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spk10: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bell Ring Brands fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jennifer Meyer, Investor and Relations for Bellring.
spk00: Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Bellring Brand's fourth quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call. With me today are Darcy Davenport, our president and CEO, and Paul Rode, our CFO. Darcy and Paul will begin with prepared remarks, and afterwards we'll have a brief question and answer session. Press release and supplemental slide presentation that support these remarks are posted on our website in both the investor relations and the FCC filing section at bellring.com. In addition, the release and slides are available on the FCC's website. Before we continue, I would like to remind you that this call will contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties that should be carefully considered by investors as actual results could differ materially from these statements. These forward-looking statements are current as of the date of this call and management undertakes no obligation to update these statements. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and an audio replay will be available on our website. And finally, this call will discuss certain non-GAAP measures. For reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP measure, see our press release issued yesterday and posted on our website. With that, I will turn the call over to Darcy.
spk06: Thanks, Jennifer, and thank you all for joining us. Last evening, we reported our fourth quarter and fiscal 23 results and posted a supplemental presentation to our website. Fiscal 23 was a fantastic year for Bellring Brands. Our net sales grew 22% with adjusted EBITDA of 25%. As I reflect on the year, there are three things that stood out to me. The first, is the expanding growth opportunity of this category, specifically the segments that we compete in, ready to drink shakes and ready to mix powders. Both segments have experienced double-digit growth in each of the last three years. Low household penetration combined with strong macro trends highlights a long path of growth. Second, the power and the future potential of our brands. This year we saw tremendous growth on Premier Protein and Dymatize, both reaching new highs across many key metrics. Premier Protein demonstrated strong resilience as it quickly regained the PDPs and households lost in prior years during our capacity constraints. This shows the unbelievable consumer and retailer excitement around this brand, which will help fuel future growth. Third, I've been blown away by our organization. It is hard to manage a high growth business with limited supply. It is a heavy load on all functions to optimize supply and demand, especially operations and sales. Despite this added pressure, our organization is stronger than ever, a reflection of the amazing people and our unique culture. We still have work to do, but are well positioned for a strong 24 and beyond. Now to Q4. I'm pleased to share our results came in at the high end of our expectations. Net sales grew 25% over prior year and adjusted EBITDA was up 23%. Significant production growth allowed us to restart light shake promotions this quarter. We gained meaningful new shelf space on both Premier Protein and Diamond Ties and our relaunched shake flavors and seasonal offerings continued to drive incremental sales. Moving to shake production. In fiscal 23, we made notable progress to grow and diversify our shake supply. Our production grew 17% over fiscal 22, modestly above our expectations. We added two co-mans this year, which continue to scale up. And our second greenfield facility, Michael Foods, will start up in December. They will be a much larger contributor to our second half of fiscal 24 and beyond. Over the past two years, we have transformed our Shake Conan network. We have partnered with the biggest and most reputable players in the aseptic low-acid industry. We now have a scalable, regionally diverse supply chain, which will enable many years of robust growth. Now to the category and brand updates. The convenient nutrition category grew 9% in Q4 as tailwinds around health and wellness and fitness continued to drive growth. Consumer interest in functional beverages and sports nutrition products continues to be high. Ready to drink led the category at 21%, and ready to mix grew 11%. Increased supply and distribution gains are lifting ready to drink growth, while increased marketing is boosting both segments. Premier protein shake consumption accelerated this quarter, up 36%. Growth was tremendous across all channels, driven by improved supply, which allowed us to restart light promotion and expand distribution. The highest growth was in mass and e-commerce, benefiting from our expanded range of flavors and higher in-stock levels. Additionally, e-commerce and club both saw strong growth behind promotional activity. Our fall seasonal flavor, pumpkin spice, demonstrated an impressive 90% incrementality to the brand. Q4 trends continued into October with shake consumption of 27% with volume driving two-thirds of this growth. Our brand metrics reflect our building momentum as Premier Protein reached all-time highs in TDPs and market share. Shake TDPs grew 11% versus Q3 behind distribution gains and relaunched shake flavors. Premier Protein RTD market share reached 21%, maintaining its position as the number one brand in the RTD segment, as well as the number one brand in the broader convenient nutrition category. Premier Protein household penetration added one percentage point versus Q3, reaching over 16% of households. Our household penetration continues to be the highest in the category, with this quarter's growth driven by promotions and distribution gains. Our repeat and buy rates are holding steady, demonstrating our consumer loyalty. According to our most recent brand equity study, Premier Protein remains