Turning Point Brands, Inc. (NYSE:TPB) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Louie Reformina: Yes. So what we had said was last year in light of the inflationary environment, we tested some promotions to gauge kind of customer’s activity, it ended up being stronger than we thought, which led to that $5 million impact. So that was a combination of both the impact of those promotional activities as well as some timing of deliveries with one of our Canadian distributors last year. So those are headwinds that we faced. And we also mentioned this year, we discontinued a Canadian product line that was basically a low-margin loss leader for our operations out there. That was $1.8 million of impact. We’ll have another $1.4 million of that next quarter as you think about the model and then another $1 million in Q1 of next year before we anniversary that comp. This year, we didn’t mention it in our earlier commentary, but we also saw some destocking in Canada, which we think impacted sales by another $1.5 million during the quarter.

Michael Legg: Okay. Great. And then just on the alternative, can you talk about how the penetration is occurring? Is it — are they calling you? Are you calling them? Are you displacing them or is it just low growth?

Summer Frein: Yes, I’m happy to take that question. This is Summer. We continue to see exciting growth in the alt channel. And I think to your question, it certainly goes both ways, us calling them, them calling us. But I think even coming out of last night’s exciting win in Ohio, if you think about that overall business opportunity, when coupled with DC, it means that nearly half of the United States has access to a legal rec market. So we continue to focus on getting more product into those customers. We saw great progress with our core paper line in the quarter. So not just growth based on innovative products, and we continue to work on being more of a solutions provider for all of those customers.

Michael Legg: Congrats on the quarter.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Eric Des Lauriers.

Eric Des Lauriers: First one from CLIPPER on me to understand — you kind of want to be a bit more tight lift about exact distribution or whatnot. I was wondering if you could maybe just help us understand what you’re seeing with current inventory trade dynamics, when do you expect sort of that headwind to perhaps turn into a tailwind? And when you’re kind of expecting CLIPPER sales to, I guess, resume some growth here?

Louie Reformina: Yes. So we’ve kind of said about CLIPPER, initially or any new products, when you see got this lull period where we have strong sales and then you go through this period of, what I would call, kind of a lull and the trade absorbs that inventory, we are in that lull period today, and we expect sales kind of bounce back kind of as we enter 2024 and go through the year.

Eric Des Lauriers: Okay. And then on FRE, I’m wondering if you can just comment a bit more on the competitive positioning that you’re expecting to kind of roll out with that product? You mentioned that the sort of playbook is going to kind of follow Stoker’s from a distribution standpoint going after stores with higher volume. Can you kind of comment on the competitive positioning that you’re planning on having with FRE as it relates to price points? Is this another kind of value product similar to Stoker’s?

Summer Frein: So while the strategy is similar to Stoker’s in terms of our approach and our growth expectations, we certainly are thinking about FRE as more of a premium offering. We have strong belief in our point of difference, our USP, which is higher nicotine strengths options available for our consumers, which we continue to see resonate both in-store and strong response online and plan to profitably compete in the segment against those big brands.