The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Stephen Powers with Deutsche Bank.

Stephen Powers: I guess maybe, Frank, you mentioned scrap and obsolescence a couple of times. Can you — is there a way you can quantify what that was in the fourth quarter? Maybe also quantify what you’ve embedded if any, incremental obsolescence in ’23. I’m trying to get at sort of underlying gross margin ex that obsolescence. And then related to that, obviously, you’re going to start off the year with a lighter gross margin, presumably finished a lot stronger. Just relative to the full year average? Like how far — is there way you can frame how far below we are when we start the year and how far above we expect to be when we end.

Frank Smalla: Okay. So let me start with the first question. And just — I’m not intending to give you quarterly guidance, but I try to address your question. So on the first one, so scrap and obsolescence, I’d say the easiest way to answer that. We would have come in without the scrap and obsolescence in Q4 would have come in middle to high end of our margin guidance. Yes. So that’s kind of the impact. It was a sizable impact. And the 2 drivers that we have really were as I said before, we resourced against higher volumes internally and for a different mix. You have to make a call early on basically in the third quarter if for volume that you want to sell in the fourth quarter. That has changed, okay? And we need to adjust the volume.

We took it out of the internal brewery. So there’s a fixed cost absorption impact. There was one thing. And the second thing, which was actually the bigger one was the scrap that we ran out of shelf life on 2 things because it was a little bit amplified by the fact that we also transitioned to the new Focus formula in truly that we had cans and other ingredients that we have to write off. So that’s why this was a relatively big number. What you will see in the K is that total obsolescence was getting close to $40 million, and we are planning a substantial reduction in 2023. So no incremental obsolescence because almost half of that number was really incurred in ’24 and was related to some things that I would classify as onetime in nature.

Stephen Powers: Okay. Yes. Got it. Good. Any help on ’23?

Frank Smalla: ’23, I mean, it will follow our normal marginal because we have like we have the majority of our volume just in Q2 and Q3, that’s where you should see the highest volume. There’s a range, I would say that is over the year is like 4 points roughly, and the lowest quarter will be Q1 because of the phasing of the savings initiatives. And then the middle of the year has the higher ones and then in line with history, Q4 will be lower.

Stephen Powers: Yes. Okay. Okay. That’s helpful. And then on Twisted, I guess 2 questions. You may have said this, and if so, I missed it, and the transcript isn’t updating for me. So I don’t know if you gave a growth rate for ’22 on Twisted or if there was — if you were — if you did size the expected growth in ’23, but if you could go back to that, that would be great. My real question on is just is on repeat rates. And I’m just curious on newly acquired customers. Are you seeing similar repeat rates to historical? Any differences? Or is it too early to tell?

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