the number one brand I love and net promoter score in the RTD category. We are very encouraged by all of these achievements, even though we still haven't restarted meaningful marketing and promotion. Premier Protein saw great success this year in other forms, showing the power of the brand. In Q4, Premier Protein powders remained strong, growing over 50% behind new distribution and strong velocities. It reached over $50 million in net sales this year, and we expect robust growth in 24 as we invest behind marketing programs to drive awareness. In addition to powder, our licensing strategy continues to perform well. Although not a significant revenue driver, we are encouraged that the brand has seen success in other high-traffic aisles. Turning to Dymatize, the brand had a great quarter with consumption up 38%. We saw double-digit growth in nearly all channels driven by distribution gains and incremental promotion. Consumption growth continued into October with the brand up 23%. Dymatize continues to have success in mainstream channels with both PDPs and household penetration reaching new highs this quarter. Encouragingly, as Dymatize adds new households and distribution points, Repeat and buy rates are holding steady. In fiscal 24, we are launching a new marketing campaign to continue the momentum and drive awareness and new users to Dymatize. Before reviewing our outlook, I want to give our point of view on GLP-1 weight loss medications. Our proprietary research indicates consumers most likely to adopt GLP-1s are currently light users of protein shakes, but will become heavy users once on the medication. These individuals have reduced total caloric intake but actually need more protein to mitigate muscle loss and certain other side effects. Products like Premier Protein are perfect because they are delicious, compact size, high protein nutrition, giving these individuals what they need without making them feel overly full. Research also indicates that once on the medication, consumers start exercising more and choosing healthier food and beverage options. ultimately increasing the demand for convenient and sports nutrition products. After our initial phase of research, we believe our current products and growth strategies are already well aligned with this opportunity. They are great complements to GLPs while consumers are on the medication and a perfect nutrition solution when people decide to stop taking the drugs to maintain the weight loss benefits. We have begun our next phase of research to better understand this consumer and how we can serve them on this important health journey. In 24, we plan to test media platforms and create it to determine the strongest, most effective strategies and tactics to reach these consumers. We are encouraged by the early results of these medications and feel that they strengthen the already strong macro trends behind our category and specifically our business. Now to our outlook. As you saw in yesterday's press release, we expect fiscal 24 net sales to grow between 10 and 15% and adjusted EBITDA to grow between 6 and 15%. At the midpoint, this guidance is on the high side of our long-term algorithm in both net sales growth and adjusted EBITDA margin. As a reminder, our algorithm in net sales growth is between 10 to 12% with EBITDA margins of between 18 and 20%. Our plan reflects strong volume growth for both Premier Protein and Dymatize and the restart of shake promotions in the second quarter. We plan to step up marketing on shakes in Q4, which is when we expect to hit our target weeks of supply. The demand and supply dynamics remain tight for most of the year, and we will continue to be nimble so we can navigate effectively. In closing, I'm thrilled with our performance this year. We continue to gain momentum in every part of our business. Strong macro trends are driving sustained long-term growth in our categories. Premier Protein and Dymatize continue to reach new consumers and maintain all-time high market share positions. Our flavor strategy is working, and our innovation pipeline is rich, enabling us to bring excitement to consumers and retail partners. Last, we are moving forward on our shakes capacity plan to support our future growth. Before passing over to Paul, I'm sure most of you have heard that Rob Vitale, our Executive Chairman, is currently on medical leave. We have been in close contact with him over the last several weeks. We wish him and his family the best throughout his recovery and we'll be excited to have him back at full strength soon. I will now turn the call over to Paul.
spk07: Thanks, Darcy, and good morning, everyone. As Darcy highlighted, our fourth quarter results came in at the high end of our expectations. Net sales for the quarter were $473 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $99 million. Net sales grew 25% over prior year, and adjusted EBITDA increased 23%, with adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.8%. Starting with brand performance, rare protein net sales grew 30%, with volume growing 21%. In Q4, our shake production increased meaningfully over prior year, which allowed us to restart modest shake promotions, driving growth. Volumes also benefited from the relaunch of temporarily discontinued flavors, performance of our seasonal offerings, and strong growth from Premier powders. Net pricing for Premier protein grew 9%, reflecting the October 2022 price increase. Shake consumption dollars grew 36%, outpacing shipment growth of 29%. The latter was modestly impacted by the lapping of a trade inventory build in the prior year. Diametized net sales were relatively flat this quarter as the brand faced a tough prior year comparable. Recall last year's Q4 had heavy trade inventory build in the international domestic specialty channels. This headwind, combined with continued weakness in the specialty channel, was offset by strong growth in domestic mainstream channels driven by distribution gains and organic growth. Gross profit of $155 million grew 27%, with an