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Thank you. participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Matt McGinley, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Thank you. You may begin. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining Black Rifle Coffee Company's second quarter 2026 financial results conference call. released our results yesterday and the earnings release and related materials are available on our investor relations website at ir.blackriflecoffee.com. Before we begin I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor provisions regarding forward-looking statements. During today's call management may make forward-looking statements including guidance and the underlying assumptions. These statements are based on expectations of the and uncertainties and could cause actual results to differ materially. For a discussion of these risks, please refer to our filings with the SEC. Additionally, this call will include non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA.

Whenever we refer to EBITDA, we mean adjusted EBITDA unless otherwise noted. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release, which was furnished to the SEC, and is available on our investor relations website, as well as in the investor presentation available there. Now please refer to the presentation and turn to slide four. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Monzaleski, CEO of Black Rifle Coffee Company. Monz?.

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are Evan Hafer, our Executive Chairman, Matt Amey, our Chief Financial Officer, and Matt McGinley, our Head of Investor Relations. Through the first half of 2026, we delivered solid growth, strong profitability, and clear evidence that greater discipline across the business is translating into results. We are allocating resources more deliberately and concentrating our efforts on the customers, channels, and products with the greatest potential to create value. That sharper focus is helping us make decisions faster, direct investment toward the strongest opportunities, and eliminate activity that does not support our most important objectives. We are seeing the impact most clearly in packaged coffee, where expanded retail distribution and strong direct-to-consumer performance are driving growth. At the same time, tighter cost management, process improvements, and greater accountability are improving the conversion of revenue into earnings and allowing us to operate with greater consistency and control. Our first half results reinforce our confidence in this approach, and we will remain focused on the highest return opportunities and on translating strong commercial execution into sustainable growth. profitable growth.

Moving to slide six. In packaged coffee, retail performance remains strong in the second quarter, driven by continued distribution gains, pricing taken to 2025, and broad-based strength across customers and channels. According to Nielsen, Black Rifle packaged coffee sales grew 28.2% in the last quarter, nearly three times the category's 9.9%. growth rate. Over the latest 52 weeks, our retail sales increased 32.5% compared with 12.3% growth for the broader category. Importantly, bagged coffee velocity reached category-level performance in 2025 and has remained there year-to-date despite continued distribution expansion in our price premium. That is an important proof point because newly added stores and items typically take time to mature. With distribution and productivity both improving, our bagged coffee share increased 60 basis points year over year to 3.3 percent, while pod share increased 30 basis points to 2.2 percent across the total market. Turning to slide seven, our land and expand strategy continues to increase both the reach of the brand our presence on shelf.

During the second quarter, packaged coffee distribution increased by more than two and a half points of ACV year over year to 56.5 percent, reflecting expanded availability across new and existing retail accounts. We are also earning greater shelf presence within the stores that already carry Black Rifle coffee. In grocery, the average retail account now carries a about 1.3 more Black Rifle coffee items than it did a year ago. demonstrating our ability to build beyond the initial placement as the brand becomes more established within an account. Together, these results demonstrate the scalability of our land and expand strategy, with growth coming from both broader distribution and deeper assortment within existing customers. Slide eight, Black Rifle's packaged coffee growth reflects strong underlying consumer demand with meaningful unit growth alongside pricing. Over the latest 52-week period, retail sales increased 32.5%, including 16.6% unit growth, placing Black Rifle among the strongest unit growth performers in the category. This distinction is important because many larger competitors generated most or all of their dollar growth through price increases while units declined.

Black Rifle is delivering a more balanced contribution from volume and pricing. That unit performance demonstrates sustained consumer demand and strengthens our value proposition to retailers. by driving category productivity as distribution expands. Turning to slide nine, our direct-to-consumer business delivered another quarter of solid growth, with revenue increasing 13.6% year-over-year. This marked the third consecutive quarter of growth in our strongest quarterly year-over-year performance in the segment in more than four years. In May, we successfully transitioned BlackRifleCoffee.com to a more scalable and flexible e-commerce platform. Early results are encouraging, including greater product visibility and online shopping results, improved organic search rankings, and stabilization of our subscriber base in the nearly three-month months since the conversion. The new platform provides a stronger technology foundation to improve the customer experience and support future growth in our own channel.

BlackRifleCoffee.com remains an important part of our DTC model, serving as the core platform for subscriptions, repeat purchases, exclusive offerings, and deeper engagement with our most loyal customers. At the same time, third-party marketplace sales increased 90% as we continued to expand our reach and capture demand on the platforms where consumers increasingly choose to shop. view marketplaces as an incremental customer acquisition channel that complements rather than replaces BlackRifleCoffee.com. Slide 10, we show that online marketplaces, mass retail, and grocery are all large channels, but consumers shop them differently. The largest online marketplace and the largest mass retailer are similar in size. each generating about $4 billion in annual packaged coffee sales. Both skew heavily toward pods, but their preferred pack sizes differ meaningfully. The larger packs purchased online suggest a more planned stock-up or pantry-loading mission, while mass retail appears to serve a more routine household replenishment occasion. Grocery is large at $6.8 billion in annual sales, with a more balanced mix of bags and pods.

Within grocery, smaller pod counts suggest more frequent replenishment and greater trial or variety seeking. These differences reinforce the importance of tailoring our assortment and pack architecture to how consumers shop within each channel. At our largest customer where the brand is most established, sales continue to grow both in-store and online. Combined with our low single digit share in the largest online marketplace in grocery, that performance highlights the long runway ahead, both within established customers and across large channels where our presence remains underdeveloped. Moving to slide 11. In ready-to-drink coffee, market conditions remain challenging, with the weakness most pronounced in the convenience channel, performance Performance has been comparatively stronger in grocery, where we continue to outpace the category. We are directing resources towards the channels, customers, and occasions where consumer takeaway is more resilient and using innovation selectively to support the strongest opportunities. The objective is to improve the quality and economics of the business rather than pursue distribution for its own sake.

In energy, we exited the quarter at approximately 21% ACV across more than 22,000 doors, reflecting the distribution build since last year's launch, with the footprint remaining broadly consistent with the first quarter. Our priority is to build productivity within existing doors while expanding selectively where performance supports additional investment. Before I turn it over to Matt, I want to briefly highlight some of the meaningful ways we supported our community during the second quarter. From April through June, we supported 11 mission-focused events, contributed more than $400,000 to organizations serving veterans, active duty military personnel, first responders and their families, and delivered more than 3,000 bags of coffee to military units deployed around the world. These efforts included veteran recovery and mental wellness programs, events honoring Gold Star families and Medal of Honor recipients, and a centennial celebration for eight World War II veterans who marked their 100th birthday. This Memorial Day, we launched Folded Flag, a new multi-year initiative dedicated to honoring fallen service members, preserving their legacies, and supporting Gold Star families. As part of America's 250th anniversary, we also introduced our Rewarding Patriotism Initiative and distributed 1,000 Patriot Fortes. forward boxes, recognizing individuals who embody service, patriotism, and leadership in their communities.

Each of these efforts gave us an opportunity to honor service, preserve legacy, and provide meaningful support to the people and families who have sacrificed so much. We are proud of the impact we made during the quarter and look forward to carrying that commitment forward throughout the remainder of the year.

Thank you, Mons. I'll begin my remarks on slide 13. Second quarter net revenue increased 13% compared to the prior year period, reflecting growth in both wholesale and direct-to-consumer. Wholesale revenue increased 15%, supported by pricing and distribution gains across grocery, mass, and dollar retailers. Performance remains strong across our largest customers, with mass merchant revenue increasing 20% and grocery revenue nearly doubling year over year. The channel also benefited from new bag coffee pack sizes that enabled us to secure additional distribution in the dollar channel earlier this year, building on our existing ready-to-drink presence. Directed consumer revenue increased 14%, accelerating from 7% growth in the first quarter, led by continued strength in third-party marketplaces. Turning to slide 14, second quarter gross margin expanded approximately 15 basis points year-over-year to 34.1%, marking the first year-over-year improvement in more than than four quarters.

Higher coffee costs flowing through inventory remained a headwind of more than 100 basis points net of pricing, but that impact was more than offset by a cleaner inventory position and benefits from productivity and mix. We fully secured our green coffee requirements for 2026 earlier this year and have purchased more than 50% of our green coffee products. of our anticipated needs for 2027. This provides strong cost visibility for the remainder of 2026 and greater clarity on our cost position for 2027. Based on timing of inventory consumption, we expect lower contracted coffee costs to begin flowing through cost of sales more meaningfully during the second half of 2027. Although green coffee prices have experienced renewed volatility, coffee costs are only one component of our gross margin outlook. Portfolio mix, trade efficiency, and supply chain productivity remain important drivers of continued gross margin improvement, even without assuming a normalization in green coffee prices. Moving down the P&L to slide 15.

During the second quarter, we continued to reshape the cost base while selectively investing behind growth. On a reported basis, total operating expenses declined 21% year-over-year to $35.4 million, primarily reflecting the absence of a prior legal accrual and lower legal professional, and other general and administrative costs. Marketing expense increased 8% to support key brand and growth initiatives, yet declined approximately 50 basis points as a percentage of revenue to 9.8%, reflecting improved leverage on that investment. Gross profit increased 13% to $36.5 million, contributing approximately $4.3 million of year-over-year improvement in adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted operating expenses increased approximately $400,000, well below the rate of revenue growth. As a result, adjusted EBITDA increased more than 160% to $6.3 million from $2.4 million in the prior year period. An adjusted EBITDA margin expanded approximately 335 basis points to This performance demonstrates the operating leverage in our model.

Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $35 million of debt outstanding and a net leverage of approximately three quarters of a turn on a trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA, or 0.8 turns based on our 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance. We ended the quarter with $12 million of cash and approximately $50.5 million of available capacity under our revolving credit facility. Free cash flow was $5.4 million in the second quarter and $11.5 million year to date compared to a $9.6 million use of free cash flow in the prior year period. The approximately $21 million of year-over-year improvement was driven primarily by higher profitability and additional benefits from working capital efficiency and lower capital expenditures. Together with our available liquidity, this cash generation provides the capacity to support our operating and strategic priorities. We regain compliance with the New York Stock Exchange's minimum bid price requirement in early June. Should market conditions warrant, we retain the flexibility to execute the reverse stock split approved by our shareholders in May, subject to final approval by our Board.

Moving to the outlook on slide 17. Based on our first half performance and continued execution against our full year plan, we are maintaining our 2026 outlook of at least 8% revenue growth or approximately $430 million and at least 35% adjusted EBITDA growth or approximately $29 million. We also continue to expect 2026 gross margin in the range of 34% to 36% compared with 34.6% in 2025. Revenue in adjusted EBITDA exceeded our expectations in the first half, driven by greater pipeline fills for new package coffee distribution and strong direct to consumer performance. As a result, we We now expect revenue to be more evenly weighted between the first and second halves of the year, rather than building sequentially through the year as we originally anticipated. We remain encouraged by the underlying performance of the business. That said, second half comparisons will reflect three factors.

First, the year-over-year benefit from previously implemented pricing actions will begin to moderate in the third quarter and largely roll off by year end. Second, the fourth quarter of 2025 included approximately $5 million of non-recurring liquidation revenue. Third, we are seeing some moderation in the convenience channel, which we believe reflects a combination of higher fuel prices affecting channel traffic and continued category softness and ready to drink coffee. The expected moderation and reported revenue growth primarily reflects these known pricing and comparison factors, while underlying trends in packaged coffee and direct-to-consumer remain healthy. For the third quarter, we expect revenue growth of at least 5% year-over-year. At that level, revenue would be approximately $106 million, in line with second quarter. At the floor of our full year outlook, fourth quarter revenue would be modestly below the prior year period, largely due to the lapping of $5 million in liquidation sales in 2025, reflecting significantly improved inventory management.

We expect gross margin to approach 36% in both the third and the fourth quarter orders, driven by productivity initiatives and lower contracted coffee costs flowing through inventory. For the third quarter, we expect adjusted EBITDA of approximately $7 million. The benefit of higher gross profit is expected to be partially offset by a modest sequential increase in operating expenses, driven almost entirely by the timing of planned marketing investment built around America's 250th anniversary. Based on our year-to-date results and current visibility, we remain confident in our 2026 outlook. It is supported by pricing already in market and secure distribution gains. It does not include potential upside from incremental distribution, additional pricing, or other benefits not yet realized. Our focus for the second half is clear. the expected gross margin improvement, maintain cost and working capital discipline, and convert earnings growth into stronger cash generation.

The progress we made in the first half demonstrates the benefits of a more efficient operating model and a more focused approach to investment.

Operator, we are now ready for the Q&A session. Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate a line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.

Our first question comes from the line of Mike Baker with DA-Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Okay, thanks, guys. Thanks for all the color on the guidance. I did want to ask a question on that, though. Understanding all the factors you laid out to think about in the back half, I think if my math is even close to right, it implies even slightly down in the back half of the year. I guess you talked about some of the things you're cycling on the top line, including the $5 million in the fourth quarter, but just talk about some of the things that might impact – the EBITDA in the back half of the year? And do we really think that we're not going to grow EBITDA at all in the back half after being up 3x in the first half?.

Hey Mike, thanks. That's a great question. Let me hit that front and center on the EBITDA side. Just keep in mind, I know you know this, but I just want to say more broadly, we're taking a very disciplined approach this year. We're only looking at confirmed commercial drivers, pricing already in market, as well as new distribution that's already been secured. We didn't assume any additional wins. for distribution or otherwise that haven't been fully realized. Now, the business does have a lot of momentum right now, and based on the way we see it today, there's no reason to believe that that momentum changes in the second half. As we continue to update, excuse me, as we continue to execute, we'll update the outlook accordingly.

When it comes to EBITDA, you're spot on, right? So we're projecting about a 35% increase in adjusted EBITDA year over year. That puts us right around $29 million in EBITDA. If you look at $13.6 million in the first half of the year, we're guiding to $7 million, at least $7 million of adjusted EBITDA in Q3. And that implies at least an $8.3 million EVA in Q4. So you're right, that would show a decline year over year in the back half. But keep this in mind. There's a few things happening. Last year, we delivered about 85% of our total adjusted EBITDA in the back half of the year.

This year, it's a more predictable, stable EBITDA. EBITDA GROWTH MATCHING OUR SALES GROWTH. NUMBER TWO, WE DID NORMALIZE FOR bonuses this year so we injected a hundred percent payout this year versus a very discounted payout for management team last year third Third, marketing spend more closely aligns to full-year revenue growth. So if you think about our marketing priorities for the back half of the year, it's essentially America's 250th, which is a major temple event that generated over 709 million impressions, as well as other key events, you know, pay it forward, the folded flag tribute. our initiatives around Veterans Day and so forth. So you'll see about five to six million dollars more marketing investment in the back half of this year than we saw in the prior year. we'll continue to reinvest in the business. Comps are a little bit tougher, but the way we see it right now, you know, we have a clear line of sight to at least $7 million in Q3 of adjusted EVA and at least $8.3 million in adjusted EVA on Q4.

