Utz Brands Inc Class A Common Stock

Hello and welcome to the second quarter 2024 earnings call. This call is being recorded and all participants are currently in a list only mode. Shortly, we will move into a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I'll now turn the call over to Kevin Powers, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Jeremy. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our live Q&A session for our second quarter results. With me today, are Howard Freeman, CEO, Ajay Kataria, CFO, and Kerry DeBoer, COO and Chief Transformation Officer. I hope everybody had a chance to listen or read our prepared remarks that we posted this morning, and also a presentation that is available on our Investor Relations website. Before we begin today's Q&A session, just a few housekeeping items. Please note that some of our comments today will contain forward-looking statements. Based on our current view of our business and actual future results may differ materially. Please see our recent SEC filings, which identify the principal risks and uncertainties that could affect future performance. On today's call, we will discuss certain adjusted non-GAAP financial measures, which are described in more detail in this morning's earnings materials. Reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures are contained in our earnings materials that are posted on our website. And with that, operator, we are ready to open up the line for questions.

All right, perfect. And just as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one. Our first question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody.

Morning, Andrew.

Thanks again for shifting around your sort of reporting schedule. It's really helpful on a busy morning. Howard, I guess, you know, 3% or about, call it 3%, volume-driven organic sales growth for the full year certainly requires, as you know, a healthy step-up. in growth in the second half, you know, all in the context of a more competitive salty category. What drives the confidence in this outlook and I guess how much of the step up is coming from sort of the white space distribution actions that are, you know, maybe a bit more in your control or sort of locked in, if you will, versus the underlying business? And what is enabling us to sort of raise, you know, the percent of sales on promo, you know, quite a bit less than the category average and why would that be sustainable? Thanks so much.

Yeah, I appreciate the question. I think the first thing I would offer you is that our results are really predicated on us continuing to execute against the strategies that we had at Investor Day. And as you know, one of the bigger ones for us is this geographic white space opportunities that we have, not only in our expansion markets, but also being able to bring some of our Power 4 brands into our existing core markets. And I think what you saw in the quarter and what we expect going forward is largely for that to continue to be the case. we're seeing good distribution gains in already secured retailers as we go forward. Certainly in our unmeasured channels, as we've continued to address where consumers are shifting and shopping, we have better availability in those channels than we've historically had, which has been sort of accommodating to our approach. And then we do have a meaningful step up in ANC. It's still modest by almost any standard that I would apply, but It went from 40% to 60%, and our innovation is breaking. It's starting to move into distribution. It kind of came out in the second quarter, and we would expect that momentum to build as well. Certainly understand the focus on the promotional environment, and the one thing that I'm particularly proud of is our capability building over the last 12, 15 months. Our revenue growth management capabilities and our marketing capabilities really allow us to be disciplined and flexible. as the environment shifts, and as the environment shifts, we can shift with it. So, you know, certainly the environment will continue to evolve. That's just life in our industry, and we intend to remain flexible and evolve with it.

Thanks so much. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Peter Galvo from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Hey, Pete.

Howard, I just maybe wanted to pick up on the back of Andrew's question, particularly around the competitive environment. And I think your largest competitor has really called out two subcategories, unflavored potato chips and then tortilla chips kind of as the areas where we could potentially see more promotional activity. And that obviously is a pretty large portion of your portfolio. So maybe you can just give us a bit more detail on how you're thinking about those kind of two large subcategories within the broader portfolio.