increase in gross profit margin of 60 basis points to 32.9%. The margin increase resulted from improved pricing that mitigated input cost inflation. This was partially offset by incremental promotional activity. Excluding one-time cost in the prior year period, SG&A expenses as a percentage of net sales increased 40 basis points, half of which was driven by higher marketing spend. Operating profit of $78 million increased $17 million compared to prior year and was negatively impacted by $7 million of accelerated amortization. This was a non-cash expense recorded in connection with our decision to discontinue the Power Bar North American business and was treated as an adjustment for non-GAAP measures. We expect the remaining $17 million of non-cash accelerated amortization to be recorded in the first quarter. Our international Power Bar business is unaffected by this decision and continues to grow. Turning to full year 2023 results, net sales were approximately $1.7 billion, up 22% over the prior year, with gross profit of $530 million, growing 26%. Gross profit margins increased 100 basis points over 2022, driven by pricing actions that mitigated input cost inflation, along with favorable freight rates. SG&A expenses were $216 million, and excluding one-time items, increased 60 basis points as a percentage of net sales. Higher marketing spend drove the increase as our marketing spend in fiscal 22 was exceptionally low. We saw modest leverage on our remaining G&A base. Just as EBITDA increased 25% to $338 million with a margin of 20.3%, an increase of 50 basis points. Before reviewing our outlook, I'd like to make a few comments on cash flow and liquidity. We generated $85 million in cash flow from operations in the fourth quarter and $216 million for the year. In fiscal 23, net working capital declined slightly despite our strong top line growth. In fiscal 24, our net working capital growth will moderately exceed our net sales growth rate as we add weeks of shake supply. As a result, our cash flow in fiscal 24 will be modestly lower than fiscal 23. During the quarter, we repaid $54 million against our revolving credit facility. As of September 30, net debt was $817 million and net leverage was 2.4 times. With our EBITDA growth and strong cash flow generation, we anticipate net leverage to fall under two times by the end of fiscal 24. With respect to our share repurchases this quarter, we bought 200,000 shares at an average price of $39.20 per share, or $8 million in total. For the fiscal year, we repurchased 4.2 million shares at an average price of $29.56 per share, or $125 million in total. Our remaining share repurchase authorization is $23 million. Turning to our outlook, we expect fiscal 24 net sales of 1.83 to 1.91 billion and adjusted EBITDA of 360 to 390 million. Our guidance implies strong top line growth of 10 to 15% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 6 to 15% with healthy adjusted EBITDA margins of 20% at the midpoint. We expect dollar and percentage growth for both measures to be weighted to the first half of the year. From a brand perspective, We expect double-digit sales growth for both Premier Protein and Dymatize, driven primarily by volume gains and continued category tailwinds. Key drivers of Premier Protein's volume growth include increased promotional activity, distribution gains, and the first half benefit of our relaunched flavors. Organic growth and distribution gains are the primary volume drivers for Dymatize. We expect fiscal 24 adjusted EBITDA margins to be largely in line with fiscal 23, with increased gross margins offset by higher SG&A. Gross margins are expected to benefit from favorable input costs, notably in the first half of the year, offset partially by higher promotional activity. Investments behind our brands, including promotional marketing spend, are expected to skew higher in both the second and fourth quarters. Turning to our first quarter forecast, we expect low double-digit net sales growth compared to a year ago. We expect strong growth from dime ties as it has an easier prior year comparable, lapping a trade inventory deload in the international domestic specialty channels. Premier protein sales growth is expected to be in the high single digits as we lap a prior year trade inventory build, which we estimate to be a low double digit headwind to Premier's growth rate. As a result, we expect consumption growth to outpace net sales growth as we lap this headwind. Consumption growth will also benefit from higher net pricing as price increases at retail lagged our October 22 price increase on shakes. We expect first quarter adjusted EBITDA margins to be similar to prior year as higher SG&A as percentage of net sales is offset by higher gross margins. Gross margins are expected to benefit from lower protein costs offset partially by increased promotional spend and other input cost inflation. In closing, we are encouraged with our strong performance in fiscal 23. Our momentum continues to grow, and we are excited about our prospects in fiscal 24. I will now turn it over to the operator for questions.
spk10: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Andrew Lazar with Barclays. You may proceed. Great. Thanks so much.
spk12: Darcy, you know, in your third quarter earnings call, you provided initial 24 guidance to be at the high end of your long-term algorithm on sales and EBITDA margins. And today you provided a range for guidance, which, as you said, at the midpoint correlates to that. There is a wider range, particularly on EBITDA. that you provided, and I guess my question is just, you know, does that indicate something's maybe changed in your confidence in the outlook? It doesn't seem that way from all the metrics you provided, but if so, maybe you could get into some of the key factors, or maybe I'm just reading too much into the range that you provided.
spk06: Yeah, there's been no change in our confidence. I think that, yeah, I wouldn't read too much into the slightly expanded range in EBITDA.
