Karat Packaging Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Cass, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Carrot Packaging Incorporated first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed with the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the call over to Roger Pondell of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Carrot Packaging's 2024 first quarter conference call. I'm Roger Pondell with Pondell Wilkinson, Carrot Packaging's Investor Relations firm. It will be my pleasure momentarily to introduce you to the company's Chief Executive Officer, Alan Yu, and his Chief Financial Officer, Jan Goh. Before I turn the call over to Alan, I want to remind everyone that today's call may include forward-looking statements within the meeting of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the company's control, including those set forth in the risk factor section of Carrot's most recent Form 10-K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov, along with other company filings made with the SEC from time to time. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and Carrot Packaging undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Please also note that during today's call, we will be discussing adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, and adjusted diluted earnings per share, which are non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G, a reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP measures to the non-GAAP financial measures is included in today's press release, which is now posted on the company's website. And with that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to CEO Alan Yu.

Alan? Thank you, Roger. Good afternoon, everyone.

Sales volume for our 2024 first quarter grew 3.5% over the prior year period. Net sales were about the same as last year, but included certain items that impacted year-over-year comparability which Jan will discuss later in this call. We are encouraged by our first quarter performance as the growth initiatives that we implemented last year are starting to bear fruit. Our new business pipelines continue to grow and our product offering continue to expand. We are adding new customers and gaining wallet share with existing accounts. Sales for manufacturer product in the first quarter were 12.4% of total net sales, compared with approximately 23% last year. In keeping with our asset-light strategy in the U.S., an emphasis on imported items. Sales of our eco-friendly product rose 6% in the first quarter over the prior quarter. This category represented approximately 34.5% of total sales versus 32.6% last year. Eco-friendly products remain priority for CARAT as we continue to develop new and innovative products and build up inventory to meet growing demand from customers. We also achieved a near record high gross margin of 39.3% during the first quarter, with better visibility into ocean freight rate and new contract rates locked in through April 2025, combined with the continued strength of our U.S. dollar, we expect our gross margin to remain at a higher level. Our operating income in Q1, 2024 was impacted by a non-cash impairment of a $2 million of the right of use assets for our city industry lease in California. With the shift to optimizing our new Arizona warehouse space and away from California, our future rent expense will be reduced. Our newly established distribution center in Arizona is now fully operational, which will provide meaningful efficiency for Carrot in the Southwest region. We are continuing to look for other distribution centers in the Southeast region this year to further penetrate and grow key U.S. markets. Additionally, we are exploring strategic acquisition opportunities to further penetrate the marketplace. With Carrot's strong operating cash flow, as well as the company's liquidity, solid balance sheet, and positive long-term outlook, our broader directors again authorize an increase in the quarterly cash dividend payment to $0.35 per share on May 7 from $0.30 per share in the preceding quarter. Our regular quarterly dividend policy began in August of last year with an initial payment of $0.10 per share. I will now turn the call over to Jan Guo, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss the company financial result in greater detail. Jan?

