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spk13: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. This is Jim Cook, founder and chairman, and I'm pleased to kick off the 2020 fourth quarter earnings call for the Boston Beer Company. Joining the call from Boston Beer are Dave Berwick, our CEO, and Frank Smala, our CFO. I'll begin my remarks this afternoon with a few introductory comments, including some highlights of our results, and then hand over to Dave, who will provide an overview of our business. Dave will then turn the call over to Frank, who will focus on the financial details of our fourth quarter and 2020 fiscal year results, as well as our outlook for 2021. Immediately following Frank's comment, we'll open the line for your questions. As the COVID-19 panic slowly winds down, our primary focus continues to be on operating our breweries, and our business safely and working hard to meet consumer demand. I'm very proud of the passion, creativity, and commitment to community that our company has demonstrated during this pandemic.
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We'll get into the weeds of your life and make sure that this process can work for you. and then income okay what again what kind of income are you looking to replace what's the first goal so we'll kind of map out different stages the first stage is to get to two thousand dollars a month the second stage is to get to four thousand the next stage is get to eight the next you get my point okay and then the last piece here is time okay oops that fell we're just gonna roll anyways time This is so that you can plug into a team and have your time leveraged. Again, this doesn't become something that weighs you down. So as a part of our process, we'll show you how we identify houses. We'll show you the process that we go through to make sure that they're rehabbed correctly. We'll go through how the property management side works so that you don't have to worry about renting out houses and how all of this can be used if optimized, right? 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We're not going to spam you or sell your information, but we will send you our on-demand video where you can see our exact process and how you can maximize the profit squared method for you and your family. Now, if you stay until the end, I'm going to give you a free gift. So I encourage you to stay till the end. I'm going to show you exactly how to replace your income with real estate and how to calculate that. So again, click the link below, put in your name, email address. We'd be happy to at least get you the video. And from there, the choice is yours.
spk08: Take care.
spk13: We're thankful to our outstanding coworkers for their focus and diligence, and our distributed retailers and drinkers, all of whom helped the company achieve double-digit volume growth for the 11th consecutive quarter. We achieved depletions growth of 26% in the fourth quarter and 37% for the full year. We remain positive about the future growth of our diversified brand portfolio, and we believe that our depletions growth is attributable to our key innovations, the quality of our products, and our strong brands. We see significant distribution and volume growth opportunities in 2021 for our Truly, Twisted Tea, and Dogfish Head brands, which remain our top priorities for 2021. Early in 2021, we launched Truly Iced Tea Hard Seltzer which combines refreshing hard seltzer with real brewed tea and fruit flavor. The launch has been well received by distributors, retailers, and drinkers, but it's too early to tell if it will be successful. We're working hard to further develop our brand support and messages for our Samuel Adams and Angry Orchard brands to position them for long-term sustainable growth in the face of the difficult on-premise environment. We're excited to about the response to the introduction in early 2021 of several new beers, Samuel Adams Wicked Hazy, Samuel Adams Wicked Easy, and Samuel Adams Just the Haze, our first non-alcoholic beer, as well as the positive reaction to our Samuel Adams, your cousin from Boston, advertising campaign. We're confident in our ability to innovate, and build strong brands that complement our current portfolio and help support our mission of long-term profitable growth. I will now pass over to Dave for a more detailed overview of our business.
spk02: Okay. Hey, thanks, Jim. Hello, everyone. Before I review our business results, I'll start with the usual disclaimer. As we state in our earnings release, some of the information we discuss in the release, and they may come up on this call, reflect the company's or management's expectations of or predictions of the future. Such predictions and the like are forward-looking statements. It's important to note that the company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those of the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's most recent 10-K. You should also be advised that the company does not undertake to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Now let me share a deeper look at our business performance. Our depletions growth in the fourth quarter was a result of increases in our Truly Hard Seltzer and Twisted Tea brands, partly offset by decreases in our Samuel Adams, A.B. Orchard, and Dogfish Head brands. The growth of the Truly brand, led by Truly Lemonade Hard Seltzer, continues to be very strong and well ahead of Hard Seltzer category growth. Truly Lemonade was the most incremental new product in the entire beer industry and measured off-premise channels in 2020. The Truly brand overall generated triple-digit volume growth in 2020 and grew its velocity and its market share sequentially despite other national, regional, and local hard seltzer brands entering the category. In 2020, Truly increased its market share and measured off-premise channels from 22 points to 26 points, and was the only national hard seltzer not introduced in 2020 to grow share. There remained many opportunities to expand package, channel, and geographic distribution, and we expect the Truly brand to continue to lead the growth of the business as it has come to stand for a great tasting, refreshing, pure play hard seltzer brand. In early 2021, we launched Truly Iced Tea Hard Seltzer, and while it's still in the early stages, we're encouraged by the support our wholesalers have provided trial we're generating as a result of the brand's established equity and the social media response from consumers. We'll continue to invest heavily in the broader Trulie brand and work to improve our position in the hard seltzer category as competition continues to increase. Our Twisted Tea brand has benefited greatly from increased at-home consumption and continues to generate accelerating double-digit volume growth, even as new entrants have been introduced and competition has increased. Our Samuel Adams, Angry Orchard, and Dogfish Head brands have been most negatively impacted by COVID-19 and the related on-premise closures. For 2021, we plan to build upon our success and work to drive our brands to their full potential, with a particular focus on our Truly and Twisted Tea brands. We're expecting all of our brands to grow in 2021 and for the growth rate of our operating expenses to be below our top-line growth rate, delivering leverage to our operating link. During the fourth quarter, as we increased our brand spend, we also made investments in our supply chain to ensure we're prepared for increased competitive activity in the hard seltzer category. We've invested to increase our canned and automated variety pack capacity, but these capacity increases keep on getting eclipsed by our depreciation growth.
