BellRing Brands, Inc. (NYSE:BRBR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jim Salera: I was just saying that with the club flip-flop, if — when they pulled the SKUs off, did they replace that with a different brand or did they just pull them out entirely and just put a different set in there?

Darcy Davenport: Yeah. So — and the club flip flop was on Dymatize, happened earlier this year. I don’t know the exact — they have put in a different competitor. I don’t remember which one it was. But they — club is a little different, especially on the powder side of the business, where they do bring in some ins and outs. So I can’t remember if it was a permanent SKU that replaced it or just an in and out. I seem to remember it was in and out, which is why we are getting back in.

Jim Salera: Okay. If I can ask then, when you guys put together the guidance, did that assume that you guys would be out on club for Dymatize or is that assuming that you guys would be back in, so basically

Darcy Davenport: Yeah.

Jim Salera: is it incremental so you are back in?

Darcy Davenport: No. It’s not incremental. We knew that it was coming back.

Jim Salera: Okay. Got it. Thank you. I will pass along.

Darcy Davenport: Thank you. Thank you.

Operator: We will take our next question from John Baumgartner with Mizuho Securities.

John Baumgartner: For the question. First off, Darcy, I wanted to ask about Premier’s household penetration and promo and rebuilding penetration from here given the stable buy rate set against the consumers you lost who are more deal driven. As you build back supply, is there a way of promoting differently or positioning the brand differently? In light of the promoter score and the willingness to paid data that you mentioned where you don’t need to go deep on future promo and you can maximize that mix of loyal consumers in your base or having that price-driven consumer, is that just necessary to build penetration and we should still see kind of that similar promotional depth that we have seen historically before the supply constraints?

Darcy Davenport: It’s a great question, and we have been debating this internally a lot, just about rethinking kind of our promotion — promotional strategy. We — first of all, we know that promotion is — there’s going to be some natural churn within all brands. We need promotion, especially and for us, it’s less the temporary price reduction, but it’s more about the display that often comes with the temporary price reduction. So — and just to remind you, this business has been really built on getting kind of out of the aisle and what that does, it’s a mainstream product. As long as we get out of the aisle and get eyeballs then we can bring in new people and then because of our strong repeat, we keep them for the most part in the franchise.

So regarding the — it’s a balance. We are talking to retailers right now about our promotional strategy. They are dying to promote again, as you can imagine, because we bring in a lot of people from outside the category. So now it’s a balance of, okay, can we maybe not go as deep as you were talking about or can we do maybe one last promotion? I think the big thing for us is as long as we get outside of the aisle, it will be very effective.

John Baumgartner: Okay. Thanks for that. And a follow-up for Paul, on the commodity outlook for this year, I think, you mentioned higher inflation for H2. Is that pressure driven by expectations for spot pricing, maybe in protein, where there could be potential flexibility or is that outlook sort of locked through forward buying or hedging where there’s really not much wiggle room? Just trying to figure out how much flexibility is inherent in the back half of the year on commodities? Thank you.