Guru Organic Energy Corp

TSX:GURU

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Operator]

Welcome to the GURU Organic Energy Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2023 Results Conference Call and Webcast being recorded today, January 25th, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. [Operator Instructions] GURU's press release, MD&A and financial statements are available in the Investors Section of its website and on SEDAR+. During the call, the company may refer to certain non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations are available in its MD&A. Also note that all financial figures are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. I would also like to remind you that today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements about GURU's current and future plans, expectations and intentions, results, level of activity, performance, goals or achievements or other future events or developments. As such, please take a moment to read the disclaimer on forward-looking statements on Slide 2 of the presentation. I will now turn the call over to Carl Goyette, GURU's Chief Executive Officer.

[Carl Goyette, executive]

Joining me this morning is our CFO, Ingy Sarraf. For those who are following the webcast, you can turn the presentation to Slide 5. Fiscal 2023 marked the end of our transition period with PepsiCo and a return towards growth for grow. Over the last three quarters, we have posted average sales growth of over 10%, ending the year with 13% growth in the fourth quarter. Several factors contributed to this improved performance over the last three quarters. First, our retail sales growth in the rest of Canada continued to post steady gains, mainly in major urban centers and enabled us to client to the fourth place among energy drink brands in British Columbia. Secondly, our online activities in the United States experienced significant growth this year. In addition, we have increased our presence in the warehouse club sales channel where the number of rotational programs continues to grow, thanks to strong demand for our products. Finally, we continue to enjoy profitable growth in our core market of Quebec, where we are the third largest brand. One of the driving forces behind our success has been the popularity of our innovations, such as Tropical Punch and Fruit Punch. In recent years, both the consumer and the energy drink category have evolved considerably. In order to succeed and thrive in this fiercely competitive market, we have proactively adjusted our marketing strategies and consistently introduce new innovative and appealing products. Our success in the Quebec market is based on the product and brand that delivers good energy and a taste great. We continue to see through market research that once consumers try a GURU product, a large portion of them adopted as one of their favorite energy drink brands and become advocates for the brand. This is why we decided to expand in Canada and the U.S. Innovation is at the heart of our expansion strategy since it gives consumers even more choices to enjoy GURU's good energy. We are currently on track with our priorities for 2024. We charge to grow sales and reduce loss to accelerate our return to profitability. As a matter of fact, in fiscal 2023, we significantly reduced our net loss by $5.6 million or 32%, while continuing to achieve gross margins of over 52%. Turning to Slide 6. This year marks our 25th anniversary and with it comes a year of exciting initiatives, including new flavors. This spring will feature the unveiling of our revamped website with enhanced transactional features, this digital upgrade aims to improve transaction execution and ensuring a superior consumer experience. We've also been working on our 2024 planograms with PepsiCo and retailers across Canada. In the first quarter, we will be introducing Peach Mango Punch to retailers in Canada, along with an amazing new innovation in our Quebec market to be unveiled early in the second quarter. We are excited to share additional details of our growth plans for 2024 as we move forward. Lastly, we have participated in two successful rotational programs with Costco Quebec in 2023. The latest 16-week program started in November and is performing well. We're confident that we will have the opportunity to showcase GURU in the rest of Canada as well. Please turn to Slide 7 as we review our U.S. and online operations. Our U.S. expansion strategy differs from our Canadian strategy as we look to expand in selective areas and channels where we can realize the best return, namely through natural and premium food stores, online platform and the wholesale channel. Fourth quarter U.S. sales grew by over 121% to $1.3 million from $0.6 million in Q4 of 2022. The strong performance was mainly due to continued online growth and lower comparison due to last year's onetime price discount. To illustrate the positive momentum of our U.S. online activities, we achieved over 130% growth on Amazon Prime Day event and triple sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday on Amazon compared to the same period last year. On the heels of our strong online performance, we launched Fruit Punch and our new 2024 innovation, Peach Mango Punch in the U.S. on Amazon in December and January, respectively, and will proceed with their retail launch in February. This is the first time we have initiated the launch in the U.S. before Canada. The move was a strategic one motivated by the timing and success of our punch line energy drinks in the U.S. on Amazon. Going forward, we will continue to work on growing our online activities with a focus on the U.S. market and profitable growth. In the retail channel, Tropical Punch also continued to perform extremely well as our #1 selling product in the natural food and grocery channels, giving us momentum for additional listings. In fact, Whole Foods Market just confirmed the listing of Tropical Punch nationally in over 500 stores for the upcoming spring reset period. Also, the addition of Fruit Punch and Peach Mango Punch to the U.S. punch lineup could help us boost sales in this channel. Finally, we look forward to further growth in Costco Wholesale as we will feature our punch line innovation in two rotational programs scheduled to start in February in California and in the Midwest. I will now turn the call to Ingy, who will provide you with more detail on our financial results for the fourth quarter.

