BellRing Brands, Inc. Common Stock

Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call

2/6/2024

spk06: Increased supply and distribution gains are lifting ready-to-drink growth, while the growth in ready-to-mix remained healthy despite lapping significant price increases. Premier protein shake consumption remained strong this quarter, up 29%. Growth was robust across all channels, driven by improved supply, distribution expansion, and continued excitement around our seasonal flavors. The highest growth was in mass and e-commerce. Mass benefited from higher in-stock levels and distribution gains, while e-commerce saw strong growth behind promotional activity. Our latest seasonal flavor, Winter Mint Chocolate, demonstrated remarkable incrementality to the brand. January consumption growth continues up 34%, lifted by incremental promotional activity and track channels. Our brand metrics reflect our continued momentum as Premier Protein reached all-time highs in TDPs and household penetration. Premier Protein, with RTD market share of 21%, maintained 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 continues to gain new users, reaching over 17% of households this quarter. adding nearly one percentage point versus Q4. In calendar year 23, the brand grew household penetration 24%, a significant contributor to the overall RTD category growth. Premier Protein's household penetration continues to be the highest in the category, and we expect our marketing and promotional activities in the remainder of fiscal 24 to further grow our reach. With the RTD segment's household penetration still below categories such as nutrition bars and energy drinks, we still see tremendous opportunity to grow in our existing channels. Premier Protein Powder continued its strong trajectory, growing 66% in Q1 behind distribution gains, strong velocities, and promotional support. The momentum continued in January up 50% as we begin a powder-focused marketing campaign. We remain encouraged by the growth potential of the Premier Protein brand in this format. In fact, during calendar year 23, Premier Powder's household penetration grew 82%, the highest of any key competitor in the powder category. We believe the brand will continue to bring mainstream consumers into the powder category in the same way Premier did to the ready to drink category. Turning to Dymatize, the brand had a solid quarter, with household penetration maintaining record highs and consumption up 16%, significantly outpacing the category. We saw double-digit growth in nearly all channels, driven by distribution gains, promotion, and continued top-tier velocities. Specialty consumption growth was the only exception. It remains challenged as consumers shift purchases to mainstream channels. Looking forward, Dymatize launched a new national marketing campaign in Q2, which focuses on what makes the brand unique, its super premium ingredients and amazing taste. The Formulated for More campaign has three pillars. The first focuses on the brand's superior ingredients and how they support superior results for athletes. The second pillar showcases our amazing tasting flavors like Fruity Pebbles, to highlight the fun they bring to even the most serious athletes. The third is possibly the most exciting if you're a football fan. I'm thrilled to share we have expanded our core team of Dymatize athletes and influencers, and we are partnering with San Francisco all-pro running back Christian McCaffrey. We are eager to see the impact this type of enhanced digital marketing and top-tier influencer will have on our brand awareness and household penetration. In closing, our Q1 results position us well for an above algorithm fiscal year. Our confidence in our long-term outlook for Bellring remains strong. Our business is focused on the strongest segments of a growing category with a ton of upside. Premier Protein and Dymatize are leading mainstream brands with low household penetration and strong loyalty. Our momentum continues to grow as we begin to drive shake demand and ramp up our powder marketing efforts. We continue to increase our shake supply and our scalable supply chain will enable many years of robust shake growth. We are bringing flavor excitement to consumers and retail partners and more innovation in our pipeline to fuel future growth. Before passing over to Paul, I'm sure that most of you have heard that Rob Vitale, our executive chairman, has returned from his medical leave. We are incredibly excited to have him back at full strength. We look forward to sharing our progress next quarter, and I will now turn the call over to Paul.
