know, trying to square that with the consumer acquisition costs, which once again down sequentially this quarter, continued progress there back to pre-price increase levels. I guess maybe there was a part of me that was anticipating sort of a lower revision of media. And if that's out there and I missed it, forgive me. But just help me think about the cadence for media as we start to think about 2025 and how quickly we can kind of come in line. So that seems to be the one metric that we're still a bit off from, you know, what your 2027 target is.
Ben
So, Hey Brian. So the, the thing that's, uh, I think really exciting about this is the way we like to think about it, the growth model is really, really well intact. You know, you've watched it for many, many years. We focus on it on like the number of consumers that are coming in, what's costing to get us those consumers. It is definitely right within band of exactly what it was this year. a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, and even longer than that. So I think one of the things that's really important to communicate is it demonstrates the potential of this idea. It demonstrates the potential of the change that we're making in the category. And the deeper we're getting, like further and further we're getting into our TAM, we're not seeing increased costs on our CAC. I mean, and that's extraordinary. And I think that's incredibly unique from what else we're hearing from other people trying to come into kind of fresh and frozen. So I think that we feel really terrific about that. If you look at our media spend this year, it was literally constructed to make sure that we stayed within bounds for the growth that we wanted for the year. it is a lower, if you look at the overall year, it will be a fairly significant increase in overall media spend, but the front half will be a much lower increase versus a year ago. It was about a 16% increase versus a year ago. In the back, you're going to see a significant increase, but the back half media is all about making sure that we're in a great spot and setting ourselves up for another terrific year in 2025. And if you ask, you know, if you think about you know, talk to people in the company and the work that we're doing now. It's all about what do we need to do over the next six months to put ourselves in a terrific position for a 25. And I think we're incredibly fortunate that we have the ability to plan in that way, think that way, and kind of put our resources against that.
Brian Holland
Appreciate the color, Scott. And then maybe Todd, just thinking about, you know, what's implied in the guidance over the second half of the year. If we set aside the top line, you know, the biggest driver of upside was obviously the gross margin over delivery in the first half. Anything to be mindful of in the second half that would compress the kinds of gross margins we've seen in the first half? Is there any reason they couldn't be mid 40% or better, mindful that we've had six consecutive quarters of sequential gross margin improvement?
Todd
Yeah, I mean, look, there's a couple of headwinds. We're feeling great about the start of the year. Obviously, we'd like to replicate the gross margin that we had in the first half and the second half, but we're going to do our best to hit those marks. But there are a couple of expenses that will hit that are legitimate here in the second half. Obviously, the startup of the fourth line in tennis, that will add costs on very low volume coming out of that. new line. We are adding some additional shifts at Kitchen South to prep us up for next year's growth and reliance on bag capacity. That will add some cost there as well. We did not, you know, de-load any of our inventory. Obviously, that was a big Q1 benefit of about 100 basis points. No impact in Q2. We could see that happen still in the second half of the year. That's still, you know, a watch out. But, you know, look, we're going to, we're obviously feeling great about the start. We are about 90% covered on commodities. We don't see much happening there at this point. But it is the new capacity coming online in the second half that will be a slight headwind.
Brian Holland
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Mark Estrichen with Defoe. Please proceed.
Mark Estrichen
Yeah, thanks, and morning, everybody. I wanted to go back to this larger pack size comment and try to understand it a little bit better. So the price mix was flat, but you're selling larger packs in Costco at a higher price point. How does that factor? And I guess that what you're selling has a lower average price per unit, but I suppose what the consumer is buying would just be bigger dollar amounts and bigger volumes. And obviously you have more sales in Costco today than you did 12 months ago. So would that be mixed accretive in terms of contribution to the top line? That's the first question.
Ben
Hey, Mark. So I think the way to think about this is if you look across our portfolio, We are definitely developing and pushing larger pack sizes as Fresh Pit becomes more of a main meal feed. The other thing we did, you may remember a year or so ago, we brought a product called Complete Nutrition in a one and a half pound size. And we also got really sharp before the value was as much of a discussion. We got really sharp on our one pound pricing. Like we actually tightened it up just a little bit. And we did that intentionally because we started hearing a little bit of, you know, storm clouds where people were concerned about value. So you have people coming in on one side and buying, you know, some of the smaller size items and the complete nutrition, which is a good opening price point, but very solid margins. And you have the other side where we have these larger packs at some of the, you know, not only in mass, but also in the clubs, et cetera. The things that, you know, it's interesting that we're seeing the largest growth in If you look across our developed items, the things that are growing the fastest are our large bags, which are the most expensive items we have. So there's a lot going on. There are a lot of pieces to it. And when we set the strategy forward going into the market, we intentionally wanted to make sure we covered basically products for as many different people on how they want to use it and how they think about our brands and our products. So there are sizes. There's price points that go from low to high, as you know. And I think what we've done is we've done a nice job developing a really good portfolio and consumers appreciate it. And there is a lot of action. There's a lot of movement all through that. Some of it's on sizes and some of it's on trade up to, you know, to the larger sizes. But some of it's a lot of new people are coming in on this one, one and a half pound sizes. We see that that's the single fastest area where people are coming into the business. Got it.
