Vital Farms, Inc.
Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 11 May 2021

[Operator:]

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Vital Farms, Inc.’s First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Matt Siler, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Matt Siler:]

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Vital Farms’ first quarter 2021 earnings conference call and webcast. I am pleased to be joined on today’s call by Russell Diez-Canseco, President and Chief Executive Officer and Bo Meissner, Chief Financial Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the company’s first quarter 2021 earnings press release filed this morning. This is available on the Investor Relations section of Vital Farms’ website at investors.vitalfarms.com.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Thanks, Matt and good morning everyone. On today’s call, I’ll briefly review our quarter one 2021 performance and provide an update on our growth strategy. Bo will then review our financial results in more detail and discuss the updated guidance we announced in our press release this morning. We then look forward to taking your questions. First, a review of our first quarter results. We had a strong start to the year and exceeded expectations on all key financial metrics. Net revenue in the first quarter of 2021 was $58.5 million, a 23% increase from the first quarter of 2020. Additionally, we increased retail distribution 13% year-on-year to over 16,500 stores as of March 21. And we are the second-leading egg brand in the U.S. by retail dollar sales, with 4.7% market share. We believe that our results, both this quarter and historically, validate the strength of our brand, the quality of our products and our leadership within the growing specialty egg segment and broader retail egg category.

[Bo Meissner:]

Thank you, Russell. Hi, everyone and thank you for joining us today. I will be reviewing our financial results for the first quarter ended March 28, 2021 and provide an update on our full year outlook. As Russell mentioned, we achieved net revenues of $58.5 million, an increase of 23% compared to the first quarter of 2020, which was driven by an increase in egg and butter sales to our retail customers and distributors and new distribution at both new and existing customers. Gross profit for the first quarter was $21.3 million or 36.4% of net revenue compared to $15.9 million or 33.3% of net revenue for the first quarter of 2020. The 300-plus basis point expansion was attributable to improved off-size egg utilization, lower material costs for butter and volume leverage over our direct labor and overhead costs. This was partially offset by higher promotional spending and material costs on conventional eggs. SG&A for the first quarter was $13.2 million compared to $9.7 million in the first quarter of 2020. The increase in SG&A was driven by higher public company costs, greater employee-related costs as we grew headcount and slightly higher marketing expenses. Shipping and distribution increased $1.8 million relative to the first quarter of 2020, driven by higher sales volume and outbound freight rates. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $4.7 million compared to $3.8 million for the first quarter of 2020.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Thanks everyone for your interest in Vital Farms. We will now turn it over to the operator for questions.

[Operator:]

Our first question comes from the line of Rob Dickerson. You may begin.

[Rob Dickerson:]

Great. Thanks a lot. I guess, just a couple of quick questions. Russell, I heard you say or mention the innovation in bars that should be launched more nationwide sometime August, but what’s the visibility and the feel kind of how quickly that business can ramp? And if you kind of sized that against how you view the Egg Bites, would you say it’s kind of a similar opportunity, little bit different for certain reasons, just trying to gain a little bit more color on that piece?

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Yes, sure. Thanks, Rob. Yes, we are really excited about this, because as you know, we launched Egg Bites very successfully last year against the backdrop of several competitive offerings. And while we have emerged as the number one Egg Bites brand in the natural channel and number two in conventional, it’s still a street fight out there, frankly. We need to get our Egg Bites into more and more stores, which we are and into more and more people’s mouths frankly, because we think we have got the superior product. What we have seen so far around bars is that it’s truly unique and differentiated and the channel is very excited about it. And so we believe this product hits potentially a different daypart, a different kind of need state and so potentially very complementary to Egg Bites. I am excited to see where it goes.

[Rob Dickerson:]

Alright. Super. And then, I guess second question then I’ll pass it on, is just the comment around second half revenue growth faster relative to the first half partially driven by retailers against being a bit more proactive on-the-shelf reset kind of as we get through the pandemic. Obviously, you would only make that comment if it would mean as if you actually feel like you are going to do well on those reset. So maybe explain why you believe you would do well kind of why the retailer would look at you favorably as they start to think about resets in the back half of the year? That’s it. Thanks.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Yes, appreciate that very much. So, a very important part of our growth journey and our right to win in the marketplace has been developing, I would say very high-quality, long-term and trust-based relationships with the important stakeholders that are our retail partners and we communicate very well with them. We collaborate and we are very transparent. And as a result, I think we enjoy very good relationships. And I think we generally have a pretty good sense of how things are going for their business and how we can continue to support their success. We bring superior price point, superior growth and we believe superior economics for our retail partners. And so when we have got new items to present, they generally give us a fair shake in terms of hearing us out and looking for ways to partner. And we will continue to bring great products that help develop the economics of our retail partners. And that’s – that recipe for success seems to be working.