[Ingy Sarraf, executive]

Turning to Slide 9. I will begin by reviewing our latest financial results. Q4 represents the third consecutive quarter of growth per grow with net revenue increasing by 13% to $7.7 million from $6.8 million for the same quarter in 2022. Sales in Canada grew to $6.4 million, driven by increased sales velocity. In the U.S., sales grew to $1.3 million in Q4 2023 mainly due to continued online growth. Gross profit also increased to $4.1 million in Q4 2023 from $3.5 million in Q4 2022. Gross margin grew to 53.4% in Q4 from 52.1% for the same quarter last year and from 51.2% in Q3 2023. The sequential growth from Q3 2023 was mainly due to selling larger formats in the U.S. and an improved product mix in Canada, which allowed us to decrease costs. SG&A was $8.3 million in Q4 2023 compared to $7.8 million in Q4 2022. Selling and marketing expenses increased to $5.7 million from $5.5 million in Q4 last year. As you need more targeted in-store investments, signed our first professional active deal and produced our first national social media campaign. Net loss for the fourth quarter decreased to $3.7 million compared to a net loss of $3.9 million for the fourth quarter last year. Net loss for fiscal 2023 decreased by $5.6 million to $12 million from a net loss of $17.6 million a year ago, mainly due to lower selling and marketing expenses and higher net financial income during this fiscal year. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to a loss of $3.8 million in Q4 compared to a loss of $4 million for the same period last year. As at October 31st, 2023, GURU had cash equivalents and short-term investments of $33.8 million and unused credit facilities of $10 million. Our prudent balance sheet management allows us to be in a strong financial position to continue self-funding our growth with the ability to deploy the right investments and that our return to sustained profitability.

[Carl Goyette, executive]

Turning to Slide 11. We are excited about the prospects in Canada and in the U.S. for 2024. Over the last quarters, we have been strategically and selectively investing in our three core sales channel. Retail, online and wholesale club stores with growing success. This multipronged approach underscores our commitment to maximizing opportunities across all fronts. Drawing upon valuable insights from previous investments and experiences, we look forward to pursuing our positive growth momentum in the quarters ahead and maintaining our path towards a return to profitability. The significant reduction in net loss achieved in 2023 confirms that this is a top priority for us. Compared to last year, 2024 is off to a strong start with numerous initiatives beginning early in the year, namely the launch of our new Peach Mango Punch, the enhanced website, new rotational programs with Costco, the launch of a second amazing innovation in Quebec and continuing marketing initiatives to support these activities. These initiatives are only the beginning of what we expect will be an exciting 25th year of operations for GURU as we pursue our expansion efforts in Canada and in the U.S. As we look ahead, we are pleased to announce that with only a week left in the quarter, we expect momentum in terms of net revenue growth and loss reduction to continue in the short and medium term. Taking a wider view, our unwavering commitment is set on cleaning up the energy drink industry, consistently introducing clean and innovative products to our lineup, ensuring that everyone can discover their own source of good energy through GURU. Simply put, our long-term growth plans and path to return to profitability remains solid. We have an exceptional team, solid partners, outstanding products and a stream of great tasting innovations in the pipeline, all solidifying GURU's position as a robust and distinctive brand. Rest assured, our journey is resolute, and success is the only destination incite. This concludes our formal remarks. I will now turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A.