Thank you, Alan, and good afternoon, everyone. Net sales for the 2024 first quarter were $95.6 million compared with $95.8 million for the same quarter last year. Sales volume increased 3.5% over the prior year quarter. As Alan mentioned earlier, net sales year-over-year comparison is impacted by items. Our Q1 2024 net sales were understated by $0.7 million related to products shipped and recognized as revenue in 2023 and not delivered until 2024. The related impact on cost of goods sold and growth margin was $0.4 million and $0.3 million, respectively, for Q1 2024. In the prior periods, we had assessed the impact of the lag between shipping and delivery to the previously issued quarterly and annual financial statement and concluded it was immaterial. The impact will not be recurring in future quarters. the amount of the revenue deferred for products shipped in March 2024 but not delivered until April 2024 was $1.9 million. Additionally, net sales for the 2024 first quarter included $2.2 million of online sales platform fee. By channel, compared with a year ago, Sales to distributors, our largest channel, was lower by 3.3% for the 2024 first quarter. Sales to national and regional chains were up slightly. Online channel sales were up by 9.0%, which benefited from the inclusion of online platform fees of $2.2 million as discussed earlier. and sales to the retail channel increased 5.0%. The distributor channel remains challenging, and the overall pricing environment is still very competitive. However, we are seeing encouraging growth momentum in the other channels, primarily driven by our continued geographic penetration in the East Coast, Northeast, and Midwest region, and growth in our eco-friendly products. Cost of goods sold for the 2024 first quarter was $58.0 million compared with $57.7 million in the prior year quarter. The increase was primarily due to higher freight and container rates earlier in the year and increased import volume and the inclusion of certain production costs in cost of goods sold. partially offset by lower product costs for certain raw materials and finished goods, as well as favorable foreign currency exchange rate. Gross profit for the 2024 first quarter was $37.6 million versus $38.1 million in the prior year quarter. Gross margin was 39.3% in the 2024 first quarter compared with 39.8% for the prior year quarter. Operating expenses in the 2024 first quarter were $29.5 million or 30.9% of net sales compared with $25.4 million or 26.5% of net sales in the prior year quarter. Operating expenses in the current quarter included a non-cash impairment of $2.0 million of the operating right of use asset for the City of Industry lease that Alan mentioned earlier as we entered into an agreement to sublease this warehouse in California. The increase was also driven by the inclusion of online sales platform fees, higher rent, from additional leased warehouses and higher labor costs due to workforce expansion. Such increases in operating expenses were partially offset by a decrease in shipping and transportation costs and the inclusion of certain production costs in cost of goods sold. Net income for the 2024 first quarter was $6.5 million compared with $9.2 million in the prior year quarter. Net income margin was 6.8% in the 2024 first quarter, compared with 9.6% in the prior year quarter. Net income attributable to CARAT for the 2024 first quarter was $6.2 million, or 31 cents per diluted share. compared with $9.0 million or 45 cents per diluted share last year. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure in the 2024 first quarter was $13.5 million versus $15.3 million in the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 14.2% in the 2024 first quarter versus 15.9% in the prior year quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings per common share was 40 cents per share in the 2024 first quarter compared with 46 cents per share a year ago. The first quarter ended with $112.3 million in working capital, compared with $110.5 million at the end of 2023. As of March 31, 2024, we had financial liquidity of $49.3 million, with another $33.5 million in short-term investments. During the first quarter, we made significant investment to stock up our inventory ahead of our summer peak season. With a positive outlook for new business, we expect net sales for the 2024 second quarter to increase by net single digit over the prior year quarter. Our gross margin goal for the 2024 second quarter is approximately 38%, to 40 percent. For the full 2024 year, we expect net sales to grow 8 to 15 percent and gross margin to be in the range of 37 to 40 percent. Ellen and I will now be happy to answer your questions, and I'll turn the call back to the operator.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. If you are called upon to ask a question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not in mute when asking your question. Again, press star 1 to join the queue. And your first question comes from the line of Michael Hoffman with Stifel. Your line is open.

Hi, Ellen, Jen. Thank you for taking the question. Sorry about my voice. I'm not sure where it's disappeared to. Can you bridge for us, maybe by the line items, whether it's national distribution on-site or online, I mean, or retail, versus your own plan So if I think about the guide you gave us, we were going to land somewhere around $100 million round numbers. We're about four and a half short. Of those four buckets, where's the shortage and what gives you confidence in this next 90-day view in light of that where it fell short?

Michael, let me just understand the question. Are you referring to $4 million short for the first quarter, or are you referring to the first quarter?

You gave us a forward view of up mid-single digits, which if we did the math, it would land you at about $100 million, right? And you did 95.5, I'm rounding, so we're $4.5 million short. And if I think of the four segments, where does that shortfall come relative to your own plan and what gives you comfort in the next forward plan that we've got a better handle on that?

Sure. Well, I believe Jim mentioned earlier in the call that there's a change in accounting practice recognition, revenue recognition. We actually had to deduct $2 million. And normally in the past 12, 15 years, 20 years, we have been recognizing revenues as we ship the product. But our auditor has decided that We need to adopt a new method of recognizing revenues that we need to account for when the customers, even if we ship at the last date of every month, they need to understand how long does it take for them to receive the product. And they're asking us to recognize revenue upon the day they receive it. So we had to reduce $2 million from the current quarter, over $2 million, basically. And that's something that we have never done so in the past 24 years of our accounting history. So this is the first quarter they want us to start moving forward to change this practice. That's over $2 million that we couldn't count for recognition. The other $2 million, we were actually, me and Jan, we were actually looking to guide in terms of approximately $98 million versus $100 million. I believe that we actually... would have met the lower end of our projection in terms of the first quarter if we were able to account for the $2 million that we had to change in revenue recognition practice.

Sounds like you ought to get another auditor. How are you supposed to track when a delivery arrives unless you're controlling the last mile? That seems like an unreasonable reach.

Jen is the one that dealt with the auditor. Maybe, Jen, you can perhaps kind of explain to us. We were fighting for that. We thought that was really hard to understand, to account for, because it's taking a lot of our time to just trying to find the bill of lending. And when the customer receives it, we have to track down all the tracking using some of our delivery are delivered by third party and UPS. So we had to set up a program just to accommodate this new request on that part.