Okay. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. If I could ask, just on the pricing, you said you're fully locked in now for 2026 on coffee, and I forget the percent you said for next year, but some percent. What price are you locked in on coffee?.

In 2026, we're locked in at $2.95 a pound. 2027, we have 50% coverage right now, and we're locked in at $2.65 for that 50% coverage.

Okay, and just one last one to remind us, what's the price that you paid in 2025 on average, just so we compare it? 285. Got it. Okay. Thanks. I'll pass it on.

Thanks, Mike. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sarang Vora with Telsey Advisory Group. Please proceed with your question.

Great, thank you and congrats on a good quarter. A couple of questions. The first one just following on Mike's question, Matt's question about EBITDA. Can you, so as you look out at 20, we talked about back half of the year, but as you look out at 2027, is gross profit margin the biggest opportunity for you as you look out for next two or three years? Seems like the operating cost structure has been streamlined and you had pressures on the pricing. pressures on the pricing, pressures from promotion, coffee prices, stuff like that. So as you look out beyond the second half, is gross margin the primary driver for margin expansion in the future? Sure.

I'LL START AND KICK IT OVER TO MATT WHO CAN TALK TO SOME OF THE SPECIFICS. YES, I THINK AT THE END OF THE DAY WE BELIEVE IN BUILDING A BETTER BUSINESS BEFORE WE BUILD AN AGGRESSIVELY BIGGER BUSINESS. I THINK YOU'VE SEEN THAT IN THE WAY THAT WE HAVE LANDED NOW DISCIPLINE COURSE. WE HAVE A LOT OF PEOPLE THAT ARE AND WE'RE GOING TO CONTINUE THAT. YOU KNOW, MARGIN IS NOT THE ONLY THING. HAVING A GROWTH MODEL THAT CAN DELIVER CATEGORY-LEVEL GROWTH FOR OUR CUSTOMERS IS ALWAYS NUMBER ONE. YOU'RE IN A CASE WHERE YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO A LOT OF your consumer and your customer have to be, you know, at the top of your agenda.

If you're not putting a product out at a value that is competitive in the market, you know, obviously you don't have a good business model overall. And so what we're proudest of is really the performance that we've continued to be able to drive there, the share gains that we have driven across channel, in particular with our largest master customer, the grocery channel. And then as we talked about accelerating that even now in DTC across both marketplace as well as stabilization of our own DTC channel, which we feel great about. With that, we obviously need to be able to deliver that in a profitable way. And again, I think with our disciplined approach, on pricing on top of unit growth, we've been able to do that effectively. So again, when you think about where our growth has come from, it's split close to 50-50. Actually, slightly more is coming from unit growth, but we are getting growth from pricing as well.

So we've been disciplined about making sure that we do put the pricing in when we need to get on top of costs. And then, as Matt has already talked about and as he can elaborate on, I think we've done an incredible job of really controlling on the cost side of the business, ensuring that we're only putting dollars against what we know we can really create value for in the market and being disciplined about how we go out to buy, like the previous question said, our coffee, etc.

But, Matt, please elaborate. Yes, for sure. You know, outside the top-line drivers, when you get into the gross margin drivers for next year, So it comes back to the four that we talked about. As Mons mentioned, the more we sell in packaged coffee, which is the most profitable product segment, and the more we sell within the wholesale, which is our most profitable channel, the better we'll do as a company. So you get an organic mix impact that will create margins. Number two, we continue to focus on trade spend efficiency. Big line on the P&L, driving the lifts to generate the right returns is paramount, and we're focused maniacally on that. When it comes to supply chain projects, a full list of products or projects that we're going after, everything from manufacturing to third-party logistics and so forth, and they're progressing very well.

So I think that'll be a key player in our margin expansion next year. And then it comes down to, you know, where does green coffee end up going? You know, those are things we can't directly control. Now, the pace in which we achieve our long-term gross margin objective depends on that. You know, if prices moderate as they may with the Brazil crop coming in as a bumper crop, you know, it could happen sooner. If it doesn't, you know, it could take longer to achieve that 40%. So at the end of the day, like, we still see a good path to our long-term gross margin. targets. Again, we talked about what the key drivers are.

But I don't want to leave out operating expenses. That's work that will continue to go forward. So everything from just driving the operating leverage of the business, maintaining OpEx and decreasing it where we can, and looking at marketing efficiencies. We're driving every decision that we make in marketing. based upon reach and target rating points, as well as what kind of net revenue generation comes from it. So with that, we'll drive the top line at a faster rate than we'll drive marketing investment. So the combination of what Manz mentioned on the top line, as well as the mix, the productivity, savings, trade, promotion, Efficiency and operating leverage at the bottom of the P&L will drive the margin, gross margins, as well as even a margin.

That's great. You know, I just had a follow-up on the marketplace business. Seems like in the last two, three quarters, it's really stepping up for you guys. Can you talk a little bit more about, like, what kind of customer are you attracting? How is the fulfillment? Are you using the third-party fulfillment? Are you fulfilling it? any color on the margin profile because you know in the slide there is a pretty big opportunity on the marketplace side so where are you in terms of achieving that opportunity just curious how fast it is ramping as well so any color on that business would be helpful.

Thank you. Yes, thanks, Sarang. We are proud of the progress there. And again, I think, you know, we think of our online business as one holistic piece, and that's why, you know, we refer to it as total marketplace. And so, again, customers have the option. They can purchase off our site, blackrightfulcoffee.com. We've made some incredible improvements to the site. we've re-architectured it. We are seeing great results from that from an efficiency standpoint. We've talked in the past about how much less we spend on our own site and that has continued.

But even with that lower spend, we're seeing greater stabilization and greater overall efficiency in the takeaway off of our site, which allows us, to then put additional investment against other components of marketplace that we've talked about. So third parties that we work with. And we maintain our own business. We maintain our own subscription profiles there as well, which allows us to still have that closeness with our customers, gives them the option to be able to buy in the most convenient, you know, way that they would like to. And, you know, the overall driver is really fundamentals. We continue to manage our fundamentals, ensure that we're putting our money in the most efficient places, making sure we're putting the right product offerings. So we're excited, and we think that we can continue that growth going forward.

And I'd like to add to that. If you think about the two different components, BlackRifleCoffee.com on that business, it was all about shoring up our subscription business as well as changing the platform to give us something that's more scalable over time at a lower cost. So far, that platform has yielded great results in terms of organic search and response times, a very, very effective project that will drive value going forward. When it comes to marketplaces, you know, trying to answer your question, we do use third-party fulfillment, so we use the marketplace fulfillment. It's a little bit more pricey, but consumer gets it in less than two days. So there's an added benefit in terms of convenience. But both of those channels are working very well together.

Most loyal consumers go into blackriflecoffee.com. And when it comes to Amazon, that's about loyalty as well. There's a $4 billion category out there for our largest marketplace and we need to to partake in that. And as you can see from the materials that Mons presented earlier, we feel like we're underpenetrated when it comes to third-party marketplaces, and that's an area we have to develop, and we see a good amount of opportunity there.

That's great. And one final question on Black Rifle Energy. Can you update us the plans for this year, next year? How is the ACV ramping? Any color you can share on the selective growth in key markets? Thank you.

Yes, absolutely, Sarang. So, you know, nothing has changed in our plans for energy. You know, we've talked in the previous couple quarters about having a very focused approach in a couple ways. Number one, you know, we want to be very focused on investment. We are a hot coffee business, and we are driving our hot coffee engine with a great deal of success as we we've talked about in the opening comments, the majority of our spending will continue to go against ensuring that we can further build out that highly profitable component of our business. And then, like any great growth-oriented business, we need to be constantly innovating and figuring out where are those growth angles for the future, and that's really where energy plays for us. We continue to be excited about the category. We continue to be excited about the overlap with our consumers who are already buying that category.

And from a store standpoint, we're going to continue to stay focused. We're in 22,000 doors. We're going to stay focused on the doors that we know are most productive for us. We're going to continue to work with our partners. at KDP to ensure that we're getting the most efficiency that we can, you know, out of that footprint that we have in place. And, you know, I think that we think the progress is good. Again, you know, I think for us this is going to continue to be an area that we'll learn and we'll get better with every quarter. But that is exactly the progress we're seeing. There are areas where it hasn't worked as well as we'd like but there are other areas where we're really seeing that advancement.

And that's obviously, you know, what we're going to continue to build off of as we think about that going forward. But again, I'd finish with kind of what I started. Coffee is where we're going to continue to put the majority of the investment, you know, until we feel that we've got that idea to a point where, you know, we want to drive scalability in the market. And we obviously will talk to you all about that at that point.

point. Great, thank you. Good luck. Thanks, Surai.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Eric Deloria with Craig Allum. Please proceed with your question.

Great. Thank you for taking my questions and congrats on a nice quarter here. So my first question referring to page 10, the channel expansion opportunity outline there, I think it's quite helpful in understanding the white space remaining in both online marketplace and grocery. Both of these channels, similar market share for you guys right now, and also both growing very robustly. How do you sort of just look at the white space opportunity between this online marketplace and grocery? Where do you see the opportunity to sort of gain share more quickly? And how does any of this sort of difference in category mix or consumer purchasing behavior sort of impact that outlook?.

Hi Eric, it's Chris. Thanks, great question. So yes, we obviously see opportunity in both areas, right? It's a little different how we look at both of them. So with grocery, You've heard us talk about our land and expand model. We continue to drive that with great discipline. And if you think about it, we are ACV is up in grocery, which we feel great about. But, you know, we still sit in the mid fifties, which is it gives us massive amounts of opportunity just from a total breadth of you know, the country standpoint. Within that, if you look at our average items carried, again, very proud of the fact that we're up double digits in growth on average items carried in grocery. we're still sitting in those mid single digits.

And we know that in our top grocery accounts, the ones that we started distribution in a couple years ago, we're well up into the teens, right? You know, 12, 13, 14 average items on shelf. So again, even bigger opportunity potentially there to continue to expand those shelf sets. And the way it ends up working statistically is, we'll start with two to four items at a new retailer, and that'll then obviously expand over the next year, and then eventually, often by the third year, you're getting to a full shelf set. So when you think about the 5.6 average we have on shelf, that's a combination of scaled out accounts and a combination of those that are just starting. And then the third element is the average actual velocity of our business. And again, you know, we're going to be prudent about that. As we're expanding shelf, we do don't necessarily expect the velocity of a particular item to grow.

That being said, we've been very pleased with the fact that we've been able to hold even there. So again, we do expect share growth in the grocery channel. We have a lot of room to be able to drive that, not only because of the relevance of our brand, which is, at the end of the day, what drives all of this, but, all the factors that I then talked about. As you look online at marketplace, IT'S AN EVEN BIGGER OVERALL OPPORTUNITY POTENTIALLY DEPENDING ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT. THE COFFEE CATEGORY IS AT LEAST AS BIG AS THE COFFEE as what you see in mass. And on top of that, we are under-penetrated. We have a lower share than we do in mass, to use that as the comparison.

So similar category size with lower current penetration. Again, we're going to continue to manage the fundamentals of that channel, making sure we don't overextend ourselves, but we get the right items. at the right price points, and we are utilizing our advertising dollars in the right way, within that. We brought a lot of expertise in from the outside. We've got some great people in the building who really understand this model well. And so again, there's a lot of belief that we can catch up on fair share in that channel to what we have seen in our other channels. And again, just as a reminder, if you think about our share in our largest mass retailer as an example, 9.7% market share on 12 ounce bags. We're the number one player actually, other than private label, 5% share in pods.

We're nowhere near that. You know, we have a lower share, almost, you know, of that on bags and half of that on pods. So again, the opportunity and marketplace is even bigger you know when you when you strip it apart but again for us it's always going to be about we'll put the spending where we see ourselves getting the greatest returns and that discipline you know across any channel has ultimately worked well for us.

Eric, I'd add one more thing too. So when we look at the large online marketplace, that's a channel that has a very low cost to acquire a consumer. So when you look at the lifetime value to CAC ratio, it's a strong performer for us to make some investments and drive consumers into the franchise. Those consumers are already there. $4 billion are already there. We just need to capture them and bring them back. What's interesting about that particular channel is that it's concentrated in the pods. As you can see, about 70% of the largest online marketplace is pods.

Now, if you look at our BRCC.com site, it's about the opposite of that. So it's more on the bad coffee side. So it complements the BRCC website very well.

That's great, Collar. I appreciate that from both of you. And then just overall, so understood that guidance here does not include additional distribution wins. Certainly the longer term value proposition of retailers is very strong with your brand Just wondering, you know, at a high level, what is the near-term prospect for further distribution games and how are these conversations going? You know, should we look for more, you know, distribution gains to come sort of next spring? Is it something that you don't really expect too much more of in what remains of this year? Just any sort of cadence on how you're thinking about potential distribution wins and how those conversations are going would be very helpful. Thank you.

Yes, I'll start out, Eric. I think, you know, we're not going to give guidance on, you know, specifically how we see our distribution growing other than we do continue, we do expect it to continue to grow. So, the process for us has, again, been a disciplined one. We continue to negotiate, you know, customer by customer. Yes, you're right. The brand proposition right now is appealing. We have demonstrated in the customers that we've gone into that we can can grow a category profitably for those customers. And that's a big part of our land and expand strategy is ensuring that that retailer is also growing profitability with us as they expand Black Rifle. And that has played itself out.

So that becomes a strong selling point going forward. You know, any of the larger retailers in the U.S. and the smaller retailers that, you know, we're not in distribution and now, I can assure you we're having conversations with. And we will always continue to push to make sure that we can put a mutual model in place where both us and our customers can see our profitability and most importantly, that we are protecting the aspects of what we have built in this brand. This is a super premium brand and we wanna ensure that the execution plans against this, when you think about merchandising, et cetera, what our expectations will be. going to allow us to continue to maintain this being a super premium brand. So all those factors play a role in how quickly we roll with any particular customer. As far as how you'd see it play out you know into 27, it always depends on the reset windows. You know we've gotten the question in the past as to why sometimes the revenue seems to be slightly out of line with consumption.

A lot of of times this is because we're pipelining those customers. It doesn't come in a smooth way in the beginning. We will tend to ship all of the stores or a significant portion of the stores all at once. Some customers reset in Q1, some customers reset in Q3. So it'll depend. But as we get closer, and as Matt said earlier, you know, as we get to higher probability with a given customer, a negotiated deal, we'll be transparent about that. We'll make sure you all know that. So again, just because we haven't said it doesn't mean that we aren't working it in the background But we want to be careful not to talk about that publicly until we're really sure we have a deal in place.