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spk02: Resulting in higher than expected usage of third-party breweries. We'll continue to take advantage of the fast-growing hard seltzer category and deliver against the increased demand through this combination of internal capacity increases and higher usage of third-party breweries, although meeting these higher volumes to increase use of third-party breweries has a negative impact on our gross margins. We've begun a comprehensive program to transform our supply chain with a goal of making our integrated supply chain more efficient, reduce costs, increase our flexibility to better react to mix changes, and allow us to scale up more efficiently. We expect to complete this transformation over the next two to three years. While we anticipate the program to start delivering margin improvements in 2021, our gross margins and gross margin expectations will continue to be impacted negatively until the volume growth stabilizes. While we're in a very competitive business, we're optimistic for continued growth of our current grant portfolio and innovations, and we remain prepared to forsake short-term earnings as we invest in sustained long-term profitable growth in line with the opportunities that we see. Based on information in hand, Year-to-date depreciations reported to the company through the six weeks ended February 6, 2021, are estimated to have increased approximately 53% from the comparable weeks in 2020. Now, Frank will provide the financial details.
spk03: Thank you, Jim and Dave. Good afternoon, everyone. For the fourth quarter, we reported net income of $32.8 million, or $2.64 per diluted share. an increase of $1.52 per diluted share, or 136% from the fourth quarter of last year. This increase was primarily due to increased net revenue partially offset by lower gross margins and higher operating expenses. Shipment volume was approximately 1.94 million barrels, a 54% increase from the fourth quarter of 2019. Shipments for the quarter increased at a higher rate than depletions and resulted in higher distributor inventory as of December 26, 2020, when compared to December 28, 2019. The company believes distributor inventory as of December 26, 2020, averaged approximately five weeks on hand and was at an appropriate level based on supply chain capacity constraints and inventory requirements to support the forecast of growth. Our fourth quarter 2020 growth margin of 46.9% decreased from the 47.4% margin realized in the fourth quarter of last year, primarily as a result of higher processing costs due to increased production at third-party breweries, partially offset by cost-saving initiatives that our company owns breweries and price increases. Fourth quarter advertising, promotional, and selling expenses increased by $48.1 million from the fourth quarter of 2019, primarily due to increased investments in media and production, increased salaries and benefits costs, and increased freight to distributors because of higher volumes. General and administrative expenses were flat from the fourth quarter of 2019. primarily due to non-recurring DOC for share transaction-related expenses of $2.1 million incurred in the comparable 13-week period of 2019, partially offset by increases in salaries and benefits costs. Our full year net income per diluted share of $15.53 increased $6.37, or 70%, compared to the prior year. This increase was primarily due to increased revenue, partially offset by lower gross margins and increases in advertising, promotional, and selling expenses. Our full year 2020 shipment volume was approximately 7.37 million barrels, a 38.8% increase in the prior year. Looking forward to 2021, based on information of which we are currently aware, We're targeting 2021 earnings per diluted share of between $20 and $24. But actual results could vary significantly from this target. This projection excludes the impact of ASU 2016-09. We're currently planning increases in shipments and depletions of between 35% and 45%. We're targeting national price increases per barrel of between 1% and 2%. Full year 2021 gross margins are currently expected to be between 45 and 47 percent, a decrease from the previously communicated estimate of between 46 and 48 percent. We plan increased investments in advertising, promotional, and selling expenses of between $120 and $140 million for the full year 2021. a decrease from the previously communicated estimate of between $130 and $150 million, not including any increases in freight costs for the shipment of products to our distributors. We estimate our full-year 2021 effective tax rate to be approximately 26.5%, excluding the impact of ASU 2016-09. This effective tax rate also excludes any potential future changes to current federal income tax rates and regulations. We are not able to provide forward guidance on the impact that ASU 2016-09 will have on our 2021 financial statements and full-year effective tax rate, as this will mainly depend upon unpredictable future events, including the timing and value realized upon exercise of stock options versus the fair value when those options were granted. We'll continue to evaluate 2021 capital expenditures and currently estimate investments of between $300 million and $400 million. The capital will be mostly spent on continued investments in capacity and efficiency improvements at our breweries. We will now open up the call for questions. Similar to the last couple of calls, Dave will be the MC on our side and coordinate the answers when needed since we are in different locations.