Hi, Michael. This is Jen. Let me chime in on this one. So I think you make a fair point about tracking. It is a challenge, and we are reviewing our internal process to make sure that we have reliable, accurate data to be able to account for revenue appropriately. I will say, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, that historically, this is something that we've been tracking internally for a fairly long time, as Alan mentioned. it's the same accounting practice since 15, 20 years ago. We have evaluated, as I mentioned earlier, previously kind of the lag between shipping and delivery and concluded and our auditors concurred in the past that the impact was immaterial. Basically, the lag was immaterial even though we don't necessarily track every single shipment know exactly when it's delivered to the customer, we have a pretty good idea and we have sort of the estimate method to help us get to a pretty close number. So that said, fast forward to March 2024, I will just add a little color here. In Q1, we are seeing increased activities, the pickup activities towards the end of the quarter. And that's also one of the reasons why if you look at the last few days in a quarter, the activity that we saw, the amount of the shipment that went out actually increased quite a bit compared to what we typically see towards quarter end. As I mentioned earlier, the amount of the revenue that we deferred from March to April it's 1.9 million, so basically roughly the 2 million that Alan was talking about earlier compared to typically on the quarterly basis we see towards the quarter end that number is roughly 700, 800,000. So there's a little bit of increased activity in the products that we shipped but have not yet delivered to the customer. So that also accounted for a little bit of a year-over-year comparison. I just wanted to point out part of the reason why you are seeing the 1.9, Adam talked about this, or the 2 million, is also the increased activity, the increased momentum that we're seeing towards the quarter end.

Okay, so I just want to tease out a couple things on this. Did you look at March of 23 and do the same treatment of You counted sales as you shipped it, and now you had to count it on the delivery and sort of adjust that number, and then the reality of the like-to-like is you hit your low-to-mid single-digit growth rate because you reset the prior number to look the same way?

No, actually, Michael, like I said, this is the first time.

Yeah, I get that. I was just wondering if you did the work and put the prior year on the like basis and What I'm trying to get to, and I'm not doing a very good job of it, is I think I'm hearing, you said almost 4% volume growth. So I'm going, okay, underlying structural demand is good. Maybe I'm still repricing some inventory from the above average inflation in the inventory. But volume is good. So SKUs are good. I got this oddball accounting thing. You still think you ought to fire your auditor. And if I had a like-to-like comparison, you really did land somewhere between low to mid single-digit growth. And so none of us should freak out.

The market shouldn't freak out. The stock should be fine tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. There was a question in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what it was.

But you get where I'm going. Yeah, again, like I said, basically, it is what it is.

I get that, but underlying business, all this noise aside, underlying business demand is good.

It is very good. I would say the underlying business, personally, I think this is the best quarter for 12 months, basically, for the fourth quarter. Because we've seen volume decline, pricing decline for the past three quarters. And this is the first quarter we're seeing a solid year-over-year growth in volume, in revenue, also in revenue if we were to use the old accounting method. Revenue was higher. The volume was higher. and the pipeline that we have is stronger than ever. So I would say that this is the best quarter in a year.

Okay. I hope, you know, who knows what the market does tomorrow because it hates misses. But, you know, I think the big message here is you've got a good underlying fundamental business model still chugging along. You've made business decisions to assure the growth rate by moving the distribution centers, and we've got this oddball accounting issue. Have we repriced all the inventory for the above average pricing? Is that out? We're not looking at repricing issues anymore at this point?

Yes. Well, actually, we're not looking at any repricing issue. And also, one of the major question marks that we mentioned that last quarter was the ocean freight. We were not sure, uncertain, how the ocean freight is going to play out. But it actually played out pretty well. That ocean freight did not increase significantly. for the next year contract. So that's why we're more confident in terms of raising our full year profit growth margin guidance. Originally, I believe we're 35 to 38 or 35 to 37. Now we're upping to 37 to 40% because we feel confident that we signed, now that we have signed the contract with Ocean Freight, which was the wild card. And that's why we feel very strong that we're going to see a very strong year with the support of Ocean Freight as well as strong dollar. Okay. I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Myers with Lake Street Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. Just kind of as a follow-up to the last question, I just want to make sure I understand it clearly. So it sounds like you went through the lower price inventory this quarter, so pricing shouldn't be a headwind for the remainder of the year.

That is correct.