spk12: And then, Paul, I think pricing, I think, was expected to be somewhat lower year over year in shakes in 24, just in light of the move in dairy protein costs. I guess, what sort of magnitude should we expect around pricing in Premier Protein? And have you seen any shifts in sort of competitive behavior along these lines that may have impacted your initial thinking on the shape pricing will likely take in 24? Thanks so much.
spk07: Yeah, we had planned in 24 to get back to a more normal cadence of promotion. And so that would obviously drive a pricing headwind for the year. So we're calling for a low to mid single digit headwind on pricing to net sales growth. As far as competitive dynamic, I wouldn't say anything's dramatically changed. We've actually seen some competitors take pricing higher. Because keep in mind, it's not just protein costs. We're seeing those, obviously, we're expecting those to come down in fiscal 24, but we're also seeing inflation across a lot of the other input costs, including packaging and manufacturing costs. So while net we expect to be somewhat favorable from an overall cost perspective, there are other things going the other direction.
spk12: Great. Thank you so much.
spk07: Thanks, Andrew.
spk10: Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from David Palmer with Evercore. You may proceed.
spk08: Thank you. Just a question on some of the data that you're showing us here on Premier Protein Ready to Drink shakes. On slide 9, you talk about the shipments being in line with consumption or roughly in line with consumption the last couple of quarters, but the all-channel consumption outpaced your shipped dollars by eight points and six points respectively the last two quarters. I'm wondering, you know, maybe give us a sense of what's going on there. And do you expect that negative price mix gap to all channel consumption to continue in the next couple quarters?
spk07: Yeah, there's a couple of things going on there. So for one, As you go into fiscal 24, particularly in Q1 and even into Q2, we did see, and I mentioned this in my prepared remarks, that we're seeing a lag in retailers taking price on shelf. So we took a price increase on our shakes in October of 22. So as we get to Q1, we've now fully lapped. pricing from a shipments perspective, but for the consumption growth that's still benefiting from a high single-digit growth kind of into the first quarter, and we expect that to continue a bit into the second quarter. Some retailers just didn't fully reflect price until later. In the fourth quarter in particular, We are lapping a trade inventory build in the Q4 last year. So that is really the main reason between the difference between consumption outpacing shipment growth in Q4. But as we go into Q1 and Q2, it's more about the pricing element there.
spk08: And then just on the capacity increase that Michaels is bringing on in December heading into calendar 24, is that about 10% in Q2? do on is all signs there that consumption should go up with that capacity that basically retailers are buying everything they can get from you guys. And thank you.
spk06: Yeah, ultimately, from Michael's Yeah, I mean, it will be about 10%. But that's going to take some time to scale up. So I mentioned that We're, you know, December we should start up, but it won't be until the back half that really it'll be a, you know, more of a contributor to our sales, but But you're absolutely right, yes. You know, we need that volume to be able to feel comfortable to build our inventory and start marketing. We should be good, as I mentioned, we'll be starting promotion in Q2 and then looking at, from a premier Tetra standpoint, looking at starting marketing in Q4.
spk08: Great, thank you.
spk06: Thank you.
spk10: Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Ken Goldman with JPMorgan. You may proceed.
spk11: Hi. Thank you very much. I just wanted to build on Andrew's question if I could. And Darcy, you were quite clear that nothing's changed in your outlook or your confidence in the business. But, you know, the EBIT dollar spread sort of from high to low in guidance is is higher than what you've typically done in the past. And I didn't know if there was a specific reason for that. And I guess kind of more importantly, you know, maybe we could get a little bit of sense from you about, you know, what the key drivers would be that would lead that number to come in toward the upside or toward the downside. I mean, obviously, you know, no one has a crystal ball, but just as you kind of think of what you're most excited about and what you're most concerned about, but what some of the risks might be that you think are more important to call out. I'm just curious what those might be for this year.
spk06: Sure, yeah. So why don't I start just with net sales. So the biggest factor that would, you know, force us to go to the high or the low side is really production. So it's the timing of our production scale up, as you might expect. Other factors are response to promotion, you know, competition. you know, also the overall economy. But the biggest one from a net sales perspective is the timing of the production scale up. When you think of EBITDA, obviously net sales is the major factor and that would just flow through. And then protein mix and freight rates could also push us up or down. Paul, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about some of the fluctuations within
spk07: protein but again that I wouldn't I really wouldn't read too much into the slightly expanded EBITDA range yeah from a from a protein perspective we have good line of sight really through the first half of the year into the third quarter so you know I think it's still still kind of wait and see how the protein cost there's been some fluctuations on the milk protein side And then on whey protein, which is our primary input for our powder business, we have seen some tightness in that market recently, which likely will start to affect our second half. The question there is if that's a temporary blip or if it stays at an elevated rate. But we have seen some fluctuations there. But to Darcy's point, the wider range is just more of a reflection of our growth versus really anything fundamentally changing from how we're thinking about fiscal 24.