Yeah. Thanks, Pete. I appreciate the question. I think, look, there are a couple of things that are unique to our business and I suspect will continue to be. And again, we hit some of these themes at Investor Day. Obviously, the geographic white space and the opportunity for us to continue to further penetrate those spaces with our brands gives us some confidence that we are able to compete across the industry, right? And second is we are, and we've talked a little bit about being a house of brands, it kind of feels sometimes like we talk a lot about geography and we talk a little bit less about brand building and kind of our portfolio of consumer brands. And, you know, if you are a consumer who's looking for an unflavored potato chip, we certainly obviously have that. But we also have opportunities if you are a consumer looking for positive choices in our Boulder Canyon business, or flavors and zaps, or flavored business and zaps. So we do have a fairly broad portfolio of brands that consumers can opt into up and down the price ladder as well. For a more value conscious consumer who's looking for an absolute price point, we have items that work there as well. So I think overall we feel really good about the portfolio that consumers can opt into. Our revenue management skills are getting much sharper every quarter and we're able to now show We have clarity around price gaps and where we need to be, both across the price ladder and across channels. And the last thing is, again, I think on the availability side, probably the thing that we continue to focus on is making sure that we're available across where consumers shop, whether it is in traditional grocery or club stores or in e-commerce en masse. And so in all of those places right now, we are making sure we have the right assortment. And so it's not just an unflavored potato chip or tortilla chip. environment. For us, it's a far broader playing field that I think we can compete on.

Great. Thanks for that. And maybe just a very quick follow-up. A couple questions this morning just on kind of the raise on EPS guidance, but not on EBITDA, particularly given kind of the 2Q over delivery. So just curious kind of how you're thinking about, you know, leaving Flex or any sort of upside to be reinvested either into price or SG&A in the second half and just how you think about that setting you up for 25. Thanks very much.

Yeah, I think first just a reminder in our company, a lot of the SG&A growth that you saw was really being driven by marketing investments year over year. So, you know, again, I think we're executing our strategy well. Look, we've been paying attention to the competitive environment as well. We're aware of what that environment may look like in the back half, but we want to make sure that we can remain flexible. And so it's important to us that we have the tools we need to address the competition in a targeted way as required. And if we don't wind up using those resources, great, but we have plenty of places where we can still invest. As far as the EPS, I'll turn it to Ajay.

Yeah, so the EPS guide is really raised because of the revised assumptions on effective tax rate that you saw. Also, it stepped down on Core DNA, which was slightly higher than what we expected from the transactions.

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Lavery from Piper Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Just recognized from Investor Day and how you've laid it all out, how much savings opportunity there is, and we're seeing that. I guess just given that it seems to be, you know, contracting ahead of schedule, Can you also give us a sense if savings are not only faster, but bigger than you had, you know, kind of first assessed? And, you know, it's not, I know you don't want to probably change any targets now, or you would have, but is there more that you have a line of sight on, even since just a few months ago? And is that part of what's helping it come in so much more quickly?

Yeah, I appreciate the question, Mike. There's no question that from a supply chain optimization perspective, we are coming in quicker. Obviously, we were able to execute the plan dispositions, and we went from 13 plans at investor day to eight at this point while maintaining our supply base and being secure that we can continue to service our business the way retailers and obviously our independent operators and consumers would expect. But the upside for us is it also has allowed us to really narrow our focus down to those eight plants, integrated work systems and some other places. So productivity is coming in ahead of where we expected. You know, we've always talked a little bit about the opportunity for us to expand gross margins and then decide how to deploy them in marketing, distribution gains, as well as in capability building. And, you know, I think we have confidence through the year. And as Jay mentioned in the prepared remarks, we would expect that sets us up nicely for 2025 as well.

That's great. And just to follow up on some of the top line color that you just gave, you touched on the differentiated brands like Boulder Canyon and Zapps. Boulder Canyon, of course, is on fire right now. But Zapps had been. Certainly has slowed. Can you just give a sense of what's ahead there? How much of it is just comp driven? You know, what should we expect for how that brand plays out going forward?