Okay, got it. That's helpful. And then if we think about the eco-friendly business, it came in at 6% growth for the quarter. I know that business has kind of been treading in the double-digit growth right there. Is there anything to call out about what you guys saw in the quarter for eco-friendly, or is that just kind of related to the pricing as well?

Well, we did see a demand picking up in eco-friendly products. We saw more and more cities actually enforcing but a composable product. And they're making it even stricter. Like the state of Washington is imposing that to be able to not confuse the consumer. Starting July, they want every composable plastic items to have some type of green item on it or like the lids so that they can see it specifically. It's different than the regular PET non-composable lids. And we're seeing that there's There's new laws on the paperback, shopping bag, that basically that U.S. commerce is increasing tariffs on all the imports from overseas, which definitely will raise the price for U.S. domestic user starting, I would say, as early as August or September. Once everyone depletes their inventory, the price can go up as much as 30%, 40% on the paper shopping bag. So there's these new laws in different states and cities. It's actually creating a higher demand in terms of composable product. And we're seeing more people moving away from just regular plastic into composable, regular styrofoam into plastic and also other items. So I would say that those manufacturers that continue to sell styrofoam, it's really seeing a drop in volume-wise.

Okay, got it. That makes sense. And then if we think about the 8% to 15% top line guidance for the year, just kind of want to get a good understanding of what needs to happen or what needs to come into the model for you guys to hit the higher end of that range.

Well, if we were to just do organic growth, we're looking at the 8% range. The reason we're saying that because last year, our third and fourth quarter, we were not as strong as we had. We didn't have as much pipeline that we have today. And all the pipeline that we have is currently with the national chain account, with supermarket. Those are actually turning into revenues. And we're seeing them in the third and fourth quarter. That will help us to the 8% and 10% gross margin. And also, we are aggressively actually in conversation with several different companies' potentials that to partner or acquisition that we're hopeful that by the end of this year, or third quarter, we should be able to have some results in terms of what acquisition or what partnership that we may have by third quarter of this year. And that will help us to the double-digit mark by the end of this year, as I mentioned earlier. Okay, got it.

Okay, sure. That's helpful. Thank you for taking my questions.

No problem. Thank you, Ryan.

And your next question comes from the line of Ryan Nurkle with William Blair. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. This is Mike Francis on for Ryan. Thanks for taking my questions. And first, a little follow-up on the last question regarding the M&A. Was that 8% to 15% at the end of 4Q that you gave, was that also inclusive of the M&A?

If we do not include any M&A, that would be a range of 8% to 10%. If we include the M&A, that would be in the range of 10% to 15%, yes.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

And then next for me, you talked about the distribution of this area being a little weaker. Can you give a little more color around that? Is it just sort of market softness, or is there anything happening with any of the players there?

Well, we have been seeing California, West Coast market dropping. The overall environment in California, especially for the mom-and-pop, smaller restaurant chains. We're seeing decline in sales. Not only that, we're seeing closures. One of my favorite restaurants that I've been going to for the past 25 years, they are now shutting down April 30th. And we're seeing more and more restaurants shutting down in California because of an increase in minimum wage and it's hard to find laborers in California, especially hard to find people that want to work in the kitchen. We're still seeing that. We see a little bit it's better now that The drop was only a single digit versus double digit in the past quarters for California. So that's where we're seeing a softness. And also we're seeing, this is across the board from all of our competitors in distribution that they're saying the same thing as well. But we're seeing a strong growth in online as well as potentially a stronger growth for the national chain account. And also in Midwest and East Coast, that's where we're focusing on that part for that.

Okay. Last one for me. You raised the dividend again. Is there any sort of target capital allocation we should think about longer term, maybe like percent of operating cash flow or anything like that?

Currently, we're sitting on some cash that we actually put on a deposit for income. We actually generate income. And, of course, we're increasing our dividends because our cash flow continues to increase because our operation is pretty strong and we don't have any debt on that. And that's why we're looking at merchant acquisition. If we were to successfully complete two acquisitions by the end of this year, that should deplete our cash, pretty much take some of our cash. I wouldn't say deplete all of our cash because we're still generating more cash every quarter. I would say that we're still in a healthy cashier position on that part. We are looking at acquisition target, definitely not to exceed what we have on hand, on cash on hand.

Okay. I hope you can find a new replacement restaurant. It's too bad. I'll pass it on.

All right. Thank you, Ryan.

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Alan Yu for closing remarks.

Thank you everyone for joining us for the first quarter 2024 Earnings Conference call. And again, thank you very much and we'll talk to you next time. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect. Thank you. Thank you. you Bye. you you

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Thank you for standing by. My name is Cass, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Carrot Packaging Incorporated First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again.

