Utz Brands, Inc. (NYSE:UTZ) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript May 11, 2023

Utz Brands, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.11, expectations were $0.1.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Brent, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Utz Brands First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session [Operator Instructions]. It’s now my pleasure to turn today’s call over to Mr. Kevin Powers, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kevin Powers: Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. On the call today are, Howard Friedman, Chief Executive Officer; Ajay Kataria, Chief Financial Officer; and Cary Devore, Chief Operating Officer. Howard and Ajay will make prepared comments this morning, and all three will be available to answer questions during our live Q&A session. Please note that some of our comments today will contain forward-looking statements based on our current view of our business and actual future results may differ materially. Please see our recent SEC filings, which identify the principal risks and uncertainties that could affect future performance. Before I turn the call over to Howard, I have just a few housekeeping items to review.

Today, we will discuss certain adjusted or non-GAAP financial measures, which are described in more detail in this morning’s earnings materials. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures are contained in our earnings materials and posted on our Web site. Finally, the company has also prepared presentation slides and additional supplemental financial information, which are posted on our Investor Relations Web site. And now, I’d like to turn the call over to Howard.

Howard Friedman: Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. It’s great to be talking to you today in my second earnings call as CEO of Utz. I’ve been in the role now for about six months and it’s been a great experience with a lot of learnings that makes me increasingly confident about the future growth. In addition, I’d like to thank Dylan Lissette once again for his help during the transition. And I want to take a moment to congratulate Dylan on his official appointment to Chairman of the Board last week during our annual shareholder meeting. He did a phenomenal job building Utz into what it is today, and the transition couldn’t have come at a better time as we position for our next leg of growth. Our first quarter results are a testament to this as our momentum is building as we execute against the long term strategies that have made this great company successful.

Organic net sales increased 4% even as we lapsed 21% comparable growth in the prior year. We expanded adjusted gross margins and drove double digit adjusted EBITDA growth, all while continuing to make the necessary investments required to fuel sustainable above category long term growth. Our power brand consumption increased nearly 10% on top of 20% growth last year as we further penetrate our expansion geographies and intentionally rationalize other areas of portfolio. As expected, net sales volumes declined about 6% in the quarter as we lapsed a strong prior year and aggressively optimized our product mix and trimmed non-core private label and partner brands. These actions proactively reduced sales volumes by about 4% but we believe that over time these strategic actions will improve our margin mix and unlock key manufacturing, selling and distribution capacity to support higher growth of our power brands.

In addition, as we’ve previously mentioned, this year, we are focused on extending the reach of our power brands and we are shifting our legacy marketing spend and our investment in marketing capabilities. We plan to increase our working media to drive more consumer pull to unlock growth, increase our connection to our consumers via digital marketing and launch new products to address near end trends. I’m particularly happy about our innovation selling to date. The ability to increase our brand investments is fueled by our gross margin expansion. And in Q1, we delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted gross margin increases. Our strong pricing execution, higher levels of productivity and portfolio optimization strategies are supporting our margin recovery and building the foundation for a more advantaged margin structure and above category growth in the years to come.

And finally, we are making tangible progress against our network optimization strategies to support more profitable growth and a better balanced capacity across our network. After consideration, we’ve made the difficult decision to close our manufacturing operations in Birmingham, Alabama, and we are actively in sourcing production where we have capacity. As always closing any one of our facilities is a difficult decision and we are committed to assisting our team through this transition. Ajay will provide more financial details about Birmingham closure in his prepared remarks. Briefly touching on our first quarter financial results. Organic net sales increased 4% year-over-year, adjusted gross margins expanded 50 basis points or 140 basis points when accounting for our IO route conversion impact.

Adjusted EBITDA increased nearly 11% and adjusted EPS of $0.11 was flat year-over-year. Looking at our retail consumption trends in the quarter, retail sales increased 9.4% versus the salty snack category growth of 14.8%. We expected this relative performance given we lapped very strong growth in the prior year as our first quarter 2022 retail sales increased 18.6% versus category growth of 13.6%. Extending our performance out to a two year basis to account for the lap, our total retail sales increased 30% and our power brands increased 32%, and we effectively maintained our market share over that time period. Turning back to our year-over-year results. In the first quarter, our three largest brands Utz, On The Border and Zapp’s, which combined represent about 75% of our retail sales, the collective growth of these brands was again in the double digits.

