Karat Packaging Inc. (NASDAQ:KRT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jake Bartlett: Great! Thanks for taking the question. I had just a couple of follow-ups. One was on the CapEx and what you’re talking about kind of for expectations for ’23. But if I include you know just CapEx plus deposits, which I think it seems to be the best way to do it, but it was $14.7 million in ’22. What should that number be in ’23? You mentioned $4 million in CapEx, but that’s not kind of the, maybe the whole picture and especially with what you’re investing into the JV. So what should we €“ if we think about kind of free cash flow as you know a combination of the CapEx and deposits, what should that number be?

Alan Yu: Well Jake, on €“ for the year 2022 and 2023 the equipment that we ordered in 2022 that we pay most of the deposit, and we actually accounted for that as a CapEx expenditure already in 2022. They are coming in €“ basically there is not much coming into 2023 and basically all we have to do is pay the remaining balance of those equipment that we pay for already in 2022. As far as JV, we actually pay a majority of it in 2022 already in terms of CapEx deposit on that part. 2023, as we mentioned that we want to see first how the joint venture in terms of the sales growing and the growth and everything, to see if we do increase the CapEx, the additional investment or actually we’re looking to having, actually having additional parties to join the joint ventures in terms of selling the shares and having more shareholders for the company.

So there’s different area that we’re actually looking to right now on that part. So we don’t see much of an increase in CapEx or deposited in 2023 for the joint venture, as well as for the equipment wise. So that’s why we’re saying that we’re pretty safe in terms of $4 million in terms of maintenance and some of the capital expenditure we are actually looking to expand is on new trucks, new trailers, warehousing, racking and those sort of things that we’re spending in terms of the 2023, more on the logistics side.

Jake Bartlett: Okay. And the Chicago or Illinois factory in Houston warehouse, those wouldn’t be big CapEx expenses, that’s the $4 million includes those.

Alan Yu: Yes. That would not be a big expenditure for CapEx.

Jake Bartlett: And then my other question is about your back to pricing. You know in my other coverage, covering restaurants and their guidance for costs in ’23 and all of them have the packaging costs being up year-over-year. So they’re not seeing this, at least telling us yet about deflation on that line. Is there any nuance that maybe the €“ what restaurants order for to-go packaging is not going to be deflationary, but other items are. Just maybe a little more detail, because I’m seeing a little bit of a disconnect in terms of what the restaurants I cover are talking about, and then you’re kind of commentary on pricing. And maybe if you could just maybe €“ maybe it’s a factor of what is coming down. I know in the past you’ve talked about the plastics, you know plastic based products that are really what’s driving the deflation on your pricing. So any more detail there would be helpful.

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