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spk04: At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the start key. One moment, please, as we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Please, see what your question.
spk14: All right. Thank you. Hi, everyone. I guess I wanted to – I was hoping you guys actually could talk a little bit further on your expectations, you know, for gross margin pressures. I mean, You touched on this, but it certainly sounds like, you know, it's now expected to be a bit longer. So maybe you could, you know, share with us what is a realistic timeframe for when your gross margins will be back above 50%. You know, is it possibly two to three years when you're finished with the transformation of your supply chain that, that you mentioned? And then also, you know, in terms of this transformation, You did say it's going to maybe take two or three years, but I guess I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to accelerate this transformation. If so, is it simply a function of greater investment, or is there something else? Thanks.
spk03: Yeah. Bonnie, this is Frank. I'm going to take the question on gross margin. So you're right. It has come down a little bit, and the key reasons are actually that we have a higher percentage than we had originally planned going externally. The second thing is that we're seeing freight increases in the market and, you know, that is partly impacting the materials and the ingredients that are being shipped to our location. And the third one is actually touching on your second question. I'm going to answer that in a minute. Are higher investments in our supply chain transformation program precisely to accelerate those benefits and get to a higher capacity and better integration and lower costs? The perspective on gross margins overall, the main reason why they're going down is literally because we're adding external capacity at a really high pace. And it's bad news for margins in the short term, but it's good news because, you know, we see the tremendous growth in the category and for brands in particular. So it's good news, bad news. And the strategy that we're following is that our number one priority is to grow share. Because as long as the category is growing, it's relatively easier to impact the share and to carve out our part of the category. Once the category stabilizes, this is going to be harder. But if you have a larger share, that will pay dividends for the long term, whereas the negative impact on the margins is relatively short term until the category stabilizes. When it stabilizes, we will relatively quickly get to a better margin structure as we improve our supply chain. We know when we add really long-term capacity and the number of drivers. One is that we will increase our share of internal production. We will better integrate. You know, we'll continue with our co-manufacturing partners, of course, but we will better integrate that in our system, and that will be enabled by supply chain transformation. And then we will see significant benefits on the growth margin side. I think the important thing, and that's the last thing to the growth margin, I think the important thing is that the growth margin is not impacted by software pricing or anything like it. We're really building a strong brand here, It's literally to get the product to the market and meet the customer demand and the consumer demand.
spk14: Okay, that was helpful and it definitely makes sense. And so, you know, maybe just to clarify really quick and then I'll pass it on. Is there a potential opportunity to accelerate then the investments you're making behind your supply chain or will it simply take the two to three years?
spk03: There is potential to accelerate. We're working through that. It's really hard to give you. We know we're going to see benefits this year from the supply chain transformation. The difficult part is we don't know exactly where we're going to end up in the ratio between the internal production and the external production. We are adding significant capacity internally and externally. And naturally, we are prioritizing the internal capacity. That's what we're going to run flat out basically for the year. And again, good news, bad news, the stronger the growth, the higher the percentage of external production. And while this has a negative impact on the margin, it will definitely have a positive impact on the profit. And, yeah, as we see leverage throughout the entire P&L also on operating income margin.
spk14: Okay. Thank you again. Appreciate it.
spk13: Bonnie, let me throw one more piece that may help. But one of the dynamics driving our gross margin down is that most of our growth is coming in variety packs. And breweries aren't set up to make variety packs very efficiently, including ours. So all of the variety packs, and you can look at the IRI numbers for what percent truly is in variety packs, but it's somewhere between 80% and 90%. So that truly grows. The vast majority of it requires this extra complicated handling step which is not automated very well and adds significant costs. Now, we've begun to automate that, and we've implemented that in our Pennsylvania brewery, and we think we've been successful, and that has actually helped that gross margin number from dropping as much as you might have predicted had we not done that. And so we believe... Over the next couple of years, we're going to be able to take the technology and the practices that we have developed and continue to develop internally, take that to our co-packers, none of whom yet have that cost reduction capability. So I think we believe that in the next two years, we will have almost all of our co-packers being able to do variety packs without anything like the current upcharge is required.
spk14: Okay. Very helpful. Thanks again.
spk04: Our next question comes online to Vivian Azar with Cowan. Please start with your question.