[Operator]

We will now begin our question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Martin Landry with Stifel.

[Martin Landry, analyst]

My first question is on your product introductions for this year. It's going to be a busy year with your Punch Mango and with your amazing and new product that we have yet to find out. I'm just quoting the press release, it says amazing. It's an increase of 33% in your portfolio in terms of SKUs. The question is, how does that translate into additional shelf space. How many incremental phasings do you expect as a result? Maybe just a color on that would be helpful.

[Carl Goyette, executive]

It depends where, I must say. I would say that in the U.S. every time we launch new SKUs, most of the time, the space is totally incremental because mainly in the national channel. In the U.S., we rarely have double facings. If you're introducing a facing by default, you're getting more space. I would say the answer would be similar in the rest of Canada when we're introducing a new SKU, most retailers carry one facing per SKU sometimes two. I would say that most of the time, the space is incremental. In Quebec, it really depends on the setup of the store. Let's say, if we have two or three shelves, and usually, we work more as the percentage of space versus our shares. We're roughly a 14%, 15% share brand in Quebec. If we have 15% of the space, usually a new innovation will come into that space. If for some reason we have less than that, then it's much easier to convince retailers to give us incremental space since we've been growing all that. It really varies by retailer. Obviously, we always strive to get new incremental space for this. Regardless of the space, I think the key point is this innovation are driving the growth. The consumers in this category have evolved significantly over the last few years, as we've seen and flavor, the discovery of new natural food flavor is really important for consumers. We're seeing that in research, but we're seeing that in real life when we look at the performance of our latest innovation. It's just continuing on the same trend.

[Martin Landry, analyst]

I would like to touch on your marketing strategy for '24. I'm wondering if you're taking a different approach to access customers to get your products known. Just a little bit of color on your marketing strategy for this year would be helpful.

[Carl Goyette, executive]

Yes. We are. We are certainly without disclosing our secret playbook, but we are adapting. I think we're very clear that we're adapting the marketing strategy on several fronts. I think leading in with innovation is one, its flavorful innovation is really the way we're leaning in. That comes a set of new colors, a more vibrant brand. Stay tuned for a lot more activity around how do we present itself to the consumers. That's what we're saying in my remarks and we say exciting stuff around the summer. I think this is what we're really meaning. Along with those innovations, the punch line, a new innovation in Quebec, the brand is going to come out in a very different way that's going to be exciting. I think that's the first. It's more about how the brand shows up. I think what stays the same is the focus on execution at the store level. That's the one thing that we see really new shares, like working closely with PepsiCo to make sure execution at the store level is flawless. What drives the growth. At the same time, we're continuing on being a digital-first company, obviously, adapting our marketing plans to the constant changes in the digital space, but that has proven very effective in growing awareness, but also making sure that consumers understand the differentiated positioning. We call it quality awareness. It's not only being aware of GURU, but also being aware that this is a very different product and a very different brand.

[Martin Landry, analyst]

Should we expect an increase in spending this year in terms of marketing given your 25th year anniversary? Or how should we think about your marketing spending for '24?

[Carl Goyette, executive]

No, you should be thinking about a gradual optimization of our spend because as we mentioned in my remarks, a path to profitabiliity is extremely important for us. Obviously, the faster we grow, the more we're going to be able to invest in sales and marketing, and that's really the goal. We're going to be very careful in optimizing that spend to make sure that there is a clear path for everyone on how this company is going to get back to our historical profitability like when before we went public. I don't know, Ingy, if you want to add to this or?

[Ingy Sarraf, executive]

No, you said it very well. That's exactly it. We're continuing with our cost control and continuing with optimization. I think that's a key word for us to go back to profitability. We're very happy with the 32% reduction in loss this year.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from John Zamparo with CIBC.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

I just want to clarify on the last question. When you say optimization on spending, does that mean you're targeting a lower sales and marketing dollar spend for F '24?