Yes, it certainly makes sense to me and all that background info is. So encouraging. Seems like momentum continues to be strong kind of across the board here. Congrats again on the strong results, guys, and good luck for the rest of the year.

Thanks, sir. Thanks, sir. Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question and answer session. I'll turn the floor back to management for any final comments.

OKAY. WE DELIVERED A STRONG QUARTER. REVENUE GREW 13%. PROFIT INCREASED 164%. GROSS MARGIN IMPROVED. FREE CASH FLOW HAS SWUNG MORE THAN 20 MILLION AS OF THIS MORNING. As we talked about, coffee has remained our growth engine, but we're proud of what we're doing across all segments. Our margin trajectory has turned this quarter, which is big, and we're going to continue to build off of that. Sharper focus is converting growth into earnings and cash, and we see that working. we enter the second half, we're confident. We're going to remain disciplined, as Matt talked about.

We're going to execute against what we can control, invest where the returns are highest, and let consistent results speak for themselves. So we believe the best work and the greatest value creation is still ahead of us. Look forward to talking to you next quarter.

And this concludes today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.

[Call has ended.]

Greetings, and welcome to the Black Rifle Coffee Company First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Matthew McGinley, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Black Rifle Coffee Company's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. We released our results yesterday, and the press release and related materials are available on our Investor Relations website at ir.blackriflecoffee.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements. During today's call, management may make forward-looking statements, including guidance and the underlying assumptions. These statements are based on expectations that involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. For a further discussion of these risks, please refer to our previous filings with the SEC. Additionally, this call will include non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA. Whenever we refer to EBITDA, we mean adjusted EBITDA, unless otherwise noted. Reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release, which was furnished to the SEC and is available on our Investor Relations website. Now please refer to the presentation on our Investor Relations website and turn to Slide 4. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Mondzelewski, CEO of Black Rifle Coffee Company. Monz?

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are Evan Hafer, our Executive Chairman; Matt Amigh, our Chief Financial Officer; and Matt McGinley, our Head of Investor Relations. 2026 is off to a strong start with first quarter performance reflecting meaningful progress against our core growth priorities. In coffee, we are seeing the benefits of disciplined execution come through clearly in our results. Distribution gains across key retail partners are translating into higher volume, better shelf productivity and improved SKU level performance. Importantly, this is not just about expanding doors. It is about expanding our shelf presence and making the space we earn more productive, which improves retailer velocity and supports stronger growth and profitability for both our partners and Black Rifle. We remain focused on disciplined resource allocation, prioritizing the channels, customers and products where we see the highest return. Operationally, the business is becoming more efficient. Productivity initiatives and process discipline are contributing to improved margins and more effective conversion of revenue into earnings. While the external environment remains dynamic, we are operating with greater control and visibility, maintaining a clear focus on translating commercial progress into improved business results. Overall, first quarter performance reinforces our confidence in the business and our ability to deliver profitable growth through 2026.

Moving to Slide 6. In packaged coffee, first quarter growth reflected broad-based strength across customers and formats, including strong dollar and unit performance at mass merchants, sales that nearly doubled in grocery and pack size innovation that supported new bagged coffee distribution in the dollar channel. According to Nielsen, Black Rifle Coffee grew 34.6% in the quarter or more than 2.5x the category growth rate, driving meaningful share gains. Bagged coffee dollar share increased 55 basis points to 3.3% and pods increased 45 basis points to 2.2% at the end of the quarter. Importantly, these gains were supported by continued improvements in shelf productivity. In grocery, bagged coffee unit velocity increased despite higher pricing and expanded shelf presence, underscoring strong consumer demand and our competitive position at retail.

Turn to Slide 7, please. Execution against our land and expand strategy continues to translate into gains in retail breadth and shelf presence. In the first quarter, we expanded distribution by approximately 7 points of ACV year-over-year, reflecting continued success in adding new retail doors and broadening our in-store visibility. At the same time, we are increasing our presence within these doors. The average grocer is now carrying nearly two more Black Rifle items than a year ago as we continue to build on initial placements and expand shelf sets. Taken together, these results demonstrate that both elements of the strategy are working. We are adding new points of distribution while also deepening our assortment across existing accounts. These gains are strengthening relationships with new and existing retailers while reinforcing our ability to earn additional shelf space over time.

Slide 8. Across the broader category, much of the dollar growth remains price driven, particularly among legacy brands. Our performance continues to be driven by both unit gains and pricing. We remain among the strongest performers in unit growth, reflecting continued consumer demand at the shelf. In a category where much of the reported growth is price led, that performance is translating into share gains and stronger shelf productivity. That matters to retailers because they understand that healthy category growth comes from increasing consumer demand on a unit basis, not from pricing alone. Packaged coffee remains a core driver of the business, and these trends reinforce the quality and sustainability of our growth in the category.

Turning to Slide 9. Our direct-to-consumer business continues to show improvement, delivering its second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth as our channel strategy evolves. Marketplaces are playing a larger role in scaling the model. These platforms expand our reach by meeting customers where they already shop and provide a low friction entry point for customer acquisition. Importantly, they add incremental consumer reach and demand while complementing rather than replacing our retail presence and owned channels. At the same time, blackriflecoffee.com serves a distinct strategic role. It remains the core platform for subscriptions and our most loyal customers, supporting deeper engagement, exclusive offerings and stronger pricing discipline. We are seeing early traction from this refined approach. Marketplaces are driving customer acquisition and top-of-funnel growth, while our owned channel is focused on retention, repeat purchases and long-term customer value. As a result, direct-to-consumer is contributing more consistently, reflecting clearer roles for the marketplaces and blackriflecoffee.com within the broader business.

Slide 10. In ready-to-drink coffee, category trends remained challenging in the first quarter with convenience channel softness weighing in on both our performance and the broader category. Despite that, we expanded distribution with ACV up nearly 8 points year-over-year, reflecting continued success in adding new doors and broadening our presence across retail. We are concentrating on the areas we can control. We are prioritizing channels and partners where we are seeing stronger demand while continuing to deepen our presence in grocery, mass merchants and other retail environments that support more consistent takeaway. At the same time, we are using product and innovation as a disciplined growth lever, ensuring new items and platforms are aligned with the channels and occasions where they can perform most effectively. This approach supports a more focused RTD strategy, prioritizing retail environments where takeaway is most consistent and the economics are most compelling.

Slide 11. In energy, we continue to move from our initial launch to a more deliberate phase of expansion, reaching 21% ACV across more than 22,000 doors in the first quarter. Our focus this year in energy remains on selectively expanding in markets and channels where we are seeing early traction. This approach allows us to concentrate investment behind the strongest opportunities while scaling energy at a measured pace. Before I turn it over to Matt, I want to briefly highlight how we're continuing to support the communities at the core of our mission. During the first quarter, we remained active across a range of initiatives that brought together partners, veterans, military families and local communities through events, direct support and collaborations. We partnered with Operation Homefront and the Dallas Cowboys to host a baby shower for new and expecting military families. We also partnered with Team Red, White & Blue in support of a nationwide effort to honor those who served in the global war on terror, while raising funds to support veteran health and wellness. We worked with Beyond the Call to launch a limited time roast honoring the legacy of World War II veterans and helping fund efforts to preserve their stories. Across these efforts, we continue to support members of our community, serving in the Middle East and around the world, helping ensure they and their families have the resources, connection and recognition they deserve. That same commitment will carry forward as we move through the year, including through initiatives tied to America's 250th anniversary that celebrate service and expand our support for veterans and their families. Supporting this community is not a stand-alone initiative for us. It is core to who we are and how we operate.

Thank you, Monz. I'll begin my remarks on Slide 13. In the first quarter, net revenue increased 21% year-over-year, driven primarily by both wholesale and direct-to-consumer. Wholesale revenue increased 31.5% year-over-year, reflecting distribution gains, pricing and continued contribution from Black Rifle Energy. Performance was broad-based across key customers with sales to mass merchants increasing more than 20% and grocery sales more than doubling. We also benefited from pack size innovation, which supported new placements in the dollar channel. Direct-to-consumer revenue increased 7% in the first quarter, driven primarily by increased sales through third-party marketplaces. Actions taken over the past year to stabilize the business are now translating into more consistent performance and a return to growth. As a result, direct-to-consumer is contributing more consistently to consolidated growth and is positioned to support sustained growth.

Turning to Slide 14. First quarter gross margin was 33%, down 305 basis points year-over-year, reflecting the impact of nonrecurring items and elevated coffee costs. Importantly, we continue to make progress on controllable levers, including improvements in trade efficiency and supply chain, which helped mitigate these pressures. Elevated green coffee costs and carryover impact of 2025 tariffs embedded in inventory continue to weigh on gross margin. However, pricing actions implemented in 2025 largely offset these impacts with the net effect of inflation and tariffs limited to approximately 20 basis points in the quarter.

Gross margin was also impacted by nonrecurring items, including roughly 100 basis points of costs associated with onboarding a new direct-to-consumer fulfillment provider and approximately 210 basis points from a onetime noncash write-down tied to coffee extract resulting from a formulation change. This extract impact was not added back to adjusted EBITDA. These items were mitigated in part by underlying operational improvements, including approximately 50 basis points of benefit from supply chain initiatives and mix. Looking ahead, we have substantially locked our green coffee requirements for 2026, providing improved cost visibility. While commodity costs remain elevated in the near term, we expect gross margins to stabilize relative to 2025 levels, supported by pricing, productivity initiatives and favorable mix. This stabilization sets a stage for margin recovery over time. We remain confident in our ability to achieve our long-term gross margin target of 40%, driven primarily by structural improvements within our control, including mix and efficiency in both trade spend and supply chain. While recent movement in the coffee forward curve is constructive, our path to the target does not rely on incremental pricing actions.

Moving down the P&L to Slide 15. Operating expense improvements were driven by efficiency gains from last year's operational improvement plan, improved marketing efficiency and lower spend across consulting, software and legal. These actions reflect a more targeted allocation of resources towards key growth drivers, enabling greater operating leverage while supporting the business as it scales. Total operating expenses declined over 8% year-over-year, driven by a 10% reduction in marketing expense and a 14% decline in general and administrative expense. Despite the year-over-year decline in gross margin rate, revenue growth drove higher gross profit dollars. Combined with operating expense reductions, this resulted in more than an eightfold increase in adjusted EBITDA and a 570 basis point expansion in adjusted EBITDA margin with adjusted EBITDA increasing from under $1 million to over $7 million year-over-year. This performance highlights the operating leverage embedded in the model as revenue growth translates more efficiently into earnings against a more disciplined and structurally improved cost base. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter in a strong financial position with $39 million of debt outstanding or approximately 1x net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA and about 1x based on our 2026 guidance. At quarter end, we had more than $52 million of total liquidity, including cash on hand and available capacity under our credit facility, providing ample flexibility to support the business. Free cash flow improved by approximately $11 million year-over-year, with $6 million generated in the first quarter of 2026 compared to a use of over $5 million in the prior year period, driven by improved operating profitability and more efficient working capital management. As previously disclosed, we received notice from the New York Stock Exchange in February regarding the minimum price requirement. Our shares are currently trading above $1, and we would regain compliance if at the end of the applicable measurement period, both our closing share price and the average closing share price over the prior 30 trading days are at least $1. As we work through the standard cure period, we remain focused on executing our 2026 plan, improving the fundamentals of the business and driving long-term shareholder value.

Moving to the outlook on Slide 17. For 2026, we are increasing our revenue outlook to at least 8% growth or approximately $430 million. We're also increasing our adjusted EBITDA guidance to at least 35% growth or approximately $29 million, up from our prior outlook of at least 30% growth. This updated outlook is supported by current visibility into demand, pricing actions already in market and secure distribution gains. Consistent with our approach from last quarter, our guidance reflects a level of performance we believe is supported by visibility we have today. We have strong momentum in the business and no reason based on current trends to believe that changes in the second half. At the same time, we're taking a disciplined approach and not assuming incremental distribution wins, pricing actions or other benefits that have not yet been realized. As we gain additional visibility through the year, we will update the outlook as appropriate. From a cadence standpoint, revenue is expected to build over the course of the year, broadly consistent with the progression we saw in 2025. First quarter performance exceeded our internal expectations, supported in part by normal shipment timing that likely benefited Q1 revenue by a few million dollars. We expect that timing benefit to normalize in the second quarter. As a result, second quarter revenue is expected to be at least 10% year-over-year compared to 21% in the first quarter, reflecting both underlying business momentum and this timing impact. We continue to expect gross margins in the range of 34% to 36% in 2026 compared to 34.6% in 2025. The outlook reflects pricing actions taken in 2025, supply chain productivity and favorable channel and product mix alongside external factors that remain dynamic. Second quarter gross margin is expected to be consistent with the first quarter, reflecting continued pressure from coffee inflation and the more recent impact of higher fuel costs. Gross margin should improve in the back half of the year as higher cost inventory is worked through and productivity and mix benefits continue to build. For the second quarter, we expect adjusted EBITDA of at least $5 million, more than double the prior year period, while absorbing the impact of the first quarter shipment timing benefit and the timing of certain expenses. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to step up further in the second half of the year as revenue builds, gross margin improves and operating leverage increases. While we are not providing formal cash flow guidance, we remain focused on margin expansion and improved working capital efficiency to enhance cash generation. With capital expenditures expected to remain in line with prior year levels, we expect to generate positive cash flow. Looking ahead, the business is benefiting from a more streamlined operating structure, stronger cost discipline and improved earnings conversion. The actions taken in 2025 are flowing through the P&L, supporting more consistent profitability and greater financial flexibility in 2026. We see this most clearly in coffee, where pricing, distribution gains and productivity initiatives are expanding gross profit and improving returns. Our priorities remain focused on operating discipline, cash generation and thoughtful capital allocation. With visibility into demand, pricing and distribution, we are well positioned to improve earnings quality and sustain profitable growth in 2026 and beyond. Operator, we are now ready for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Mike Baker with D.A. Davidson.

Congratulations on a good quarter. Beating and raising is nice. I did want to ask -- you gave a little bit of color on the second quarter guide, but I guess I'm trying to square the at least 8% with what you talked about as the progression through the year similar to last year. Last year, the year progressed, I think the second quarter was $5 million above the first quarter, then $5 million more in the third quarter, then $10 million in the fourth quarter. If you do that, you get something like 18% growth, which is way above 8%. Now I guess you just told us that the second quarter will be, I think if I do the math, down about $5 million. But then does the third quarter and fourth quarter progress from there in that $5 million to $10 million growth rate per quarter? Just some more color on how -- just squaring all those different factors that -- yes, how do we sort of reconcile all those?