spk09: Thanks, Darcy, and good morning, everyone. As Darcy highlighted, our first quarter results came in above our expectations. Net sales for the quarter were $430 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $101 million. Net sales grew 19% over prior year, and adjusted EBITDA increased 18%, with adjusted EBITDA margins of 23.4%. Starting with brand performance, premier protein net sales grew 19% behind strong volume growth for RTD shakes and powders. Distribution gains, organic growth, and light promotional activity drove shake growth. Shake consumption dollars grew 29% outpacing shipment growth of 19%. The former benefited primarily from higher net pricing, as price increases at retail lagged our October 2022 price increase on shakes. Diametized net sales increased 21% this quarter, as the brand benefited from increased distribution and organic growth in domestic mainstream channels. These gains, combined with lapping last year's Q1 trade inventory deload, drove volume gains in the quarter. Price mix was a partial offset to this growth, driven by incremental promotional activity and unfavorable mix. Gross profit of $148 million grew 22%, with an increase in gross profit margin of 80 basis points to 34.4%. The margin increase resulted from net input cost deflation partially offset by incremental promotional activity and lapping production attainment fees received in the prior year. Excluding one-time costs in the prior year period, SG&A expenses as a percentage of net sales increased 90 basis points as we lapped our lowest SG&A spend quarter in 2023. Operating profit of $73 million decreased $2 million compared to prior year and was negatively impacted by $17 million of accelerated amortization. This was a non-cash expense recorded in connection with our Q4 decision to discontinue the Power Bar North American business and was treated as an adjustment for non-GAAP measures. The intangible assets associated with this business were fully amortized in the first quarter. Before reviewing our outlook, I would like to make a few comments on cash flow and liquidity. We generated $74 million in cash flow from operations in the first quarter. While our working capital modestly decreased in the first quarter, we continue to expect net working capital growth in fiscal 24 to 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 the remaining $25 million of borrowings under our revolving credit facility. As of December 31, net debt was $755 million and net leverage was 2.1 times. With our adjusted EBITDA growth and strong cash flow generation, we anticipate net leverage will decline below two times in fiscal 24. With respect to our share repurchases this quarter, we bought 200,000 shares at an average price of $44.27 per share, or $9 million in total. Our remaining share repurchase authorization is $14 million. Turning to our outlook, we raised our fiscal 24 guidance for net sales to be $1.87 to $1.95 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $375 to $400 million. Our guidance applies strong top line growth of 12% to 17% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 11% to 18% with healthy adjusted EBITDA margins of 20.3% at the midterm. As Dorothy mentioned, our better than expected first quarter performance drove our decision to raise our outlook, and we don't expect any major changes to the cadence we communicated last quarter. Moving to our second quarter forecast, We expect net sales growth to exceed 20%, with the majority of the growth driven by premier protein as we restart meaningful shake promotions. Consequently, we expect pricing to be a significant offset to strong shake volume growth. We expect second quarter adjusted EBITDA margins to improve modestly compared to prior year, as higher gross margins are partially offset by higher SG&A as a percentage of net sales. 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 pleased with our good start to fiscal 24. Our strong Q1 results give us greater confidence in our full-year outlook and long-term growth prospects. I will now turn it over to the operator for questions.
spk00: Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Our first question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar from Barclays.
spk08: Great. Good morning, everybody.
spk00: Good morning.
spk08: Hi. Maybe to start off, I'm trying to get a better sense of what you think is driving customers to sort of raise their trade inventories. It sounds like that happened, I guess, at a greater level than maybe you had anticipated heading into this sort of the new year, new year season. Is that normal course of business or indicative of you know, the increased shelf space and distribution. Just trying to get a sense of what drove that, if it was sort of beyond your expectation.
spk06: Yeah, it was beyond. And mainly it was due to a few customers carrying low inventory in Q1 during the holidays. And so what happened is they were low. We weren't sure if they were going to right-size their inventory. But they did, and we were able to meet the demand. So it was more about right-sizing their own inventory because they were low.
spk08: Got it. And then I think when you initially provided your fiscal 24 guidance last quarter, sales growth at the midpoint of about 12.5% was well below your expected capacity increase for the year of, I think, around 20%. And much of that, I think, was attributed to your expectation that some of the added capacity would be to build up your own internal safety stock. If capacity is still expected to grow around 20%, I guess I'm trying to get a sense of, you know, I guess why now you're expecting a narrower gap between added capacity and sales growth. I don't know if it's simply just that demand is stronger than you thought, and so basically you don't add as much safety stock as you anticipated. Just trying to get a sense of what drives that and what that means for the business. Thanks so much.
spk06: Yep, that's right. Simply put, given the current consumption trends, we estimate that we will need to use more of our capacity for sales instead of inventory. As we explained last, we need to build our inventory up to a level. Our target is six to eight weeks. But we do have the flexibility. We can operate. around four to five weeks. So if the demand is there, we're going to make a call and we can lean a little bit more into sales. Got it.