Mark Estrichen
So it's just a lot of moving parts, I guess, beyond what sort of... You know, sort of related to that, Ben, because I had another question, but just as a follow-up to that. So is Costco still an incremental consumer? I mean, is the larger pack size people just consuming more of the product? Is that the right way to think about this?
Ben
Yeah. So we are – the interesting thing is we are seeing a lot of new consumers come in through not only Club, but also even our larger sizes in all retail. I mean, it is interesting. We do see some people go for it. And actually, you'll start off with a six-pound roll. So we definitely see that dynamic going on. And then we started to put out these multi-packs, not only in club, but we're also starting to see these multi-packs that are starting to go into regular retail. And they're starting to get a little bit of early traction. We knew it was going to be slower, but it's part of a long-term plan to make sure people are using us as a main meal product.
Scott Morris
Mark, one other thing is we said in the comments that that if you think about where our fastest growth has been, it's amongst the hippos, so the heavier users, and then we also mentioned the ultra users, the people buying over $1,000 a year, they're growing at an even faster rate. So we are seeing an increasing number of consumers who are moving up into that higher purchase amounts, and oftentimes that comes with buying larger pack sizes.
Mark Estrichen
Got it. Okay, that's super helpful. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thanks, Mark.
Operator
Our next question is from Peter Benedict with Baird. Please proceed.
Bill Chappell
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. First one's just around, I mean, a lot of talk about capacity, what might be needed going forward. You did mention the new production technologies seem to be proving out here, I think you said second half of 25, where you might have that fully up and running. Can you kind of remind us what's going on there and kind of what the plan would be to I guess retrofit your existing lines with those technologies, just thinking of ways to improve or continue to improve your output without a new facility, that type of thing. That's my first question.
Ben
Hey, Peter, I think the way to think about this is there's three major pieces to us improving the capacity on our lines. The first one is basically just like OE improvement, and we have a long way to go. and a lot of opportunity and the team's doing an extraordinary job there. I mean like hats off to the guys and the work that they've done. And they're significant, that will be significant and that will change the cadence that we need to open new lines and it will improve profitability from the existing network. Okay, that's the first one. The second one is, I'll call it kind of updating and like minor modifications to the existing lines with some new technology and new equipment. We've been able to start proving that out, and we're seeing pretty significant. We're not going to share anything at this point, but we're seeing significant progress in that area. We're excited and enthusiastic about the potential that just by making some small improvements and some investments in the lines that the amount of upside there is. And the third one is basically, I would call it almost, it's not evolution. I would say it's somewhat of a revolution of our bag technology. And it is a kind of more developed future state of where we believe the bag production will be. Now, we'll start to see that next year, but it will be very small. And the intent is that that will take, as we prove that technology out, it will start taking the place as we expand our lines in the future. But at this point, you know, that's really far out. And that's not something that like we can get too far into. It's just like we can't predict exactly the future. I will say we are confident that that technology will work. The question is exactly when and then the exact impact on kind of our expansion and our capacity across our network.
Bill Chappell
No. Well, fair enough. Thanks, Scott. That's good perspective. And then my follow-up question. Look, you guys have made enhancements to the management team over the last couple of years. You're obviously executing very well. Billy, you talked about the new corporate headquarters in Bedminster, New Jersey. I think you mentioned marketing and finance as maybe some areas where you'd be looking to attract additional talent. Just wondering if you could expand on that, your thoughts around the organization, who you might or what areas you would be focused on. maybe continuing to build as you support the growth in the business. Thank you.
Scott Morris
Yeah, Peter, as we're growing, obviously we have growth opportunities and needs in virtually every area in the company. That's what happens when you're growing at the rate that we're growing. And the most important lesson we've learned in the last couple of years is you can't get behind on adding talent. So you can see us leaning into acquiring the necessary talent in the places that will make a biggest difference. And you'll see it in a wide range of areas. And as you've seen in the last 18 months, the amount of talent that we've hired has been fairly significant. I don't want to get into any specific areas other than to just say that you should think about as we add scale to the company, it gives us opportunities to add capability in areas where we may have been a generalist before and we can become a specialist, or we can get high-level capabilities in an area where we've previously been operating. but probably haven't had the sophistication and capability that's needed for a business that's a billion or $2 billion or $3 billion in sales. So you're going to see us continue to add people, to add bench strength, to help us grow the company, and it's just going to be an ongoing part of our process.
