Karat Packaging Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Carrot Packaging fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Roger Pondell, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Carrot Packaging's fourth quarter and full year 2025 conference call. I'm Roger Pondell with Pondell Wilkinson, Carrot Packaging's Investor Relations firm. It will be my pleasure momentarily to introduce the company's Chief Executive Officer, Alan Yu, and its Chief Financial Officer, Jan Gatto. Before I turn the call over to Alan, I want to remind our listeners that today's call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions and many of which are beyond the company's control, including those set forth in the risk factor section of the company'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 can differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and current packaging undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Please also note that during this call, we will be discussing adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted diluted earnings per share, and free cash flow, which are non-GAAP financial measures that 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, I will turn the call over to CEO Alan Yu.

Alan? Thank you, Roger. Good afternoon, everyone. Despite ongoing trade volatility, Carrick continues to deliver profitable growth, demonstrating the strength and resilience of our business model. We closed 2025 with an increase of 13.7% net sales in the fourth quarter, fueled by strong double-digit volume growth across all major markets. Notably, pricing also turned positive for the first time since early 2023, adding further momentum to our performance. Our ongoing effort to diversify sourcing continues to deliver positive results, we have adjusted our import volume across sourcing countries following tariffs and foreign currency development. During the fourth quarter, our import mix consisted of 46% from Taiwan, 14% from China, 13% from the United States, and 11% each from Vietnam and Malaysia. Our resilient global supply chain enabled us to maintain a solid 34% gross margin, despite significantly higher tariff and duty costs during the quarter. Following the recent favorable global tariff developments and destabilization of favorable U.S. dollar and new Taiwan dollar exchange rates, we expect tailwinds on the margin to be realizing beginning in the second quarter of this year. Our new paperback business product category continues to gain strong momentum, expanding steadily and driving meaningful revenue growth. In addition to supplying one of our largest national chain accounts, we are actively pursuing additional opportunities, some of which are at the final confirmation stage. We are also strengthening this category by supplying generic paperback to smaller customer accounts in addition to custom paperbacks, and we expect to continue gaining market shares in this category in the years ahead. Our eco-friendly product sales, boosted in part by paperbacks, grew to 37.3% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from 34.5% in the same quarter of 2024. As our paperback category businesses continue to expand, we are further strengthening our position as a leading provider of sustainable, eco-friendly, disposable food service product. In today's consistently shifting trade environment, we believe that CARIC global sourcing flexibility and efficient logistic capabilities position us well to support continued growth and the margin improvement. We are also maintaining our focus on operating efficiency reflected in the improvement of our operating costs leveraged to 26.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025 from 32% in the prior year quarter. Together, these efforts provide a solid foundation as we look forward to another strong year. I will now turn the call to Jian Guo, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss the company financial result in greater detail. Jen?