I would now like to turn the call over to Roger Pondell of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. to Carrot Packaging's 2024 first quarter conference call. I'm Roger Pondell with Pondell Wilkinson, Carrot Packaging's investor relations firm. It will be my pleasure momentarily to introduce you to the company's chief executive officer, Alan Yu, and his chief financial officer, Jan Goh. Before I turn the call over to Alan, I want to remind everyone that today's call may include forward-looking statements. within the meeting of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the company's control, including those set forth in the risk factor section of CARAT's most recent Form 10-K, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov, along with other company filings made with the SEC from time to time. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Incured packaging undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. Please also note that during today's call, we will be discussing adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, and adjusted diluted earnings per share, which are non-GAAP financial measures, as defined by SEC Regulation G. A reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP measures to the non-GAAP financial measures is included in today's press release, which is now posted on the company's website. And with that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to CEO Alan Yu.

Alan? Thank you, Roger. Good afternoon, everyone.

Sales volume for our 2024 first quarter grew 3.5% over the prior year period. Net sales were about the same as last year, but included certain items that impacted year-over-year comparability, which Jan will discuss later in this call. We are encouraged by our first quarter performance as the growth initiatives that we implemented last year are starting to bear fruit. Our new business pipelines continue to grow and our product offering continue to expand. We are adding new customers and gaining wallet share with existing accounts. Sales for manufacturer product in the first quarter were 12.4% of total net sales compared with approximately 23% last year. In keeping with our asset life strategy in the U.S., an emphasis on imported items. Sales of our eco-friendly product rose 6% in the first quarter over the prior quarter. This category represented approximately 34.5% of total sales versus 32.6% last year. Eco-friendly products remain priority for Carrot as we continue to develop new and innovative products and build up inventory to meet growing demand from customers. We also achieved a near record high gross margin of 39.3% during the first quarter. With better visibility into ocean freight rate and new contract rates locked in through April 2025, combined with the continued strength of our U.S. dollar, we expect our gross margin to remain at a higher level. Our operating income in Q1 2024 was impacted by a non-cash impairment of $2 million of the right of use assets for our city industry lease in California. With the shift to optimizing our new Arizona warehouse space and away from California, our future rent expense will be reduced. Our newly established distribution center in Arizona is now fully operational, which will provide meaningful efficiency for Carrot in the Southwest region. We are continuing to look for other distribution centers in the Southeast region this year to further penetrate and grow key U.S. markets. Additionally, we are exploring strategic acquisition opportunities to further penetrate the marketplace. We carry a strong operating cash flow, as well as the company's liquidity, solid balance sheet, and positive long-term outlook. Our broader directors, again, authorize an increase in the quarterly cash dividend payment to $0.35 per share on May 7 from $0.30 per share in the preceding quarter. Our regular quarterly dividend policy began in August of last year with an initial payment of $0.10 per share. I will now turn the call over to Jan Guo, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss the company financial result in greater detail. Jan?

