J&J Snack Foods Corp 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the J & J Snack Foods fiscal 2026 third quarter conference call. Before getting started, let me take a minute to read the safe harbor language. This call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements made on this call that do not relate to matters of historical facts should be considered forward-looking statements. Including statements regarding management's plans, strategies, goals, expectations, and objectives, as well as our anticipated financial performance. This includes, without limitation, our expectations with respect to the success of our cost savings initiatives and customer demand improvements in the sales channels in which we operate.

These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Risk factors and other items discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made on the call today. Any such forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of the date of the call today, August 5th, 2026. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some future point, we disclaim any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause expectations to change.

In addition, we may also reference certain non-GAAP measures on the call today, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted operating income, or adjusted earnings per share, all of which are reconciled to the nearest GAAP measure on the company's earnings press release, which can be found in our investor relations section of our website. Joining me on the call today is Dan Fachner, our Chief Executive Officer, along with Shawn Munsell, our Chief Financial Officer. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the call for a question and answer session. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Fachner. Please go ahead, Dan. Good morning.

Thanks, everyone, for joining today's call to discuss our third quarter results. We are proud of the progress we've made implementing our transformation initiatives, which helped to support earnings performance despite material fuel and freight pressures during the quarter. Gross profit improved about $1 million to $151 million, and consistent with the first half of the fiscal year, gross margin continued to expand, rising 240 basis points to 35.5%. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $67.4 million, a decrease of 6.4% from last year, and adjusted earnings per share were $1.96 versus $2 a year ago. The $4.6 million EBITDA decline from the prior year quarter was primarily attributed to freight and fuel cost pressures, which together increased about $4.7 million net of surcharge collections. Net sales were $426 million, down 6.2%, with over half of the decline attributed to anticipated sales reduction in bakery.

About 140 basis points of decline was attributed to our frozen beverage business, where higher beverage sales only partly offset lower service and machine sales. Retail sales improved 1.7% in the quarter as higher levels of promotions lifted volume. Looking ahead, sales momentum is building, and we expect the sales environment to improve in the fourth quarter with our toughest top-line comparison behind us. The impact of the anticipated bakery sales reduction peaked in our third quarter and will diminish in the fourth quarter to about 2.5% of prior year sales. We are shipping against several new meaningful pieces of business in the fourth quarter across our core portfolio that includes churros, pretzels, and frozen novelties. We also expect retail sales to improve further as we realize benefits from innovations and promotions while the slotting fee headwind diminishes. Our innovation rollout continues, and we've been pleased with the results.

Some headwinds in service and machine sales are anticipated in the fourth quarter. We expect beverage volume increases to partly offset those headwinds. Further, we have line of sight to begin closing the service revenue gap in the fourth quarter, with most of it closed by the first quarter of fiscal 2027. We expect the company to return to sales growth in fiscal 2027. The increase in fuel and freight expenses reflects higher oil prices and significant tightening of freight markets during the quarter. Fuel costs were about in line with expectations while freight rates rose sharply as the quarter progressed. The freight increase primarily reflects constrained capacity because of regulatory and legislation changes. We are pursuing steps to mitigate some of the pressure. We expanded our application of fuel surcharges during the quarter and recently increased our minimum order quantities.

While we expect fuel and freight pressures to persist in our fourth quarter, diesel prices have moderated from the highs earlier in the summer. With respect to segment performance, there are several bright spots in the quarter. In food service pretzels, we extended our category leadership, picking up 4.6 points of dollar share. Our retail segment had a solid quarter. Net sales were up 1.7% as higher promotions supported volume. Moreover, we incurred higher slotting fees to support the rollout of new innovation, implying underlying growth in the mid-single-digit range. Syndicated data for the 13 weeks ending July 12th showed retail pretzel sales up about 2% and novelties up 3%. Dogsters continues to perform exceptionally well, with retail sales up over 30% in tracked channels. Over the same period, syndicated data shows Luigi's up over 20%, aided by end cap placements with a major customer.

Retail Dippin' Dots growth was driven by the launch of the high-temp Dippin' Dots product, as well as two more sundae flavors, with the brand up more than 100% in tracked channels for the 13 weeks ending July 12th, with almost $4 million retail measured sales. Within our frozen beverage segment, beverage volume increased mainly on the strength of theaters and mass merchandising channels, driving a net sales increase for beverage of 5.9%. A slate of solid movies in the quarter more than offset the success of the Minecraft movie in the prior year quarter. We are extremely encouraged by the movie lineup for the fourth quarter and for fiscal 2027, which includes the new record-breaking Spider-Man movie that was released this past weekend. The test with the West Coast QSR operator continues, and we remain optimistic that it will conclude with a positive outcome soon.

We are actively testing and expanding our footprint with both new and existing partners across convenience, theaters, and entertainment venues, and early signs are very encouraging. The more efficient cost structure we built through Project Apollo, along with the improved sales mix, has underpinned much of our gross margin expansion and puts us in a strong position as we look to return to top-line growth in fiscal 2027. Plant consolidation savings are ahead of target, giving us the confidence to raise the plant consolidation component of Apollo to at least $20 million of annualized savings. That would take the full program annualized run rate to at least $25 million. Further, our G&A initiatives were implemented in the quarter, which helped to moderate administrative expenses, which were materially flat in the quarter.

Despite the fuel and freight cost increases, we did realize distribution cost savings in the quarter from Apollo initiatives. Our innovation pipeline keeps gaining traction. We're picking up new distribution across both retail and food service. We are encouraged by the early results of our new Better For You lineup, including our Superpretzel, 10-gram protein pretzel, and the new Luigi's Mini Pops with benefits of hydration and antioxidants, which are generating strong velocities for our retail partners. Dogsters has yielded the most incremental distribution, and we're also optimistic about the rollout of Dogsters to the pet retail channel, which just started in August. Our balance sheet remains in great shape. This quarter, we returned another $25 million of cash to shareholders, including $15 million in dividends and $10 million in share repurchases.

I'll now hand things over to Shawn, who will walk you through the numbers in more detail.

Shawn? Thanks, Dan. Good morning, everyone.

Building on what Dan covered, our third quarter results reflect continued execution on our transformation initiatives, even with some cost headwinds working against us. Foodservice net sales declined $22.9 million, or 8.3%, to $254.3 million, with about $16 million of the decline associated with anticipated reductions in bakery. We saw modest growth in both pretzels and churros. This was more than offset by continued softness in cookies and handhelds, consistent with the pattern we saw in the second quarter. Foodservice segment operating income of $28.1 million was modestly above prior year as higher distribution costs mostly offset continued improvements in gross profit. Retail segment net sales increased $1.1 million, or 1.7%, to $64.9 million. We incurred a $2 million increase in slotting fees in the third quarter to support the rollout of recent innovation.