spk00: Thanks so much.
spk06: Thanks.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Pamela Kaufman from Morgan Stanley. Good morning.
spk01: I have a follow-up to Andrew's second question, maybe just asked slightly differently. I guess just given how strong demand has been in recent months, do you have enough supply to meet the demand if it, you know, stays at these levels? And I guess, you know, is there any flexibility to add more capacity or, you know, to kind of exceed the current guidance if demand stays where it is?
spk06: We do have the capacity to meet the current guidance. And as for additional capacity to flex, you know, we are, it's possible. You know, I mean, I think that, you know, we have a, we now have a network that is much more robust than we've ever had before. So suffice it to say, we are talking to every single one of our commands to see if we can get incremental supply. We have been for, you know, the last 20, you know, for honestly as long as I have been here, but specifically really working hard for the last, you know, 12 to 24 months. What I think is encouraging is we now have our two green fields, they're scaling. But in addition to those, we have six more partners that are increasing their production as well. So I think that I don't expect we have solid – our current guidance is we have full confidence that we can deliver that. And as for on top of that, I would just say that we're pushing our commands to get more to supply demand.
spk01: Thank you. And just my other question is about your plans for promotions. Have you adjusted your plans at all, just considering how strong demand has been? Maybe is there a need to promote less? just given the demand environment?
spk06: So our plan to promote this year, you know, is intact. So, I mean, you have to really, we commit to our promotions well ahead of plan and our retailers depend on it. So our 24 plan has been set for a bit. As you know, what you're seeing in the, Tract consumption right now is a result of a you know distribution stronger in stocks but also promotion and specifically in a couple of our our major customers that are in tract channels so you know that is one of that we we believe in promotion and In just that, and I think I've talked to you about this before, it's less about the percentage off, but it's more about the display so we can get the eyeballs on this brand, which is still a low household penetration brand. Q2 is our biggest promotional quarter. And after that, it becomes, we start leaning a little bit more into marketing as opposed to promotion. Thank you.
spk00: I'll pass it on. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Goldman from JP Morgan.
spk03: Hi, thank you. One of the questions I received from investors overnight was whether we should be modeling a reversal of that 1Q inventory load. I assume listening to you today, And given that that load was really to refill what was low in customer stocks, that we shouldn't model necessarily any kind of reversal in terms of maybe you undershipping in any quarter ahead. Just to make sure that's correct, if I can start with that.
spk09: Correct. Yes. Yeah, correct, Ken. We do not believe we shipped ahead. There will be a modest deload in Q2 because we did ship some promotional volume in the first quarter, which we expected. But we expect a modest deload and a smaller deload than we saw last year.
spk03: Got it. Thank you. And then I'll just stay on the same line of reasoning. What happens if you're promoting, you're committed to your promotions, you're pushing your commands as hard as you can? I guess the question is, if there's a situation, again, where your customers say, look, our stocks are low, can you ship us more? Are you less able to do that going forward? This is obviously a great problem to have if you do have it, right, if demand is too high. But is it reasonable, I guess, to think that, hey, maybe the level of overshipment we saw in 1Q, you know, wouldn't necessarily happen again just given your ability to produce after what we saw in 1Q?
spk09: Yeah, Kate, I would say. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I think it's fair to say that, yeah, I mean, that obviously it reduces our flexibility to some degree because we did not expect that. But But we feel very good about our capacity that's coming online and where we are with our guidance. So we feel comfortable. But you're right. I mean, at some point, if the demand is so strong, you will start to stretch your inventory. But we feel good about where we're at right now.
spk00: Thank you. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of John Baumgartner from Mizuho Securities.
spk13: Good morning. Thanks for the question. Good morning, John. I wanted to come back to Premier Powder and the market share growth you're seeing there. Do you have a sense as to from where that share is being sourced? Are you seeing any sort of shift from consumers having previously bought powders positioned more towards consumers? the weightlifter or bodybuilder segment, are those folks shifting more towards everyday brands like Premier? Or is this just more of a situation where Premier launches and it's incremental to the overall powder category?