Yes, Mike, that's a great question. Let me hit that one straight on. So as I mentioned in the prepared remarks and also in the last quarter call, we're taking a disciplined approach to guidance. Now our outlook reflects only what we have confirmed at this point. So that's in market pricing and also distribution gains that have been secured. We're not baking anything else in that has not yet been realized. Now we do have real momentum in the business, and we don't want to get too exuberant with that. And based on what we see today, we do expect some of that to carry on through to the second half. However, we're 1 quarter in, and we'll update the outlook as things materialize throughout the year. Now here's a couple of dynamics worth flagging for the shape of the year. On top line, our comps are going to get progressively tougher as we enter the back part of the year as we lap 4 significant tailwinds that all kicked off around mid-2025. Now the first one being pricing. Now remember, we took 2 pricing actions in 2025, one midyear and one came in, in early Q4. The second one would be the 7-point plus ACV gains. Now most of the customer resets are in that midyear timing. So that's going to be -- that's a headwind that's going to cause a tougher comp when we get into the back half. And then finally, our third-party marketplace acceleration initiative kicked in mid last year. So those comps will be tough as well. And then there is one more. Now remember, we did about $5 million in liquidation in the back half of last year, which we do not plan to replicate in 2026. But when you flip to adjusted EBITDA, the Q1 beat of $5 million does flow through to guidance. Now we took adjusted EBITDA from, as you know, at least 30% growth to at least 35% growth. But that was partially offset by a couple of things. Number one, we have about a $1.4 million fuel risk related to the fuel surcharges we see coming through parcel as well as line haul rates and also the $2.3 million onetime write-down of the final installment of extract that hit in Q1. Now if you net all that together, that goes to the roughly $1 million increase in EBITDA that we're raising guidance by. Now hopefully, that clarifies the bridge somewhat, but happy to elaborate.

Yes. Okay. No, I appreciate that. If I could ask one more question unrelated. The SKU count, I think the slide shows about average 5 SKUs per door, if I'm understanding that slide right. But can you tell us about the spread? Like what's the high, what's the low? What's the -- of the possible as you continue to add SKUs per door?

Hi Mike, this is Chris. Yes. Thanks for that question. So yes, just to reiterate, we've been talking about this pretty consistently. Our land and expand strategy, which we've really been pushing here in the last couple of years as we've been driving this grocery expansion is really playing out well for us, right? And the first aspect of that, of course, is the ACV gains, which we've talked quite a bit about. You see that we continue to pick up on that. We expect to be able to continue to add to our ACV or our overall breadth of reach throughout the country. The third item, I'll come back to what you said here last. The third item is velocity. We feel very good about the fact that our velocity has actually increased as we've been doing this. We don't expect that to happen long term, by the way. We think that velocity will start to level out as you put more and more items on shelf, your per unit velocities will start to level out. But as a premium brand, having our velocity right at the index of the category is a fantastic place to be. And then what you asked about the average items is actually the most important part. So as you saw in the numbers that we shared, we were sitting at only a couple of items on shelf a couple of years ago. And in the last year, we've added 2 additional items on average across all retailers. You're right. The number that we show as our average is just that. There are obviously some retailers that sit right at that 5.5% mark, but most of them are either under or above that. New retailers, when they come on, will tend to come on with 2 to 4 SKUs depending on what their shelf set looks like and what channel they compete in. And from there, we often see an expansion up to 6 to 8. And then to directly answer your question, we have grocery customers who are as high as 13 or 14. I'd like to believe that, that is what ultimately a healthy shelf set for us looks like right now, although as we continue to innovate over time, that number will continue to grow. So as we think about our growth profile and how our model will continue to work, -- it's going to be off of the back of that ACV increase. We still have plenty of room to push that north. And then most importantly, on those average items, while we sit at 5.5 now, there's no reason that we can't be at 12, 13, 14 items on a grocery shelf.

Our next question comes from the line of Sarang Vora with Telsey Advisory Group.

Great. Congratulations on the quarter as well and positive momentum in second. My question is more on a product level. I know in the prepared remarks, you talked about expansion of a new pack size across dollar stores. It seems like your Walmart business or the mass business is up running double digits. Can you talk from a product standpoint, what's driving this strength? Is it the packed coffee or like some of the newer ones that cold brew or just from a product level standpoint, can you help us unpack the strong results? What's helping the trend?

Yes, Sarang, it's Chris. Yes, thanks for the question. From an overall standpoint, very much in coffee, right? So bagged and pod coffee continue to have incredible momentum. In fact, if we go to what is still the core of our business, our #1 customer, Walmart, we are looking at share growth in both segments despite having a well-established brand at Walmart. We have 9.4% share now in the bag category, and we are up 30 basis points to a 5.3% share in the pods category. So that illustrates that even with our most established pieces of business, we continue to drive very strong share gains in what is the core of our business. which is the pods and the bags. RTD coffee continues to be a very important part of our business. We have not had as strong a growth. We've been right with the category. The category has been down low single digits. We expect that to recover. We're playing a very important role. We see ourselves as the #3 player in RTD coffee. We see ourselves as playing a key role in turning that category. We had a couple of innovation items this year, our cold brew. We have a few more innovation items that we're working on in the background. You asked about cold brew. Is that playing a key role? Not yet. Very, very early. We're just in the initial shipments of that item as we go into the summer season for cold consumption overall in the category. So we're excited about it. We're excited about the potential. And we continue to feel great about the fact that we have the #3 cold coffee business in America. But again, the pods in the bags based off of the model that I just talked about in Mike's question, the land and expand strategy, driving ACV, driving average items, we believe there's just continued great potential to run that model and generate growth over the next 2 to 3 years.

That's great. And I had a follow-up on marketing spend. I mean the dollar -- marketing spend dollar continues to be down year-over-year past few quarters. Can you help us understand how we should think about marketing going forward?

Yes, Sarang, that's a great question. Yes, so the marketing spend has been down over the last couple of quarters, and it's primarily due to us reallocating more spending upper funnel and taking away some of the lower ROAS bottom funnel activity. Now you're going to see that ramp up considerably as we go into late Q2 and into Q3 and Q4 as we hit America's 250th and a lot of our promotional windows that happened through the summer. So you will see an uptick. And again, year-over-year, we're looking at relatively the same level of spending when it comes to a percentage of sales basis. So we will spend more year-over-year on marketing in total.

I think it's important to reinforce, Sarang, which we've talked about before, that our marketing is, we believe, a substantial competitive advantage for us as a business. And the reality is it's a very efficient model for us. So we don't have to spend the same kind of percentages as some of our competitors in order to be able to get equal or even better results. Behind the scenes, we obviously track our brand awareness, attributes of our brand, and we feel great about how all of those things are progressing. And the result of that, of course, is ultimately what we see as far as takeaway on the shelf. So dollars only tell a piece of the story for us. It's really impressions and quality impressions that become most important to us being able to build the brand over the long term.

Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Biolsi with Hedgeye.

How did your wholesale growth break down between price and volume in the quarter? Is it similar to the 22% unit to 9% price for the year?

Yes. So the -- Dan, the overall, like we had 21% growth in the quarter. We had about 6% of that came from pricing. The vast majority of that growth that we had was unit growth for the quarter. And for the year, the pricing will begin to fade a little bit as we get into the back half. But overall, the unit growth is going to be the dominant driver of our overall top line this year, and that's driven by the things that Monz was talking about. One is the velocity increases we've seen year-over-year. Second is the more doors that we're in. And the third thing is the increase in average items carried. So it's really a volume-driven gain here. It's not -- it's one where pricing has helped, but it's not the primary driver of our upside.

And then did you see any change in the consumer behavior from higher fuel costs? And could you note any difference between like the C-stores or RTDs compared to your packaged coffee sales?

We're not -- so it's obviously something we're going to be watching. We don't specifically track that traffic. I think we can expect that when fuel costs go up, there always is less store traffic. It's not just C-store. It's also grocery and mass. I think those are potential category dynamics to watch out for. But as of right now, no, we're not seeing that. We're seeing actually pretty consistent unit and price growth across the grocery categories. Units as a category have been declining due to the higher pricing. But just to reinforce, our unit growth has been exceptionally strong despite that. And in the case of C-store, categories that have been growing such as energy continue to grow. The declines in RTD coffee actually are starting to stabilize. They were a bit higher a year ago. We're now seeing them come down into the low single digits. So while that's a watch out, Dan, we're not really seeing anything that would tell us that it's an issue.

We're not -- so it's obviously something we're going to be watching. We don't specifically track that traffic. I think we can expect that when fuel costs go up, there always is less store traffic. It's not just C-store. It's also grocery and mass. I think those are potential category dynamics to watch out for. But as of right now, no, we're not seeing that. We're seeing actually pretty consistent unit and price growth across the grocery categories. Units as a category have been declining due to the higher pricing. But just to reinforce, our unit growth has been exceptionally strong despite that. And in the case of C-store, categories that have been growing such as energy continue to grow. The declines in RTD coffee actually are starting to stabilize. They were a bit higher a year ago. We're now seeing them come down into the low single digits. So while that's a watch out, Dan, we're not really seeing anything that would tell us that it's an issue.

We're not -- so it's obviously something we're going to be watching. We don't specifically track that traffic. I think we can expect that when fuel costs go up, there always is less store traffic. It's not just C-store. It's also grocery and mass. I think those are potential category dynamics to watch out for. But as of right now, no, we're not seeing that. We're seeing actually pretty consistent unit and price growth across the grocery categories. Units as a category have been declining due to the higher pricing. But just to reinforce, our unit growth has been exceptionally strong despite that. And in the case of C-store, categories that have been growing such as energy continue to grow. The declines in RTD coffee actually are starting to stabilize. They were a bit higher a year ago. We're now seeing them come down into the low single digits. So while that's a watch out, Dan, we're not really seeing anything that would tell us that it's an issue.

Yes. We specifically looked at that quite a bit with regard to the convenience channel really beginning in March and through April. And we looked at it extensively, and we just couldn't see any impact yet with higher fuel cost impacting the category or the channel at all. So not that, that couldn't happen, but we just -- we haven't seen those impacts yet.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to management for any final comments.

Yes. So thank you. As we close, I want to highlight a couple of key points for us. First, fundamentals of our business continue to strengthen. We're delivering growth that is increasingly driven by distribution gains, improved shelf productivity, as I talked about earlier, and then unit velocity. It's not just the pricing. It is a gains that we believe are healthy. They're more durable that are going to carry us over the next 2 to 3 years. That is driven by our operating model then. Those actions that we've been taking over the last couple of years to simplify the business, improve cost discipline, focus our resources are now really starting to translate into results. We are converting revenue into earnings more effectively than we have before, and we are generating positive cash flow. And with all of that, we're maintaining flexibility on the balance sheet, and we're going to continue to do that strategically in the business. Third, we're operating with greater control and visibility. Our 2026 outlook is grounded in confirmed drivers, as Matt talked about. These are not things we're still working against. We actually have built them. We have secured them distribution-wise, pricing-wise, productivity initiatives that we know are within our control. And as we execute, we expect to build on the foundation throughout the year, and we'll continue to obviously update as that happens. So overall, we remain focused on disciplined execution, improving our earnings quality, driving long-term shareholder value. I appreciate everybody's continued support. Look forward to updating you next quarter.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Ladies and welcome to Black Rifle Company Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Matthew McGinley.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Black Rifle Coffee Company's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. We released our results yesterday in the press release and the related materials are available on our investor website at irblackrifle.com. Before we begin, I would like to mind you of the company's safe harbor statement on our statements. During today's call, management may make forward-looking statements along guidance and underlying assumptions. These statements are based on expectations that involve risks uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. For further discussion please refer to our previous filings with SEC.

Additionally, this call will include non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA. Whenever we refer to EBITDA on an adjusted EBITDA less otherwise a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable included in our earnings release, which is furnished to the SEC and is available on our Investor Relations website. Now please refer to the presentation on our Investor Relations web turn Slide 4. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Mondzelewski, CEO of Black Rifle Coffee Company. Monz.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Joining me today are Evan Hafer, our Executive Chairman; Matt Amigh, our Chief Financial Officer; and Matt McGinley, our Head of Investor Relations. 2025 was a year of measurable operating progress for Black Rifle led by strong performance in packaged coffee. For the year, packaged coffee grew 31.1%, approximately 3x the broader category growth rate with units up more than 22% and share up 60 basis points in bagged coffee. That momentum accelerated in the fourth quarter as distribution expansion translated into measurable improvements in productivity and share with key retail partners. The combination of expanded doors and stronger per SKU productivity materially strengthened our retail position as we exited the year.

We also advanced our ready-to-drink and energy platforms, securing incremental distribution and broadening our presence in priority accounts. These gains reflect disciplined commercial execution and reinforce the strength of the brand. 2025 presented a challenging operating backdrop Coffee markets remained volatile and consumers faced ongoing pressure. Throughout the year, we remain disciplined on pricing, tightly managed expenses and aligned resources with the highest return opportunities across the portfolio. We also took meaningful steps to streamline our platform. Our asset base is leaner and more focused with capital and talent directed towards initiatives that support durable, profitable growth.

As we look ahead, the actions taken in 2025, combined with expanding distribution, improving shelf productivity and moderating cost pressures, position us for a return to strong EBITDA growth in 2026. We're encouraged by the progress we've made and confident in the trajectory of the business as we enter the new year. Moving to Slide 7. Momentum in packaged coffee accelerated as we exited the year. In the fourth quarter, our packaged coffee business grew 34% compared to nearly 13% growth for the broader category. That performance translated into continued share gains. In bagged coffee, market share reached 3.3% nationally, up 60 basis points year-over-year, while pods increased to 2.2% nationally, up 4 basis points. Importantly, these gains were supported by improving shelf productivity, not just expanded distribution. Velocity strengthened throughout the year and reached parity with the overall bagged coffee category in grocery despite pricing approximately 40% above the category average.

We are seeing stronger consumer takeaway and repeat purchase, reinforcing sustained velocity improvement. Achieving category level velocity at a premium price point reinforces the strength of consumer demand and the durability of our retail position as we enter 2026. Move to Slide 8, please. Our land and expand strategy continues to prove itself as a scalable and repeatable growth engine. We begin with a focused assortment entering retailers with a concentrated set of high-performing items designed to demonstrate the value of the brand to the category. Once performance is established, we earn the right to broaden the assortment by adding incremental items to the shelf.

On the land side, we delivered another year of retail expansion. Distribution reach increased nearly 8 points in 2025, bringing ACV to 54.9%, that steady expansion reflects continued success in adding new retail doors and strengthening our national presence. The expand component is working as well. improving velocity translated directly into higher shelf productivity, which supported broader assortments and additional shelf space. On average, grocers added 2 incremental Black Rifle items in 2025 alone, and since entering grocery 3 years ago, we have nearly tripled our shelf presence. This disciplined execution is translating into greater shelf visibility, stronger retail economics and deeper long-term retailer commitment to the brand.