[Rob Dickerson:]

Super. Thank you so much.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next line will come from the line of Growe from Stifel. Your may begin.

[Chris Growe:]

Hi, good morning.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Hey, Chris. Good morning.

[Chris Growe:]

Hi. I just had a question for you on input costs. Just to understand kind of how to think about that for the second quarter versus the first quarter, get some sense of the increase that you are expected to versus achieve? And then just how that’s changed? In recent weeks, we have seen continued inflation, some – your key inputs, just to understand that aspect if I could please?

[Bo Meissner:]

Sure. We anticipate that Q2 and Q3, we are going to see the highest commodity costs for the year and again, that’s driven by the one quarter lag, which we adjust egg costs and feed costs for our farmers. So, you can expect a little more commodity pressure in Q2 and Q3. Within the guidance that we have given, the updated guidance of $7 million to $9 million, we believe that we have covered the current outlook for commodity costs for the balance of the year. So, as long as there is not significant changes from where we are, we are comfortable with the guidance that we have that commodity exposure topic.

[Chris Growe:]

Okay. Thank you. And then just to think about the ways that you can offset this, I realize – I think you said at this point, you are not taking any pricing. So, I wanted to verify, is there any pricing adjustments you have made or changes you made in your business? And then also just to think of the other levers you have, promotional spending or cost containment efforts, anything else you could cite that you are using to help offset some of this inflation?

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Chris, one thing I would say upfront before Bo gives you the more detailed answer is that, as you will recall we have got a pretty diverse portfolio of products and we are primarily in eggs. That’s the bulk of it. But we also have some exposure in the dairy side as well. And sometimes, those cost inputs don’t all move in the same direction at the same time. So, one thing that may influence our results this year is simply that it’s not all about corn and soy being fed to chicken.

[Chris Growe:]

Yes. That makes sense.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Bo, do you want to add anything?

[Bo Meissner:]

Yes. Sure. On the pricing front, Chris, as we have talked one of the things that we are constantly looking at is the level and depth of our promotional activity. And that’s one of the levers that we have to look as commodity prices continue to increase and see if there is something we want to do with the depth of promotions that we have in the marketplace. And we continue to look at that. The other thing that helps us and has helped us in Q1 was our ability to sell off-size eggs and the off-size egg utilization. We did a – sales team did a great job in Q1 to maximize the sale of off-size eggs and if we can continue that, that provides us with some potential offsets as well for incremental commodity costs.

[Chris Growe:]

Okay. Just one follow-up to that in terms of the promotional spending, you were pulling back on promotional spending last year. So that would be up, I would imagine, but you are still – is that right like in Q2 and Q3, in particular, the quarters where we will see promo spending up, maybe just not perhaps at the level of which you were prior to that. Is that a fair way to look at it?

[Bo Meissner:]

That’s a fair way to look at it, Chris. Yes.

[Chris Growe:]

Okay, okay. Thanks so much for your time today.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Thank you, Chris.

[Bo Meissner:]

Thanks, Chris.

[Operator:]

Our next question will come from the line of Adam Samuelson from Goldman Sachs. You may begin.

[Adam Samuelson:]

Yes, thanks. Good morning, everyone.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Good morning, Adam.

[Adam Samuelson:]

Hi. So, maybe just following up on the point on the first quarter gross margins, it just came in kind of pretty nicely up year-on-year and with some feed cost inflation in there. I am hoping you can maybe disaggregate some of the key contributors, just so we can think about how that flows through the balance of the year obviously layering in incremental feed inflation on top of that?

[Bo Meissner:]

Yes. I think one of the key things that really helped us in Q1 was our ability to really sell all of our off-size eggs. As we have talked about on prior calls, if we are not able to sell them in the retail market as shell eggs, we get a significantly lower revenue per dozen by having to sell them to a breaker plant. So that was a significant contributor to the Q1 margin. We have no guarantee that we will be able to do that go forward, but the sales team is doing everything they can to maximize the sale of those off size eggs. Again, the other thing that we saw is, although we had pricing pressure on – cost pressure on conventional eggs due to the feed costs, we did see decreases within our butter portfolio because of what the CME for butter prices did. So there was a partial offset there. But again, for the last couple of quarters for the year, we’re anticipating that the commodity cost per butter is going to increase on in our current forecast based on the internal forecasts that we have. So some of those tailwinds we saw in Q1 won’t continue.

[Adam Samuelson:]

Okay, alright. That’s really helpful. And then just as I’m thinking about the trajectory on sales over the balance of the year and, obviously, right now, we’re lapping kind of some of the kind of extreme kind of pantry loading in COVID in the second quarter last year. Has your sell-through and your sell-in through the second quarter – how would you characterize that relative to your expectations and, especially, as you say, as consumer habits may be evolving? Or anything you’re seeing that’s notable in your scanner data in the near-term?