spk06: We think it's mostly the latter. So it's really, I mean, I think this is one of the areas that we're just starting to talk about more. And I think internally we're getting really excited about Premier Protein Powder. Just to give you some numbers, actually, Premier Protein Powder is now, I mean, it's only 1.6 points of household penetration, so teeny, but it just surpassed Dymatize. So, you know, Dymatize has always been a really amazing brand, but it's pretty narrow. It's for, you know, the best and the most sophisticated athletes. And then you've got Premier that is a mainstream brand now going into powders. And so it's bringing in new consumers. And I mean, I said this in my scripted remarks, but we really think that Premier has the ability to really mainstream the powder segment similar to what it did to the Ready to Drink
spk13: Okay, great. And then as a follow-up, coming back to the promotional discussion for Premier Ready to Drink, the distribution points, they're up like 40% year on year, but the volume velocity is only down slightly, even absent larger promo and advertising spending. Is there anything notable in terms of where these most recent distribution points have been accumulating or whether it's non-price promotion that's elevating the volume more so than you would typically see as you build distributions?
spk06: Most of the distribution gains on Premier are twofold. So one is the expanded breadth of the flavors. So getting some of the pause flavors back on, but just continuing to expand. We have launched now, we launched chocolate chip cookie dough. In first mass, our seasonal flavors are really doing just incredibly well, gathering a lot of consumer excitement. The second piece is the upsizing, upsizes to 12 count in food and mass, which have seen a lot more incrementality than we would have seen. So those those distribution points are working harder because they're bigger packs.
spk13: Great. Thanks for your time, Darcy.
spk06: Thanks.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Kaumil Kajrawala from Jefferies. Camille, please check your line, make sure that you are not on mute. If your line is muted, please unmute it, or please rejoin using the call me feature. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Smith from Stifel.
spk07: Hi, good morning, Darcy and Paul. I wanted to ask a question about when you When you look at the sales growth outlook in fiscal 24, how do you balance the rate of household penetration gains against upside to the annual buy rate? When we look at the buy rate, it implies a relatively low frequency of purchasing through the year. So are you looking at your promotional activity to drive frequency with existing users or more to bring new users into the Premier Protein brand?
spk06: Both, actually. I think that what you saw in this last, if you look at the household penetration that was gained in this last year, call it 25%, that is really a result of both getting back to some light. You saw household penetration pop in Q4 of last year and then has continued, and that was a factor of bringing back some light promotions. But then you also look at the buy rate, so in our supplemental, that also increased. For the first time, it's been pretty steady throughout the last several years, but it popped up this last year, and that is a result of of kind of getting back into promotion, and especially in our club account. So it's really a combination. And that's why we believe in promotion, and it's mostly because you get out of the aisle and you get new eyeballs, but then also people load up as well. And we know that once this brand is in the household, not only do people consume more, but more people in the household consume it. So it really is a combination.
spk07: And Paul, just a follow-up on the guidance outlook. The midpoint now suggests a slightly higher EBITDA margin. What's supporting the higher margin? Is that additional volume leverage or do you have better line of sight into protein costs in the second half? Last quarter you talked about some supply ingredient tightness. Has that alleviated? Are you better covered now through the end of year?
spk09: So we are slightly more covered than we were back in November. So we do have better visibility. We're not fully covered at this point. So the fourth quarter still has some open. But yeah, we're a little bit more covered. As far as your question around margin, you're right. The midpoint is about 20 basis points higher. And it's a combination of the two things you mentioned. So it's a little bit of leverage on G&A. So the higher sales being leveraged on the G&A line. And then just a little bit better visibility into the protein for the rest of the year. So those are the two main drivers. Nothing really dramatically has changed from our original guidance.
spk07: Thank you. I can leave it there and pass it on.
spk09: Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Holland from D.A.
spk02: Thanks. Good morning. Darcy, you touched on Premier Protein Ready to Drink shakes hitting a new TDP peak this quarter. Just curious, any sense whether that incremental shelf space is coming from other competitors within Ready to Drink shakes or an adjacent category?
spk06: I can speak to a math retailer that reset in Q4, and we'll call it maybe indicative of others. And it was a combination. So not only did the entire set of convenient nutrition gain space, but also the ready to drink and powder segments gained space within the set. so bars actually lost space. And then within kind of the ready-to-drink space, there's always a shuffling around. And we're seeing that performance nutrition and what we call everyday nutrition Those are the parts of the ready-to-drink category that are kind of booming, where some of the others, adult weight, those are not doing as well.