[Carl Goyette, executive]

Yes.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

Moving back to the top line. It sounds like you're having really good success with your club initiatives. I wonder what it takes for that to be a permanent fixture, for GURU to be a permanent fixture within your club stores rather than rotational programs or is that a likely outcome for 2024?

[Carl Goyette, executive]

There are certain velocity thresholds that are very clear. That so far, we have been meeting in our different rotations. That's why we're getting additional rotation. I think becoming a permanent fixture in the Quebec market where the brand is much more established, is realistic. This is certainly something that we were hoping for. In the U.S., I wouldn't expect, unless we see a very strong performance in our next rotation. Obviously, we would hope for it, but it will take some time for us to become a permanent fixture, I think in Costco. We need several rotations that are successful and more consumers coming back. The one thing that gives me confidence is this is always the loyalty rates wilth GURU. We see this mainly from -- because we have so much more data when we sell online or on Amazon, but retention is always extremely strong. Once consumers try GURU they become very loyal to our brand. That retention rate is something that not only we see online, but retailers do see that. This is what makes us hopeful that we will become a permanent fixture but I wouldn't expect this, John, in your model, for example, in this year. This is more of a midterm next year or something like that. Except for the Quebec market. I think it's realistic for the Quebec market.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

On gross margin, you saw meaningful expansion there. I assume some or much of that is from lapping a period with a large price discount. Can you talk about the cost of your largest COGS components and what we should expect for those in the near term?

[Ingy Sarraf, executive]

What we're seeing, yes, to your point, there was a low comp last year. What we're seeing is also a better margin format. We're optimizing on our format and that we're doing that a lot in the U.S. That's helping us. We're also having really good news in terms of transport, in terms of aluminum cost. Of course, it's been overcompensated sometimes by sugar and juices, which there is rising costs in raw materials because of what we've seen in extreme weather conditions all around the world. However, we do have contracts in place with our suppliers, and we're very confident that our increases will be very similar to the consumer price index in 2024. We're confident in our low-50s margins that will continue moving forward.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

I want to go back to your product portfolio and just given the success of the punch line of flavors and further innovation on the way, do you think about narrowing your portfolio of SKUs and eliminating your one or two lowest sellers? I wonder does that create a net benefit in terms of cost savings? Can you allocate or reallocate that shelf space to your top-selling SKUs. I wonder how you think about the overall basket given the change you've had over the past couple of years and changes coming.

[Carl Goyette, executive]

All our products are performing well wherever they're distributed. This is more of a retailer decision than ours. Every SKU we have right now has a different role in the portfolio. Obviously, we've learned from the punch line that they're performing better than some of the more punch line forward products that we use, like flavor forward seems to work better than planned forward. I think that's a learning. No, we always optimize the portfolio by retailer. We also optimize, obviously, our portfolio is larger in Quebec versus where we're more established versus in rest of Canada. It's also larger in Quebec versus the U.S. It's more of an optimization thing, but the more products we have on shelves, each one of them does perform well, and there's really no saving for us to reduce the assortment. Every SKU generates incremental growth. We'd say we keep as many SKUs as possible on the shelf as long as retailers are willing to play about. As long as our exclusive distributor is also willing to carry that.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

You mentioned you're targeting some improvements on the website. I wonder what your goal is? Is it increased traffic? Maybe it's all of them but I wonder what the most important is, is it higher traffic? Is it better conversion? Is it bigger baskets. Just would like to know what you're targeting there? It does seem like your e-com business is performing pretty well, at least in the U.S. on Amazon. I just would like to better understand the strategy there and what your goal is within your own website.

[Ingy Sarraf, executive]

For us, really, this is about making the experience for the consumer even more seamless. It's really improving in terms of conversion, the fluidity, the subscription model. To your point, it's really improving the conversion rate there.

[Carl Goyette, executive]

Yes. I would agree same thing. Conversion, shopping card, just easier. It's easier for the consumer.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Sean McGowan with ROTH MKM.

[Sean McGowan, analyst]

I want to start with questions on gross margin. Would you say, given the mix shifts that you're seeing and some of the input costs and pricing, et cetera, do you think that this level of gross margin can be sustained? Or would you expect to see further improvement if there are more favorable mix shift?