Bill Chappell
All right. Good to hear. Good luck, guys. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Rupesh Park with Oppenheimer. Please proceed.
spk07
Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. So maybe just start out with the EBITDA cadence, just any more color, how you guys think about Q3 versus Q4, and then I have one follow-up.
Todd
Yeah, obviously don't give specific guidance, but just big picture. We'll have more EBITDA in Q4 than Q3 just because of the amount of media spending. We'll see a similar as we pushed media from the first half to the second half this year. You'll see a similar amount of media spend in Q3 as you did in Q2. That's unusual for us. But then there will be a drop-off in Q4. So a very sizable increase versus prior year, but there'll be a drop-off, and that will allow additional EBITDA in Q4.
spk07
Great. And then one follow-up question just on the category. So one of your retail customers highlighted they're seeing green shoots in the pet category on the pet adoption side. Just curious what you guys are seeing right now from a pet adoption perspective.
Ben
Rupesh, I think the way to think about this is, I mean, the category always goes through ebbs and flows. And, you know, there is definitely a little bit of a post-COVID trough. We think it's going to come back to a much more normalized rate. But I think that, you know, there's, look, if you look at the category, there are tons of headwinds going on. And I think when you're kind of dealing in, you know, single, like light single digits, you're going to kind of really focus on some of those. either headwinds or tailwinds. We've been very fortunate that we haven't had to, you know, really focus on those trends and that we're winning within. Um, if you're, if you're, I'd say almost any, any retailer, you're kind of looking across the category and you're looking across segments and then you're kind of looking across brands. And we have really been like the absolute clear winner and it creates even more opportunity for us into the future to work with them and develop the business. So I know your question was specific around adoption rates. I would say, look, when we're looking at this stuff on a quarterly and six-month basis and things are ebbing and flowing, yeah, it's off a little bit. I mean, look, this has been a significant trend, a large societal trend where people are treating pets more like people and people are having less kids and more pets. And they're becoming an important part of our lives. And we think that that's going to continue over the long term.
spk07
Great, thank you for the call.
Operator
Our next question is from Brian Spillane with Bank of America. Please proceed.
Brian Spillane
Thanks, operator. Good morning, guys. Just one question for me. I think you started this year or went into this year with a plan to be more measured, I guess, in terms of growth and not wanting to overheat um, your manufacturing network. And, um, and, and so I guess it's just curious this year, right? Given how good the demand has been, if you had, if, if, if capacity was, was not a, um, a question, right? If you could make as much as you, as you could, would, would, would your sales have been higher? I guess, is there, is there more interest in from retailers and consumers than, than maybe what we're seeing, uh, in the results?
Scott Morris
I would say if we would spend at the sort of comparable growth rate on media to what we had last year, in other words, you know, grow media in the first half at the same rate of sales growth, you would have seen more demand. But we knew we couldn't supply that. And for us, it's really, really important to keep the growth within the capacity limit and also to execute our capacity expansion plan in a very measured and orderly fashion. And we feel good about it. Our team has gotten really good at designing, constructing and starting up lines. We want to do that reliably. We want to provide very high level of customer service because we know we provide high level of customer service. Our costs are lower. Our fridges are full. The sales are better. Customers are happy. Consumers are happy. So I think for us, it's really important that we measure or manage the growth to live within the capacity. We add the capacity at a very disciplined rate. And if that all works together, we think everybody wins. And you should expect to see that from us going forward. OK.
Robert Moscow
Thank you.
Scott Morris
Thanks.
Operator
Our next question is from Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler. Please proceed.
Michael Lavery
Thank you. Good morning. You talked about adding shifts at Kitchen South. I guess maybe two-part question. How is the relationship with the kitchen staff, like if there's better overhead absorption or efficiencies from that, kind of at least in an operating leverage way, do you benefit from that on the cost? And then I guess the other part of it is do you have opportunities on any of your own lines to add shifts as well or at least reduce changeovers and maybe do extended runs? How should we think about that as part of an opportunity for you?