Thank you, Alan. I'll begin with a summary of our fourth quarter performance, followed by an update on our guidance. Net sales for the 2025 fourth quarter increased to $115.6 million, up 13.7%. from $101.6 million in the prior year quarter. The increase primarily reflected $8.2 million in volume and a $6.3 million favorable impact from pricing and product mix. Sales to chain accounts and distributors, our biggest sales channel, were up by 17.5% in the 2025 fourth quarter. Online sales rose 1.9% over the prior year quarter, and sales to the retail channel declined 4.8% from the 2024 fourth quarter. As part of our initiatives to optimize margin, we continued to shift away from online sales fulfilled by Amazon and focused more on driving traffic through our own lolly cup store and fulfilling our own orders on third-party platforms. We achieved significantly higher contribution margins in our online sales with reduced online platform fees and market costs. Cost of goods sold for the 2025 fourth quarter increased 23.4% to $76.3 million from $61.8 million in the prior year quarter. Product costs increased $6.1 million due to sales growth, partially offset by more favorable vendor pricing and product mix. Within import costs, duty and tariff costs increased $8.4 million due to higher tariff rate and a $0.4 million adjustment to the duty reserve previously recorded on certain imports. Growth profit for the 2025 fourth quarter was $39.3 million compared with $39.8 million in the prior year quarter. Growth margin for the 2025 fourth quarter was 34.0% compared with 39.2% in the prior year quarter. Growth margin was impacted by higher import costs, which included ocean freight and import duty and tariffs. As a percentage of net sales, import costs increased to 14.5% from 8.3% in the prior year quarter. However, we were able to partially offset the headwind on margin by reducing product costs as a percentage of net sales due to more favorable vendor pricing and product mix, as well as lower logistics expenses as a percentage of net sales. Operating expenses in the 2025 fourth quarter decreased to $30.9 million from $32.5 million in the prior year quarter. As Adam mentioned, Our focus on cost containment yield significant results here. Compared to the prior year quarter, we reduced online platform fees by $1.6 million while maintaining our sales growth trajectory, lowered marketing expense by $.5 million, and reduced professional services expense by $.4 million. At the same time, our rent expense increased $0.5 million primarily due to the opening of a new Chino distribution center in 2025. Operating income in the 2025 fourth quarter increased 16.0% to $8.5 million from $7.3 million in the prior year quarter. Total other income net increase 17.7% to $1.2 million for the 2025 fourth quarter from $1.0 million in the prior year quarter. Net income for the 2025 fourth quarter increased 22.8% to $7.2 million from $5.9 million for the prior year quarter. Net income margin rose to 6.2% in the 2025 fourth quarter from 5.8% in the prior year quarter. Net income attributable to CARAT for the 2025 fourth quarter increased 21.3% to $6.8 million or 34 cents per diluted share from $5.6 million or 28 cents per diluted share in the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the 2025 fourth quarter rose to $12.5 million from $11.3 million for the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.8% compared with 11.1% for the prior year quarter. Adjusted diluted earning per common share increase to 34 cents per share for the 2025 fourth quarter from 29 cents per share in the prior year quarter. We executed strong working capital management during the fourth quarter, generating operating cash flow of $15.4 million and free cash flow of $14.6 million despite continued heavy duty and tariff payments. During the fourth quarter, we also made an early loan repayment of $8.0 million for our consolidated variable interest entities term loan. In addition to our regular quarterly dividend of 45 cents per share paid to shareholders on November 28th, 2025, we further utilized our newly approved share repurchase program and repurchased 137,374 shares of our common stock at an average share price of $21.74 per share for a total amount of $3.0 million. As of March 11th, 2026, approximately $12.0 million remained available for repurchase under the authorized repurchase program. We ended 2025 with $91.0 million in working capital and maintained financial liquidity of $45.6 million. On February 5th, 2026, our board of directors approved a regular quarterly dividend of 45 cents per share, payable February 27th, 2026 to shareholders of record as of February 20th, 2026. Looking ahead to the 2026 first quarter, we expect net sales to increase by approximately eight to 10% from the prior year quarter sales for the first quarter are typically subject to weather conditions. Although we experienced facility shutdowns due to inclement weather this January and February, we are seeing strong sales growth momentum. We expect growth margin for the 2026 first quarter to be within 34 to 36% and adjusted EBITDA margin to be within nine to 11%. For the full year 2026, We expect net sales to grow in the low double-digit range over the prior year, and we anticipate continued improvements in both growth margin and adjusted EBITDA margin compared with the prior year under the current global tariff import environment. As Alan mentioned earlier, we are seeing accelerated growth in our pipeline supported by the continued expansion of our paperbacks category in addition of several key customer accounts. We remain committed to accelerating top-line growth while continuing to improve operational efficiency and cost management. Alan and I will now be happy to answer your questions, and I'll turn the call back to the operator.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question today comes from Ryan Merkle with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, and thanks for the question. I wanted to start with the outlook for 26, the up double digits. Alan, what are you assuming for the market in that outlook? I was thinking something like flat and that most of your sales growth is going to be market share gains, but tell me how you're thinking about that.

Well, I do see the environment for our competitive – it's a very competitive environment right now, and I see – numbers coming out from our competitors are negative growth to maybe low single-digit growth. While we are foreseeing our company to have a low double-digit growth, I think that is being conservative. The way that I see that is, yes, market share gain, mainly on the new categories that we're offering on the paperback, the SOS back. For example, we have about maybe perhaps 40 SKUs on the paperback. We're going to add additional SKUs 50 or more SKUs just on the paperback category. Maybe we didn't have a complete line of SOS back. We're adding all of it. Paper shopping back, we're adding more of that, and we're adding more custom printing. We're doing a lot of things to add addition to our line of offering to increase our revenue.

Got it. Okay. That's great. And then I wanted to ask on 1Q, kind of up 9% year-over-year for revenue. That's a bit of a slowdown from the up 14% this quarter. Jan, you mentioned weather. I guess my question is, is it just weather that's causing the slowdown at 1Q? And now that the weather's cleared a bit, have you seen the trends pick back up?

Yes. Texas is one of our major hubs. We had a shutdown over a week. We couldn't work. It was like a snowstorm. And also East Coast had several weather issues, New Jersey and South Carolina. But mainly it was in Texas that we had the entire week that we couldn't do anything. So that really slows down for the month of January and some part of February. But we do see that weather is getting better now in March. So we're seeing strong momentum coming back from the March and onward.

Okay. Thanks. Pass it on.

Thank you, Ryan. Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question is from Ryan Myers with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on a solid fourth quarter. You know, first question for me, just thinking about the full-year revenue guidance, do you guys factor in any of these business opportunities that you commented on that are in the final confirmation stages, or is this full-year revenue guidance just based on the business that you guys have already signed in visibility to already?