Thank you, Alan, and good afternoon, everyone. Net sales for the 2024 first quarter were $95.6 million last compared with $95.8 million for the same quarter last year. Sales volume increased 3.5% over the prior year quarter. As Alan mentioned earlier, net sales year-over-year comparison is impacted by items. Our Q1 2024 net sales were understated by $0.7 million related to products shipped and recognized as revenue in 2023 and not delivered until 2024. The related impact on cost of goods sold and gross margin was $0.4 million and $0.3 million, respectively, for Q1 2024. In the prior periods, we had assessed the impact of the lag between shipping and delivery to the previously issued quarterly and annual financial statement and concluded it was immaterial. The impact will not be recurring in future quarters. The amount of the revenue deferred for products shipped in March 2024 but not delivered until April 2024 was $1.9 million. Additionally, net sales for the 2024 first quarter included $2.2 million of online sales platform fee. By channel, compared with a year ago, sales to distributors, our largest channel, was lower by 3.3% for the 2024 first quarter. Sales to national and regional chains were up slightly. Online channel sales were up by 9.0%, which benefited from the inclusion of online platform fees of $2.2 million as discussed earlier. And sales to the retail channel increased 5.0%. The distributor channel remains challenging and the overall pricing environment is still very competitive. However, we are seeing encouraging growth momentum in the other channels primarily driven by our continued geographic penetration in the East Coast, Northeast, and Midwest region, and growth in our eco-friendly products. Cost of goods sold for the 2024 first quarter was $58.0 million, compared with $57.7 million in the prior year quarter. The increase was primarily due to higher freight and container rates earlier in the year and increased import volume and the inclusion of certain production costs in cost of goods sold, partially offset by lower product costs for certain raw materials and finished goods, as well as favorable foreign currency exchange rate. Gross profit for the 2024 first quarter was $37.6 million versus $38.1 million in the prior year quarter. Gross margin was 39.3% in the 2024 first quarter, compared with 39.8% for the prior year quarter. Operating expenses in the 2024 first quarter were $29.5 million, or 30.9% of net sales, compared with $25.4 million or 26.5% of net sales in the prior year quarter. Operating expenses in the current quarter included a non-cash impairment of $2.0 million of the operating right of use asset for the City of Industry lease that Alan mentioned earlier as we entered into an agreement to sublease this warehouse in California. The increase was also driven by the inclusion of online sales platform fees, higher rent from additional leased warehouses, and higher labor costs due to workforce expansion. Such increases in operating expenses were partially offset by a decrease in shipping and transportation costs and the inclusion of certain production costs in cost of goods sold. Net income for the 2024 first quarter was $6.5 million compared with $9.2 million in the prior year quarter. Net income margin was 6.8% in the 2024 first quarter compared with 9.6% in the prior year quarter. Net income attributable to CARAT for the 2024 first quarter was $6.2 million or 31 cents per diluted share compared with $9.0 million or 45 cents per diluted share last year. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure in the 2024 first quarter was $13.5 million versus $15.3 million in the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 14.2% in the 2024 first quarter versus 15.9% in the prior year quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings per common share was 40 cents per share in the 2024 first quarter compared with 46 cents per share a year ago. The first quarter ended with $112.3 million in working capital, compared with $110.5 million at the end of 2023. As of March 31, 2024, we had financial liquidity of $49.3 million, with another $33.5 million in short-term investments. During the first quarter, we made significant investment to stock up our inventory ahead of our summer peak season. With a positive outlook for new business, we expect net sales for the 2024 second quarter to increase by net single digit over the prior year quarter. Our gross margin goal for the 2024 second quarter is approximately 38, to 40 percent. For the full 2024 year, we expect net sales to grow 8 to 15 percent and growth margin to be in the range of 37 to 40 percent. Ellen and I will now be happy to answer your questions, and I'll turn the call back to the operator.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. If you are called upon to ask a question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not in mute when asking your question. Again, press star 1 to join the queue. And your first question comes from the line of Michael Hoffman with Stifel. Your line is open.

Hi, Ellen, Jen. Thank you for taking the question. Sorry about my voice. I'm not sure where it's disappeared to. Can you bridge for us, maybe by the line items, whether it's national distribution on-site or online, I mean, or retail, versus your own plan So if I think about the guide you gave us, we were going to land somewhere around $100 million, round numbers. We're about four and a half short. Of those four buckets, where's the shortage and what gives you confidence in this next 90-day view in light of that where it fell short?

Michael, let me just understand the question. Are you referring to $4 million short for the first quarter, or are you referring to the first quarter?

You gave us a forward view of up mid-single digits, which if we did the math, it would land you at about $100 million, right? And you did $95.5 million. So we're $4.5 million short. And if I think of the four segments, where does that shortfall come relative to your own plan and what gives you comfort in the next forward plan that we've got a better handle on that?

Sure. Well, I believe Jim mentioned earlier in the call that there was a change in accounting practice recognition, revenue recognition. We actually had to deduct $2 million. Normally, in the past 12, 15 years, 20 years, we have been recognizing revenues as we ship the product, but our auditor has decided that We need to adopt a new method of recognizing revenues that we need to account for when the customers, even if we ship at the last date of every month, they need to understand how long does it take for them to receive the product. And they're asking us to recognize revenue upon the day they receive it. So we had to reduce $2 million from the current quarter, over $2 million, basically. And that's something that we have never done so in the past 24 years of our accounting history. So this is the first quarter they want us to start moving forward to change this practice. That's over $2 million that we couldn't count for recognition. The other $2 million, we were actually, me and Jan, we were actually looking to guide in terms of approximately $98 million versus $100 million. I believe that we actually... would have met the lower end of our projection in terms of the first quarter if we were able to account for the $2 million that we had to change in revenue recognition practice.

Sounds like you ought to get another auditor. How are you supposed to track when a delivery arrives unless you're controlling the last mile? That seems like an unreasonable reach.

Jen is the one that dealt with the auditor. Maybe, Jen, you can perhaps kind of explain to us. We were fighting for that. We thought that was really hard to understand, to account for, because it's taking a lot of our time to just trying to find a bill of lending. And when the customer receives it, we have to track down all the tracking using some of our delivery are delivered by third party and UPS. So we had to set up a program just to accommodate this new request on that part.