Todd
Sure. Kitchin South relationship is terrific. They're performing exceptionally well. We could not be more pleased with performance coming out of that operation. They've been terrific this year. There is a little bit of leverage as we add some shifts there. It's not dramatic, just the way the arrangement is set up, but we do get a little bit of leverage. So we'll continue to lean in there, just not on shifts, but as I mentioned earlier, we have another line coming in in Q1 and then we have you know room for a few more lines if we if both partners choose to go that route in that facility as well so we look forward to you know many more years of great performance and additional capacity coming out of that facility and is there room to add um you know extend runs or add ships on any lines at Dennis or Bethlehem Bethlehem is pretty tight at this point. Ennis, yes, there is room. And we will, you know, not, we'll add more shifts. We'll get the efficiencies in the Ennis facility ramped up over the next year or two. So there is some capacity there.
Scott Morris
Michael, think about it as our operating model is that when we install a line, we ramp it up by putting on, you know, one shift or, in essence, you know, half capacity utilization for a period of time. And then as the demand grows and the production efficiency on that line grows, we ultimately take it to a 24-7 operation. And that happens typically before you bring on the next line. So at the same time we're doing all that, we are working as we increase the number of lines in our system to make some of the lines more specific or specialized. And it reduces the number of changeovers that we have to do and allows us to deliver higher throughput or higher output per hour of operation, and also extend some of our runs, depending on what some of the products are and where they're being produced. So there are significant benefits that we gain in each of our operations as we gain scale.
Michael Lavery
Okay, that's helpful. And just to follow up, you mentioned in the prepared remarks that Dallas, D.C., I think the way you phrased it was it's expanded. It's coverage area, I guess I hadn't realized it maybe wasn't serving all of what it could or was meant to. Is that now optimized or is there room for even more, you know, could it expand further to get to, you know, a more optimal service area?
Scott Morris
Right now, the Dallas DC exists to take the product that's produced in Ennis and ship it to the states that it can serve. So as we add production in Ennis, the Dallas, D.C. is able to supply more states. So, for example, we're right now in the process of converting the states of like Utah and Colorado over to being shipped out of the Dallas, D.C. Ultimately, when Ennis is up and running to its full 10 lines of production, the Dallas, D.C. should be supplying more than half of the United States. Think of it as everything west of the Mississippi and probably parts of the southeast. So we will continue to get freight efficiencies from the Dallas DC, but they're 100% connected or linked to increasing the amount of output from the NS facility.
Michael Lavery
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Thanks.
Operator
Our next question is from John Anderson with William Blair. Please proceed.
CapEx
Good morning, everybody. Thanks for the question. I just have one. I wanted to come back to an earlier comment on distribution. I think, Billy, you mentioned that we should expect to see TDP growth exceeding ACV growth moving forward. I guess my question is, are you now seeing that the brand is represented in the stores that you need to be in from a coverage perspective? And at the same time, are you seeing more of your large accounts, particularly in FDM, proactively moving to add second and third fridges? I'm just trying to understand that kind of a little bit more context around that comment. Thank you.
Ben
Hey, John. So I made a brief mention of it before, but I think as retailers are looking and they're starting to think about their growth in the category, not only this year, but next year, I think they are clearly recognizing that Fresh Pet is delivering on not only our growth, but now we actually have nice scale behind it. I mean, if you look at the last 26 weeks and In measured, we've added $100 million in growth to the category, which is by far the leader of any of the, I think, any brand by far, which is really exciting. So now they start looking forward and thinking about next year. What do you do? We know we need to tighten the mix of the products that we have in existing fridges, but we're also having, I would say, really productive conversations about second fridges. and expanding distribution not only in stores we're not in, but also in second fridges and even some cases where it's third fridges. So I think that's what we'll see going forward. There's also a couple very few scenarios where there's a retailer or so that has bought some of their own fridges, and we may be going into some of that space over time too.
CapEx
Okay, if I could squeeze one more in. on the media front, can you talk a little bit about how, not the level of spend, but maybe how you're changing or evolving the type of media that you're buying and using and the messaging, and is it working? Because I think you've taken some different approaches over the past 12 months or 18 months, maybe than you have in the past, but an update on that would be helpful. Thank you.
