Traeger, Inc. (NYSE:COOK) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeremy Andrus: So first of all, we highlighted Home Depot in part because it’s the largest grill reseller in the world. and we’re still relatively underpenetrated there. So — aside from even highlighting how Depot, I think it speaks to our strategy around penetration of retail in terms of acquiring additional space, merchandising, creating the tools at retail, both visual and in terms of retail associate education that drives sell-through. And so big opportunity. But I would say Home Depot is certainly emblematic of our approach to every retail partner. We if you look at sort of the our top customers, there are a lot of regional and specialty retailers, and we get there a little bit differently through our sales force in the field at a national level, of course, ACE hardware has been a fantastic customer partner and we’re having the same conversations there and with real progress in terms of penetration East and retail, visual merchandising.

So we’re — we continue to drive retail productivity in using the same strategy that we’ve described. The — I would say in terms of distribution opportunities, we continue to believe that our current footprint has a lot of a lot of opportunity to drive growth and penetration. One of the areas that I might highlight is the grocery channel in terms of consumables. In an effort to be where our consumers want us to be. We’ve expanded pellet distribution. We’ve highlighted some of our successes in other consumables, rubs and sauces, that continues to be an opportunity that we chase. And then as you look at international markets, Canada, Europe, Australia, these are markets where we are significantly underpenetrated from a location perspective, and we’re seeing progress.

It’s — I would say it’s — we’ve been incubating and we’re starting to see some successes and we certainly saw that in the third quarter some nice growth there. But there’s — we’re not worried by distribution opportunities we’re still sold in — we’re in 3.5% of U.S. households and on grills. We do always think about how we stay disciplined and yet drive higher penetration. We think the discipline is a lasting strategy that really is sustainable over time. And so always looking to fill in the gaps geographically in distribution and sort of chasing opportunities as they’re appropriate.

Peter Keith: All right, thank you very much guys, and good luck with the holiday season.

Jeremy Andrus: Thanks, Peter.

Operator: Our next question comes from Joe Feldman with Telsey Advisory Group. Please go ahead, Joe your line is open.

Joe Feldman: Great, thank you very much. Hi guys. I had a question about innovation you guys are bringing a lot of innovation to the category, and it seems pretty rapid. And I’m wondering how do you balance that in this market where people — the appetite for big ticket discretionary is still not very high as you just described. So I’m wondering like how you guys are thinking about that? Like do you delay some of the innovation like until a time when it’s a more conducive environment or — just maybe you could share thoughts there.

Jeremy Andrus: Yes. So Joe, good question. A couple of thoughts. One is that we really believe in leading with great product we have a very engaged and captive community, and we find we get a great return by launching new products, new better experience, new innovation. We have made some meaningful investments in our team. We brought in, as we said, a new leader over product. Brendan joined us six or seven months ago. And we still believe there’s a lot of opportunities for us to get better at developing the right product and creating this incredible product market fit with our consumers. So I would just lead by saying that is core to our strategy, and we think that along with brand and community are great modes for our business.