spk02: Appreciate the color. And then just curious, you gave some data points on January consumption trends for Premier Protein within ready-to-drink shakes. Just curious what you're seeing from a competitive standpoint around resolution season, if there's any change in promotional activity or anything of the sort, you know, just anything noticeably different or incremental to, you know, this time last year?
spk06: We are seeing, I mean, it's only a few weeks in, but, you know, I think that, you know, our business is, is moving. We are seeing more promotion actually across the whole category. And actually we saw it in Q1 as well, which was not normal to have promotion in that kind of October, November, December timeframe. So are seeing some enhanced promotion, a little bit more so on the powder side of things. But also on the ready-to-drink side, still a few people taking pricing within ready-to-drink this last quarter. And then, you know, consumption is just incredibly strong on ready-to-drink in January.
spk05: Helpful. Thanks.
spk06: Thanks.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Solera from Stevens.
spk14: Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking our question. Good morning. I wanted to ask, I think historically you've mentioned on the ready-to-drink shakes like around 60% of the use occasion is breakfast, like breakfast replacement. As you've increased the number of households, has that use occasion kind of held steady or have we seen a different consumer that is maybe using it, you know, as a lunch replacement or as a supplement after a workout? Maybe you can start there.
spk06: The bulk of our consumption is still breakfast. So that has stayed constant. You know, one area, this is where innovation can help and even new flavors. So when we launched Cafe Latte, for instance, that has, the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. And so people started using that as a replacement for that kind of afternoon latte. So that's an example where we purposely used innovation to expand the occasions. But at the end of the day, still the bulk of the consumption is a breakfast replacement.
spk14: Okay. And then if I think about when I go through the store in my area, I've seen a lot of your products placed kind of just in the middle of the aisle, you know, as you're walking through some of the main aisles, obviously highly visible, you know, good place for an impulse purchase. If the product is kind of part of daily consumption and you're seeing increase in household uptake, can we think about that as being part of the display space? throughout the year and not just around kind of the, you know, new year, new season.
spk06: For sure. For sure. I mean, our focus, you know, our entire sales team is focused on, um, getting display. Um, we, you know, quality merch is, is the focus. Um, because I mean, and I said this earlier, but it's less about, um, you know, sense off or TPRs that's going to drive the business, but it's the display because it's a mainstream product that has low household penetration and still fairly low awareness. So, and just by, because protein's hot, it's convenient. And you put it out in front and you kind of put it out in front of people's eyes and all of a sudden they consider it. And so I think that absolutely the goal is to get more display, get our products out where, you know, they think about it up at the cash register, in coolers, on end dial, and really increase the awareness of it.
spk14: Okay, great. Thanks. I'll hop back in the queue.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Palmer from Citi.
spk04: Good morning and thanks for the question. Maybe just follow up first on just the cost environment as we think about the balance of this year. I think a quarter ago you kind of indicated the first half was expected to be more favorable. It sounds like you have visibility at least stretching through 3Q and maybe into 4Q. How does that favorability, I guess, progress as we think about the second half of the year?
spk09: Yeah, again, our thoughts haven't changed too much from the November guidance, so you're correct that we expect more protein favorability in the first half, and then that starts to moderate as we go into the second half. Um, what we've seen recently is, is there's been a net there's it's, it's slightly favorable from where it was, but we've seen some puts and takes within the protein complex. So some are up, some are down, but net, we still expect, uh, our favorability to start to moderate as we get into the second half. So cost will go up in the third and fourth quarter sequentially as we go forward.
spk04: Okay. No, thanks for that. Um, and then I know you. When Pam had asked, you kind of answered on the promo flexibility or the commitment to it. What about marketing dollars? Because that is more back half-weighted. There's probably more of an element of discretion there, I guess. Is there a thought of kind of flexing that a bit if demand is so high that you don't really need the incremental demand to build? Or are marketing decisions maybe more long-term oriented where... That's not as much of a consideration as we think about this year.