[Ingy Sarraf, executive]

I see that this level of gross margin yes, can be sustained. Yes, there's also room for improvement, of course. These continuous improvements that we do. We do see some improvements that you see in Q4, for example, it wasn't an improvement. We're really working hard with our suppliers. Aluminium has dropped, of course, it's not as low as pre-COVID, but we're seeing some improvements there. Capacity is no longer an issue. Yes, we see a potential for improvement. For sure, out being able to sustain the gross margin.

[Sean McGowan, analyst]

Could you just remind us if there is a meaningful difference in the gross margin in the U.S. for online sales versus sales through stores?

[Ingy Sarraf, executive]

Yes, there is a difference, of course, for sure, because we're selling direct to consumer versus selling through distributors. Yes, there's a difference there.

[Sean McGowan, analyst]

I really meant where is Amazon. Are the sales through Amazon materially different in gross margin versus sales through stores? Or is your Amazon sale effectively from your more direct anyway?

[Ingy Sarraf, executive]

Yes, it's more direct anyway exactly.

[Sean McGowan, analyst]

On the balance sheet. Inventory and accounts receivable were both way down versus last year to sales, which is great. Should we expect to see that continue? Or was there something anomalous there where we could see it bounce back?

[Ingy Sarraf, executive]

No, I think we should see that continue. We're working really hard on our working capital actually. Also from an inventory standpoint that this is no longer our first year with PepsiCo. We're much more able to now align our inventory strategy and predict the growth back there. Yes, we should see it continue.

[Sean McGowan, analyst]

Who's #3 in British Columbia?

[Carl Goyette, executive]

I don't know by heart. Number 3 would be Rockstar. Yes, and number four GURU.

[Sean McGowan, analyst]

If you've done that well in British Columbia in a relatively short period of time, and I look at total Canada being up low single digits in the quarter, does that imply that maybe Quebec was not up?

[Carl Goyette, executive]

Yes. I think we're still growing in Quebec. It depends on which period you look but similar to last year, the last few months of the year have been somehow we're a little bit more seasonal than the industry. It sounds like the GURU consumer is a little bit more seasonal to the industry. There's also an interesting dynamic that's happening right now. Obviously, Quebec is we're a much more established brand in Quebec and consumers are, we've spoken about that in previous calls, but consumers are increasingly smart with dealing with inflation, and they're finding ways to save, all the fine ways to save money, and that's introducing some channel shift. We're seeing some channel shifts from some of the tracked channels to some of the untracked channels. When we say on track, it includes Costco, it includes Dollarama, it includes online. We're seeing a consumer shift to that so that the proportion of our sales that in untracked channel is growing, and we're growing much faster in the untracked channels. If you look strictly at Jan, it could be a little bit misleading, and you could be seeing a flattish or slower growth in Quebec versus last year. In terms of shipments, total, if you look at our shipments to retail or if we look at total, our total sales, then there is great momentum there as well. That's why we gave you a bit of an outlook in the press release as well to show that we expect the momentum to continue. I wouldn't read too much into it, but there was some pricing activity at the end of the year. There was some channel shifts. It could lead you to think that there is less growth in Quebec, but really in totality, the brand is still very healthy and all our brand metrics as well, it's all very healthy. We're still gaining a lot of consumers in Quebec.

[Sean McGowan, analyst]

My last question is about share buybacks. That probably quite a big jump in the fourth quarter. Was there something unusual going on there? Is this a strategic shift to capitalize on opportunities or something just talk a little bit about your philosophy there on share buybacks and what's going on.

[Carl Goyette, executive]

No, we're just capitalizing on opportunities like we've done in the past. We have opportunities and we have the NCIB in place, and we thought this was a great return for shareholders.

[Operator]

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Carl Goyette for any closing remarks.

[Carl Goyette, executive]

Well, thank you, operator. Thank you to all the analysts and all the listeners. Thanks for joining us this morning to share our story. Have a good day.

[Operator]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.