Hi, Michael. This is Jen. Let me chime in on this one. So I think you make a fair point about tracking. It is a challenge, and we are reviewing our internal process to make sure that we have reliable, accurate data to be able to account for revenue appropriately. I will say, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, that historically, this is something that we've been tracking internally for a fairly long time, as Alan mentioned. it's the same accounting practice since 15, 20 years ago. We have evaluated, as I mentioned earlier, previously kind of the lag between shipping and delivery and concluded and our auditors concurred in the past that the impact was immaterial. Basically, the lag was immaterial even though we don't necessarily track every single shipment know exactly when it's delivered to the customer, we have a pretty good idea and we have sort of the estimate method to help us get to a pretty close number. So that said, fast forward to March 2024, I will just add a little color here. In Q1, we are seeing increased activities, the pickup activities towards the end of the quarter. And that's also one of the reasons why if you look at the last few days in a quarter, the activity that we saw, the amount of the shipment that went out actually increased quite a bit compared to what we typically see towards quarter end. As I mentioned earlier, the amount of the revenue that we deferred from March to April it's 1.9 million, so basically roughly the 2 million that Alan was talking about earlier compared to typically on the quarterly basis we see towards the quarter end that number is roughly 700, 800,000. There's a little bit of increased activity in the products that we shipped but have not yet delivered to the customer. So that also accounted for a little bit of a year-over-year comparison. I just wanted to point out part of the reason why you are seeing the 1.9, Adam talked about this, or the 2 million, is also the increased activity, the increased momentum that we're seeing towards the quarter end.

Okay, so I just want to tease out a couple things on this. Did you look at March of 23 and do the same treatment of you counted sales as you shipped it, now you had to count it on the delivery and sort of adjust that number, and then the reality of the like-to-like is you hit your low to mid-single-digit growth rate because you reset the prior number to look the same way?

No, actually, Michael, like I said, this is the first time.

Yeah, I get that. I was just wondering if you did the work and put the prior year on the like basis and What I'm trying to get to, and I'm not doing a very good job of it, is I think I'm hearing, you said almost 4% volume growth. So I'm going, okay, underlying structural demand's good. Maybe I'm still repricing some inventory from the above average inflation in the inventory. But volume's good. So SKUs are good. I got this oddball accounting thing. You still think you ought to fire your auditor. And if I had a like-to-like comparison, you really did land somewhere between low to mid single-digit growth. And so none of us should freak out.

The market shouldn't freak out. The stock should be fine tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. There was a question in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what it was, but you get where I'm going.

Yeah, again, like I said, basically, it is what it is.

I get that, but underlying business, all this noise aside, underlying business demand is good. It is very good.

I would say the underlying business, personally, I think this is the best quarter for 12 months, basically, for the fourth quarter. Because we've seen volume decline, pricing decline for the past three quarters. And this is the first quarter we're seeing a solid year-over-year growth in volume, in revenue, also in revenue if we were to use the old accounting method. Revenue was higher. The volume was higher. and the pipeline that we have is stronger than ever. So I would say that this is the best quarter in a year.

Okay. That's, I hope, you know, who knows what the market does tomorrow because it hates misses. But, you know, I think the big message here is you've got a good underlying fundamental business model still chugging along. You've made business decisions to assure the growth rate by moving the distribution centers, and we've got this oddball accounting issue. Have we repriced all the inventory for the above average pricing? Is that out? We're not looking at repricing issues anymore at this point?

Yes. Well, actually, we're not looking at any repricing issue. And also, one of the major question marks that we mentioned that last quarter was the ocean freight. We were not sure, uncertain, how the ocean freight is going to play out. But it actually played out pretty well. That ocean freight did not increase significantly for the next year contract. So that's why we're more confident in terms of raising our full year profit growth margin guidance. Originally I believe we're 35 to 38 or 35 to 37. Now we're upping to 37 to 40% because we feel confident that we signed, now that we have signed the contract with Ocean Freight, which was the wild card. And that's why we feel very strong that we're going to see a very strong year with the support of Ocean Freight as well as strong dollar. Okay. I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Myers with Lake Street Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. Just kind of as a follow-up to the last question, I just want to make sure I understand it clearly. So it sounds like you went through the lower price inventory this quarter, so pricing shouldn't be a headwind for the remainder of the year.

That is correct.