spk11: I'll pass it on. Thank you.
spk10: Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Pamela Kaufman with Morgan Stanley. You may proceed.
spk01: Hi. Good morning. Good morning. I have a follow-up question on your production capacity. I think you previously indicated that it would be up around 20% year-on-year in fiscal 24. Is that still fair? And then in addition to Michael's capacity, is there additional production that you're bringing online? And then what is the visibility into production expansion beyond this year?
spk06: Yes, we feel good about the 20% plus. And the growth slightly skews to the second half, and that's just a factor of the startup from Michael Foods. If you break down the production growth for 24, about 40% of it is coming from new commands in 24, so new ads that we're adding in 24. About 40% of the growth is coming from lapping the 23 ads. and then about 20% is coming from just additional volume from our existing. So that gives you kind of a flavor for the growth that we're bringing on this year. I think you asked, Pam, what other facilities or partners are coming on this year. So in addition to Michael Foods, we have two existing partners that are adding capacity. So some of our existing partners adding a line, basically. And then your last question about looking forward on adding capacity, we have in our visibility. So currently, because of how much capacity we added this year, last year, and this year, we will get the benefit of kind of a full year and as they get up to kind of their run rate, the expected run rate. So we actually, we do long-range planning every, twice a year or if anything fundamentally changes. So our long-range planning are five years out now. And currently we're looking that we, we think that we will need additional capacity in bringing on late 25, 26, and into 27. So that's our current, and so we are already talking to all of our partners and figuring out who we're going to partner with to expand the capacity.
spk01: Great, thank you. And then also thanks for sharing your thoughts on how you're thinking about the impact from GLP-1 drugs on the business. And it's consistent with our research on the benefits to higher protein and weight management foods. But can you elaborate on your initiative to target these consumers and how do you plan to identify them?
spk06: I mean, as you know, Pam, it's still early. So I think in general, we're very encouraged by the results. of the drugs, just for society, but also for our category and our business. But we are in learning mode. So we did kind of our initial research, mining the data. We're now adding some additional research. We had already started, we did a pretty thorough study around consumers and how they approach kind of weight wellness and now we're adding to that so we're going to we need to better understand what these consumers needs and their journey how they get information and then we're going to test media to determine the best way to reach these consumers so whether it's you know outreach to support communities to partner with etc so I don't want to go into too much detail but Suffice to say, we are definitely digging in and better understanding, and it'll be this year doing a lot of testing and learning and further understanding kind of their health journey.
spk01: Thanks. I'll pass it on.
spk10: Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Matt Smith with Stiefel. You may proceed.
spk09: Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask about promotional events timing through the year. Can you talk about the timing of your planned activity? You called out investments in 2Q and 4Q, and I guess when we think about the large promotional events, to the extent that there will be timing differences between consumption and shipments beyond 1Q, that would be helpful.
spk06: Sure, Matt. Yeah, so Q2 will be – so remember, Q1 is – kind of a seasonally low period. So no promotions or very few promotions in marketing. Q2 is where in the category most new users are entering into the category. So that's when we will have promotions on both Premier and Dymatize. We will also be launching for Dymatize a new media campaign in Q2 along with some media on Premier Powder. When you go to Q3, extension of the media campaign on Dymatize. And then in Q4, we will have promotions on the Premier Protein full brand. And our plan right now is to launch a national marketing campaign in Q4. Again, barring capacity. So that is kind of when you look at the marketing and promotional calendar for 24 as it sits today. In regards to where there will be kind of promotional loads, I think one encouraging piece is that we will have, I think, in Q2, one of our major club promotions is little bit later in the order in q2 so there won't there shouldn't be a massive difference between you know where you have a load in in one quarter and consumption in the next it will mostly be in the same quarter versus you know when back in kind of 21 when we are doing big promotions I don't Paul is there anything else that where we're going to see a big change between shipments and consumption?
spk07: No, if you look at consumption and shipment volumes, we're expecting those to be largely tracked throughout the year. To Darcy's point, we're not expecting any major loads, deloads. We are lapping in our first quarter a trade inventory deload which is, or actually a load, I should say. So it's actually a headwind in the first quarter. So I wanted to point that out. But that also, we also had a deload in the second quarter last year, which also benefits our, which should be a tailwind to our second quarter. So those are the only two pieces. But from a true consumption volume versus shipment volume, we expect them to largely track in fiscal 24 by quarter.
spk09: Thank you. And as a follow-up, if we take a step back and we think about the level of promotional activity behind Premier Protein Shakes and the rest of the business in fiscal 24, is this still just a step towards getting back to a full investment level? Or would you consider this year, once you get through the first quarter, kind of representative of the level of promotional activity that you think you need behind the two brands?