Ben
Yeah. Hey, so I think the, let me start with, like great work by the marketing team and overall across the entire marketing team. And the work has been done not only on creative but also packaging. It's not dog food. It's been a tremendous campaign for us. It's produced incredibly well. We're seeing great performance from the creative. We're seeing also great performance from the buying and how we're planning our media. And we continue to expand opportunities to place it in different spots. that are like actually on the face more expensive, but the productivity has been so strong. That's what we can deliver on that really consistent CAC range that we were talking about earlier. So we're seeing visits to the site up. We're seeing conversions up. Every metric that we track is performing really, really well. And it really goes back to the work that the team has done across both the creative and also the media buying. So yes, we continue to kind of expand out different targets. We've also recognized that we've pushed into sports. You're seeing us kind of push into sports a little bit more. Every one of those has worked really well. And the way we typically think about it is we want to test now, and then we really want to see the productivity of that, and then we want to buy that in the future. So the next quarter or next year, is when we're getting into a bigger buy on that. So we're constantly in that mode. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Tom Palmer with Citi. Please proceed.
Bill Chappell
Good morning and thanks for the question. I wanted to first just follow up on the fridge count discussion. As we look at the next couple of years, it sounds like you have kind of some visibility both for maybe new stores and adding these second units. Which one becomes the bigger driver here over the next couple of years?
Ben
Yeah, the clear driver longer term. is uh it's going to be second fridges if you it's actually an interesting point but if you look at the productivity that we get out of the first four feet now we are one of the most productive four feet in the pet food aisle and when you can demonstrate that and have category leading margins that's really a great cocktail for expansion into a second fridge and we get into second fridge the number we typically quote is within six months it's running about 60 percent of the first fridge It's really productive for us. The capital investment is great. The sales is great. And then once that levels off, now you have an ongoing annuity that typically will increase on a double-digit sales growth into the next year and years going forward. So the retailers that moved with us earlier are seeing a compounding effect on the growth that they're seeing on Fresh Pet.
Bill Chappell
Thanks for that. And then on this year's sales guidance, you did note the new line in Ennis this quarter, or opening this quarter, but then also the continued rampant prior lines and the added shifts. I guess just thinking about this year's growth, how reliant, if at all, is that new Ennis line to hitting your guidance that was just updated today?
Scott Morris
I mean, in order to continue to support the growth that we already have, We need that rolls line in NS to come online. We're very confident that it's going to come online. The qualification is going very, very well. But if for some reason that didn't happen, we would be very short on rolls for the balance of the year. We're very comfortable with our bags production capacity right now and our ability to meet the bags demand for the balance of the year. Bags becomes an issue at our current rate of growth as we head into the first quarter next year, which is why we're bringing on new shifts and new lines at Kitchen South later this year, and then the new line actually starts up in the first quarter of next year. So we are constantly in a position where we're growing into the existing capacity. We need to bring on a line in a reliable fashion on time. When we do that, we can support the high fill rates that we've had with our customers, and the business keeps growing very, very nicely. So it's a really nice cadence that we're developing, but we've got to execute well. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Mark Torrent with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.
Mark Torrent
Good morning. Thank you for the questions. Just one for me. Non-track channels continue to grow over 100%. How much of total does this represent now? What areas here are most incremental? And any other new distribution white space starting to gain traction for you guys?
Ben
Thanks. Hey. Good morning. Um, so yes, we are seeing really nice growth and some of the, uh, the untracked channels and, uh, it's, it's a lot of it is work that's been going on for multiple years. That's now coming to fruition. Um, you're going to see longer term, uh, continue growth, uh, there, uh, and we're hoping to see like really great performance from both, uh, Canada and the UK next year, albeit small. We think there are tremendous opportunities to expand there also. And then the other thing that we have a tremendous opportunity in, and you may have heard us talk about this in the past, but from a kind of a digital standpoint where someone could sit down at a computer and buy us, we are very, very underdeveloped. Approximately 9% of our sales are through some type of digital, and that includes click and pick, et cetera. We think that the opportunity there is tremendous, and we would like to see really leading growth in that area over the next kind of 12 to 18 months. There's a lot of our focus is there. We're just not as developed as many brands in digital or in e-commerce in any way.
Todd
Hey, Mark, just one call out. Obviously, that non-measured growth has been tremendous in the first half of the year. It added about five points in Q1, four points in Q2. As we start to lap some of the store growth that we got last year in the second half, we anticipate that growth will probably only add about two points in the second half of the year. Still tremendous growth. And as Scott pointed out, we're seeing some really nice gains here in the econ world, which we think is going to really flow into 25 as well. But that growth on the non-measured will still be really, really strong. Don't get me wrong. but it will slow in the second half.
Mark Torrent
Okay, thanks for the caller.
Operator
We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
Scott Morris
Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for your interest. I'll leave you with one thought. Dogs teach us a very important lesson in life. The mailman is not to be trusted. That's from Sean Ford. To which I would add, but if the mailman carries fresh pet turkey bacon treats, he'll be most loved and anticipated visitor you could have. Thank you very much for your interest.
Operator
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.
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