Our flagship Utz Brands grew 11%, driven by potato chip growth of 18.5%. The first quarter marked the seventh consecutive quarter of double digit growth for both Utz potato chips and the Utz Brands. Our Utz potato chips are gaining share with expansion into new geographies and we are attracting and retaining more households as our Utz potato chip buyers increased 9% in the quarter. In addition, we introduced innovation behind the brand and we are excited about the recent launch of Utz and Mike’s Hot Honey potato chips. This is a fun and exciting collaboration with a great brand and an on trend flavor. On The Border tortilla chip retail sales increased 4% as we lapped 35% growth in the prior year, primarily due to increased merchandising support and large distribution gains in the mass channel.

This year, we are driving a number of brand building activities, including new pack sizes and flavors, the launch of our first ever variety pack box that will be featured in the club channel and a new take home bag flavor creamy salsa verde. From a consumer activation standpoint, in connection with the upcoming summer holidays, we are featuring new patriotic themed packaging, supported by increased shopper activation programming throughout the second and third quarters. Finally, on The Border, Salsa and Queso are significantly exceeding category growth. Our Zapp’s brand retail sales remained robust and increased nearly 60% in the quarter, driven by our new flavored pretzel innovation and potato chip growth of 19.5%. While still in early months of the launch, our seasoned pretzels repeat rate is exceeding the category benchmark and we expect sustained momentum, driven by further geographic expansion and channel grows across primarily mass and club.

Looking ahead to the second half of the year and consistent with our strategy to accelerate our working media spend, we are ramping up our consumer media activities to build more awareness of this unique brand. As a reminder, our Zapp’s brand ACV currently stands at around 40% and we have a huge opportunity in front of us to bring Zapp’s into more households across the country. Wrapping up brand highlights, I’d like to take a moment to touch on Boulder Canyon, a chip brand in our portfolio that gives our customers healthier options using better for you oils, like olive oil or avocado oil. Boulder Canyon has delivered nearly 20 consecutive periods of double digit growth in spins and is the number two potato chip brand and natural channel. In the natural channel, which makes it approximately 50% of the business, Boulder Canyon is growing 23.5% in the last 12 weeks, which is nearly 2.5 times the category growth rate.

Finally from an IRI perspective, consumption of Boulder Canyon products increased 35% led by expansion of new customers in the grocery channel. Moving to our key salty subcategories. We gained share across both potato chips and pretzels, which combined represent about 55% of our retail sales. Potato chips increased 16.5% and pretzels grew 19.1% as we saw broad based strength across most channels and geographies led by Utz and Zapp’s brands. For tortilla chips, as I mentioned earlier, we are lapping strong activity in the mass channel where On The Border sales are more heavily weighted. Or perspective, on this year-over-year comparison, On The Border tortilla chips sales grew 35% in the first quarter of 2022. On a two-year basis, our tortilla chips increased 37.6% versus subcategory growth of 32%.

And as we progress through the year, we expect our tortilla chip year-over-year performance to improve. From a geography perspective we are making progress penetrating our whitespace opportunities while improving execution in our core. In our core, we are lapping significant outperformance. And on a two year basis, our power brand retail sales increased 29%, which was essentially in line with the category. Our share performance versus a year ago was primarily impacted by lapping strong Utz brand share gains and declines in Golden Flake Pork, Good Health and tortillas. Looking ahead, we do expect our share performance to improve as we move through tough laps and we drive space gains in key food and mass accounts. In expansion, our power brands sales increased 13.5% versus last year and is 36.6% versus two years ago, which was well ahead of the category.

As we previously mentioned, our expansion markets are more heavily weighted towards mass and the distribution overlaps impacted the year-over-year comparison. Importantly, we are lapping our Publix introduction at about this time last year with plenty of support, a chain wide ad and display coverage. We are looking for opportunities to expand our penetration led by large national grocers throughout 2023 and beyond. Shifting gears to innovation this year. We are delivering consumer centric innovation to create on trend and exciting offerings in high growth segments, flavored pretzels, variety packs, seasonally relevant items and hot and spicy flavors. Taking the Zapp’s brand known for distinct and desired flavors into flavored pretzels category is proving to be successful and it’s off to a great start.

Our Utz Peanut Butter filled pretzels is the number one branded SKU in the segment and is extending its price back offerings to reach more consumers and channels. Multipacks and variety packs remain a high growth segment and we are expanding our assortment to more power brands, leveraging our portfolio to improve brand and item assortment across channels and improving our packaging solutions to have more impact at shelf and in the home. We are innovating in key seasonal windows to have relevant, fun and turnkey solutions as consumers host gatherings in their homes. We are extending our successful odds Utz Party Mix in the fall with Utz Tailgate Mix that features football shaped pretzels in merchandising ready solutions. We are also adding on trend flavors like hot and spicy to our portfolio and we are thrilled with our collaboration and partnership with Mike’s Hot Honey to heat up the summer with a limited time offer and 360 degrees consumer support.