spk06: It will largely be on track, I would say. I think we've communicated this before, but back in 21, I think we were a bit heavy on promotion. I think we were doing up to three major promotions a year. I think what we've learned over the last couple years is that we were probably subsidizing a fair amount of volume. So as we move forward in 24 and beyond, I think we are getting back to the level that we think is appropriate for our business without subsidizing a lot of volume. So I would say 24 is representative.
spk09: Thank you, Darcy. I'll pass it on. Thank you.
spk10: One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Jim Solero with Stevens. You may proceed.
spk03: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking our question. Josh, I wanted to ask, you had touched on the benefit from having some temporarily discontinued flavors come back online. Could you just offer some color around, does that represent an opportunity to bring incremental households back to the brand that may be are more focused on a specific flavor? And so if their flavor's not available, they don't shop Premier? Or is it more represent just increased buy rate where a consumer's likely to buy both their plain vanilla flavor and then their preferred flavor?
spk06: Yeah, Jim, it's really both. So you saw a bump up in household penetration in the supplemental presentation that we have on our website. You saw a bump up about a point in household penetration. It's a combination of we did start light promotion in the quarter, and so that was part of it, but it's also partially bringing back those paused flavors. So, and those are people that, you know, they, you know, really like cinnamon roll, for instance. And so, they were waiting for it. So, absolutely, it's a combination. And in addition, so both by rate as well as household pens.
spk03: And this might be too early for you guys to have an answer on this yet, given that the national marketing campaign is towards the end of the year. But do you have a sense of kind of what the messaging is going to be there? Is it really to kind of communicate use occasions to consumers? So it's more like to grow the category? Or is it something specific for Premier?
spk06: So I'll talk about both. So we plan to have a new campaign on both of our brands. Since Dymatize starts in Q2, I have more information on that than I do on the premier side of things we're still working on. Obviously, we have our strategy. So first on Dymatize, very excited about the campaign. It's a stronger creative that really is going to differentiate versus the rest of the competitive set around its premium positioning and science-backed aspect, which is really why consumers pick Dymatize. It's because it's a super premium, high-quality, kind of the highest-quality science-backed brand, and so we're really hitting on that in our new campaign. On Premier, Our strategy from a marketing standpoint has always been to use our consumers to communicate why they love the brand so much. So it's super authentic. It's been very effective for the brand. So it's a combination of that as well as communicating the amazing taste. So I don't expect us to... to change from that overall strategy, but the teams are working hard to figure out what the right angle is for the Q4 campaign.
spk10: Great. I'll hop back in the queue. Thank you.
spk06: Thanks.
spk10: Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Matt McGinley with Needham. You may proceed.
spk14: Thank you. So for the higher marketing spend this year, I think you were targeting something like three or 4% this year versus the two and a half percent of sales you spent last year. Is that three to 4% in marketing still the right range or do you have that tighter than that now? And is the critical decision point, you made a couple of comments around how you would spend it. Is the critical decision point more around the production or is it more around the effectiveness of the TQ advertising campaign that you would then kind of ramp to spend into the fourth quarter if you really got good results from what happens earlier in the year.
spk07: Yeah, Darcy, I'll take the first question. You can take the second part of the question. Yeah, we are modeling our marketing spend to be in kind of the 3% to 3.5% range. We don't think we'll get to 4%. That is more likely as we go forward with our full production capacity going. But we'll be in that 3% to 3.5% range is our expectation for 24%.
spk06: Yeah, your second part of the question, I just want to be clear. So we are supporting, fully supporting in marketing the parts of the business where we have capacity. So think of we are fully supporting Dymatize, Premier Protein Powder, our Premier Bottles, What we are waiting on from a marketing perspective until Q4 is really the Tetra side of the business on Premier Protein, and that is purely a reflection of capacity. We just need to make sure that we have the capacity and we have the right level of inventory that we can support it from a marketing perspective and see the lift.
spk14: That makes sense. And with the debt repayments that you made on your revolver last year and into this one, you have a zero balance. And I don't believe you can call your senior notes until a couple of years out. I think in the prepared remarks, it sounded like working capital would be more of an investment this year, but you'd still probably be building cash over the course of this year. Do you expect share repurchase to become more of a priority this year, or does it make sense to sit on larger cash balances this year to, you know, I guess to have some dry powder if you see opportunities that present themselves.
spk07: Yeah, in 24, we expect to continue to look at share repurchases as a primary use of our capital. I would say that in 23, we actually, we bought back 125 million shares. I wouldn't say it was light in 23 as well, but as we go into 24, to your point, we could build cash, but share repurchases and being opportunistic there is the more likely use of our capital. Okay.
spk10: Thank you. Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Brian Spillane with Bank of America. You may proceed.