spk06: We definitely have more flexibility on marketing because, yeah, it's in our control. We are already supporting our powder side of the business as well as we are doing some support around bottles because we don't have constraints there. But as for kind of the broader equity support around the Tetra side of the business, which is the lion's share, we do have flexibility. We're currently developing our campaign that we plan to launch in Q4. And I mean, as you guys know, the impact of marketing isn't always immediate. It's more of a long-term play. So we'll make those decisions later. You usually have to make those decisions within kind of a couple months of launch. So we have a little time to evaluate if we're going to launch as expected, maybe go a little lighter or wait.
spk02: Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Spillane from Bank of America.
spk10: Hey, thanks, Operator. Good morning, everyone. I think just a couple of quick ones for me, really for you, Paul, is one, just I guess as we're thinking about the cadence on pricing, will it – like just – whether Q2 would be down the most, I guess, of the quarters of the balance of the year? Just if you can give us some sense, even just at a total company level, how we're thinking about the cadence on pricing over the balance of the year.
spk09: Yeah, absolutely. The second quarter should be the biggest impact from pricing as we have significant promotions going on in most of our channels. So that would certainly be the biggest pricing headwind as you go through the quarters. The rest of quarters are fairly balanced, slight headwinds, but that's really the second quarter where it's the most meaningful.
spk10: Okay, and then is this year, should this be a pretty good year as we're kind of modeling the out years and thinking about, you know, the timing of promotions, there is some seasonality. Is this sort of a normal year as we're beginning to model the out years in terms of just the flow of promotions and the seasonality in the business?
spk09: Yes. As we go forward, we'd expect the second quarter will always be kind of the heaviest period, as that's just when a lot of consumers come into the category. So yeah, we'd expect the second quarter is typically the heaviest promotional period. The fourth quarter is kind of the next. We don't typically promote much in the first quarter. That's a seasonally low consumption period. And then the third quarter is kind of somewhere in between. Not usually a lot of promotion in the third quarter. I'd say the only difference from how this year is playing out is we typically also spend heavier marketing behind our shakes in the second quarter. We are not doing that as we've talked about earlier on this call with just as we're continuing to manage supply and demand, but we do expect that to ramp up in the fourth quarter. So that's the only difference, but from a promotional calendar, yes, it's primarily heavy Q2, a bit in Q4, and then Q1 and Q3 are typically fairly light.
spk10: All right, cool. And then just one last one. I think you said earlier that 2Q SG&A as a percentage of sales is going to be higher, and I just wasn't sure. Is it higher than the first quarter, higher versus last year? Just wanted to clarify that.
spk09: Yeah, the comment was higher than last year.
spk10: Okay, so year over year, as a percentage of sales, it'll be higher this year than last year?
spk09: Honestly higher, correct.
spk10: All right, cool. All right, that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Bill Chappelle from Truist Securities.
spk12: Thanks. Good morning.
spk06: Good morning.
spk12: Darcy, just trying to get arms around where we go from here in terms of household penetration. And I think for Ready to Drink Shakes, you said premieres now at 17%, which is almost one in five households. And some would say not one in five households actually eat breakfast each morning. So when you look at the next kind of eight points, get to 25%, does that come from bar users? Does that come from energy drink users? Does that come from lunch or dinner? Or do you see a lot of kind of backfill of these households who are the 17 percent are having two shakes a week need to go to three shakes or four shakes or five shakes? So how do you see that kind of play out over the next few years?
spk06: I mean historically our about 80 percent of our growth is coming from outside of the category. So I'm not sure I can tell you. And when I say outside of the category, I mean outside of the convenient nutrition category. So these are people who are trying to make a better decision and trying to be healthier. And so whether they drink energy drinks or not, it's just outside of the category. And that's, I mean... We believe that there is a ton of upside. I mean, you look at the household penetration of just the category and of liquids or ready-to-drink, it's about 45%. You know, bars is about 54%. Energy drinks is 69%. So, you know, I think that in most mature, you know, CPG companies are up in the 80 to 90, some even higher. We think that there's a ton of room to grow within just adding people, given all the macro trends that are going on around protein is good for you, healthy eating, convenience, and not even to mention everything going on with GLPs. So we think there's a ton of tailwinds, more people leaning into the category, and we're positioned well.
spk12: Okay. And then just second, and I know you've explained this before, but the importance of the Tetra packaging, because I think you just said on the last one, obviously you don't have capacity constraints on the bottles. And so why would not just go all bottles? I mean, help us understand the kind of the importance of that on the packaging and into the brand and to the story.