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spk15: Hi, thanks very much. Given your comment that your new gross margin outlook indicates a greater proportion of third-party manufacturing on hard seltzer products, yet you've held your shipment and depletion guidance intact. Are we to infer then that there's been kind of an underlying change to your expected growth in the hard seltzer? And if that's true, what does that come at the expense of?
spk03: Yeah. So, Vivian, I think, I mean, there are a number of drivers, as I mentioned. One is also the freight. So there's a little bit of a change because, We're building capacity as we speak, and the timing varies a little bit. The real change wasn't actually the full point that we were reflecting. We're giving you the full point ranges. But we had a slight change in the phasing of how the different capacities are coming on stream, and that's part of it. So we don't see a dramatic change there. you know, we held our depletion guidance or volume guidance, we held constant, but we are, you know, we keep the margin pretty stable within that range.
spk15: Okay, understood. Thank you for that clarification. And then just one follow-up for me then, please. Just wanted to dive into your comment around expectations for growth across your whole portfolio. And just as I think about, you know, beer specifically, you clearly have a lot of innovation in, in place, but, you know, how big of a role does a return of the on-premise play in you actually achieving that aspiration to grow beer this year?
spk02: Hey Vivian, it's Dave. I'll take that one. So I think, yeah, so for sure we're looking, you know, truly in Twisted Tea going to drive a lot of growth as we discussed, but the other brands, there is a benefit from on-premise coming back on, and we have assumptions about that, you know, It is very great. It gradates over the course of the year. It comes back on more fully by the fourth quarter. But in addition, we've got. First of all, here in the off premise, the core brands, all the core brands, Sam Adams, dogfish and. And you're a good Chris. We've seen growth since. So there is some momentum that has been some. Also, penetration increases across all those brands. So we see. a better momentum with off-premise. Also, the innovation we expect to play a big role. We do. We have a number of things out there, including Wicked Hazy is out there now, Wicked Hazy, Wicked Easy, Sam Adams Live, Dogfish Head just launched Hazy O, and Dogfish Head canned cocktails. Angry Orchard has two different fruit ciders, peach mango, strawberry. So the momentum that we've generated over the last call of nine months in the off-premise with the core brands On top of that, the innovation that we're hopeful about this year across all three of those brands, and then on top of that, on-premise coming back, you know, over the course of the year, we think that in our plans, that adds up to positive growth for each of those three brands. Understood.
spk15: Thanks so much.
spk04: Sure. Our next question comes from the line of Eric Sura with Evercore ISI. Please see what the question is.
spk06: Thank you. First, a quick housekeeping question. The year-to-date depletions up 53%. Do you have any ballpark as to how much retail inventory building was in there for Truly ICT and some of the new products? And then bigger picture, could you talk a bit about your visibility into shelf space and distribution growth across the portfolio for 2021? particularly for Trulie. Any early read on the spring shelf-set resets, which were delayed for a year? And I'll pause there. Thank you.
spk03: Eric, I'll take the first question on the inventory. We have, I mean, clearly we are building inventory. We started building inventory because we know we don't have the capacity for peak, and that's pretty much in line with what we have done in the previous three years. We started building the inventory in December, not exactly to the extent that we had originally planned, but it was higher than what we had in the previous year. And the key driver behind that was the truly ICT launch, which Compared to Lemonade, when we launched Lemonade, that was a pretty new idea, pretty new product. So people were careful in taking that in. Whereas the Truly Iced Tea launch, there was a lot of goodwill from the wholesalers, the retailers, and the consumers. So we knew the launch was going to be bigger, so we had to build a little bit more, and that's what you saw. At year-end, we had about a week more in wholesaler inventory than what we had the prior year. Since then, we haven't really built much, to be honest, because we continue to build and we will build pretty much into March, April, but it's gradual, and it's broadly in line with what we have done in the previous years.
spk02: I'll take on the shelf space question. If you look, we're expecting probably about 50% maybe more increase in shelf space. Obviously, it's going to vary by channel, by customer, but on average last year, if you look at large format stores, grocery stores, on average, maybe 7% of the cubic feet for a hard seltzer for the category, we see that going up to 11%, 12%, 13% this year. So,
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spk06: Great. And then just to follow up, and Jim, last quarter you guys expressed some confidence that the overall hard seltzer category could double again this year, sort of tied into your last comments on the shelf space increase. Are you still looking for the category doubling again this year? I know your guidance doesn't count on truly doubling, but just wondering how you're thinking of overall category growth.