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Well, I think what I’d say there – Bo, did you want to chime in?

[Bo Meissner:]

Yes. I mean, I think, there is nothing unexpected in the results that we’re seeing. I mean one of the things that we did see, we think, that helped Q1 a little bit is we saw a shift in sales at the end of Q1 from what we expected to ship in April into March. There is a little bit of that. But from a consumer point of view, I mean, consumption still remains very strong. And I think we’re still seeing the retention of consumers that we believe is going to continue to drive us towards the guidance we have for the fiscal year. Interesting thing to note, if you look at Q1 versus 2019 Q1, our 2-year CAGR on sales growth is above 33%. So sort of that takes that a little bit of the noise that we may have seen with COVID in that first quarter and still talks about the strength of the consumer model in our business and what is contributing to our sales.

[Adam Samuelson:]

Alright. Great. That’s really helpful. I will pass it on. Thanks.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Pamela Kaufman from Morgan Stanley. Your may begin.

[Pamela Kaufman:]

Hi. Good morning.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Good morning, welcome back.

[Bo Meissner:]

Good morning.

[Pamela Kaufman:]

Thank you. I wanted to see if you could talk about where you’ve gained incremental distribution in the quarter. Any particular geographies or retailers and how are you thinking about further opportunity for distribution expansion over the next several quarters?

[Bo Meissner:]

So some of the distribution that we saw in the first quarter, we saw in some of the chains of Albertsons and Safeway. So that’s been a big chain that we’re very happy to continue to grow our distribution most.

[Pamela Kaufman:]

Okay. And is that driven by the partnership with Acosta or kind of your internal efforts?

[Bo Meissner:]

Yes, that’s in the retail segment, not in the foodservice. And Acosta is really helping us to grow the foodservice channel. So it’s really the efforts of the sales team.

[Pamela Kaufman:]

Got it. Okay. And I guess how are you thinking about the runway for distribution expansion over the next couple of quarters?

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Well, I think there is so much room in front of us, Pamela, as we continue to work with our valued retail partners. We’re in over 16,500 stores today, and there is a tremendous opportunity to continue to bring more products to those doors. And so that’s a big part of the conversations we’re having throughout the year. And we feel great about the responses we’re getting from the meetings we’ve already had, and we will continue to have those meetings throughout the next couple of quarters.

[Pamela Kaufman:]

Got it. And obviously, top line was strong in the quarter. I guess, can you discuss your decision to maintain top line guidance for the rest of the year? Obviously, are there any particular dynamics that you’re seeing that drove your decision not to increase the guidance? And I guess, how are you thinking about the stickiness of behavioral changes that we’ve seen from consumers as life begins to return to normal?

[Bo Meissner:]

Yes. Thanks for the question, Pam. Yes, we’re very happy with the Q1 results. As I mentioned a minute ago, I mean, there was a slight shift in some sales that we expected to occur in the beginning of April that shifted into Q1 and to the end of March. But the delivery in Q1 really gives us a much higher level of confidence that delivery of the net sales range that we provided for the year is very achievable.

[Pamela Kaufman:]

Got it. And I guess, last, can you just talk about what you’re seeing from the promotional landscape and what your expectations are over the coming quarters? You mentioned that you expect to see a more normalized level of promotional activity. But I guess, what does that mean for you?

[Bo Meissner:]

So if you think of 2020, I mean, we pulled back on promotional activity because COVID was impacting the sales so dramatically, and if promotions were required. So relative to 2020, we would anticipate that we will see, overall, for the fiscal year, a higher investor and trade spend as we’re trying to attract more consumers to try the product, etcetera. So when we speak of a more regular cadence, it will be higher than 2020, where we’re able to pull back on promotions. And it will be spread fairly evenly throughout the year, perhaps a little bit more back weighted, just as we are getting new distribution in retailers and trying to set up promotional activity at those new retailers as we get into their stores.

[Pamela Kaufman:]

Okay, thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next question will come from the line of Ken Zaslow from Bank of Montreal. You may begin.

[Ken Zaslow:]

Hey, good morning guys.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Hey, Ken. Good morning.

[Ken Zaslow:]

A couple of questions. One is, what will be the initial mission for the ESG officer? What would she be asked to do right away?

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Sure. So first of all, Joanne Bal is – she’s got a really long title. She’s our General Counsel, our Corporate Secretary and our Head of ESG. And so much of that ESG function is going to be about, frankly, doing a better job of communicating a lot of things we’re already doing, but frankly, have just been doing and maybe not talking enough about. But ultimately, the core piece of work this year will be to do two things

[Ken Zaslow:]

Okay, great. My second question is, how do you continue the momentum in the medium-sized eggs to make sure that continues, because that’s been a real benefit from the COVID experience. I guess, how do you maintain it?

