Earnings Labs

Lifeway Foods, Inc. (LWAY)

Q1 2014 Earnings Call· Mon, May 12, 2014

$26.98

-1.78%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-4.33%

1 Week

-5.80%

1 Month

-13.27%

vs S&P

-15.24%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Lifeway Foods first quarter 2014 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host for today, Ms. Hunter Wells. Thank you, Ms. Wells. You may begin.

Hunter Wells - Investor Relations, Vice President of ICR

Management

Good afternoon, and welcome to Lifeway Foods first quarter 2014 earnings conference call. On the call with me today are Julie Smolyansky, Chief Executive Officer and Ed Smolyansky, Chief Financial Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the first quarter earnings release for the period ending March 31, 2013, which went out this afternoon at approximately 4:05 p.m. Eastern Time. If you have not received the release, it is available on the Investor Relations portion of Lifeway's website at www.lifeway.net. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on the company's website. Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that the prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed upon them. Similarly, descriptions of Lifeway's objectives, strategies, plans, goals or targets contained herein are also considered forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. Lifeway assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking projections that may be made in today's release or call posted on their website. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Lifeway's CEO, Julie Smolyansky.

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I will begin our call today with a brief overview of our growth in the first quarter and briefly review our financial results. Then we will open up the call and take your question. We are pleased with our growth in the first quarter in which we achieved 20% increase in net sales to $29.1 million. As expected, we experienced gross margin pressure due to increased milk prices. This past February and March, milk prices reached a record high. However prices have appeared to peak and we now expect to see a downward trend. Additionally we plan to adjust our pricing accordingly to help partially offset these higher costs. In the first quarter, we made further strides in increasing distribution of our products at major retailers including Kroger, Walmart, Target, Costco, Whole Foods and many more. In the natural channel, yogurts and kefir drinks are up 10% in dollars and Lifeway is outpacing the category at over 24% due to increased demand, distribution and improved velocity rate. Healthy eating is a global trend and we will continue to prudently seek and evaluate international opportunities. Sales of our Kefir branded products continue to grow in both Canada and the U.K. We are dedicated to focusing our time and resources to increasing distribution and remain optimistic about our opportunities in 2014 and beyond. Last May we announced the purchase of Golden Guernsey dairy plant. We have made solid progress in ramping up production of this plant which we expect to be fully operational by third quarter. Our team remains extremely focused on the task due to the long-term benefits of this plan. The purchase of this plant was an investment in our future, and I look forward to keeping you updated…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Howard Halpern with Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question.

Howard Halpern - Taglich Brothers

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

The commodity and milk prices out there. You did say you see it trending down but it is still going to be substantially up from the year ago period. Correct?

Ed Smolyansky

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Sorry. The beginning of your questions kind of cut out. Can you repeat that?

Howard Halpern - Taglich Brothers

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Yes. The price of milk, it is starting to trend down, as you stated, but year-over-year, it is still going to be in the second quarter, it is still going to be significantly higher.

Ed Smolyansky

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Yes. That's correct. March was a record high for all time. April was lower and it looks like it is trending down. It is still going to be higher than last year and we feel that with our price increase that has gone into effect in May and June as well the processing of our own milk in Wisconsin, which we started in April, as Julie said, we feel we can somewhat mitigate those costs. Do we know yet if we can mitigate them 100%? No, it is too early to tell, but there will be some help there.

Howard Halpern - Taglich Brothers

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

You wouldn't care to disclose the average products the price increase that you are doing?

Ed Smolyansky

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

It's not standard across the board but if you take probably everything with all the customers, it's probably somewhere around 5%.

Howard Halpern - Taglich Brothers

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Okay, and in terms of the promotional expenses, the slotting fees promotional expenses or allowances, that number, I guess, more is a consequence of the higher revenue but do you fuel that it is going to stay in this 9% or little above 9%area for the foreseeable future?

Ed Smolyansky

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Yes. We believe so. Historically, we have always been between 9% and 11%. Sometimes it goes up a little bit as well. I think we are fairly comfortable between 9% and 10% as we move to do other types of advertising.

Howard Halpern - Taglich Brothers

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Okay, and how is the move into Canada been proceeding?

Ed Smolyansky

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Well, we just basically did a soft launch for middle of May and it is still too early to tell what the actual reception is. We are planning on doing a full launch sometime first week of June and our partner in Canada is ready. A lot of placements and we have our own contacts in Canada. So we are confident we will be very successful in Canada very quickly.

Howard Halpern - Taglich Brothers

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Okay. Well, congratulations and keep up the great work, guys.

Ed Smolyansky

Analyst · Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

At this time there are no further questions in queue. I will like to turn the call back over to Ms. Julie Smolyansky. We do have a call come in from James Fronda with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question. James Fronda - Sidoti & Company: Hi, guys. How are you?