I definitely agree that those two businesses are a little bit of a tale of two cities. Boulder Canyon is growing quite nicely. It's got a great position in the marketplace and high perceived value. for both the consumer as well as for retailers, really driven by avocado oil and the non-seed oil folks. We also have Boulder Canyon Poppers that is launching now, which is kind of, you know, if you think about our company overall, a cheese ball is something we know a lot about and we're very proud of, and being able to bring that into another subcategory under that brand just kind of shows the elasticity of that brand and what we can do with it as we go forward. So that is a lot about distribution gains and a lot about high velocity. So we're getting in and consumers are buying more of it. So a great story there. I think on Zaps, we talked about this last quarter, the opportunities we have in a price pack architecture and down the street in C-Store and making sure that we address those areas as we move forward. And Zaps is coming in a little bit slower than we would have expected, potato chips specifically. is an area of continued emphasis for us. And then the pretzel lap of the new item from a year ago, which we now have our two new items out at this point, our spicy Cajun and our brown sugar, which are now in market and picking up. So we would expect that trend to normalize. Potato chips is the area we need to continue to work.

Okay, thanks so much. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Rob Dickerson from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks so much. Maybe just, you know, on the heels of that last question, I'm just curious, you know, as you have started to expand a bit in your expansion geographies, have there been any incremental learnings with respect to kind of know which products which brands are maybe traveling a bit better i just kind of asked because you know i know you know i think you previously the idea was well they're definitely can push them back definitely can push in canyon but also seems like fox is doing kind of very well as you kind of move west so that's just the first question yeah um

I think overall, we feel really good about all four of our powerful brands. Right. I think they all travel. They all travel reasonably well at this point. I think the two things we have learned as we go is how how repeatable our model seems to be. Right. So we had a we had a theory of the case. We had great success expanding into Florida and we continue to make great strides of continuing to grow our business there. But I think we have a formula down of what the right number of items are across which subcategories and the brands as well as a support model that I think we're showing is significantly incremental to the retailer and our brand and there's a great deal of interest from consumers to opt into our products as well. So again, I think that the power of the portfolio, the catering to different consumers and making sure that our assortment reflects that and then investing some of our advertising and consumer to drive consumer pull as our sales organization and retailers are giving us the space, is working for us, is working for the category, and we're being rewarded with incremental support as we go.

All right, super. And then I guess just secondly, sort of what's your updated thought on potential category growth for the year one and then two? You know, clearly there's acceleration baked into the guy that you expect in the back half. but it seems like you have fairly high conviction on that acceleration. So I'm kind of assuming that's all for distribution gains. Maybe just kind of comment on, you know, why the conviction's there, too. Thanks.

Yep. Yeah. Look, I think we have always maintained from the beginning of the year that we expected a category to call it, you know, call it around 2%, but our growth was going to be volume-led. We weren't going to see any price. And obviously, the category has been a little bit softer than even we had thought it would be. I think we would say right now we would assume it's kind of relatively flat as we go forward. Sorry, I lost your second question. I apologize.

The second question is just what gives you conviction on the back half acceleration? Clearly, you know, that does imply a fair amount of share gain.

Yep, thank you. Look, I think as we look at our back half plans, there are a couple of things that are going on. First of all, we have secured distribution gains that we are aware of, that we are executing as we speak, and we'll continue to expect that that will support our top line as we go forward on a relative basis to the first half. I think second, our marketing steps up, as does our innovation. And then the third, although I don't always love this as an answer, we do have easier comps in the back half of the year versus prior year. So we can execute similarly as we are, and actually the percentage growth will be more will be more significant. So we do have high conviction. The wild cards, I think, are well known to everybody. But we feel pretty good that we're executing the way we need to right now.

All right, super. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Robert Moscow from TD Cohen. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks.

I just wanted to ask, in the context of your longer-term outlook for sales growth, is three to four Clearly, this is a volume-driven year, but you could see a scenario where pricing is kind of flattish for the next couple of years, three years, given all the backdrops. So, does the long-term algo still hold up in a zero pricing environment? Is there enough distribution gains out there in 25 and 26 to keep that three to four going? Thanks. Yeah. I think the short answer is yes, we have a significant amount of geographic white space to go over the next couple of years. Remember, we're still, we still have about 60% of the total U.S. SALTI, where SALTI is over indexes from a category perspective are the areas that we are moving, we're moving toward. So I think the short answer is we can, we absolutely have confidence that we can continue to grow our volumes If you think back to Investor Day, what we had said was that we would be growing volume share, that it had always been for us a volume-based program. And it's really because we're able to bring our core brands and sort of mix them into the geographies that they are less penetrated in as we go forward. And I think the other thing is given we are still in the earliest stages of our advertising and consumer investments, I think we also have confidence that as we learn more Those should also be supportive to continue to drive meaningful volume growth over the next three years. Got it. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, Art.