Slide 9. Looking at the broader category, much of the reported growth continues to be price led with higher shelf pricing driving dollar expansion across legacy brands, while underlying unit trends remain muted. Our performance looks different. The majority of our growth is volume driven. -- units increased more than 22% in 2025, reflecting real consumer takeaway rather than pressing actions. That distinction matters. We are adding households increasing purchase frequency and expanding share within existing accounts. As distribution expense and repeat purchase strengthens, our growth is becoming broader and more sustainable. In a category heavily influenced by price, our gains are rooted in unit expansion, repeat purchase and stronger shelf productivity. Those dynamics reinforce durable top line momentum and operating leverage. As volume scales, we expand gross profit dollars and improve fixed cost absorption while delivering strong productivity and economics to our retail partners.

Packaged coffee is firmly established as the core economic engine of the business, and we see meaningful runway for continued growth. Turning to Slide 10. Our direct-to-consumer business stabilized in 2025 and returned to growth in the fourth quarter. While retail continues to be the primary driver of top line growth, direct-to-consumer remains an important strategic channel. Our owned website allows us to engage directly with our most loyal customers, gather insight and feedback and introduce new products and messaging.

Our approach is not to force traffic to a single destination, but to ensure Black Rifle products are available wherever consumers choose to shop. We saw improvement on our core website during the year, and at the same time, continued growth across third-party marketplaces. Those platforms are extending our reach, supporting repeat purchase and complementing retail distribution.

Taken together, direct-to-consumer is operating from a more stable base and contributing positively to the broader business. Slide 11. In ready-to-drink coffee, performance in 2025, varied by channel. We expanded distribution, increasing ACV by 10 points to 55.9% with the strongest performance in grocery, mass and dollar, where we outperformed the category for the full year. The category remained under pressure in convenience which represents more than half of track ready-to-drink sales. As C-store trends weakened, fourth quarter results reflected that softness. We are not assuming a category recovery and are focused on the factors we can control. That means prioritizing our top retail partners, improving shelf productivity and using innovation as a disciplined growth lever. New flavors in our Cold Brew platform are intended to drive incremental takeaway and improve velocity within our existing distribution footprint.

Packaged coffee remains our core economic engine, RTD is an important adjacency and we are scaling it deliberately with a focus on returns and disciplined execution. Slide 12. In energy, distribution expanded in line with our launch year plan, reaching approximately 22% ACV across nearly 20,000 retail doors in 2025. As we move into 2026, the focus shifts from launch execution to scaling the business in the right markets with the right partners and with a clear emphasis on where we can win. That discipline continues to guide our approach. We are prioritizing geographies and channels where we can drive velocity and returns rather than pursuing distribution for its own sake. This return-focused strategy positions the energy business to scale responsibly and contribute to the overall growth of the Black Rifle brand. Before I hand it off to Matt, I want to briefly touch on how we continue to show up for the communities we serve.

Last quarter, we committed to eliminate $25 million in medical debt for veterans through operation Debt of Gratitude in partnership with Born primitive and for Give Co. I'm proud to say we exceeded that goal, wiping out more than $34 million in medical debt and helping approximately 15,000 veterans enter 2026 free from that burden. We also helped feed more than 1,000 military families through Operation Homefront during the holidays and continued supporting the Special Operation Warrior Foundation and other veteran and first responder organizations across the country. With members of our community and even our families currently deployed in the Middle East and around the world, we remain committed to supporting them and those waiting for them at home. That same commitment will guide us as we move into 2026 in honor Americas 250th birthday through initiatives that celebrate service and expand programs that create meaningful impact for veterans and their families.

Supporting this community isn't a campaign for us. It's foundational to who we are and how we grow. I will now turn it over to Matt Amigh.

Thank you, Monz. I'll begin my remarks on Slide 14. For the full year, net revenue increased 2% year-over-year excluding the impact of the 2024 loyalty rewards accrual change and other nonrecurring items in both periods, net revenue increased 8%, primarily driven by wholesale growth. Our Wholesale segment, which sells packaged coffee and ready-to-drink beverages to retailers grew 5% year-over-year or 13% excluding nonrecurring items, reflecting stronger velocity, expanded distribution across both doors and items and continued contribution from Black Rifle Energy. Sales to mass merchants increased double digits and grocery sales more than doubled. Direct-to-consumer declined 5% for the year, but was slightly positive, excluding the 2024 loyalty benefit.

With the stabilization achieved in 2025, direct-to-consumer is no longer a material offset the growth elsewhere in the business, allowing wholesale performance to more clearly drive consolidated results. Moving down the P&L. Operating efficiency gains in 2025 from restructuring actions and reallocating resources towards higher-return initiatives partially offset higher commodity costs and tariffs. For the year, gross margins declined 6.5 points and EBITDA declined more than 40%. As shown on Slide 15, the operating expense reductions we implemented, combined with improving revenue, limited the fourth quarter EBITDA decline to just 2%. In the fourth quarter, revenue increased 7% year-over-year or 11% excluding nonrecurring revenue in both periods.

Wholesale revenue increased 8% year-over-year or 16% excluding nonrecurring items. Direct-to-consumer revenue increased 7%, marking the first quarter of growth in this segment in more than 3 years. Turning to Slide 16. We provide a detailed view of this year's gross margin drivers and the path forward. Gross margin was 32.1% in the fourth quarter, a decrease of 610 basis points year-over-year. Onetime items, including start-up costs associated with onboarding a new direct-to-consumer fulfillment provider and a noncash impairment of coffee extract related to a formulation change pressured margins by 270 basis points partially offset by 170 basis points of productivity and favorable mix. Coffee inflation and tariffs net of pricing were the single largest headwind impacting gross margins by approximately 420 basis points in the fourth quarter and 350 basis points for the full year.

Coffee prices nearly doubled from 2024 to 2025 and remain elevated and volatile due to weather-related yield declines and tariff-driven shifts in global supply. U.S. tariffs on coffee were fully removed in November and improved harvest expectations have contributed to a recent price moderation. Arabica prices peaked near $3.75 in early January and have since declined into the high $2 range, while the futures curve implies continued normalization through 2026 and 2027. We expect some residual impact from elevated coffee costs and previously capitalized tariffs to flow through inventory in 2026. However, pricing actions, productivity initiatives and favorable mix are expected to offset those pressures and stabilize gross margins relative to 2025. Longer term, we remain confident in our ability to reach our 40% gross margin target. The path is driven primarily by structural levers within our control, including product and channel mix, trade efficiency and supply chain productivity.

The green coffee forward curve has recently shown downward pricing pressure, which would accelerate progress. That said, reaching our long-term target does not rely on additional pricing actions. Slide 17. Operating expenses increased 1% year-over-year on a reported basis. Excluding nonrecurring items related to our 2025 restructuring and certain legal expenses, operating expenses were lower by 7%. Marketing expense decreased 10%, reflecting lower nonworking spend and a reallocation towards programs more directly tied to revenue. Salaries, wages and benefits were flat despite a 15% reduction in headcount primarily due to lapping of a $3 million incentive compensation reduction in the prior year. General and administrative expenses increased 28% in the quarter and reflect a significant portion of these nonrecurring items.

Excluding those items, general and administrative expenses decreased 25%. Fourth quarter performance demonstrates the operating leverage now embedded in the model as revenue improves against a more disciplined cost structure. Turning to the balance sheet. Through the equity offering completed in July, we repaid the outstanding balance of our asset-based lending facility and reduced total debt by more than $30 million in 2025. We ended the year with $39 million of debt outstanding, representing approximately 1.8x net debt to 25% adjusted EBITDA and approximately 1.4x adjusted EBITDA based upon our 2026 guidance. At the end of the year, we had more than $50 million of total liquidity, including cash on hand and available capacity under our credit facility. Cash used in operating activities was approximately $10 million in 2025 with roughly $9 million attributable to working capital normalization.

We do not expect working capital to be a comparable use of cash in 2026. As previously disclosed, we received notice from the New York Stock Exchange regarding the minimum price requirement. The notice has no immediate impact on our listing, operations or financial reporting obligations. We have the standard cure period and are focused on executing our business plan to regain compliance. Our focus remains on disciplined execution in driving long-term shareholder value. Moving to the outlook on Slide 19. In 2026, we expect revenue growth of at least 7% or approximately $425 million. This outlook reflects current visibility into demand trends pricing already in market and distribution gains that are secured and operationally in place while incorporating category volatility within our ready-to-drink portfolio.

Our guidance is grounded in confirmed commercial drivers and does not assume incremental distribution wins or other actions that remain pending. As we continue executing against our 2026 priorities, we expect to incorporate incremental gains through our regular quarterly updates. From a quarterly cadence standpoint, we expect revenue dollars to build sequentially through the year, consistent with the progression experienced in 2025.

In the first quarter, we expect revenue growth of at least 10% compared to the first quarter of 2025, reflecting current momentum in the business and the early year benefit of distribution gains implemented in late 2025. We expect gross margins in the range of 34% to 36% in 2026 compared to 34.6% in 2025. The range reflects continued execution progress and external variables that remain dynamic. We benefit from the annualized impact of pricing actions taken in 2025, continued productivity initiatives across our supply chain and favorable channel and product mix. At the same time, coffee prices have moderated in recent months but remain above the 2025 average cost, which limits the pace of our margin expansion. We also expect residual tariff impacts early in 2026 as inventory produced under prior tariff rates flows through cost of goods sold.

In addition, we're making incremental trade and slotting investments to support distribution expansion, which will weigh modestly on gross margins as we scale into new doors. We expect at least 30% growth in EBITDA in 2026 compared to the $21.4 million generated in 2025. The primary drivers of the growth are higher gross profit dollars from revenue expansion and a reduction in operating expenses. We expect operating expenses to decline year-over-year driven largely by lower general and administrative expenses as cost savings actions implemented in 2025 continued to benefit us in 2026. Marketing expense is expected to grow in line with sales while labor expense growth should remain muted. From a cadence standpoint, we expect EBITDA will remain second half weighted. In 2025, approximately 15% of the full year EBITDA was generated in the first half. In 2026, we expect the first half EBITDA to represent roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the full year with the balance generated in the back half of the year as revenue scales and leverage increases.

While we're not providing formal cash flow guidance, converting revenue growth into higher profit margins and improved working capital efficiency is a core focus. We will continue to invest where appropriate to support growth but a capital expenditure levels consistent with prior year, we expect to be cash flow generative. As we look ahead, the trajectory of the business is clear. We have simplified the model, strengthened our cost structure and improve the underlying economics of our company. The actions we took in 2025 are translating to higher profitability, tighter expense discipline and a stronger balance sheet entering 2026. We are carrying real momentum into the year, particularly in coffee, where pricing, distribution gains and productivity initiatives are working together to expand gross profit dollars and improve returns on invested capital.

At the same time, we are converting that growth into EBITDA expansion and operating cash flow, reinforcing financial flexibility. Our focus remains consistent. Disciplined execution, operational efficiency across the entire income statement, structural efficiency within operating expenses and a thoughtful capital allocation. We believe that combination positions us to further strengthen the business and drive durable, profitable growth in 2026 and beyond. Operator, we're now ready for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Sarang Vora with Telsey Advisory Group.

Great. First of all, congratulations. It's good to see the momentum -- business momentum coming back. My first question is on the coffee side, the land and expand strategy that you talked about seemed to be really catching up. You are seeing the momentum in the business. One of the main drivers, I feel is expansion of SKUs across your retail network. So can you help us understand -- I see the average number of SKUs is about 5 to 6 right now across the retail doors. Can you help us understand where it is at some of the higher level, which retailers you see at the higher level penetration? And then any color you can share in terms of like bagged coffee or some of the newer products like K-Cups or cold brew, like how the performance of some of these other coffee products have been as well.

Thanks, Sarang. It's Chris. Thanks very much for the question. Yes. So our land and expand strategy is the core of our growth model and is working quite well. So just to reiterate, the strategy is to put 2 to 3 of our best items per segment, right, in bags and pods, drive those to strong performance. And then as we move into that upper half of velocity with that particular retailer generate shelf expansion off of that. So to answer your question directly, we've absolutely seen -- so you quoted the total number, right? We mentioned that in the upfront comments. We've gone -- we've tripled our number. I'm not going to give you specific retailer names, but if we think about the -- a number of the retailers that launched -- well, our largest -- our largest retailer, we have 20 items on shelf. That may not be a comparative across grocery. But in a number of our grocery retailers that launched shortly thereafter, we have 14 items, 12 items, 8 items would be 3 examples of a national retailer and 2 large regional retailers.

So the reality is, is that we believe that continuing to drive items up into that 12% to 15% range is absolutely achievable for us. We've demonstrated that. And to then answer your final question on which items are performing well. It continues to be our core items that drive the highest velocities. We're going to continue to innovate and make sure that we provide where items that go within where we know consumers' preferences are moving. We're not going to talk specifically about any of the innovation items that we're launching in those areas this year. They haven't yet hit the shelf. But like every year, we are going to bring new news to our retailers. We believe heavily in driving new items in, in order to help drive that category expansion.

That's great. And it's really good to see the momentum coming back on the coffee side. My second question is on the energy side. We are almost a year into the launch of the energy drinks, can you share any lessons learned over the year? And also a little more color on the plans for 2026 like markets that you are trying to expand flavor profiles changes in SKUs? Any color you can share on the energy side would be helpful.

Sure. So it was a great learning year for us. We were pleased with the first year of execution as we've talked about, it was a regional launch position for us in the first year. We want to continue to be very careful that we do not put more resource against energy than our core coffee business with the kind of momentum we have in coffee. That's obviously the first dollar spent for us. We continue to believe in the potential of energy because of, a, the size of that category and the dynamics of that category and even more importantly, b, nearly 2/3 of our consumers are already drinking energy as part of their route team. So we know that it is a tight fit to our consumer base. So to answer your question, in the first year, we did a regional launch as we talked about. We had markets that were very successful for us where we were able to drive from 3 to 5 units on shelves at a time and see the velocities respond around that.

And we had other markets where we had less success. And I think not surprisingly, similar to any other CPG business, certainly businesses in the cold where we get better placement, better distribution and couple of the marketing programs around that, we see the best success. But the key piece for us is that we have seen markets with very high success, and we have seen our retail chains with very high success. I'm not going to say which ones, we haven't given guidance on that. But as we go into '26, the plan very much revolves around that. Rather than saying we're going to continue to drive our ACV to a significantly higher level, which would cost us a lot more in marketing dollars to support that. We're going to keep a regional focus.