Before I turn the call over to Ajay, I think it’s important to highlight that over the past year and a half we have been building our capabilities to deliver sustained results in a dynamic environment. While the opportunities remain significant, our initial efforts are exceeding our expectations. Our momentum is building and this year we expect to drive organic net sales growth supported by our resilient salty snack category, expand the reach of our power brands, improve our margins through productivity and revenue management initiatives to improve our mix to fund our growth activities. And through the course of the year, we will generate stronger cash flow to reduce balance sheet leverage. Finally, as I mentioned on the last earnings call, I do not expect meaningful changes to our strategies or focus areas.

As we sit here kicking off our second quarter, I remain confident in the foundation of this business and both our near and long term opportunities for accelerated growth and margin expansion. Ajay?

Ajay Kataria: Thank you, Howard, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter results reflect the strength of our salty snack categories. Despite lapping significant growth in the prior year, we delivered organic growth of 4%, while proactively optimizing our portfolio. In addition, we drove double digit adjusted EBITDA growth as we are executing our margin enhancing programs. I would like to thank the entire Utz team for their contributions to our growth and we remain well positioned for a strong 2023. Turning to our first quarter results in more detail. Net sales were in line with our expectations and increased 3.1% to $351.4 million. Adjusted gross margin expanded 48 basis points to 34.4% and this includes an approximate 90 basis points of negative impact from our IO conversions.

Excluding this impact, our adjusted gross margins expanded approximately 140 basis points versus last year and this was our fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted gross margin expansion. Our adjusted EBITDA increased by 10.7% to $40.4 million or 11.5% as a percent of net sales. Adjusted net income of $15 million and adjusted EPS of $0.11 per share were both in line with last year largely due to higher interest expense. Moving to the P&L for some additional detail, starting with net sales. Of note, this quarter we have refined our net sales reporting and we have separated mix from price to be grouped with volume. This was done as part of our effort to continually conform our reporting to be more in line with our peers and is consistent with the way we evaluate our business performance.

Our net sales growth in the quarter was 3.1%, driven by organic growth of 4%. In addition, total net sales were impacted from the conversion of company owned RSP routes to independent operators, which reduced the net sales growth by 0.9%. Our organic net sales growth was led by price of 9.7%, offset by lower volume mix of 5.7% as we expected. As Howard noted earlier, in the first quarter, we faced our most difficult comparison of the year as we lap our first quarter 2022 organic net sales growth of 20.7%, which was led by strong volume growth of 11.3%, that included strong activity in the mass channel. In addition, our SKU rationalization initiatives are ongoing as we aggressively optimize mix to improve portfolio margin, and we unlock manufacturing capacity to help better enable our network optimization.

This program began late into the first quarter of 2022. And through wraparound impact from last year’s actions, combined with new actions this year, our volume was proactively impacted by approximately 400 basis points. In the first quarter, adjusted EBITDA increased 10.7% and margins increased nearly 80 basis points to 11.5% of sales. Decomposing the change in the adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter, positive drivers include price benefit of 9.7%, volume mix of 1.9% and productivity improvement of 2.1%. Offsetting these positive drivers were the unfavorable margin impact of 11.6%, driven by higher inflation and selling and administrative expense impact of 1.3%. Our inflation impact versus last year was comprised primarily of higher commodity input costs, as well as elevated labor costs.

Selling and administrative expense reflects increasing investments in our people, brands, selling infrastructure and supply chain capabilities to support our growth. Our first quarter [Technical Difficulty] performance reflects good execution across the company as we are building momentum across our margin enhancing initiatives. The actions will help drive our bottom line performance while also providing the fuel for our future growth. For example, we are managing our input cost inflation with our 2022 pricing execution and we are further developing our price pack architecture program and optimizing our trade spend, leveraging improved talent, technology and analytical capabilities. We are improving our revenue mix and rationalizing less productive and lower margin private label and partner brand SKUs. And these actions are freeing up capacity in our plants and distribution network, which is helping us in servicing higher margin power brand business.