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

Good. James Fronda - Sidoti & Company: Just with the revenue line. Are you guys seeing any increased competition at all?

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

We are not really seeing anything of significance. I would say, there is only one really company that is really out there and from what we are seeing right now, they are just spending money on slotting dollars, sort of pay to play, but in terms of long-term sustainable sales from those companies, we are not really seeing anything that's making a dent. We are still at about 97% of the dominating Kefir brands between the Lifeway brand, Helios, Fresh Made and private label that we do for Trader Joe's. We don't really feel like there is any really true competition out there. James Fronda - Sidoti & Company: Okay. Do you any -- sorry.

Ed Smolyansky

Analyst · Sidoti & Company

Sorry. We haven't seen any new entrants into the Kefir category in the last 52 weeks. If anything, we have seen a couple of people actually get out of the category. No new entrants, at least in the last 52 weeks. James Fronda - Sidoti & Company: Okay, and does any of your sales right now coming from U.K. at all?

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. We are currently -- So it's still relatively small. Again this is a new market and a very different market and we are just really laying the foundation and starting the process of expansion and it's really a long-term project. In the U.K., we are currently sold in about 400 stores. We will be adding another 600 stores between now. We have been adding these additional 600 stores over the last few weeks and building on that through spring and summer. So that by the time we are full peak summer, we will be in about 1,000 stores throughout the U.K. James Fronda - Sidoti & Company: Okay. All right. Thanks, guys.

Ed Smolyansky

Analyst · Sidoti & Company

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ivan Zwick with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Ivan Zwick - Raymond James

Analyst · Raymond James. Please proceed with your question

I have got another little question to ask you on the U.K. My understanding now is, you are new in the frozen products. When will you start doing the liquid like you do here?

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

We expect to launch the liquid by next year, 2015 first quarter.

Ivan Zwick - Raymond James

Analyst · Raymond James. Please proceed with your question

Okay, and what about any plans outside of U.K.? In Europe?

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. We are expanding throughout Europe, kind of nothing to confirm but looking throughout the entire European Union for distribution.

Ivan Zwick - Raymond James

Analyst · Raymond James. Please proceed with your question

Okay. So you won't be doing anything like in Germany or elsewhere through 2015?

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I mean on the frozen, we are already for opportunities now on the frozen side but on our drinkable, we won't be entering the market until 2015.

Ivan Zwick - Raymond James

Analyst · Raymond James. Please proceed with your question

Okay. Well, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Victoria Konstantinova with THB Incorporated. Please proceed with your question.

Victoria Konstantinova - THB Incorporated

Analyst · THB Incorporated. Please proceed with your question

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. I was wondering if you gather any data of the distribution penetration? You haven't talked recently about any new doors in the U.S.? In terms of ACV, what would be an average ACV penetration in major retailers?

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

We are always looking for additional distribution points. We would say that we are probably, and I don't have the exact data in front of me, but majority of the retailers throughout the United States have at least one Lifeway SKU and majority, on an average, have four of our top SKUs. Then our bigger customers, first early adapters and pioneers in the food space, in natural food space, have up to 120 SKUs in some cases and are the first take any of the new items that we have innovated and put into the market. So there is always expanded opportunities to pull in some of our other newer SKUs into mass-market distribution. So its hard to say because there is a number of different UPC codes that are out there, but there is still a lot of opportunities for growth.

Victoria Konstantinova - THB Incorporated

Analyst · THB Incorporated. Please proceed with your question

Any new products, like in terms of innovation coming along?

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. So we, in the first quarter, which I didn't mention in the press release but we did launch a series of new items in the first quarter. Some of the exciting products include a savory veggie kefir line in three different flavors, including beet, tomato and cucumber. So no sugar added. It's very, kind of an emerging food trends to have a veggie savory type cultured dairy product. So that has just been launched in addition to a line of breakfast smoothie drinks with either oat based with high fiber. Another emerging food trend is the dairy-based fiber based oat products. So those are launching in three different flavors. We also transitioned from our Slim6 line, which included Splenda into a little pivot of a product, still low sugar, low glycemic product sweetened with stevia instead of Splenda for the alternative sweetener for those who are diabetic or have some other restrictive sugar needs. So we have those that we have launched. So there has been a series of new items that we have innovated over the last few years that we are just putting in distribution now in to a more mass-market distribution. So there s always something innovative every year pretty much. We put out something for the early adapters, build the base of those first users and then expand it into mass-market.

Victoria Konstantinova - THB Incorporated

Analyst · THB Incorporated. Please proceed with your question

Okay. I don't have any other questions.

Operator

Operator

There are no questions in queue at this time. So at this time, I would like to turn the call back over to Ms. Julie Smolyansky for closing comments.

Julie Smolyansky

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you for your participation today. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of our employees and the support of our local customers and shareholders. We look forward to sharing our second quarter of 2014 results with you in the next coming months. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.