We like to talk about the smile states of the U.S., which is where a lot of our brand strength is. So while I'm not going to talk to the specific markets that will continue to be in the regions that we do best in as Black Rifle and we will focus with our partners, KDP on very strong execution, building off of our learnings in '25 and continue to evaluate what is the best overall model for us from a marketing and commercialization standpoint to drive success with that item.

And again, being careful that we don't ever pull more resource than we want to across from the coffee business. Coffee is core for us. Energy is an incredible opportunity for us that we want to continue to prepare for the future on.

Our next question is from Daniel Biolsi with Hedgeye.

I was wondering if you could share what you expect lower coffee bean costs will impact for industry prices on the shelf. And what have you seen with your latest price increase?

Sure, Dan. This is Matt. Yes, what we're seeing right now is we're seeing that coffee nearly doubled over the last 2 years in 2023 -- or excuse me, 2025, we're sitting about $2.83. And in 2026, we expect it to increase slightly, but we are seeing a pullback in the commodities over the last, I would say, 20 days, 20 trading days where the price per pound of coffee has gone down on average about 18% for the forward curve months. So we are seeing a moderation there. Now we have taken 2 price increases in 2025. One was in Q3 and then the second one just settled in, in late Q4. And both of those price increases were in the upper single-digit ranges. The response to -- consumer response from that is in line with expectations, relatively low elasticity, sitting like less than 0.5 elasticity factor. So everything has gone according to plan with the price increases we see in market. We'll continue to stay close to how the market performs, how our elasticities will look, how trade promotional and will adjust as needed.

Thank you. And then I know you guys think about this a lot more than most of us. But do the current actions by our military change your messaging or your priorities in terms of marketing during these times.

No. The reality is that this brand from its inception, when the founders first came up with Black Rifle that was always centered around veterans. It was -- they were at the time, active in the military service. And we have always had veterans at the core of everything that we do when it comes to our giveback to the community, which I talked about earlier as well as how we market the brand. Obviously, all of the troops overseas are in our thoughts and prayers like every other American out there, but it doesn't change anything we're doing. We've been focused on veterans from the very beginning. And times like this are just a great reminder to everyone in America as to why we need to be backing our veterans every single day because they are constantly put in harm's way, and we all owe a real -- gratitude to them for that.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the call back over to management for closing remarks.

So let me just close by saying we are focused on disciplined growth, continuing to expand our margins and generating cash. The actions we've taken this year are a foundation for the business as we enter '26. We have very clear priorities, very measurable targets, and our brand is stronger than ever. Distribution is growing, and we have greater financial flexibility than at any other point of time in the company. Execution will continue to be our focus going forward. And again, we appreciate everyone calling. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to updating you next quarter.

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time, and thank you for your participation.

It's 9:00. Let's get going. I'm Mike Baker, one of the consumer analysts from D.A. Davidson. Very happy to introduce the management team of Black Rifle Coffee. We have the whole team here. We got the company Founder and Executive Chairman, Evan Hafer; President and CEO, Chris Mondzelewski; CFO, Matt Amigh; and Vice President of Investor Relations, Matt McGinley, all, of course, military veterans, which I think is always important, but particularly important as we get ready to celebrate our country's 250th birthday. We continue to see this as one of the most intriguing growth stories in consumer on the cusp of pulling all the levers to accelerate growth. So we think it's a great story to start to understand.

And I'm going to turn it over to Matt, I think, for safe harbor.

Thanks, Mike. I have 2 quick housekeeping notes before we begin. First, a copy of the presentation and press release with guidance that we will reference today is available on our Investor Relations website and has been furnished with the SEC. Second, I'd like to remind you of the company's safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements.

During today's presentation, management will make forward-looking statements, including, among other things, guidance and the underlying assumptions. These statements are based on expectations that involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. For a further discussion of these risks, please refer to our previous filings with the SEC.

Additionally, this presentation will include non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our press release, which is available on our Investor Relations website.

And with that, I'll turn it over here to Evan.

Great. Can everybody hear me okay? So I'm Evan Hafer. I'm the Founder and Executive Chair of Black Rifle. I don't know if you guys have looked into the company enough to understand me, my background and the company's history and the genesis of it. But I started my journey in coffee, and we're not going to go all the way back. I'm going to give you like a quick snippet of this.

In the late '90s, when I was going to the University of Washington, Seattle, in coffee. I translated my love for coffee as I like propelled myself into my next thing, which is to go become a Green Beret and then I went on to work for the CIA and I spent 20 years essentially leading teams in the most complex war torn and dangerous environments in the world with the intent to always start a coffee company from the late '90s all the way through until 2014. And the genesis of this actually started on the back tailgate of a truck in the middle of the desert.

I've been roasting coffee for 20 years. I have an extreme amount of passion, dedication, and I'm extremely detail oriented when it comes to the product and the preservation of making the perfect product for the customer. But I don't want to pontificate about my history, but it's important from a context perspective because as we look at Black Rifle, we've looked at the stock over the last 3 years. What I really need you to take away from this is failure is not an option.

Failure is not an option for Black Rifle. Failure is not an option for this team. And as we've taken our lumps and we've seen them, right, to not acknowledge them would be a little bit ridiculous. What I can tell you as we've got the internal team drive passion and an unfair advantage in the marketplace right now to win over the next 3 years.

So I'll flip you back to Mosul, Iraq in 2008. I was driving from the north side of the city to the south side of that city. And it's the most dangerous city in the most war-torn environment in Iraq, and it's the size of Los Angeles. So I was in a rolling ambush that started in the north side of the city that lasted all the way through in a little car as I'm working my way through essentially a city of multimillions of people in one of the most war torn and complex environments in the world.

What I learned through time and repetition and 43 deployments, countless leadership and complex problems that galvanized through events like that in Mosul, as I'm using a map sheet to navigate my way through a city as people are quite literally trying to kill me. Is that -- solving complex problems, navigating your way through complexity, not being overexposed psychologically from a negative perspective is that you've got to work the problem. You've got to understand with not only the wisdom and intellect that you've collected throughout the years, but how to drive people to the end result to not only survive, but increase your thrive or lethality perspective in the military.

What you're seeing in Black Rifle is I kind of translate that back and why do I say failure is not an option. I've been doing this for 30 years in the context of leading teams through complex problems, establishing technical and tactical high ground and executing on being able to win with a team and understanding the true strategic advantage.

And I'm here today, the first time at ICR because I think you need to see and/or hear the reassurance that the next 2 years is about being able to deliver, and if we flip back to a plan to deliver brand momentum, capitalize on the greatest opportunities for Black Rifle and continue to maintain that consistent cohesion of delivery to establish trust.

And that's why we're here, obviously, and that's why I'm here. Why do we think that we can do it? Well, I started this company in my garage with literally zero background in the complexities of scaling and growing a company with a $1,500 roaster. I didn't have an investment partner. I didn't have capital. I doubled the company every year for a decade up to what were we at when we took it public, $250 million top line.

Out of my garage with no partner, no financial background in the context of I know how to drive brand momentum, we have an unfair advantage and a strategic advantage in the context of we are the only mission-driven authentic story associated with a huge percentage of veterans in this nation and not only that, but 70-plus percent of the people want to support a veteran-backed benefits corp like Black Rifle.

We're the only one on shelf. We're continuing to not only build brand momentum and then drive back into the core competency of the company, which is social media, viral and community, which is the #1 thing that we do. But we'll continue to not only invest in that community, but drive brand momentum more than any other of our competitors and more importantly, tell the story, galvanize the community and execute against passion through the greatest opportunities that we, as Black Rifle can see, and you'll see as we walk through the numbers.

So I'll leave you with this, which is failure is not an option for the team. We're here over the next 2 years to build credibility and consistency back. And as you start to see where the opportunities truly lie is that our strategic advantage is that we're authentic, mission-driven company that's continuing to win on shelf with this great Coffee business that I established 12 years ago. So I'll transition it over.

All right. So thanks, Evan. I appreciate it. We're going to jump through some of these slides pretty quickly. I think as far as what sets us apart, clearly, Evan just covered all of that. So I'm not going to spend any time on this. Focusing on what wins, again, content, coffee, customers. I have some slides here as we get into the deck that in the interest of time, I'm going to show this from a numbers standpoint that I want to get to. Do you want to cover this real quick, Evan?

We've talked about this in the unconventional brand, deep loyalty. But here is the way that this actually plays out in the data. We want you guys to just leave here understanding that what we've been able to create in a decade is beating institutions that have been around for 100 years.

So why should we believe? It's because we have the real momentum on shelf and ultimately, the data proves that out. We're with the most powerful influential people in the world with the most strategic partners and ultimately, some of the largest, biggest megaphones, and those partners are authentic, passion-driven. They're committed to the brand, they're committed to the mission.

And one of the things I would point out on this slide as well, Evan, as he goes out and establish these partnerships, and again, it's a great advantage. We still have all 3 founders involved in this business. And as they're out there establishing these partnerships, these are some big names, right? The guy in the middle is arguably one of the biggest names in the world when it comes to media, the largest podcast in the world, I believe, Evan.

It's #1 in 53 countries...

The guy next to that, you may not know, Riley Green is the most up-and-coming name in country music right now. They're not here because we pay them money. Money changes hands. They're here with us because they believe in the brand, the same way that Evan just talked about, right? That's a strategic advantage we have, is that when your brand actually matters and stands for something, you have celebrities who are willing to step into it with you and consumers can tell the difference.

They really can when it's a financial arrangement versus when it's something that these guys really, really care about. This is just ultimately how it comes to life. It is ultimately the same way that any CPG business is going to win when you look at the different areas that we invest marketing into. But again, the ability to have these personalities and the ability to be able to have the social component, right, the pass-on component of it, that's the real strategic advantage for us.

We have a quick video here that just kind of brings that to life for you, I believe.

[Presentation]

So the reason we chose that. And again, I should point out, we have JT, one of our founders over here. I believe some of your kids are in that ad. When we put these things together, we do it very organically. That video, we spent almost nothing on. We're using all of our internal founders and employees to do it, and it got millions and millions of views, right? Because it's got pass on content. Anybody who's had any association with the military, male, female found that [ cue, ] they passed it on to their friends.

And we're able to generate brand awareness that way. So that is the best articulation, I think, of how our creative model works. Beyond the creative model, this is fundamentally how we then transition that into revenue, right? Brand, product, Evan talked about, innovation. We're always looking for what is that next area that our fans are going to that is adjacent. I'll talk about energy here in a minute. And then strategic partnerships. We have a really clear model that we use with our strategic partners.

And again, I'll show it to you on an upcoming page here. This just really gets at what the core components of our current revenue mix are. The majority of the business is in the first bucket, and that is the core of our business. We're a coffee company through and through, right? Pods, bags, this is where we generate the vast majority of our cash profitability. And as you're going to see on the next slide, this business is winning, big time, right?

So we have to make sure we never pull investment off of that to drive innovation. The Ready-to-Drink Coffee business, this was innovation 2 years ago, which has now become scale, #3 in America. And it's a fantastic way for us to be able to get folks into the business that aren't into buying hot coffee. And then energy, I think those of you who have been following us, you're familiar with this. This is innovation for us, right? We're going to take our time with this.

We're going to make sure we build it the right way. We're going to make sure it does not steal investment away from those first 2 buckets, which are at scale for us. Here are the results of it. Again, this is pulled straight out of consumption data.

And you can see that. Not only are we winning, we're winning in both aspects of how you create revenue, right? Everybody on here is generating some level of price growth in the market. Obviously, costs are up in coffee. You all know that. Everybody is pricing behind that. What we are really proud of is that we are #1 in America in driving the unit growth, right? We're still driving 22% unit growth on top of the pricing we're doing.

Our pricing looks a lot lighter. I will tell you, we've already priced in the high teens that will be flowing through. So you'll see a bit more of that. Maybe the unit growth will come down a little bit, but we are confident that our model is going to allow us to do both. In this slide here, like this is what we do. This is the best snapshot of how our model is working, right?

And those of you who have listened to our investor calls, I talk about our Land & Expand strategy on a consistent basis. And what that means here in numbers is if you look at the bottom left quadrant, right, in that quadrant, you're seeing this slow build of ACV. And for those of you who aren't familiar with ACV, ACV is a measure of breadth.

How many stores are you in across the country? So we're now in 55% of the stores across the country in grocery and mass, the measurable stores in AC Nielsen. And as that slowly goes up, the goal is you're coming -- you have new customers coming in and you have to increase your velocity as you come on shelf. When we initially come on shelf, it may be 2 items, it may be 4 items. It's usually not a big set, right, because we're a new brand coming in.

And what that means is your velocity starts a bit lower. And you can see back in '23, we were at a lower velocity number versus the category. Fast forward to '25, we're now equal to the category, which remember, the category is made up of a lot of value players as well, right? So for us being a super-premium brand, equal in velocity, that puts us in a strong position. And also remember, this is an average, right?

So you still have new accounts coming on, which are at that [ 2, 4 range, ] and you got accounts that are up [ 6, 8, ] and those are the ones that are driving well over 100% on that velocity number. The key chart on here, however, is the bottom right. If you look at the bottom right, this is it all coming together for us, which is when you get first on shelf and you drive that velocity and the retailer feels like they have a healthy margin, they're going to put more items on shelf.

Any buyer would make that decision. And you can see it happening in our numbers, right? So third quarter '23, we are averaging about 2, like I said, when you go into a new account, you don't get much at first. We're now averaging in the last quarter, close to 6. And again, it's an average, right? So you still have new accounts coming on that are at 2 and you have accounts like our strategic partners, Kroger, Meyer et cetera, who are well over 10, right, on their way to 20, even north of that, which we know is possible because that's what we have in the largest customer in America, Walmart.

Our RTD Coffee business, again, this is a scale business for us now, right? Innovation 2 years ago, it's now #3 in America. This category has been a tough one, though, right? The category has declined in the last couple of years. Why is that? Well, it has not kept up with consumer demands. We believe that this category has not done the things that other Ready-to-Drink categories need to do to be relevant to consumers. So this year, now that we have scale going into '26, we're going to start taking that on.

We're not just about a share game anymore. We're going to start pushing the category as well. As a #3 player, that is our responsibility to do that. We have a major innovation coming out right now, which is Cold Brew. It's already doing great, high acceptance with our retailers. That will be on shelf in January and building up from there. And we have one other major innovation, which I'm not ready to announce yet because we have not fully presented it to our retail partners. That will be coming a few months later.

But with these 2 major innovations, we are confident that we can start to change, not only continue our share trajectory upward, but to change that trajectory of what the category looks like in RTD coffee as well. And then finally, I talked about energy. Look, it is what it is. When I sat here last year, I gave you a bigger number than what we're calling right now in energy. And the reason is because our strategy was different, right? We are a nimble company. If there's one thing I've learned from this guy and his 2 founder partners, it's you damn well better stay nimble. You heard the story that he told about where the culture of our company comes from.