Our next question comes from the line of Matt McGinley from Needham. Please go ahead.

Thank you. To deliver the four-year EBITDA guide, you need to have a step-up in margin rate in the back half.

Do you expect the sales growth to drive more operating leverage and offset that increase in marketing? Or do you expect to have more productivity gains that will ramp up in the back half?

Yeah, I would say both. So the leverage from distribution gains led sales growth or volume growth definitely helps. And our productivity program has been pretty strong throughout the first half. You should see that strength and that delivery continue. supply chain team is uh doing a great job accelerating program as well as investing uh where we need to in our network to uh get ready for 2025 as well got it and a key part of your long-term plan is to sustain market share in your core markets you've been pretty consistently gaining sharing those expansion markets but maybe not so consistent in the core

Are there any issues or changes you need to make in the core markets, or are you pretty happy with the market performance and how it's playing out in core versus expansion? Well, I think that was a generous statement about our core. I think, look, if you look across where we've been, we're very happy with our expansion markets. And part of our core market strategy is to do some similar things, specifically around Boulder Canyon, Zapson on the border. I think we're having... good results in doing those things, but we are more, it is clearly a geography where sort of more normal category dynamics tend to impact some of our business, specifically around our foundation brands, sort of the areas as we're evolving our portfolio. We have a long tail, we have a tail of brands that we have been shifting away from, and the core disproportionately will reflect those trends in the near term. We think longer term, Those trends, I think, normalize and become very small, and that's why we have confidence as we go forward. But really, you know, there are four things we're doing there. We're going to continue to drive our capabilities. We're increasing our marketing, investment, and innovation, which should benefit the core disproportionately. We're building our DSD route infrastructure, continuing to improve it and strengthen it as our sales teams are there, and then we're driving that distribution we talked about. So, you know, I think we have a little bit of work to do in our core for sure, but I feel very good about our progress there, and we just needed to continue to come through in metrics by holding our share.

Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Rupesh Parikh from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. So I had two questions just on the promotional backdrop. So I was curious what your team's assuming for the back half of the year on the promotion front versus what we saw in Q2. And then as you look at some of your value initiatives so far, how are consumers responding to some of the promotional efforts?

Yeah, so I think we look at our price. We'll maintain our price gaps and remain disciplined as we go forward. I think we feel pretty good about where our price gaps are. And if the market shifts, then we'll be flexible and targeted to address them. You know, I think from an overall perspective, one of the things that makes us feel even better is because expansion geographies and our untracked channels continue to perform, obviously that actually takes a little bit of pressure off of just competing on a promotional calendar. We have a lot of growth drivers for us as we go forward. And so I think we feel pretty good. Obviously, we showed you our difference in our promotional spending versus the category year over year. We do expect that the category will be more promotional and we're prepared to compete there. If it changes more than we planned, we'll be flexible.

Great. And then maybe just one follow-up question. Just on the cost side, what are you guys seeing in the cost backdrop and on the inflation front at this point?

Yeah. So we are still expecting the inflation, overall inflation bucket that we track to be flat. Commodities are slightly you know, deflationary, but we have transportation and labor inflation that's baked into that bucket.

Great. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Mitchell Panera from Sturdivant. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hey, good morning. I'm curious about your foundation brands and how important sort of holding them somewhat steady as to sort of achieving your gross margin expansion. Is that a risk at all if you continue to see above average leakage in the foundation brands?