spk02: Yeah, obviously, Dave, I'll take that one. I think we spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last, you know, since we last spoke, you know, a lot of changes out there. We looked at, like, really a lot of different things. We looked at actually a lot of folks on this call conducted their own analyses to look at that category and make their own predictions. We talked to a number of industry experts to get their assessment of where they thought the category was going, the Bob Williams of the world. And then, of course, then we dug into our own data. So we spent a lot of time looking at our points of distribution, growth potential, velocity potential, household penetration, where it is, where it's going, the buy rate. We looked at our innovation, like Trinity and other things. We looked at maybe some of the lost cases last year because supply chain couldn't deliver the cases. We also dug into numerator data, which I know some of you guys look at, and also IRI data. At the end of that exercise, we're in the range of about 70% to 100%. So I think last time we may have said 80% to 100%. We're pretty confident the category will grow based on all the work we did and based on the work that a lot of you have done, somewhere in that 70% to 100% range. And that would translate into, you know, maybe 15% plus share of total beer within the IRI or Nielsen universe.
spk06: Terrific. I'll pass it on. Thank you.
spk04: Okay. Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Grundy with Jefferies. Please, with your question.
spk01: Hey, great. Thanks. Good evening, guys. And congratulations on a strong year. Dave, maybe we could just start, I guess, with where you left off in the last one, just sort of building to the category growth. Because the category, while still at really strong levels, it's decelerated here in January and February. So how do you see the cadence of this playing out for the category? If sort of the bogey that you guys are setting is it's going to grow 70% to 100%, and your comparisons are going to be difficult, How do you see this playing out? Is this additional capacity coming on to help, you know, Mark Anthony Brands and among others? Is this new product innovation? How do you see this playing out that we go from this deceleration here in early part of the year and we accelerate to get to the high end of the range? And then I have a follow-up.
spk02: Yep, sure thing. I think, well, I think you kind of have some of the answer in there, I think. I mean, we think innovation will continue to drive interest in the category. We don't think they're going to be the supply challenges, at least for the top players, that there was a year ago. I think also, as you know, things did slow down at the end of the year. When you look at it in the whole bureau industry, we look at, you know, there was, you know, there were issues, you know, COVID shutdowns, uncertainty about the political environment, you know, COVID relief, et cetera, et cetera. And that's, you know, we see a change in it. If you look at that, it depends on what you're looking at. That's the problem with this category. Some of you guys look at Nielsen, some of you guys look at IRI, but generally the category is growing like 90% right now. And it's a soft shoulder. And we think that as innovation gets going, and I'll use Truly Tea as the example. I mean, if you look at the non-alcoholic tea business, it's about a $10 billion business at retail. So that kind of dwarfs what, I'm not even sure what eliminates $100 million. It's probably not. So this is a significant category. And we think innovation like that, and there are others, of course. I'm not just trying to talk about our innovation. Just use as an example, innovation like T, we think is going to bring more people into the category. So we think things will start to accelerate again, even as we get toward the summer until we get the overlap from COVID last year. So again, you look at the trends, you look at the growth in household penetration, you look at the trend the growth and frequency you compare it to like white beer where it's it's 50 percent less possible penetration than white beer we think it's we think it can get there and we put a range on it so it's not maybe it won't be 100 but we think it'll be at least 70 and whatever whatever it is our intent is to is to grow faster than whatever that number ends up being
spk01: Right, and just to be clear on that, the expectation is that you're going to maintain market share in the category. Is that what you're planning, or is the expectation that Trulia's going to gain share, which is reflective of what we've seen in the Nielsen data recently?
spk02: Yeah, our expectation is we're going to gain share. I mean, if you look at it, that's our goal, and we won't be happy unless we do. If you go back to September, maybe Nielsen will look like IRI, but if you go back to September and IRI, Trulia's been outgrowing the category recently. since then by about 40 or 50 points since that time. And that was before the innovation started to kick in. So we feel good about where we are now, and obviously it's early. And there's a lot more chapters to happen this year, but we feel like we're in a position where if things play out the way we expect, we will outgrow the category and we will get a share.
spk01: Makes sense. Thanks for that. Just a quick follow-up. And Jim, maybe it would be good to get your thoughts here as well. Just comment. It seems like the product is off to a strong start, understanding it's still really early. How has it performed relative to your expectations? Where do you think it's going? Again, it's early. Any read on repeat purchase rates at this point? And then I can pass it on. Thank you.