spk06: Wow. Part of it is just numbers. So if you think of, you know, when I say we don't have capacity constraints on bottles, the overall network of bottles is constrained. But we, I mean, bottles are 10% of our business. So it's virtually, I mean, impossible to convert the entire business to bottles. There just isn't enough. We find that, you know, our consumer really likes the Tetra Pak. Now, there are also consumers that like bottles. So I think that it's less about what's important is what's inside the bottle, what's inside the package. And I think that, so it's less about we will get to, we have invested in our Tetra Pak network. And, you know, I feel like we are in kind of spitting distance to be, you know, unconstrained. Which, you know, I think we expect that by the time we get into 25, we will be managing to a demand number and not a supply number. So again, you know, I think that They both have their place, but our consumers consistently say that they do like the Tetra.
spk12: Great. Thanks so much.
spk06: Thanks.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matt McGinley from Needham.
spk05: Great. Thank you. With your seasonal... flavors in Premier, do you expect to see more seasonal ebbs and flows and PDPs in ACV related to those limited time flavors? And over time, would you expect the shipments related to the seasonal flavors to create a little more seasonality in your sales volumes? Or do you think your core skews really just pick up the slack whenever those seasonal flavors get depleted at your customers?
spk06: You know, what's great about our seasonal strategy now is we have one for every season. So in essence, it's just a rotating spot. And consumers, you know, get excited. So we basically go from, you know, pumpkin spot or beginning that winter mint chocolate to a summer seasonal. It was root beer float. It's now salted caramel popcorn. It then goes into pumpkin spice. and then rotates around again. So, the idea is that we, in essence, always have a seasonal flavor out there, although what that flavor is may change.
spk05: Got it. Got it. And last quarter, you noted that the biggest factor for you to hit the high end of your guidance would likely be the timing of production. Is the timing a ramp for production capacity? Is that still the critical factor to reach the high end of your new guidance, or is the the high end of the guidance now more contingent upon the effectiveness of marketing or promotion that you just might have less visibility into.
spk06: Still production scale-up.
spk05: Got it. Thank you very much.
spk06: Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Kaumil Kajrawala from Jefferies.
spk11: Any better now? Can you guys hear me now?
spk01: We can hear you.
spk11: Okay. Sorry about that last time. I want to talk about you maybe not so quietly been talking about being the powders side. It seems like every time we chat, you're talking about it a little bit more. Can you maybe just talk about the differences in the consumers that you're bringing in on powders, how it interacts with the core product, maybe anything on incrementality? Any more color there would be helpful.
spk06: Yeah, ready to drink and powders are very complementary. For the most part, one is a little bit more on the go, being ready to drink. The other one, powder, is used mostly in the house. And then just from an occasion standpoint, I talked about the occasion. For the most part of ready to drink is a breakfast replacement. whereas powders are more used after a workout. The consumer also can be... Most powders are going more toward the athlete. However, that's the opportunity for Premier is really bringing in those mainstream consumers. The other piece is powders are more often used... with it with other foods so making smoothies or throwing it in pancakes to make a high protein pancake um whereas ready drinks aren't used that way usually just um consumed you know right out of the tetra of the bottle okay so very complimentary understood um and then on convenience stores it's been a you know small piece of the rollout store or the distribution story um have you thought about or other opportunities to
spk11: find a DSD partner or some other partner that can really sort of step distribution up in a much more meaningful way.
spk06: Yeah, so convenience, just to put it in perspective, when you look at all of the retail sales of RTDs, the entire category, convenience represents about 10%. So the channels we compete in are around 90% of the retail sales. We still believe that our, especially food, mass, e-comm are very underdeveloped. And it's also where our target consumer shops. So as we go through all of the opportunities for this brand, and we rank them, Convenience is just lower. It's still an opportunity, but it is just lower and it's lower because of a the size of the opportunity and the cost and the complexity of it. You talked about a DSP partner, which we would which we would need. So these are areas where It is in the long-term plan, but we see a lot of other opportunities that are currently bigger and can accomplish all our goals. And like I said, we're in 90% of the category already.
spk11: Got it. Thank you very much.
spk00: Thanks. Thank you. At this time, I'm showing no further questions. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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