I appreciate the question. Look, I think for us, our foundation brands in general play a very specific role of being able to build out some route infrastructure And making sure that, you know, certainly in some geographies where they are important to the shopper and consumer, that they are available. We will continue to de-emphasize them and sort of contemplate it in our original assumptions and thesis as we go forward, is that as those businesses de-emphasize, our higher margin and higher consumer value products actually offset those declines. But, you know, we love our foundation brands. We'll maintain them and make sure that they're available. But ultimately, I don't suspect that it will be a meaningful impact to the overall P&L given the growth opportunities we have for our Power 4 and our targeted Power brands.

Okay. Thanks for that. And then just one last question is can you speak to the effectiveness of your promotions right now? Are they – Is there one type doing better than another and or are they tracking with normal effectiveness and efficiencies from historical levels?

Look, I think we are, one of the things that as we've been building out our revenue management capabilities, there are kind of a few things that we've been doing. One is making sure that we understand what our optimal price gaps are. so that we can compete responsibly in the category and be able to drive obviously the affordability consumers desire with the unit growth and the volume that I think everybody would like in a healthy and growing category. We know that through the course of the first half of the year and obviously all of last year that promotional lifts have been lower. And we've been experimenting with different promotional tactics And we continue to do that. I wouldn't necessarily say that there's one that's working better than others, but clearly you can see the consumer making choices, shopping the latter, and shopping across channels, which is obviously having some effect promotionally. I think for us, while we will compete where we need to in a targeted way on price, the distribution gains and the marketing support that we are able to generate is also having very positive effects to our business. And so we feel really good that the entire marketing mix is working, you know, the way we would expect it to, and there will always be some tradeoffs, which we'll be flexible about. All right.

Thank you. Very helpful. That's all for me.

Thanks, Mitch. All right. And just as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Solera from Stevens. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Hey, Jim. Howard, I wanted to drill down, you know, if you look at the household penetration, the buyers and the repeat trends, obviously all going in the right direction, I would imagine driven in the expansion territories. Can you just talk through maybe what's bringing the incremental households to the us brand and then it seems like obviously you're retaining them with a repeat rate. What does it take to retain them if they're maybe new to the brand moving forward such that we can have a more stable and ideally higher repeat rate from these new customers?

Yeah, I appreciate the question. Look, I think we're very happy with the underlying consumer metrics, right? It's one thing to be able to enter into a new geography or enter into a new class of trade, which, you know, again, I think for us, the power of our portfolio is that we're able to bring varied brands to varied geographies, some of them in the core and elsewhere. But then the reality is that once you get into the store, the consumer has to want to buy the product and repeat it to your point, which we're seeing great progress across all of those things. I think there's a couple of reasons why. Number one, we do have a great product. We have a meaningfully different product that eats well. I think it meets the consumer expectations, whether you want a plain chip or a wavy chip or tortilla across all of our subcats. So the first thing is I think we're very proud of the product that we put out. I think the second thing is that we are now actually being able to drive awareness of those items, both in terms of point of sale displays and being able to drive our distribution, but also using the marketing tactics to get consumer awareness up. And then third, we have great retailer and I.O. support. So the retailers are giving us the space outs on the perimeter, which allows the consumer to be there. And then our IOs are keeping stores shelved and giving consumers the opportunity to opt in. So I think what you see right now is the entire system is working reasonably well for us. Obviously, we have plenty to do and we are far from perfect. But across our business right now, we feel pretty good about how we're executing.

That's great. And then if I can drill down on Boulder, if my notes serve me correctly, in the investor day, you guys said it would be, you know, targeting 100 million retail sales in three years. And here we are, you know, six months and some change later, and it's approaching 100 million dollars in retail sales now. So I would anticipate that you'll probably be well ahead of that three year time horizon. What does it take? to get Boulder really increased shelf availability at traditional retail? I mean, I see it in club and in natural and, you know, in my area. But I feel like it has brought enough appeal to really be a mainstay in a traditional retail as well. So what does it take to really expand your on-shelf presence in, you know, the Kroger's and Albertsons in the world?