spk02: Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. So I guess two kind of follow ups. One, I think Matt asked earlier about, you know, is our promotion level this year kind of normalized? What about can you comment also on just marketing and Darcy? I guess I was thinking back, you know, you've had, you know, capacity spend a limitation in, you know, for a while on and off. And so you, I think my impression is maybe restrain marketing spend a bit. So now that you have more capacity and we're looking at this year, is this a normal year or would you expect that you have more capacity again, assuming demand continues to increase that marketing, whether it's an absolute dollars or percentage of sales, you know, how would that evolve with having more production?
spk06: Yeah, from a marketing perspective, it is not a normal year. So we would, because we're really starting, like I said, we are supporting the size of the business that we have capacity. So normal year for Dymatize, Premier Protein Powder, bottles, but on the Tetra side of the business, which is really the bulk of the Premier Protein business, we are only marketing, we are planning to only market in Q4. So getting into 25, we would absolutely be spending and probably our biggest spend would be Q2. The reason why we're not doing Q2 this year is capacity and the last thing we want to do. And we're pushing promotion first and then marketing in the back half. So I think 25 will be more of a normal marketing year for the entire business, because we'll have all of our green fields up to, you know, fully scaled up, and we'll be able to really drive the business.
spk02: Okay. And then my second, my other follow-up is just to Pam's question around GLP-1s, and I guess I was hearing it and listening to the prepared remark. One question is just in terms of research, it sounds like what you're doing is a lot of consumer research, but Will you do any like product formulation research or anything that might be able to connect the efficacy of Premier to, you know, patients on GLP-1s and tied to that, kind of like what we see in infant formula? Is there the potential to market to doctors and nutritionists, right, to sort of, you know, promote the efficacy of the product and helping people on that weight loss journey?
spk06: Yeah. So first, the exciting news is that we don't have to do much. I mean, our products are very well formulated, positioned, and already resonating with GLP users. I mean, you can go on social media and you see our brand pop up kind of on Reddit and Facebook feeds, et cetera. However, I think that – and I would also say that – We have experience marketing to certain groups where certain specific kind of medical needs, and we do it in a way that doesn't change our overall brand positioning, but we do it in a very kind of specific way surgical way, which I think is how we would do this. And so we have some experience there. We just want to figure out the right place to communicate. Your last question around, you know, would we go after doctors, et cetera, we have some experience there, and the answer is possibly. I think our experience would say that doctors really have no interest in communicating, you know, what products people use, but some of the support groups or nurses or dieticians do. and so we'll see again this is a different it's a different um product it's a it's a different kind of health journey so we want to really understand it so we can do it the right way and then from a the last question around product formulation um you know absolutely it's part of what we're evaluating remember it this is early um so we want to better understand you know the nutrition that they're missing we know that that um, when you were on these drugs that you do lose more muscle mass. So we know protein is important. Um, so kind of check that box. Um, there are other areas if there's some micronutrients that are potentially lost, those are things that we need to learn and we plan to.
spk02: All right. Thanks, Darcy. Happy Thanksgiving.
spk06: Thank you. You too.
spk10: Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from John Baumgartner with Mizuho Securities. You may proceed.
spk04: Good morning. Thanks for the question. Good morning, John. Darcy, first off, I wanted to ask about innovation. As the supply chain issues are being solved and advertising and promos being turned back on, at what point do you think the model is ready and capable of supporting innovation that's larger, more platform-based in nature? You mentioned your long-range planning. So how do we think about portfolio development from here, whether it's flavors, formats, differentiated products that we may even see in fiscal 24?
spk06: Yeah, we dug into, I think that we have some new learnings in this area, John. So we dug into our data over the last several months with an outside partner. And I think that we have, yeah, some exciting new learnings. I think the biggest piece is, we have found we have much more upside with our existing products and what I'll just call close-in innovation. So think, you know, flavors, pack sizes, formats. So sort of closer-in innovation as well as just more distribution of our existing products. What I like about that is it is, less risky, it's more efficient. However, we also have been spending the last two years, our R&I team has been working on new lines of products, especially on our premier protein business. So we have a very full pipeline of new products. But my expectation is that we're going to focus on, in 24, more on the closer-in innovation. And then 25 and beyond, we'll be launching some of those lines that we have developed. And our goal is to launch a new line every 12 to 18 months on both Premier and Dymatize and focus on 25 and beyond. Okay.
spk04: And then as a follow-up on marketing, You've also mentioned the TV campaigns, obviously, and the high ROI you're seeing from influencers and social media. But I'm curious, do other opportunities exist, whether it's partnerships or brand sponsorships, that can maybe amplify and complement that influencer breadth and accelerate brand awareness? What levers are still out there maybe that could be high impact but haven't been pulled yet, given where the supply chain has been?