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Well, a lot of it has to do with sort of telling the story of the great economics for retailers that they provided over the last year. I think what we saw – even when the full array of egg options came back to retail shelves, we still saw some very strong velocities for medium eggs. They provide a unique value to consumers. One interesting aspect about medium eggs is that the yolk is consistent with the size of the yolk in a larger egg. It’s the albumen or the white that changes. So for people that are looking for an even stronger protein and healthy fat contribution to their diet, a medium egg is actually really nutrient-packed, nutrient-dense. So we will continue to tell that story to consumers via our marketing efforts. We will continue to offer a great opportunity to our retailers in terms of their own economics, and we will continue to bring that to market.

[Ken Zaslow:]

And then my last question is on foodservice. I’m sure it got off to a little bit slower than you expected. Can you talk about the ramp in the foodservice channel? And then where do you expect it to be in 1 to 2 years relative to the rest of the portfolio on a composition basis?

[Russell Diez-Cansecob:]

Yes. I would say that our ramp in foodservice is meeting our very modest expectations, right, this year. And so I think we’ve been – we didn’t have very strong expectations for a big ramp this year as the economy cautiously returns to dining out. Acosta is helping open doors. It’s helping get us the right kinds of meetings. And we’re learning a lot from those meetings about what the right products and the right mix with the right pricing works for potential foodservice partners. There is definitely opportunity in the midterm, call it, beyond 2021. And we’re going to use 2021 to work with Acosta to develop our winning strategy in the out years.

[Ken Zaslow:]

Do you – have you had any early wins in terms of distribution or any sort of beyond-the-learning experience that you’ve been able to kind of point to more of a tangible execution? And then I will leave it there, and I appreciate it.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Yes. I don’t – we absolutely have had wins since we started working with Acosta. I don’t know that I’ve got specific names to tell you about. Generally, they are regional concepts.

[Ken Zaslow:]

Great. Thank you. Be well guys.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Thank you.

[Bo Meissner:]

Thank you, Ken.

[Operator:]

Our next question will come from the line of Jacob Nivasch from Credit Suisse. You may begin.

[Jacob Nivasch:]

Hi. Thanks for the question. Good morning guys.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Good morning.

[Bo Meissner:]

Good morning.

[Jacob Nivasch:]

So, just one for me here – yes, just one for me here, have you seen any new data on consumer adoption or, I guess, understanding of pasture-raised in general? Is the overall category growing in line with you? Is it growing faster? And I guess, from a competitive standpoint, have you seen private label or any other smaller competitors accelerating in shelf space? Yes, that’s my first question. Thanks.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Yes. There is a lot to unpack there. I would say, at a high level, the outdoor access portion of eggs in which we play is definitely growing faster than eggs overall. And we’ve seen substantial share gains period after period as a result. Again, we’re really, I think, providing the products that consumers in America increasingly want. We’re kind of where the puck is headed, in a sense. There have been a variety of both private label and branded specialty eggs on the shelf for many years, including pasture-raised options. And we continue to grow our share of eggs overall and of pasture-raised eggs, which, I think, speaks to the value of our brand and our consumer-driven approach to bringing great food to market.

[Jacob Nivasch:]

Got it. Understood. Yes. And then just one big-picture question here, you mentioned that the – you’re building out that learning and development farm in Missouri, the Onion Creek farm. Can you just provide a little bit more detail on, I guess, what you’re expecting to get out of that, I guess, near-term and long-term?

[Russell Diez-Cansecob:]

Yes. Thanks for that. We work with over 200 small family farms, and it’s really important to us that we set them up for success. We want – we believe we work with the very best farmers in this country. And we want to bring them tools, insights, information to help them be the very best that they can be. So we have a Vital Farms sort of approach to raising pasture-raised birds and producing pasture-raised eggs. And this farm will be an opportunity for us to really see how high is up in terms of bird health, in terms of the economics for the farmer, in terms of producing the high-quality eggs that we all want. There are lots of best practices that we get from those 200 small family farmers. We want to put them all in one place and see what can happen.

[Jacob Nivasch:]

Got it. Understood. Thank you.

[Russell Diez-Cansecob:]

Thank you.

[Bo Meissner:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

And there are no further questions in the queue. I’d like to turn the call back over to Matt Siler for any closing remarks.

[Matt Siler:]

Just want to thank everyone for their time this morning and their interest in Vital Farms. Have a great day.

[Bo Meissner:]

Thanks, everyone.

[Russell Diez-Canseco:]

Take care.

[Operator:]

This ends the conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.