Well, part of it, the one that we're adding in is that we know we have a lot of pipeline that we are confirming. on the final stages. The key part is, in most cases, these chain accounts, even after they confirm, there's a testing phase, and they might just delay and drag for six months to nine months. So we want to be conservative. Of course, we don't just have one or two or three. We have more than a dozen, several dozen, potentially, accounts that we're adding in. They're either an existing customer or they're new accounts. So we're adding that, and that's why we're forecasting low double-digit growth, but my goal is actually a mid or high double-digit growth. That's our ultimate goal.

Okay, got it.

That's helpful. So upside, if some of those opportunities can materialize.

Yep. Okay. That makes sense. And then I just want to make sure I'm understanding the gross margin guidance correctly. So, Jen, are you expecting an increase from the 36.8% full-year 2025 number in 2026, or are you expecting an increase from what you guys reported in the fourth quarter? Just one clarification there.

We are expecting year-over-year increase under the current tariff environment.

Okay. Got it. Fair enough. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you, Ryan.

Thanks, Ryan.

The next question is from George Stathis with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Kyle Benvenuto stepping in for George. Quick question for you. You discussed tariffs, FX, and logistics as key margin drivers, and in the past you've talked about transportation. Can you comment on whether energy costs are baked into your

margin outlook uh your margin guidance uh yes we have because this is not the first time we've seen the energy crisis like the oil crisis we've seen the um the uh 2022 the ocean freight liner the shipping ocean freight skyrocketed from fifteen hundred dollars to ten thousand dollar containers but we do not foresee uh the price will be that incrementally high we are foreseeing a little bit of an increase And, I mean, the past three months, basically, the ocean freight carrier, they've tried to increase the prices of the ocean freight costs, and for the past three times, they've failed. They went up to just merely two or three weeks, and they dropped back down. But mainly, we normally sign in a four-year agreement, which normally are signed in the month of April, which is next month we'll be able to sign that. And for... So far, the guidance is just about 10%, 15% increase year over year on the ocean freight shipping costs. And for locally domestics, diesel gases, it's been up and down throughout the year. So these have been accounted for.

Thank you, Alan. And then just one more question. In regard to the online sales, we saw some positive growth this quarter. Back in Q2, I believe you mentioned – double-digit growth potentially in the back half of this year. I guess I was just wondering what's the progress on that maybe going forward into 26 and how a little bit more detail about how that's evolving.

Thank you. Yes, no problem. We do foresee 2026 we will have a double-digit growth online because we're adding additional platform where currently we have our own Shopify store. We have Amazon. We added Cisco.com platform. We'll be adding Target.com, and there's CheneyBrothers.com, and there's other platforms we're adding a product into those platforms that will increase our sales. And also, we're driving our sales by increasing bulk sales from our own stores and our Amazon stores. What I mean bulk sales is we're encouraging customers to buy not just one cases, one pieces, but like five cases and ten cases. That increases our volume, not only volume, it increases our revenue and also profit margin because we do get a bulk discount from the carrier. If we ship more product to the same location, our shipping cost comes down. So we're optimizing that and passing that saving to the customer to increase revenue. So we do foresee that our 2026 online growth will be double-digit.

Thank you. Good luck in the quarter.

Thank you. The next question is from Joshua Axel with KTF Investments. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Alan, Jan. I hope you guys are doing well. Thank you.

I have a question for you on – or really two questions. Number one, can you expand a little bit on the demand you're seeing for the eco-friendly business, maybe outside of the paper bags? Just curious. as if you're still seeing high demand with the current environment. And then, secondly, can you comment a little bit on what you're seeing in the California market? Thank you. Sure.

First question. Demand in eco products has never dropped, and mainly on the molded fiber product and on the paperback due to regulation. And we're seeing more and more chains are moving away from styrofoam into paper products. So we're seeing more of that. The compostable product, PLA items, we also see a growth of that due to the price decrease. It used to be pretty expensive to buy a compostable PLA cup, but now as price comes down, it's become more affordable and more and more customers are actually looking to that. We're seeing newly opened restaurants are trying out with the eco-friendly product because they want to perceive themselves with the consumer as being part of the initiative to save the environment. So, I would say that more and more going to that, that's driving the demand from the consumer perspective. Now, in California market, we're seeing a slowdown in the California market overall in general. Restaurants are shutting down and it's becoming a very competitive environment. But in our aspect, our company, we're seeing a double, we have seen recently a double-digit growth in our companies. We're seeing Due to the tariff containment, some of the importers stopped importing product because they went out of business. And so it's actually driving the business to our company as well as other larger company with more inventory on hand. That's what we're seeing in the California market.

Great. Thank you both.

Thank you, Josh. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Alan Yu for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator. Thank you, everyone. It has been a wonderful quarter, and I look forward to hearing from you all in the next quarter. Thank you all. Bye-bye.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.