We carry that culture into everything we do from a corporate standpoint as well. So as we've looked at our Energy business, you know what, it's tough man. It is a tough category. We have had some real success points in cities we've gone into and invested properly. And in areas where we've not invested properly, we did not have success. So as we go into '26, we're not going to make the same mistake again. What we're going to do is we're going to shore it up.

We work with KDP on this, right, our retail -- our distribution partners, Keurig Dr Pepper. And we're going to make sure we're distributing into geographies where we can fully support in the way that we knew we were able to drive success in '25. That won't be the whole country. That will be a portion of the country, and that will allow us to continue to smartly build this optionality for ourselves while we still have the majority of our money going back against that Coffee business, which is really kicking for us right now. Let me kick it right now to Matt to quickly go through our P&L.

Thanks, Mondz. So what we're going to talk about now is how we diversified the customer base over the last 6 years. It's a pretty remarkable story. You can see in 2019, the business was 90% direct-to-consumer, 90%. If you progress over to the right, 2022, we got our first entrance way into meaningful distribution in food, drug and mass through the addition of Walmart.

Fast forward to '23, '24, '25, that's the Land & Expand strategy that Mondz walked us through. That's Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons coming online. If you look at 2025, our projected numbers of $395 million in net revenue, 65% of that revenue will come from wholesale. That's important. That was a deliberate diversification designed to establish the wholesale business as a primary growth engine for the company. That's important for 2 reasons.

Number one, we're meeting consumers where they shop. We're not trying to pull more people into the website. We're meeting them where they're buying coffee today. And that's very, very important if you think about most of the coffee in the U.S. is sold through retail channels and wholesale channels. Number two, it's much more profitable. The margins are inherently stronger on the wholesale business, they are in D2C.

And that's fundamentally because it's much more economical to ship a case, a full pallet or a full truckload to a retail partner versus sending an individual bag of coffee to an end consumer. Now look, you may look at this and say, these guys, they're flat for the last 3 years. Keep in mind, if you listen to the earnings call, we talk about nonrepeatable revenue. In '23 and '24, we had about $24 million and $30 million, respectively, in those 2 years of non-repeatable revenue related to some liquidation sales of long inventory.

Look, those things are behind us. If you would adjust for that, we'd be talking about roughly a 7% to 8% growth rate from [indiscernible]. So think upper single digits. So what does this mean? So in the end, what this gives you is a more predictable, a more diversified and a more resilient revenue model. And that's going to pay off in dividends with earning visibility over time. Operating margins. Obviously, a tough year for gross margins. Now look, we have a pathway that still gets us to 40% over time, and we'll talk about that pathway in a moment.

But let me spend a few seconds here talking about '25 cost inflation. Green coffee prices obviously hit us hard and the whole category hard. If you look at the pricing we see in the marketplace today, it's at the historic highs, right, close to $3 to $4 a pound. If you look over the last 2 years, coffee prices have simply doubled. Look, it's due to the adverse weather conditions that happened through Central America, particularly Brazil, the tariffs added more inflation on top of that.

We have a plan to take care of it. There's things that we can control, and there's things we can't control. We can't control whether tariffs are levied. We can't control the weather in Brazil. But what we can do is we can control our own execution. So getting back to what Evan said in the onset, it's about what we do now, right? So we have 3 levers that we're going to aggressively pursue. One is pricing and promotional disciplines.

So we've taken 2 pricing actions -- actually 3 pricing actions in 2025 that have begun to pay off in the back half of '25 and will into 2026. We'll continue to monitor the external marketplace, what our competition is doing and where elasticities are to see if further pricing actions are warranted.

Number two, productivity and efficiencies. We're looking across the supply chain. Look, we're a 35% gross margin business, just do the backward math. We've got like $250 million in our COGS basket to go after, and that's what we're doing. Supply chain efficiencies, manufacturing efficiencies, RFP and sourcing out a lot of our raw material and packaging buys, we're aggressively going after all of those.

The one that I think really speaks to the health of the business and the transformation that we're doing would be mix. There's 2 types of mix accretion that we're going to see. Number one, as we mix our business more to wholesale, as I mentioned, it's much more economical to ship that. We'll see a margin bump because of that. Number two, the more we disproportionately grow our Packaged Coffee business, which has higher average margins than the company, the more we're going to improve our product mix. So we believe the combination of these 3 levers will get us back to 40% over time.

Now it's going to take some time. With the commodity prices the way they are today, we are seeing inflation going into 2026 still on coffee. If those coffee prices normalize, we could see restoration of the 40% gross margin sooner. If they don't, we're going to steadily progress down the path of those 3 key levers and sequentially improve margins over time. Operating expenses. The team has spent years on restructuring the business to get an operating structure that's prepared for a scaling business that we have today.

So we spent deliberate actions, restructuring actions against simplifying the organization, consolidating headcount to reestablish the operating cost base. If you look at the headcount chart on the Northeast quadrant there, you can see that we reduced headcount by nearly 50% from the highs in 2022. In addition to that, we worked on simplifying the organization by removing layers, redundancy and overall simplification of the business to reset that operating cost base. What we're left with is a relatively fixed cost operating base with the exception of marketing, which will grow in line with the growth rate of sales.

So in the end, what we're going to have is we're going to have an overhead structure that allows most of the gross margin benefit from the higher volume to fall straight through to the bottom line and really utilize our operating leverage. I'm just going to wrap it up right now with our long-term financial targets. We still see -- now think about these long-term targets is not tied to any specific year, just the longer-term algorithm of growth for the business. We see 10% to 15% on revenue, gross margins getting back eventually to 40% and adjusted gross margin outpacing the rate of sales based upon the operating leverage.

All right. That's it.

That's it.

Thank you all.

Thank you all.

Hopefully, we'll get a chance to see you later.

Greetings, and welcome to the Black Rifle Coffee Company Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Matt McGinley, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Black Rifle Coffee Company's Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. We released our results yesterday, and the press release and related materials are available on our Investor Relations website at ir.blackriflecoffee.com.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements. During today's call, management may make forward-looking statements, including guidance and the underlying assumptions. These statements are based on expectations that involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. For a further discussion of these risks, please refer to our previous filings with the SEC. Additionally, this call will include non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA. Whenever we refer to EBITDA, we mean adjusted EBITDA unless otherwise noted. Reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release, which was furnished to the SEC and is available on our Investor Relations website.

Now please refer to the presentation on our Investor Relations website and turn to Slide 4. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Mondzelewski, CEO of Black Rifle Coffee Company. Mondz?

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are Evan Hafer, our Executive Chairman; Matt Amigh, our Chief Financial Officer; and Matt McGinley, our Head of Investor Relations. The third quarter was another solid step forward for Black Rifle. Our team did an outstanding job executing against our priorities, driving strong commercial performance, maintaining cost discipline and positioning the business for sustainable profitable growth. We continue to see encouraging momentum across both the wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels as our brand gains traction with new customers and deepens its connections with existing ones.

As we move to the fourth quarter and into 2026, our focus remains clear; driving strong on-shelf execution as we expand our physical presence, maintaining costs effectively to enable reinvestment in growth initiatives and continuing to build a scalable platform for long-term success. We're broadening distribution, driving stronger velocities with key retail partners and advancing our product lineup to keep the brand fresh and relevant. The team's execution this quarter reflects a company that's more agile, more focused and more confident in its ability to perform even in a challenging cost environment. We're proud of the progress we've made and optimistic about the opportunities ahead.

Move to Slide 6, please. In the third quarter, Nielsen data showed continued strength in the U.S. coffee category within Food, Drug, Mass, growing 13.2% as higher shelf pricing to offset commodity inflation flowed through. Black Rifle once again outperformed the market with sales up 36.7% year-over-year, nearly triple the category's growth rate. Our land-and-expand strategy continues to prove effective. We start with a focused set of SKUs to demonstrate performance and earn additional shelf space as we build retailer confidence. In grocery, ACV increased 6 points year-over-year to 48% and total ACV across all tracked channels increased 9 points to 54%. Even with a 70% increase in average items carried, velocity in grocery improved more than 7%, highlighting the brand's strength with consumers. This combination of faster turns and expanding distribution is translating into stronger partnerships and continued shelf gains.

Move to Slide 7. Across the category, most of the dollar growth is being driven by price increases. In contrast, Black Rifle's growth is coming from almost entirely unit gains, which are up more than 20% year-to-date. This reflects real consumer demand, not price inflation. The brand continues to win new households, drive repeat purchases and gain share at retail. As we expand distribution and sustain velocity, we're driving durable volume-led growth that supports long-term brand health.

Slide 8. Our Direct-to-Consumer business remains an important part of our omnichannel strategy, deepening customer relationships, strengthening brand loyalty and providing valuable insights that guide how we engage with consumers across every channel. It also allows us to test new offerings, refine messaging and stay closely connected to our most engaged fans. Through both our own site and digital retail partners, Black Rifle products remain easily accessible to customers who prefer the convenience of home delivery.

While most of our recent top line growth has come from retail distribution and velocity gains, we're encouraged by the continued stabilization of our digital channels this quarter. Sales in our Direct-to-Consumer segment declined 4% year-over-year in the third quarter. However, after adjusting for the prior year benefit related to our loyalty reserve and the timing shift of promotion, results were slightly positive compared to last year. We also saw meaningful gains through leading third-party marketplaces, where awareness of the brand and repeat rates continue to build.

Beyond top line growth, we've made steady progress improving the overall customer experience. Website and mobile updates have enhanced navigation and checkout speed, while back-end improvements support smarter merchandising and more efficient SKU management. Within our subscription platform, we're adding new functionality and greater flexibility for members, including prepaid options, exclusive offers and a refreshed brand portal that highlights partner benefits and members-only gear. These ongoing upgrades reflect our focus on building a digital ecosystem that not only drives sales but deepens brand loyalty and supports the broader omnichannel strategy.

Slide 9. The Ready-to-Drink coffee category continued to face headwinds in the third quarter. particularly within the convenience channel. While category sales declined 3.1%, our performance remained resilient, down just 0.6% overall, reflecting solid execution and strong brand loyalty. In grocery, sales grew 18%, partially offsetting the softness seen in C-stores. Even in a challenging environment, we're gaining ground. Black Rifle remains the third largest RTD coffee brand in the U.S., and we expanded our ACV by 7 points year-over-year to 53%. That growth underscores the confidence our retail partners have in the brand and our proven ability to perform on shelf. We're still in the early stages of unlocking the full RTD opportunity with roughly half the category yet to be reached.

Slide 10. Black Rifle Energy continues to expand its footprint, now available in nearly 20,000 retail locations and reaching approximately 22% ACV. Distribution growth has been disciplined and targeted, guided by learnings from early markets. The energy drink category remains one of the largest and fastest-moving segments in beverages and roughly 2/3 of the category sales come from convenience stores. That channel remains a primary focus for expansion as Black Rifle Energy currently has its lowest penetration there and meaningful white space ahead. Our approach remains deliberate, focused on building awareness, driving new consumer trial and earning shelf space through performance rather than overextension. We're encouraged by the early traction and see meaningful opportunity for the brand to expand reach and contribution within our broader beverage portfolio in 2026.

Before I hand it off to Matt, I want to pause and reflect on what makes this company special. I'm incredibly proud of the progress we're making across the business and just as proud of the way our team continues to live out our mission every day. As we approach Veterans Day, it's a time to honor the men and women who have served our country and to recognize the many ways our team continues to serve them in return. This year, we're working with Born Primitive and ForgiveCo to help forgive up to $25 million in medical debt for more than 10,000 veterans. 1 in 5 veterans carries medical debt in collections compared to about 13% of the general population. That burden often leads to financial stress in housing and security, and this effort is about lifting that weight and giving back to those who have served. Whether it's helping rebuild communities after a flood, supporting warriors in crisis or rallying around causes like suicide prevention, Black Rifle is driven by our mission to veterans. I'm proud of what this team has achieved and excited about the road ahead.

Thank you, Mondz. I'll begin my remarks on the quarter with Slide 12. Third quarter net revenue increased 3% year-over-year, driven primarily by growth in our Wholesale segment. We are cycling a $2.4 million net benefit recognized in the prior year related to barter transactions and a change in loyalty reward accruals. Excluding these items, revenue increased 5%. Our Wholesale segment, which primarily sells packaged coffee and ready-to-drink beverages to retailers grew 5% year-over-year. Adjusting for the net $2.1 million in nonrecurring revenue recognized in the prior year, sales in this segment increased 9% in the third quarter. Growth was driven by gains in velocity and distribution, including increases in the number of doors and items carried as well as continued growth in sales from Black Rifle Energy.

Revenue in our Direct-to-Consumer segment was 4% lower in the third quarter. A high-volume promotional event occurred later in the quarter compared to prior year, which we estimate shifted approximately $1 million in revenue from the third quarter into the fourth. Excluding this timing impact and the prior year benefit from the loyalty reserve change, revenue would have been slightly positive year-over-year. Fans of the Black Rifle brand now have more ways to find our products as brick-and-mortar retail distribution expands and online sales through platforms such as Amazon and walmart.com continue to grow. This increased availability is critical to the brand's long-term growth and health, and we will continue investing in wholesale and other channels that we expect will drive the most sustainable long-term growth. Outpost segment revenue grew 6%, benefiting from higher franchise fees and continued progress in merchandising. Better bundling and in-store presentation helped drive the average order value.

Turning to Slide 13. Gross margin was 36.9% in the third quarter, a decrease of 520 basis points compared to prior year. The decline was primarily driven by a 390 basis point impact from increased trade investment and a 300 basis point impact from green coffee inflation and tariffs, partially offset by pricing actions. These pressures were further mitigated by approximately 170 basis points of benefits, including productivity gains and more favorable product mix.

Slide 14. Operating expenses declined by $3.6 million or 9% compared to the third quarter of last year. Marketing expenses decreased 14% on a dollar basis and improved 165 basis points as a percentage of sales, reflecting lower nonworking advertising spend and a reallocation of dollars towards programs more directly tied to revenue growth. Salaries, wages and benefits declined 13% on a dollar basis and improved by 255 basis points year-over-year. The quarter included approximately $800,000 of severance expense and total headcount was down 19% compared to the third quarter last year.

General and administrative expenses increased 5%, primarily due to costs related to settled legal matters, partially offset by efficiency gained in our corporate infrastructure. Despite the gross margin pressure we faced, scale benefits from revenue growth and efficiency gains drove a 19% increase in adjusted EBITDA to 8.4% of sales, representing a 115 basis point improvement compared to the same quarter last year.