spk06: I mean, honestly, a lot of levers because we just haven't. I mean, so again, I want to separate Dymatize and Premier. You know, in Premier, we've been holding back. We have not had any significant marketing for two years. So other than kind of the basic social media that what we call kind of every day keep the lights on marketing, but we haven't had a big campaign since 21. So absolutely a big opportunity on Dymatize. And we have influencers. We call them our shaker program. And they're basically every day. We have a bunch of criteria. They're everyday influencers, but they actually have a lot of reach. So we have had a lot of success with Dymatize. the Shaker program within Premier. Now, is there an opportunity to have a more high-profile influencer? Possibly. On Dymatize, we actually have done that. So we've brought in a combination of just regular influencers, which have pretty high reach, but then we've also brought every year brought on some kind of higher profile influencers, and we'll continue to do that within the Dymatize business, even starting in 24. I'm not ready to tell you who our high profile influencers are, but we're absolutely using that lever. Okay.
spk04: Well, I'm excited. Thanks, Darcy.
spk06: Awesome. Thanks.
spk10: Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Bill Chappell with Truist Securities. You may proceed.
spk13: Yeah, thanks for squeezing me in, and good morning. Good morning. I guess first, maybe just a little bit talk with some of the additional capacity, talk about kind of different distribution, both international opportunities, but also kind of single serve, be it C-scores or stuff like that, and kind of how that's progressing or if that will progress as we look at the next in the new year.
spk06: Yeah, so, first of all, international, actually, I see both of those opportunities as more, you know, longer range. We have so much, I mean, I just said when I was talking to John is that from an innovation standpoint, this new learning around we have so much opportunity in the U.S. with our existing products, with kind of close-in innovation, International is absolutely an opportunity, but it takes a little longer to build, and it's a slower build. Right now, international is about low teens, about 10% to 12% of our business, and it's growing strongly about the same rate as we're seeing in the U.S. but it's on a lower base. So we're going to continue. We have a dedicated team that's focused. We have a nice-sized business in Canada. We're growing in Mexico. We are growing through our global customers across the globe. We have a business in the EU and an office there. So I would say we are definitely investing, and we see it as a future opportunity. It's just a slower build, especially when we have so much opportunity within the U.S., On the single serve question, the same thing. Again, we see that as an opportunity. It's a little more complicated because it requires a different route to market. So once again, we have this capacity. We are actually expanding our bottle command, which is exciting, which is also the format that we sell within e-commerce. And we think that there's future opportunity with kind of bottles across channels.
spk13: Got it. Thanks so much. And then just housekeeping, can you give us an idea of interest expense and tax rate for fiscal 24? Thanks so much.
spk07: Yeah, our tax rate will be around 25 to 26% a little higher this year because of the accelerated amortization on Power Bar. What was your second question? It was cash interest?
spk13: Yeah, interest expense, cash interest expense.
spk07: Cash interest ought to be around $60 million.
spk13: Great, thanks.
spk10: Happy Thanksgiving.
spk07: Thanks, same to you.
spk06: Thank you, you too, Bill.
spk10: Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from John Anderson with William Blair. You may proceed.
spk05: Hey, good morning, everybody. Thanks. Just one quick question on Premier Protein. From the slides, it looks like consumption growth for the brand has been running stronger in tracked channels relative to untracked channels, both on a 52-week and 13-week basis. I'm assuming that's a function of where the new distribution or TDPs, the restoration of TDPs is hitting the market. But could you remind us of kind of for Premier Protein, how much of the consumption for that brand is tracked versus untracked? And as you look to 2024 and restarting promotions, et cetera, how do you expect that channel mix, you know, may evolve in 2024 from here? Thanks.
spk06: And so Jennifer might have to help me. I think it's about 60% of our business on Premiere is in tract. Jennifer, is that about right? I believe so. OK, so about 60% of the Premiere business is tracked. You're absolutely right, John, that the reason why it's outpacing on tract is mainly that's where we're gaining a lot of distribution. It's a lot of food accounts, mass accounts, where we're increasing distribution quite a lot.
spk05: And then, sorry, your second question around... It's really more around the focus of marketing in 2024, and will it have kind of a channel orientation to it that might affect that mix in 2024? Thanks.
spk06: No, so all of our marketing is really supporting the overall brand, which should, you know, raise all, you know, all channels kind of equally. We do some channel-specific marketing, but the bulk of it will be, you know, overall. I think that the biggest – I do expect that – I mean, it depends. I would say the difference between tracked and untracked moving forward, we expect to continue to see increases in distribution more in tracked. But also on untracked, we'll see promotion can really push untracked quite high when we have these big promotions within the quarter. So that's something that we'll that we will see kind of like in Q2 and Q4.
spk05: Makes sense. Thank you very much.
spk06: Thank you.
spk10: Thank you. We've reached the end of our Q&A session. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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