Lifeway Foods, Inc.

Good morning. Welcome to LifeWay Foods' fourth quarter and full year 2025 conference call. On the call with me today is Julie Smolanski, President and Chief Executive Officer.

By now, everyone should have access to the press release that went out this morning. If you have not received the release, it is available on the investor relations portion of Lifeway's website at www.lifewayfoods.com.

A recording of this call will be available on the company's website. Before we begin, We would like to remind everyone that the prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements. The words believe, expect, anticipate, plan, will, and other similar expressions generally identify forward-looking statements. These statements do not guarantee future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed on them. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. Lifeway assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking projections that may be made during today's call, except as required by law. All of the forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this call. Since our last quarterly earnings call, I'm pleased to share that LifeWay President and Chief Executive Officer Julie Smolenski was named one of Progressive Grocers' Top Women in Grocery and honored with the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Illinois Holocaust Museum. These recognitions highlight the leadership and values that guide LifeWay's continued growth and broader impact. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Lifeway's President and Chief Executive Officer, Julie Smolenski.

Thank you, John, and good morning to everyone joining us. As always, we greatly appreciate your interest in Lifeway Foods. I'm thrilled to share our exceptional fourth quarter and full year 2025 results with you today. 2025 was truly a remarkable year for Lifeway. marked by record-breaking growth, expanding margins, and operational excellence across every dimension of our business. We achieved the highest annual net sales in the company history, delivered significant growth margin expansion, and grew net income by 54%. All of this while making strategic investments in capacity, marketing, and innovation that position us extraordinarily well for the future. Before diving into the details, I want to acknowledge the exceptional work of our entire Lifeway team. The outstanding results we continue to deliver are a direct reflection of your unwavering dedication. Quarter after quarter, you all execute at the highest level, and I'm truly grateful for everything you bring to this organization. Let me start with our full year 2025 performance, which showcases the strength of our momentum and our business. We delivered record-breaking full-year net sales of $212.5 million, up 13.7% year-over-year, driven by higher volumes of our Lifeway brand and drinkable keeper, as well as strong growth in our Lifeway farmer cheese. Adjusted for two strategic modifications to customer relationships that we initiated, in late 2024 to prioritize high-value brand-strengthening opportunities, our growth was approximately 19% on a comparable basis. It is worth noting that we are lapping an incredibly strong full year in 2024 when we delivered double-digit growth in every quarter and grew nearly 17% year-over-year, which emphasizes the strength of our growth this year. This represents our sixth consecutive full year of significant volume-led annual net sales growth, a testament to the exploding customer demand for our core Lifeway offerings and the effectiveness of our marketing strategy, as well as the sustainability of our growth trajectory as we maintain our foothold as the undisputed leader and keeper. This outstanding annual performance was capped off by a very strong fourth quarter with net sales of $55.4 million, up 18% year-over-year, driven by strong volume growth of our Lifeway branded products. This was our 25th consecutive quarter of year-over-year net sales growth and gave us incredible momentum heading into 2026, which is off to a great start. Building on our powerful top-line performance, The growth flowed through the income statement as we delivered significant improvements across our core profitability metrics. Our gross profit margin for the full year was 27.4%, up 140 basis points compared to last year. This meaningful expansion reflects the strong volume growth of our core Lifeway branded products, which provided manufacturing efficiencies, that were enhanced by the ongoing investments in our Waukesha facility and the favorable impact of conventional milk pricing. We wrapped up with our fourth quarter growth profit margin of 27.8%, an impressive 250 basis points increase compared to last year. The margin expansion we achieved throughout the year demonstrates our continued disciplined operational execution and our ability to scale the business profitably. Selling, general, and administrative offenses as a percentage of net sales were 19.6% for the full year, up slightly from last year, reflecting continued investments throughout the year in marketing, sales activations, and retail expansion, all centered on growing brand recognition and driving product velocities. For the fourth quarter, SG&A as a percentage of the net sales was 20.7%, leveraging more than 200 basis points year over year. Our sales performance throughout the year clearly illustrates the success of our marketing strategy. We're driving trial, accelerating product velocity, and building deep customer loyalty in the product process while our products are flying