Yeah, we are very pleased, obviously, with the performance of our Boulder Canyon business over the last, really, Frankly 18 months we started probably when I first got here we started talking more about Boulder Canyon as a as a power brand and it has you know continues to grow quickly both in terms of availability as well as velocity so we're getting distribute to your point we're getting consumers to opt in and retailers are putting it on the shelves but then consumers are coming and buying it and then repeating so you know it's positioning is great the product is great I think I think from our point of view, there's really nothing stopping us from continuing to drive the availability where retailers and consumers want it. We have the firepower and manufacturing capabilities to continue to build that business. And you're right, we're well ahead of what we thought at the time was a pretty bold statement of $100 million within three years. And we will be well ahead of that probably by 2026. will certainly be exceeding that expectation that we set out. So we'll continue to drive availability. We will innovate. You've seen Canyon poppers showing up, and we think there's a lot left to do with that brand.

Okay, great. And maybe just one last question just to tie off that train of thought. Do you have any capacity constraints for Boulder? You know, if you get big orders from retailers, are you able to meet that right away, or is there like a ramp-up period we would anticipate?

No, we feel really good about our capacity right now. Obviously, given all the supply chain optimization work that we are doing and the capital that we are investing, as well as the increase in our capabilities around integrated business planning, we have much better visibility for both the demand and supply of that item. And so we feel good about where we are. We feel really good about the ability to support that runway as we go forward.

Okay, great. Thanks for the call, guys. I'll hop back in. Thank you.

All right. And our next question comes from the line of John Baumgartner from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question.

Hey, Johnny. Maybe first off, Howard, how are you thinking about category mix in a weakening consumer environment? Is it fair to expect any sort of shifting, for example, from popcorn and potato chips? Or are there any broader shifts that could occur within salty snacks? that could prove net favorable for you?

You know, it's an interesting question. I think we would expect, because there are consumers who tend, if you look at the consumer decision tree, consumers do tend to opt into subcategories first. And then they kind of move up and down the brand and price ladder within that category more so than they do, say, jump from potato chips to pretzels. So while there is obviously people will shop across the subcats. People do tend to, consumers do tend to opt into one subcategory and kind of live there. And then there are, I think where there are items that they are buying for the entire family to eat, you might see a little bit more pressure just in terms of absolute, maybe you don't opt into two bags, you buy one. But I think that that is pure speculation on my part. I think what you are seeing in our results is the benefit of the portfolio strategy that we have and a lot of the efforts we've undertaken over the last, you know, call it 18 months, two and a half years to optimize our portfolio mix and be able to shift it to more profitable businesses as we've de-emphasized some others.

Okay.

And then my follow-up, can you discuss some of the back half merchandising plans? I think last year you began to ramp activity with some products for tailgating season. I think Halloween has been a focal point for you as well. So relative to last year and the improvements you made in manufacturing and supply chain, how does that set you up for the season this year in terms of display and feature?

Yeah. So, look, I think a couple things. One thing we certainly see is that our quality merchandising continues to get stronger. So we have been fortunate to be driving more feature and display activity. Our perimeter displays have been higher through really the course of the last, you know, call it 18 months. And I think that we, you know, our, our expectation is, is that we are justifying our, our space on the perimeter and our IOs do a great job of continuing to compete for that space. And we expect that to continue. One thing, a couple of things that we are certainly optimistic about is kind of where we are on distribution and merchandising in the back half of the year. You know, untracked channels, I think across, across, we feel good about where we are. We're bringing back, while we're repeating our normal pretzel Halloween rotation, we'll actually have a Zaps Halloween rotation as well, which will be incremental to the prior year and feel very good about what we're doing on the holiday as we go forward. So I think we think all of those things will support our business. The already achieved distribution gains that we have are also going to obviously introduce more merchandising opportunities for us in some of our expansion geographies. And, you know, the consumer support we have as well will be in support as well. So we feel pretty good about where we are and, you know, we're here to compete and do it responsibly and remain flexible.

Thanks, Howard.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, everyone. That does conclude today's second quarter 2024 earnings call. Have a