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spk02: Jimmy, do you want to jump in?
spk13: Sure. Sure. You know, we didn't really know how big... tea was going to be, so my expectations were that it would be a little bit less than lemonade, because in alcoholic beverages, certainly in FMBs, lemonade is bigger than tea, so the gap is closing. But on the other hand, as Dave pointed out, there's basically more iced tea drinkers out there than there are lemonade drinkers. by, you know, a factor of two or three or four. So, uh, I guess I say I've been pleasantly surprised by the strength of tea, but it's, it's just way too early. You know, I think retailers were very supportive of it because they saw the success of lemonade last year. I mean, uh, truly lemonade was basically the biggest thing, uh, to come into the hard seltzer category and, uh, Their expectations were quite high. We got tremendous support from retailers. We got tremendous support from our distributors, but it's still in the middle of February, and we have not yet seen the innovations hitting the market fully from Anheuser-Busch with their Bud Light Lemonade Seltzer and their Bud Light RD Seltzer, and similarly from White Claw. I think we'll have a pretty good handle on it at the next earnings call. But so far, to answer your question, it's actually done better than I thought.
spk02: And just to really quickly build on that, I think what we can say definitively is that there has been very, very high trial. And the repeat, Kevin, to your point the last time, question the repeat is too you know it just takes a while to really to really know so as jim pointed out the next earnings call we'll have a better we'll have a better handle on what repeat looks like and we'll have you know we'll have proxies we can look at we can look at you know versus lemonade we look at versus other new brands in the category and we'll have a better handle on what their what the trajectory would be for uh for tea that's great thanks for the time guys good luck thanks
spk04: Our next question comes from the line of Wendy Nicholson with Citigroup. Please see what your question is.
spk11: Hi. My question has to do with premise, really for Seltzer specifically. I assume in 2020, because of COVID and all the shutdown, on-premise was a teeny, teeny, tiny, low single-digit percentage of the overall Truly franchise. But how big do you think it will be in 2021? Are you gaining a lot of distribution as restaurants and bars start to open back up? How quickly do you think that can ramp, and what's the receptivity of the on-premise locations been to truly so far?
spk02: Hey, Jim, you want to take that one?
spk13: Sure. On-premise has lagged the off-premise with card sales. There's no question about that, and that was true even before COVID. It's still lagging because you've got to go in and sell it in. And, you know, the on-premise operators are not that receptive to lots of sales calls in these times. So, you know, and again, it's not a product that has had a lot of traction on draft that we've tried to generate it. So if I had to guess, Seltzer will be a smaller percent of its volume will be on-premise than the rest of the beer and cider category, which tends to be maybe 18% on-premise. I would guess seltzer would be a lower number than that for the next year or two anyway. Does that help?
spk11: Got it. Very much so. Very much so. That's great. I just want to make sure you weren't forecasting too much of a hot stick there. And then my second question just has to do with all the cash on the balance sheet. I know you've got CapEx planned to build out your capacity, but you're still generating a ton of cash. So what are you going to do with that cash? What's your appetite about thinking about another beer acquisition? You know, Dogfish has worked out fine, but are there any more craft beer brands like to It seems like anything you'd buy would actually be diluted to your growth. So I don't know that that makes sense, but you are stockpiling cash. I'm just curious how you think about that.
spk03: So I can take the cash question, then I'll let Jim talk to acquisitions, I guess. To your point, we have a highly cash-generative business, which is very beautiful if you're a CFO, but we're also investing into the business and the growth of the business. You saw the capital that we're projecting of $300 million to $400 million. We want to maintain the flexibility, and those projections are based on the growth that we have given, and as we've said before, you know, so far we have been surprised by the category growth. And we just want to make sure that we stay really, really close, that we build the capacity that we need. And then, as I mentioned before, when it flattens out, that we're going to create the network, the supply chain network that gets to significantly lower costs. And for that, we want to have the flexibility. So that's the number one priority. And it follows our long-term goals strategy that the business comes first and then we'll see what we're going to do with the rest of the cash. The business is clearly supporting the growth at this point. Jim, I don't know if you want to talk to any acquisition thoughts.
spk13: Sure. I don't think at this point we have any plans or appetite for another craft beer acquisition. Obviously it depends on what company and what the situation is. I would say the Dogfish Head acquisition was somewhat unique because of the synergies with the founders. I mean we view Sam and Mariah as unique assets. There was a very common culture and a very strong working relationship that I've had with both of them over the years. And they had a unique brand with a unique and very strong positioning as well as kind of the same creative and innovative juices that we have. And those were sort of soft assets. You know, the synergies worked out. We're now merged our distributors for about 85% of our volume is going through common distributors. So the numbers worked out in terms of being a creative, but the big driver there was not just the numbers, but the relationship and the culture and the sort of soft energies of innovation and creativity.
spk11: Got it. That's helpful. Thank you very much.
spk04: And once again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Laurent Grandin with Guggenheim. Please do with your question.