We are executing our productivity programs and we now expect to deliver productivity of approximately 4% in 2023 as a percent of cost of goods, which is at a higher end of our original expectations and we are progressing our manufacturing network optimization program. This includes in sourcing volume where we have capacity, and as we announced a few weeks ago, the closing of our manufacturing operation in Birmingham, Alabama on July 3rd. Given the age and condition of the plant, it would have been challenging and costly to retrofit the facility. And as a result, we plan to shift production to our facility in Kings Mountain, North Carolina and Hanover, Pennsylvania. In connection with the closure, in fiscal 2023, we expect to incur pretax cash charges of between $3 million to $5 million, which is expected to include $1.5 million in severance costs and $1.5 million to $3.5 million in closing and transfer of production costs.

We also expect to incur noncash charges of approximately $8 million to $11 million in asset impairments. Also, given that the manufacturing operations don’t close until early July and we are incurring costs to shift production across the network, we don’t expect our in year fiscal 2023 savings to be material. Now, turning to cash flow and the balance sheet. Beginning with cash flow, consistent with normal seasonality, cash flow used in operations in the first quarter was $8.4 million. Keep in mind that, historically, our first quarter is a heavier use of working capital and we expect progress on our net leverage reduction to be greater in the back half of the fiscal year. In addition, driving stronger free cash flow conversion remains a major priority and a cross functional effort across the company.

We have made organizational changes and we are driving process and technology improvements, including enhanced analytics to drive benefits across the cash conversion cycle. We expect the benefits to build throughout fiscal 2023 and beyond. Capital expenditures were $13.9 million in the first quarter as compared to $8.2 million in Q1 of the prior year. The increase in spend was primarily related to supporting our productivity programs and our manufacturing expansion in Kings Mountain. Finishing with the balance sheet. Net debt at quarter end was $891.8 million or 5.1 times trailing 12 months normalized adjusted EBITDA of $174.4 million. As I stated earlier, our first quarter is a heavier use of cash and we would expect progress on our net leverage reduction to be greater in the back half of the fiscal year.

Now turning to our full year outlook for fiscal 2023. Today, we reaffirmed our net sales growth outlook and increased our adjusted EBITDA growth outlook. As we consider our Q1 performance and look ahead to the remainder of the year, our outlook is unchanged for total net sales growth of 3% to 5% and organic net sales growth of 4% to 6%. Our shift to independent operators is expected to impact our total net sales growth by approximately 1%. Price is expected to be the largest contributor to growth with volume mix consistent with last year. While mix will be a benefit, we now expect to produce less pounds in our facilities this year compared to last year as we have identified additional opportunities to trim lower margin products to better optimize our product mix and accelerate our network optimization plans.

From a profitability perspective, we expect to deliver gross margin expansion in 2023 and assume total gross input cost inflation of high single digits, which will be first half weighted with moderation in the second half of the year. From a cadence standpoint, given our first quarter results and expectations for the full year, we expect our first half versus second half net sales weighting to be in line with prior year at approximately 49% versus 51%, but slightly more weighted towards the second half this year given our SKU rationalization actions. Similar to net sales, we expect our first half versus second half adjusted EBITDA weighting to be in line with prior year at approximately 46% versus 54%, but slightly more weighted towards the second half this year, given the building benefits of our productivity programs.

Moving down to P&L. We expect our full year 2023 adjusted effective tax rate to be approximately 20% to 22% and interest expense of approximately $55 million and capital investments of between $50 million to $55 million, primarily to support manufacturing capacity expansion. Finally, we expect stronger free cash flow generation in fiscal 2023 from higher profits and our working capital initiatives. Our capital priorities remain consistent and we expect to reduce leverage in fiscal 2023 by half a turn and end the year below 4.5 times normalized adjusted EBITDA. In closing, we are confident in delivering another year of strong operating performance in 2023 with continued top line momentum, optimization of our cost structure and expansion in margins, while we invest in our capabilities.

Now, I would like to turn the call back over to Howard for some final remarks.

Howard Friedman: Thanks, Ajay. It’s been an amazing six months since I first came to Utz, and I couldn’t be more confident in our long term prospects. Since 2019, we have grown in excess of $600 million in net sales and over $80 million in adjusted EBITDA. Having had the benefit of my time here learning about the business and gaining greater clarity on where our opportunities are, the team and I are pleased to announce that we’ll be hosting an Investor Day on December 15th in New York City. During the event, we will go deeper into the catalysts for organic net sales growth and margin expansion, and we are looking forward to sharing more detail about our long term plans. And now operator, we’d like to open the call for questions.

Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question is from the line of Peter Galbo with Bank of America.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer.

Operator: Your next question comes from a line of Bill Chappell with Truist Securities.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jim Salera with Stephens.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This does conclude today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.