Earnings Labs

Utz Brands, Inc. (UTZ)

Q4 2025 Earnings Call· Mon, Mar 9, 2026

$7.86

-1.87%

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Transcript

Trevor Martin

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for our prerecorded discussion of our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings results. Joining me on the call today are Howard Friedman, CEO; and BK Kelley, EVP and CFO. In addition, this morning at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time, we will host a live question-and-answer session, which you can access via webcast on our Investor Relations website. 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 the forward-looking statement disclaimer in the earnings materials and our recent SEC filings, which identify the principal risks and uncertainties that could affect future performance. 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 Investor Relations website. The company has also posted presentation slides and additional supplemental financial information on our Investor Relations website. Lastly, I want to mention that we plan to file our 2025 10-K after the market closes today, February 12. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Howard.

Howard Friedman

Analyst

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Trevor. I will start with a summary of our 2025 performance and follow with an update on the fourth quarter, after which BK will provide detailed financial commentary and 2026 guidance. Before we get started, I would like to thank all of our hard-working associates across the company for their dedication to Utz. While we navigated some headwinds in the fourth quarter, we made substantial progress on our long-term strategies during 2025. 2025 was a year of accelerating top line growth versus the category, strong Branded Salty organic sales performance and significant adjusted gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. For the year, organic net sales grew 2.4% and Branded Salty organic net sales grew 4.7%, while the category was down 0.5% in retail sales dollars. We gained volume share in our core geographies, while expansion geographies continue to demonstrate the stretch of our brands with both dollar and volume share gains. According to Circana MULO with convenience for the 52 weeks ended December 28, 2025, our expansion geographies grew retail sales by 7.8%. Our supply chain transformation and consolidation were largely complete by year-end with substantial capital expenditure allocated to network consolidation, automation and modernization during both 2024 and 2025. Since 2022, we've reduced the number of our major facilities from 16 to 7, including the expected closure of Grand Rapids. Our productivity programs continue to deliver best-in-class results. We delivered 7% productivity in 2025, well above our goal of 6% of adjusted cost of goods sold, expanding adjusted gross margin by 260 basis points and adjusted EBITDA margin by 80 basis points for the full year. Note that our 6% of adjusted COGS target was prior to the reclassification of cost of goods sold that we announced on February 3 via 8-K…

William Kelley

Analyst

Thank you, Howard, and good morning, everyone. In the fourth quarter, our net sales increase of 0.4% was led by price growth of 0.5%. This was partially offset by lower volume/mix of 0.1%, which is impacted by the headwinds Howard described earlier. We delivered Branded Salty Snacks organic net sales growth of 2.5%, led by volume/mix growth of 2.1%. Organic net sales in our Non-Branded and Non-Salty Snacks declined 14.8%. We believe this segment was also impacted by the headwinds experienced in our Branded Salty segment. I will briefly touch on the reclassification of certain expenses from SD&A, now called SG&A to cost of goods sold beginning in Q4 of 2025, which we announced February 3 via an 8-K filing. We believe that including delivery and other certain distribution costs related to our DSD network and cost of goods sold better reflects our business and how we manage our network productivity and efficiency programs. This had no impact on EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, net income and adjusted net income. We believe our go-forward adjusted SG&A expenses are a better reflection of corporate costs in addition to marketing and selling. Importantly, as we look forward, our productivity guidance will assume this higher base of cost of goods sold. We delivered strong margin performance with adjusted EBITDA of 17.5%, adjusted earnings per share rising 18.2% and adjusted gross profit margin expansion of 560 basis points. Our productivity initiatives drove these gains, allowing us to offset other supply chain costs and inflation and fund our continued SG&A investments. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 260 basis points to 18.2%. Productivity savings contributed 620 basis points to adjusted EBITDA margin expansion and pricing contributed 30 basis points. This was partially offset by 70 basis points from volume/mix, 200 basis points of increased supply chain costs and…

Howard Friedman

Analyst

Thank you, BK. I am proud of our full year results and how we have executed well despite certain category and macro headwinds. Our playbook remains the same: grow profitably above the category, driven by our Branded Salty segment and expansion geographies, expand margin and reinvest in our business fueled by productivity. We believe we can deliver consistent, predictable growth with our model while also generating significant free cash flow. Normalizing capital expenditures and transformation costs give us controllable levers to improve our returns and accelerate capital allocation, led by the priority of deleveraging while still driving towards our growth aspirations. On behalf of everyone at Utz, I want to thank you for your ongoing confidence in our team as we continue bringing our beloved salty snacks to new markets and new consumers nationwide.