Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. (NASDAQ:KDP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Brett Cooper: Thanks. Good morning. You’ve talked about the underutilization of your bottling system. I was hoping to get a sense of how much of a step adding in brands like NutraBolt is to raising that utilization to your desired levels? Or is there more that needs to be done to get to where you want to be? Thanks.

Robert Gamgort: Yes. I think what we’ve talked about in the past is that we have a tremendous asset in our direct store — company-owned direct store distribution system with significant opportunity to run more high-quality volume through that system. When we do that, you get to then you get the cost benefit, right, because you’re leveraging that fixed cost against a higher base. And the second part of it is you improve your effectiveness, because what that allows are higher drop sizes and more frequent store visit. So the area where we’ve had the biggest opportunity was in C-stores. We’re incredibly strong in large outlets, but our C-store business has been one where we have the most opportunity that’s heavily driven by the fact that we had a gap in energy.

And as you know, energy on a dollar basis is the largest segment within C-stores. So C4 is a significant step in that direction. And it allows us to really increase our scale in the C-store area, which has the benefits I described earlier. And we feel like we’re just getting started on that. That business has a tremendous trajectory for growth. And as we talked about before, we feel like we’re not done yet in that space or some of the other areas where we have white space in our portfolio. So much more to come there, much more opportunity in front of us.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Bonnie Herzog: Thank you. Good morning. I had a question on your pod volumes, which were a bit weaker than, I guess, expected in the quarter and did decelerate on a three-year stack basis for the full-year. So I guess I wanted to better understand how you’re thinking about this? And then your attach rates which are also declining. And I know you touched on this, but just more color there would be helpful. Just here — I’d love to hear more about the changes you’ve seen in consumer behavior, sort of, within the home and then ultimately, why you have the confidence that essentially attach rates might actually improve or accelerate this year? Thank you.

Robert Gamgort: Yes. Bonnie, what I think is most interesting is if we just take a step back and say, let’s look at at-home coffee in total. So we’re a leader within at-home coffee, but we participate in this bigger category. I think what’s most noteworthy in 2022, is there was a volume decline in all forms of at-home coffee globally, and single-serve actually grew its share of coffee consumption in the U.S. So from our perspective, on a relative basis, single-serve continues to outperform within at-home coffee. But at-home coffee volume decline was about 6% for the year. That’s pretty notable. Our biggest — our belief is that the biggest driver of that is consumer mobility. If you look at the first part of COVID, as we talked about in December, you would see acceleration in attach rates.