off the shelf. We'll continue to invest behind our growth throughout 2026. Net income for the full year was $13.9 million, or $0.91 per basic and $0.89 per diluted common share. compared to $9 million or 61 cents per basic and 60 cents per diluted common share in the prior year. This represents an exceptional 54% net income growth, showcasing our ability to convert top-line strength into bottom-line results. Net income for the fourth quarter was $2.5 million or 17 cents per basic and 16 cents per diluted common share compared to a net loss of $0.2 million or a net loss of 1 cent per basic and diluted common share in the prior year. Like the full year results, the swing to meaningful profitability in Q4 demonstrates the strength of our business model and our commitment to operational excellence while we invest for growth. Our outstanding performance in 2025 was driven by several key factors that will continue to power us forward as we look to the future. First, the demand for protein-rich probiotic functional foods shows no sign of slowing down. Today's consumer is focused on health and wellness more than ever before, and they're actively learning about the gut's critical role in their well-being. Additionally, the prevalence of Americans on GLP-1s is surging, with significant uptake projected in the coming years. particularly with the new oral GLP-1 format and active GLP-1 users are consistently seeking out nutrient-dense foods that support gut health. LifeWay is perfectly positioned at the intersection of these powerful consumer trends. I am particularly excited to highlight the recent validation we've received from the U.S. government. The newly released Dietary Guidelines for Americans specifically named Kiefer and emphasized the importance of fermented foods and gut health. Full-fat dairy was included in the new USDA food pyramid, and kefir was mentioned in the supplemental materials. This is an incredible opportunity for Lifeway as our products are completely aligned with those new dietary guidelines. The government's validation of fermented dairy, kefir, and gut health is not just an endorsement of our category. It's an endorsement of everything Lifeway has been advocating for decades. This is a tailwind for our business, and it will only accelerate if consumers become more educated about the critical role that cultured dairy plays in overall wellness. The performance of our staples, Lifeway Drinkable Keeper and Lifeway Farmer's Cheese, highlight our company's perfect position in today's CPG landscape. Our Drinkable Keeper is the significant bellwether of our business, and it continues to drive trial and generate awareness for the entire keeper category. I'd also like to spotlight Farmer Cheese, as our investment behind the cult favorite continues to pay off. In the fourth quarter, we expanded Lifeway Farmer's Cheese distribution to 2,000 Walmart stores nationwide, a game-changing milestone that dramatically increases our footprint and trial. This product is becoming a star among high-protein foods and is well-positioned to lead the trends in functional nutrition by supporting not just gut health, but also the hormonal mechanisms like GLP-1s, that underpin satiation and metabolic regulation. Our retail partnerships remain very strong, and our dialogue with key partners is consistent as we continue to land incremental distribution opportunities across the channels that make sense for Lifeway. Notably, we recently extended our rotation at Costco in the San Diego region, maintaining our momentum with a key club partner. We launched a number of on-trend innovations in 2025, which have resonated with our customers and their evolving taste. Our probiotic smoothies with collagen continue to perform well, attracting shoppers in a growing global market for collagen. Muscle Mates will soon roll out in grocery stores, fitness centers, and select retails nationwide. And it is meeting growing consumer demand for performance-driven functional beverages while attracting shoppers from the growing U.S. creatine market. Most recently, drawing on our decades of cultured dairy expertise, we launched LifeWake Kefir Butter, a probiotic cultured butter that pairs indulgent flavors with functional nutrition, answering consumer demand for premium butter that excels in taste, texture, and versatility. Butter is experiencing renewed momentum across retail, food service, and culture, both in the U.S. and globally. Consumers today feel more comfortable enjoying high-quality dairy fat again. and retailers are responding. These shifts have opened meaningful white space, and the Lively Keefer Butter is perfectly positioned to capitalize on this trend. A couple weeks ago at Expo West, we showcased both Muscle Mates and Keefer Butter and received extremely enthusiastic consumer and retail reactions. I'm also pleased to announce a new supply agreement and our first-ever licensing deal and royalty agreement with Open Farms, which will source ingredients from Lifeway for a new premium pet food product called Good Gut. This partnership introduces LifeWay to an entirely new category where we can bring our decades of expertise in cultured dairy and probiotics to pet nutrition. For years, pet owners have trusted LifeWay as part of their own wellness routines and have even shared our keeper with their pets while we've continued supporting the pet community through conventions, animal welfare initiatives, and relationships with leading pet nutrition experts, including certified canine nutritionist, Kyla Kowalski. Good Gut is a natural extension of that