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

Paul Rode: Sure. Yeah. Our typical strategy is to be covered on commodities out about six months or so. And so for us, our hit on COGS, the protein rates that flow through our P&L typically go more about a six-month to nine-month lag to the market. So the market did tick up obviously in the second half of last year. So we are really expecting the height of that to hit us in the second quarter and third quarter. So I mentioned in my prepared remarks that we would expect sequential increase in protein from Q1 into Q2 and Q3. We have recently seen commodities start to come down a bit, but they have been bouncing around a little bit and so I think it’s a little bit to be determined where they land, but it could provide some potential opportunity for us in the second half, depending on where the rates go.

John Baumgartner: Okay. Thanks, Paul.

Operator: We will take our next question from David Palmer with Evercore ISI.

David Palmer: Thanks. A question on the production growth, you said low-double digits in fiscal 2023. Is that below where you had previously believed it would be, and if so, what’s driving that?

Darcy Davenport: It is a little bit below what we previously said and the reason is, because we are factoring — there are two pieces when you add capacity. One is the start-up timing, meaning when they actually start producing. And then there’s scale up and that is getting to the level kind of throughput. We have — the timing of start-up was absolutely on time and what we expected. But the scale up has been a little bit less than it’s taking longer than we previously expected and the bottle — our bottle come in as a perfect example of that affecting this quarter. And so what we have done is we have applied those learnings that we saw in 2022 to 2023 and the result is bringing down the production expectations a little bit.

David Palmer: Okay. Got it. Thank you. And I am wondering how you are viewing the interplay between capacity increases for you and your competitors, do you see your capacity increasing at the same rate as competitors. And if the — if everybody is getting the same sort of co-packer capacity relief, what dynamics do you see playing out in the market in terms of pricing power and how do you see this all playing out?

Darcy Davenport: So I can talk to the kind of tetra co-man portion of the business. Based on our estimates, we are kind of gobbling up about 70% of the new capacity. So we are definitely getting more than our fair share of the new capacity and that’s really a reflection of we were the ones initiating it. We needed it the most. We are the biggest player. And so we were able to enter into these long-term agreements and get even right of first refusal for expansions from here as well. So I think that — so I definitely know that we are getting more than our fair share of new tetra capacity. And then your second question was around — can you clarify your…

David Palmer: Yeah. We will — I think it is — that is the bulk of the question is really that. But I wonder how you are even thinking about until this point, certainly, pricing power has been perhaps reinforced by this dynamic that nobody else can fill in the capacity that you are vacating that you are not able to supply. And I wonder if you think that, that how you think promotion and pricing power will break down or not as this capacity rolls in?