spk16: Hey, good evening, guys. And congrats for getting Truly Lemonade, the most incremental new product in the entire bee industry. That's telling. And Jim, just a comment. I'm more bullish than you on Trulity. According to Matt, actually the tea category in F&B was twice as big as Lemonade before Trulity Lemonade was launched. So anyway, two questions actually. The first, it's really about the marketing spend. You significantly spend more in the fourth quarter that you guided. You said after the third quarter earnings that you would spend 55 to 65 million dollars. You ended up spending 92 million more. So that's 30 million more. So what's the rationale there? And also you reduce by 10 million your guidance marketing spend for this year. So did you spend in the fourth quarter? I'd like to understand the rationale of why spending more in the fourth quarter. That's what you plan and planning for less this year.
spk03: Yeah, Laurent, on the marketing spend or brand spend APS, Q4 was a big Q4 for us. I mean, that's what we spent like 50, more than 50% more than in the previous year, whereas for the average year was 26%. And that had to do a little bit with phasing. We were going into 2020. and had really strong plans for the first half, and that was impacted by COVID. COVID happened, and we didn't execute or couldn't execute everything as we had planned for. We also evolved our marketing plans, and as I mentioned in previous calls, we have marketing plans, but we're also pretty adaptable and flexible and see what's working and what's not working. And when our confidence increases, we're just spending more. And when we don't have the level of confidence that's needed, then we're reducing our spend. So I think Q4 is an expression of two things. One is a little bit of phasing. And the second thing is we felt much more confident in our programs. And that's why we invested. And we also wanted to have a strong start going into 2021. across all brands. I mean, primarily was Trulia, but it was also T and it was also Sam Adams. And then there was a little bit of phasing as well on the production. We got some production done a little earlier. So that happened as well in Q4. As to 2021, there was a little bit of phasing, but also when we gave you the initial numbers, you know, in October, you know, quite a few things are in flux and you get a better handle on your plants and the effectiveness of the plants And that's just a firm-up of the plan. It's not a dramatic change in direction or strategy at all. Okay.
spk16: Thanks. My second question is about packaging expansion. I mean, you said in your prayer mark, I mean, you plan to expand packaging. So you said you would have, I mean, much greater, I mean, shelf space in groceries. I want to understand, in convenience stores specifically, what's the number of, on average, SKUs you've got right now, and how much are you planning to have in 2021? And is the growth will be coming from single-serve, primarily, which are more profitable, or will it be coming from truly extra, which are also on single-serve? So I'd like to understand these. Thank you. OK.
spk02: I think it really depends on the channel that you're talking about, but I think we're looking to expand space absolutely everywhere. I think in large format, it's really getting this truly tea variety pack in there, so that would be our fourth variety pack. Actually, our fifth variety pack after lemonade. So the goal is to have those all five variety packs in every large format store. So for grocery, it's again, it's mostly, as Jim said, it's like it's a variety pack game, that's what we're playing. We think in convenience stores, we have, there's a lot of opportunity on single serve and on variety packs. So right now, typically we have maybe one or two variety packs per convenience store. We wanna have two or three. We're also adding single serve across the board. So again, it's not just, we're talking truly now, but it's not just truly, it's lots of opportunity for Trista Tea in particular. to get more packages in that channel as well.
spk16: Yeah, okay. Well, thanks, guys, and hopefully next year we'll see TrueBP as the most incremental product in the beer industry. Okay, I wish you good luck for this year.
spk08: Thank you, Laurent.
spk04: Our next question comes from the line of Nick Mody with RBC. Here's the question.
spk05: Yeah, good evening, everyone. Just a few questions. In the release, you talked a little bit about geographic expansion for the Cooley brand, and I just wanted to clarify, did you mean internationally? Did you mean just in the U.S.? Can you just provide some context around that? And then I wanted just to ask about, you talked about category stabilization for hard seltzer, and I'm curious where you see that going. You talked about a 15% number. I didn't I wasn't clear if that was like next year, next two years, or kind of longer term. But, you know, we think the category can get somewhere between 17% and 20% of overall beer based on our math. So I'm just curious what you think about those numbers. Thank you. Yep.
spk02: Sure thing, Nick. Thanks. I think first on the geographic expansion, we were talking U.S. So there's still about a six-point gap in ACV distribution. ACV distribution between White Claw and Trulie. So we think there are definitely pockets in the U.S. Different chains. Also convenience store is a big opportunity for us. We're very close in the share perspective in grocery, but we're much too distant in convenience. So we're talking U.S. on that one. And the second question was sort of where the category goes. I think we don't want to We didn't want to forecast beyond this year, quite honestly. I think when I said 15%, we're thinking maybe 15 plus percent share of beer this year in 2021. And that being obviously the IRI or Nielsen universe. I've seen your analysis going forward and some of those assumptions, and they seem pretty reasonable to me, what you did, but we didn't want to come out here and start talking about anything beyond 2021 because We just don't know. We'll leave that to you. But we do think we see continued growth, and your percent of mix makes sense. And that's sort of why we're like beer is, right? So it's not a crazy buy. Right now we've been more focused just on what's going to happen this year.