Okay, got it. That's helpful. And then, you know, if we think about the eco-friendly business, you know, it came in at 6% growth for the quarter. I know that business has kind of been treading in the double-digit growth right there. You know, is there anything to call out about what you guys saw in the quarter for eco-friendly, or is that just kind of related to the pricing as well?

Well, we did see a demand picking up in eco-friendly products. We saw more and more cities actually enforcing a composable product. And they're making it even stricter. Like the state of Washington is imposing that to be able to not confuse the consumer. Starting in July, they want every composable plastic items to have some type of green item on it or like the lids so that they can see it specifically. It's different than the regular PET non-composable lids. And we're seeing that there's There's new laws on the paperback, shopping bag, that basically that U.S. commerce is increasing tariffs on all the imports from overseas, which definitely will raise the price for U.S. domestic user starting, I would say, as early as August or September. Once everyone depletes their inventory, the price can go up as much as 30%, 40% on the paper shopping bag. So there's these new laws in different states and cities. It's actually creating a higher demand in terms of composable product. And we're seeing more people moving away from just regular plastic into composable, regular styrofoam into plastic and also other items. So I would say that those manufacturers that continue to sell styrofoam, it's really seeing really a drop in volume-wise.

Okay, got it. That makes sense. And then if we think about the 8% to 15% top line guidance for the year, just kind of want to get a good understanding of what needs to happen or what needs to come into the model for you guys to hit the higher end of that range.

Well, if we were to just do organic growth, we're looking at the 8% range. The reason we're saying that because last year, our third and fourth quarter, we were not as strong as we had. We didn't have as much pipeline that we have today. and all the pipeline that we have is currently with the national chain account with supermarket those are actually turning into revenues and we're seeing them in the third and fourth quarter that will help us to the 8 and 10 percent gross margin and also we are aggressively actually in conversation with several different companies potentials that to partner or acquisition that we're hopeful that by the end of this year or third quarter, we should be able to have some results in terms of what acquisition or what partnership that we may have by third quarter of this year. And that will help us to the double-digit mark by the end of this year. As I mentioned earlier, last quarter.

Okay, got it. Okay, sure. That's helpful. Thank you for taking my questions.

No problem. Thank you, Ryan.

And your next question comes from the line of Ryan Nurkle with William Blair. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. This is Mike Francis on for Ryan. Thanks for taking my questions. And first, a little follow-up on the last question regarding the M&A. Was that 8% to 15% at the end of 4Q that you gave, was that also inclusive of the M&A?

If we do not include any M&A, that would be a range of 8% to 10%. If we include the M&A, that would be in the range of 10% to 15%, yes.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

And then next for me, you talked about the distribution of this area being a little weaker. Can you give a little more color around that? Is it just sort of market softness, or is there anything happening with any of the players there?

Well, we have been seeing California, West Coast market dropping. The overall environment in California, especially for the mom-and-pop, smaller businesses, restaurant chains. We're seeing decline in sales. Not only that, we're seeing closures. One of my favorite restaurants that I've been going to for the past 25 years, they are now shutting down April 30th. And we're seeing more and more restaurants shutting down in California because of an increase in minimum wage and it's hard to find laborers in California, especially hard to find people that want to work in the kitchen. We're still seeing that. We see a little bit, it's better now that The drop was only a single digit versus double digit in the past quarters for California. So that's where we're seeing a softness. And also we're seeing, this is across the board from all of our competitors in distribution that they're saying the same thing as well. We're seeing a strong growth in online as well as potentially a stronger growth for the national chain account. And also in Midwest and East Coast, that's where we're focusing on that part for that.

Okay. Last one from me. You raised the dividend again. Is there any sort of target capital allocation we should think about longer term, maybe like a percent of operating cash flow or anything like that?

Currently, we're sitting on some cash that we actually put on a deposit for income. We actually generate income. And, of course, we're increasing our dividends because our cash flow continues to increase because our operation is pretty strong and we don't have any debt on that. And that's why we're looking at merchant acquisition. If we were to successfully complete two acquisitions by the end of this year, that should deplete our cash, pretty much take some of our cash. I wouldn't say deplete all of our cash because we're still generating more cash every quarter. I would say that we're still in a healthy cashier position on that part. We are looking at acquisition target, definitely not to exceed what we have on cash on hand.

Okay. I hope you can find a new replacement restaurant. It's too bad. I'll pass it on.

All right. Thank you, Ryan.

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Alan Yu for closing remarks.

thank you everyone for joining us uh carrot first quarter uh 2024 earning conference call and again says thank you very much and we'll talk to you next time bye-bye ladies and gentlemen that concludes today's call thank you all for joining you may now disconnect