Turning to capital and cash flow. We raised $40.25 million in gross proceeds through an equity offering in July, which enabled us to pay off the outstanding balance of our revolving credit facility and strengthen our cash position. We also generated $5.6 million of free cash flow in the quarter, further improving liquidity.

Moving to the outlook on Slide 16. On last quarter's call, we discussed our expectations that results would be toward the lower end of the full year guidance range we provided at the start of the year. We expect to finish the year with at least $395 million in revenue and at least 35% gross margin and at least $20 million in adjusted EBITDA, each of which remain within the previously communicated ranges.

We continue to expect a sequential step-up in revenue throughout the year, driven by ongoing distribution gains across both packaged coffee and ready-to-drink product lines. In the fourth quarter, this step-up should be slightly larger than the roughly $5 million quarterly increases seen earlier in the year, reflecting normal seasonality and a greater benefit from pricing actions. As a reminder, we are cycling $30.4 million of prior year revenue related to onetime items that are not expected to recur in 2025. This represents a $9.1 million headwind in the fourth quarter, which we expect will be the final quarter impacted by these prior year items.

Turning to gross margin. While commodity pressures and tariffs have been a meaningful headwind to the gross margins this year, we delivered a solid sequential improvement in the third quarter, reaching 36.9% compared to 35% in the first half of the year. We expect to see additional pricing benefit in the fourth quarter. However, that period is typically more promotional, and we'll also see a slightly greater impact from tariffs as higher cost inventory flows through the P&L. As such, we expect the fourth quarter gross margins to be closer to the 35% level we saw in the first half of the year rather than the nearly 37% achieved in the third quarter.

Our assumptions regarding the key drivers of the margin outlook compared to the prior year remain unchanged and include at least a 300 basis point headwind from green coffee inflation, net of pricing actions; a 250 basis point impact from increased trade investment behind the energy line and a more normalized promotional cadence; at least 100 basis point margin impact from recently implemented import duties with the full effect building through the second half of the year. These pressures are expected to be partially offset by at least 200 basis point benefit from productivity initiatives and a more favorable product mix. Green coffee prices have been volatile and remain elevated relative to historical levels. While movements in coffee and tariff costs are largely outside our control, we are not assuming any relief as we plan for 2026. Our focus remains on the elements we can control; executing productivity initiatives across the supply chain and refining our pricing architecture as needed.

As part of our operational improvement plan launched in the second quarter, we continue to expect to deliver $8 million to $10 million in annualized cost savings in the second half of 2025. We remain disciplined in managing expenses while continuing to invest selectively in capabilities to support growth and margin expansion. Looking ahead, our priorities are clear; sharpen execution, drive efficiency and build a stronger, more resilient business. The opportunities ahead are substantial, and we're focused on converting that potential into measurable progress. I'm confident in our plan, our team and the momentum we're carrying into 2026.

Operator, we are now ready for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Michael Baker with D.A. Davidson.

Two-parter as it relates to the guidance. So there is a change in the language on that guidance. It feels to me as if it's a little bit more cautious than what you thought 3 months ago. Is that the correct interpretation? And then my second guidance-related question is, in the presentation, you're sticking with the 3-year targets using 2024 as the base, and I think growing out to 2027 requires a pretty big ramp in '26 and '27 versus 2025. Can you remind us why you have confidence in that?

Michael, this is Matt Amigh here. Yes, let me explain the language a little bit more about our guidance change. We didn't change guidance overall, but we're guiding to the lower end of the range for sure. And as we mentioned on the last call, we want to go towards the lower end of the range, but the underlying puts and takes haven't changed. We're still seeing coffee inflation, trade investment will be higher in the fourth quarter than it was in the third. We still see tariffs, and they'll be offset by the operational improvement plan that we spoke about.

When it comes to the range, we use the words, at least, in that framework so that we don't -- so that the analysts don't anchor on like a midpoint. We want to be clear about the floor of our expectations. Now we're confident that we'll hit $395 million for the year. We're confident that we'll hit 35% gross margins for the year and at least $20 million in adjusted EBITDA. So Michael, what that means, though, that means we'll deliver about $110 million in revenue in Q4. Gross margins will be relatively the same as what we saw in the first half of the year, and we'll have about $8.4 million in EBITDA, which is about what we did in Q3. Now just as a reminder, that $110 million in net revenue, if you compare that against the Q4 from prior year and you exclude the onetime nonrecurring revenue related to the barter transaction, that will be a comparable base of $97 million in last year or about a 13% growth.

Switching to the second part of your question, we are confident in our long-term guidance. And again, that's 10% to 15% CAGR on the top line, approaching 40% margins by 2027. And then on the bottom line, a little bit more aggressive at 15% to 25% CAGR over that time period. We will see growth, obviously, when we get into '26, but we'll see even more growth moving into '27 as we start to really get the distribution points that we gained in '26 and they pay out on a full year benefit. When it comes to margin, we do have a ways to go on margin. We've executed 2 rounds of pricing in 2025. One in Q3, we have another one that is being executed right now in Q4. That will pay dividends when it comes to 2026, but we're also seeing more inflation when it comes to green coffee. Green coffee, right now, is at all-time highs at $4 a pound in the nearby and the forward curve is roughly about $3.30 for the year. So we'll continue to see the tariffs and the green coffee inflation, but we will see that margin pick up as we exit 2026 and into 2027.

Let me just build a little bit on that, Michael. As we think about the second part of your question, the 3-year guidance that we gave for the business, we're feeling more confident than ever on that guidance. If you think about the fundamentals that we talked about in the opening remarks, we're growing share in every segment of the business. We are the strongest unit growth player right now in the U.S. in coffee and we still have significant distribution room. So on top of the unit growth we're driving and the velocity that we're driving, we still have significant room to continue to expand distribution on every segment of our business. So again, as we think about the 10% to 15% guidance range that we put out there through '27, we feel highly confident in that.

Okay, great. Very complete answer. If I could ask one more, just more -- I presume this will be more qualitative, but any color on the energy drink, how consumers are accepting it? I think it's still in 12 markets, correct me if I'm wrong, but yes, any color on how that's progressing relative to your expectations?

Yes. I'll start off, Michael. I think we're pleased with the overall performance. So to remind everyone, we had a very limited launch this year. We went into 12, what are called up and down the street markets in partnership with our distribution partners, KDP. And on top of that, we had 2 national customers, mass customer and C-store customer. That was all we wanted to bite off in the first year, and we're pleased with the results. We've seen improvements in those customers through the year as we've been able to track them. And as we think about '26, it's going to continue to be careful steps forward with that business. We have an incredible coffee business right now. We are growing every segment, as I just mentioned, and we want to be very careful that we continue to put as much investment as is necessary in continuing the momentum in coffee. We're excited about energy, and we're going to continue to take strategic steps to expand that on a more regional basis. So while I'm not in a position to talk specifically about our plan in '26, it will be a step forward from where we were, but still really managing that in a targeted way where we can build that business the right way.

Our next question comes from the line of Sarang Vora with Telsey Advisory Group.

So one of the words you used on the transcript was expansion of portfolio. I think it related to the energy category. So can you help us understand how the category is expanding as you look at stronger growth out here along with distribution on the energy side?

Yes. Sarang, let me start that one. So as far as energy specifically, we had some information, I think, in the pre-read around that. We are continuing to evolve our portfolio to what we believe are the most relevant flavor segments of the market. So we're launching grape. We're very excited about that. We're seeing great initial response from the customers who we have presented that with in concert with KDP. And then we're also going to have a limited item, the Tiger Strike, which we’re taking advantage of the 250th anniversary of America next year, and we're very excited about this item on a limited basis as we think about the summer season. So yes, it's an important category to evolve yourself and make sure you're staying relevant with your flavor profiles. So we'll continue to double down and use that as a way to be able to increase distribution with some of our existing customers and as a way to go get new distribution.

We're driving innovation in the rest of our business as well. So we're very excited about the items we have going into coffee, pods, bags. And then we actually have a couple of our RTD items in the presentation as well, our cold brew items. These are 25 calorie, low sugar, exceptionally developed items that we, again, are already seeing a strong response from retailers on. And we look forward to -- we believe that we're at the point, as Black Rifle, where, yes, we participate in these categories. We need to be leaders in these categories. So you're going to continue to see us driving innovation into each of the segments that we compete in, in partnership with our retailers. And in the case with energy in partnership with KDP, and we're going to be doing things that we believe will drive leading growth in these categories, not just participating, but allowing us to continue to lead the growth and continue to drive share.

That's great. We can't wait to drive new products. I had a follow-up question on marketing. Dollars were down in the quarter. You are very focused on marketing. There's new brands coming and these flavor profiles coming in. How should we think about marketing spend as you look out for like next year and just the broader role of marketing in leveraging the cost part of the business?

Sarang, this is Matt. Yes, the way we're thinking about marketing as we go into 2026 is maintaining a relative marketing as a percentage of net sales as we go forward. But what we'll see is we'll shift -- we'll see more of a shift that you're seeing now, which is a shift away from nonworking into working. So we'll continue on with that shift, reducing contractors, reducing agency fees and things of that nature and putting it towards tactics and strategies that have more of an immediate impact on sales. So you'll see that. And one of the key things that the months will talk about is how we're improving our activations against some of our key partnerships that we have. So it's really driving more with what we already have and converting that to sales quicker.

Just building on what Matt said, we're going to continue to do what we're doing at a higher level as we build the business and make the business bigger. As we generate more margin dollars in the business, we want to be able to reinvest those dollars into the marketing that already works so well for us. We're very fortunate. We have an exceptionally strong brand team. We have an exceptionally strong brand. We focus very heavily on top line -- or I should say, top of funnel brand awareness, and it works. We have grown awareness every quarter over the last 3 years.

Nearly half the country is aware of Black Rifle at this point, and we're going to continue to drive that number through very strong owned media executions. As Matt said, partnerships, we have strong partnerships with the UFC, with the Dallas Cowboys. We will have some additional major partnerships that we'll announce as we get into the year. And then the part that we actually got very good at this year that we're going to continue to expand on is that execution in store. So we'll drive that money into our retailer partners, and we'll ensure that we are available at that point of purchase on display at the right price points. So again, we feel confident that we've got the right level of marketing in play as we go into '26.

And Sarang, just one more point on that is we have a maniacal focus on returns. So when it comes to the digital spending, we are looking at the right metrics to make sure that the activities are working out and paying out and breakeven or better. So we're focused on that.

Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Altobello with Raymond James.

This is Martin on for Joe. I want to quickly touch on the energy distribution. You've previously given a goal of an ACV about 70%, 80% by end of next year. Is that still something you're targeting?

So in the case of energy, I'll just double down on what I said before. We're going to expand off of the existing targeted plan that we have this year. We've not given guidance at this point on what we think '26 is going to look like as we get deeper into our '26 overall guidance, we can consider doing that. But yes, I mean, it's going to be -- again, we've had success in many of the markets that we've gone into. Others, we have learned some valuable lessons as is true of any new brand launch. And then as I said, most importantly, with the 2 national customers we were in, 1 C-store, 1 mass, we've actually had very good results. We've seen expansion of items on shelf. And so, we're going to build off of those learnings, and we're going to take it into an expanded geography. But again, I don't, at this point, want to give guidance on specifically what that looks like.

No, I understand. That's helpful. Would you just mind reminding us how much of your green coffee needs are already locked in for 2026?

Yes. Right now, we have approximately 50% of our coverage locked in '26.

Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Biolsi with Hedgeye.

Are you seeing a different demographic with your energy drinks versus the RTDs? And then do you envision the distribution to be the same between the RTDs and energy drinks when they mature?

As far as the demographics, it's similar. There are some differences as we look at it. It does tend to skew younger on the energy drinks. Our coffee portfolio is actually quite broad. So when you look at the total coffee portfolio as a whole, we actually hit a very, very wide range of demographics with that portfolio. When you start to talk about the cold canned beverages, the RTD coffee and the energy, the demographics are quite similar. It does tend to be a younger customer that skews towards that behavior.

As far as energy ultimate distribution, we'll see. Ultimately, they're very different categories. And so we're going to build those categories very differently. It's important to us that when we take on a market with energy, we can be concentrated in that market and that we can really go and invest the right way to win there. In the case of RTD coffee, we're already the #3 player in America, and we are the fastest growing of all of the major brands in America. So we're in a different position scale-wise. It allows us to play that differently from a national basis at this point with different forms of national marketing versus on energy in '26, you're going to see us marketing very heavily against that business, but it's going to be targeted within the geographies that we choose to go and compete with them.

Okay. And if you can sort of bracket how much of your distribution gains for RTDs and energy is between the coolers versus the center of store. How would you think about it in '25 versus '26? Are you sort of pursuing the same sort of goal to be in the coolers or is there more of an opportunity to maybe the center store or at some point, the club channel?

Well, it's a great point you're making. I'm not going to give specific numbers on cooler versus center store. We do track that, right? Our sales team, we're very fortunate to have a lot of deep RTD experience in our sales team. And one of their favorite sayings is cold is sold. So when you can get canned beverages into cold distribution, you see your sales increase dramatically. So that's a big part of the game. We have a lot of tactics that we operate down in our sales organization to ensure that we're not just getting distribution, but that we're getting that cold distribution, and that's a constant negotiation between us and our retailers.

Some retail partners are exclusively in cold distribution, that's particularly true of the C-stores. A lot of times in grocery, you may have dual distribution, you may have center store ambient as well as the cold distribution. It can be harder to get that cold distribution in a grocery store simply because it's more limited, the amount of space they have available. But that is absolutely right, what you're saying. As we drive into '26, we will have internal goals to increase those percentages, in some cases, pretty dramatically, right, in areas where we've already had success with the brand, it allows us to go in and say, let's increase that percentage of cold distribution. So what you're describing is a very fundamental part of how we're going to build and drive that business.

And also keep in mind, like the growth in the business is going to be coming from our coffee business, our packaged coffee business. And when you look at our distribution we have right now, it's roughly 50%. So we have a lot of headroom in terms of growing that business out, great margins on that business. The business is not just growing in terms of distribution, but average number of items is increasing, velocities are increasing, and it's a real powerhouse for us. So that's a business that we'll be very, very much focused on as we exit the year and move into '26.

And there are no further questions at this time. Therefore, I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any additional or closing comments.

Yes. No, thanks very much. To close, I'll just say we're delivering disciplined profitable growth. We have a clear path forward. Our teams are executing well. We feel we have incredible brand momentum. We're going to continue to stay very focused on our customers, and we're going to balance that with our mission, as I talked about in the opening remarks. And we believe that, that combination will continue to drive stronger and stronger results for us. So we're grateful for your continued support, and we look forward to updating you over the next couple of quarters here as we continue to build on this momentum.

Thank you. And this concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.