spk05: Great. And if I could just slip one more in on R2Ds. You know, obviously not core for Boston Beer, but Dogfish Head does, have a small business there. So I'm curious, given how much retailers are expanding space in that particular area of the beverage alcohol market, you know, if you're thinking about perhaps making a bigger play into that segment organically or through M&A. Thanks.
spk02: Yeah, so I think, yes, we're launching in March. We're launching Dr. Shed Can Cocktails, three SKUs. And the product is amazing. We're very excited about it. I think right now it's our first foray into that space. And we'll see how it goes. I think it sort of plays at the premium and the high end of Hart-Seltzer, if you will. I mean, the price point is obviously much higher. It could potentially be a high end to this you know, to the hard sell category in a way. We believe in the product. We believe in the brand. We'll see how it goes. And then we'll decide from there. As you know, we still, you know, the distribution for us isn't, it's not like snap your fingers on Truly Tea and all of our distributors can carry it necessarily. So we have to broaden the distribution as we go and we'll see what happens. But we like, I mean, it makes sense, right? The consumers are You know, there's a blurring, right, between wine spirits and beer. This is one of the outgrowths of that blurring. And we do think it's something that certainly is worth pursuing, which is why we're pursuing it right now with Dogfish. And I guess we'll just kind of see how that goes and go from there.
spk05: Great. Thanks so much for the perspective.
spk04: Our next question comes from the line of Steve Powers with Georgia Bay. Please do answer your question.
spk07: Yes. Hey, thanks. Good evening. Two questions for me. The first one is another geographic-based question. This one's specific to Truly Tea. As you're thinking about that offering, do you think it will ultimately have sort of relatively even national appeal as it scales up, you know, commensurate with the rest of the franchise? Or do you see it resonating more regionally ultimately? And if so, is that influencing, you know, how you're targeting your investment spending as it does ramp up? I'll take that.
spk13: Yeah, our experience with twisted tea has been that it is somewhat regional, though it's definitely becoming less so. It's been a 20-year process of rolling out twisted tea. And the regionality has not been what you would have expected. you would have expected in places like the South, where there's a lot of tea consumption, twisted tea would have had its strongest demand. And it turned out that it was more northern states from Maine all the way across to the rest of New England, Michigan, Montana, places like that. So we think that you know, hard tea is now more widely accepted everywhere. We don't see it being particularly focused in places that are big tea drinking places like the South. And we think, you know, it won't have the slow rollout that twisted tea did and therefore will more closely follow whatever regional pattern, which is fairly weak. that you see with hard seltzer. Does that answer your question?
spk07: Yeah, that's perfect. That's perfect. Thank you. And then in follow-up to, you had mentioned, talked a little bit about higher inbound freight costs as it relates to COGS earlier. I guess, just curious if you can put some, maybe some parameters around what you're expecting for your own outbound freight costs to distributors, maybe on a volume mutual basis, just to give us a base understanding. And if I could, just as we're talking about supply chain dynamics, in the K, I noticed some supply disruption in glass that impacted you in the fourth quarter. Is that behind us now, or does that have carryover implications for early 21?
spk03: Thank you. Yeah, Steve, let me talk to the phrase. So when you look at 2020, 2020, for the full year, we didn't really have a significant rate increase. Of course, we had a, you know, Freight increased due to volume, but not very significant due to rate if you look at the full year. But what happened is that we were slightly in the beginning, and then a significant increase in Q4, and the freight market tightened quite a bit across the U.S. in Q4, and we saw significant increases there. And we see that rolling into 2021. And the increase is pretty much the same that we see for inbound freight and outbound freight. And it's really availability of trucks. The market is tightened to an extent that in many markets, you have seven loads for one truck, and that normally is below five. So we have seen that, and we expect increases that could reach, from a rate perspective, 20%.
spk07: Okay, that's perfect. Any color on the glass supply issue that I read about in the Q&A? Okay.
spk03: The glass supply issue should be behind us. There was a bit of tightness. The glass industry was adjusting. We were adjusting to certain plans that we had, but that is behind us. Thank you very much.
spk07: Appreciate it.
spk04: All right. And once again, as a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. One moment, please. There seems to be no further questions left in the queue, and I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Jim Cook for closing remarks.
spk13: Thank you, everybody, for joining us this evening, and we'll talk to you again in a couple of months. Cheers.
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