relationship created in response to consumers asking for a probiotic specifically formulated for their pet. We see this as a strong start to our expansion into new categories that can help grow awareness and revenue with no extra cost to Lifeway. Throughout 2025, we also continue to build brand awareness and drive trial through strategic partnership and experiential marketing that introduces Lifeway to new consumers. Following successful partnerships with Joe and the Juice and Erewhon, we launched a limited edition Lifeway probiotic sunrise smoothie with Drugstore in November. We also partnered with Barry's to launch their Lifeway Power Play Shake at Barry's Fuel Bar locations nationwide in conjunction with their Find Your Strength Challenge. The shake, which featured organic plain whole milk kefir, delivers a protein and probiotic-packed boost to energize workouts and support recovery. This partnership ran through Barry's Find Your Strength Challenge and will continue this summer with the Kiefer Smoothie Bowl Bar at Barry's Hampton Studios. These experiential retail partnerships introduce Lifeway to new consumers in innovative settings and reinforce our position as a lifestyle brand, not just a product in the dairy case, and brings influencers to create exciting content for social media. In stores, we continue to be strategic with our marketing dollars, successfully accelerating sales with prominent in-store programs that capture consumer attention at interruptive moments throughout their shopping journey. Digitally, we are propelling Lifeway into the center of viral moments. Across social platforms, millions of users engage with Lifeway, and many share authentic customer stories about their daily wellness benefits they gain from our products. We continue to expand our influencer partnerships through 2025 to drive awareness of our product offerings and expand consumer knowledge of Lifeway's health benefits and showcase recipes with Lifeway Kiefer and Farmer's Cheese. We'll continue to push forward with our marketing strategy in 2026 to sustain the outstanding momentum we have achieved in the past number of years. And you can see that in our latest advertising campaign with Chicago's Bear Stars, Colson Loveland and DeAndre Swift. This campaign debuted in early February ahead of the big game and was designed to highlight our market-leading protein forward keeper, generating significant buzz across all social channels. In addition to our category-defining performance, 2025 was also a year of tremendous industry recognition for Lifeway, validating our significant growth trajectory. We were recognized by Time as one of America's growth leaders for 2026, specifically number two in the food and beverage space. We were named to Inc's 2025 Best in Business list in the Best Challenger Brand category. We were honored as Processor of the Year by Dairy Foods. These accolades reflect the hard work and dedication of our entire team. Looking ahead to 2026, we have a lot to be excited about, and we're already off to a great start. Our Waukesha facility expansion continues to progress as planned, and we recently celebrated the ribbon-cutting for phase two of our $45 million Waukesha expansion. We're on track to double our manufacturing capacity, increase operational efficiencies, expand production hours and staffing, and solidify the Midwest position as a global hub of keeper production. Phase two, which is on target for completion by the end of 2026, focuses on installing a state-of-the-art cooling system to support our fermentation and bottling operations. We also have recently strengthened our operations and supply chain teams with new talent that bring deep expertise in dairy industry and will help us continue scaling efficiency as the business grows. Our momentum continues to build as we drive sustainable, profitable growth across the business. We have laid a foundation for durable, long-term value creation, and the investments we're making today in capacity, marketing, and innovation positions us exceptionally well to capitalize on the tremendous opportunities ahead. With our improving production capabilities and accelerating tailwinds behind consumer health and wellness, We're perfectly situated to sustain the remarkable momentum we have generated. We are reiterating our long-term target of $45 to $50 million in adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year 2027, and we are once again poised to deliver record-breaking sales in fiscal year 2026. Before closing, I'd like to take a moment to proudly celebrate Lifeway's 40th anniversary. For 40 years, Lifeway has been driven by a passion for cultured dairy and the powerful role it plays in modern wellness. We've grown a dream my father had when we immigrated to America into the category leader we are today. Lifeway truly symbolizes the American dream and our authenticity and heritage are priceless. To wrap up, 2025 was truly a phenomenal year for Lifeway. We delivered record-breaking sales, significant growth margin expansion, and exceptional net income growth. We have built incredible momentum that is only accelerating as we progress through this new year. We have the right team in place, are executing at the highest level, and I'm confident in our ability to sustain these outstanding results. We remain committed to our mission of bringing best-in-class, bioavailable, probiotic, and nutritious foods to our loyal and growing customer base and look forward to updating you on continued progress when we report our first quarter 2026 results. Have a wonderful day. Thank you.