Laird Superfood, Inc. 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm Jason Vieth, President and CEO of Laird Superfood, and I'm joined today by our CFO, Anya Hamill. We released our second quarter results and filed the 10-Q after the close, and both are now available on our IR site. Q2 was another transformative quarter for the company. We closed the Terrasoul Superfoods acquisition on April 21st, and importantly, completed the full integration of Navitas into our processes, organization, and ERP system. That work is done. The team is now operating as part of the Laird Superfood platform, and we're already running the combined business on a single system with shared processes and accountability and are now able to present a unified face to the market, including to our customers, distributors, brokers, and other partners.

Now that we have progressed Navitas to this point, we will begin to apply the same disciplined integration approach to Terrasoul as well. When we set out to build this platform, the goal was to create something more powerful than any single brand could be on its own. Our functional coffee and creamer leadership, trusted organic superfoods, and vertically integrated ingredient and marketplace capabilities now sit under one roof. Together, they give us greater scale, broader distribution, stronger sourcing leverage, and a wide set of growth levers across retail, club, e-commerce, and food service. These two acquisitions represent the first steps in our deliberate roll-up strategy in the superfoods and positive nutrition space. We have been clear that this is just the beginning.

Our intention is to continue to consolidate high-quality, mission-aligned brands that fit the close-to-the-earth, minimally processed profile that consumers are increasingly seeking, and to do so thoughtfully over the coming years as we scale the platform into a true category leader. The early synergies from this combination are already visible in our results. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $3 million for the quarter, a meaningful step up from the $0.1 million that we reported a year ago. That number reflects both the contribution of the acquired businesses and the cost and operational synergies that are beginning to flow through to the bottom line. We're capturing efficiencies in supply chain, shared overhead, and marketing effectiveness, and we expect those benefits to build as we move through the second half of the year.

Completing the systems and organizational integration so quickly has allowed us to start realizing those savings earlier than we might have expected, which is an important proof point for how we intend to approach future opportunities. On the commercial side, we're seeing encouraging trends in some of our most important categories. Cacao products continue to perform very well, and our coffee business is also showing solid momentum in key retail channels. In the second quarter, we successfully launched five coffee and creamer SKUs into more than 1,000 Walmart stores nationwide. A significant expansion that positions us for sequential growth as the reset fully executes in the third quarter. We also expanded our assortment at Target, and we're building real momentum across Amazon and other online marketplaces. These wins are the result of focused innovation, a stronger supply chain, and deeper partnerships with the largest retailers in the country.

The added scale of the platform is already changing the nature of those conversations. We're able to bring a broader, more compelling assortment to the table, which we believe will help us to earn incremental space and stronger support from our customers in the future. Net sales for the quarter were $41.3 million, up 244% versus the prior year period, driven primarily by the addition of the acquired businesses. Gross margin compressed due to the mix of the lower margin acquired business and some ongoing commodity positions that we continue to exit as we sell through purchases made last year. We're managing those pressures carefully and remain focused on the cost and supply chain synergies that will help expand margins over time. We ended the quarter with $23.2 million in cash and no debt, which gives us a solid foundation as we continue to integrate and invest in future growth.

Looking at the first half overall, we generated $55.2 million in net sales and $1.8 million of adjusted EBITDA. The platform is performing as we hoped it would at this stage of the integration. What encourages us most is not just the top-line step-up, but the fact that we are already seeing the operational and commercial benefits of bringing these businesses together show up in our adjusted profitability. I am also pleased to report that we are reaffirming the full-year guidance that we shared last quarter. Net sales of $138 million to $148 million and adjusted EBITDA of $8 million to $12 million. That outlook reflects a full year of the combined platform, along with the synergy capture we're already seeing and expect to accelerate. We'll update you as integration milestones are reached and our visibility into the back half improves.

We're excited by the white space that we see for all three of our brands across the retail and online marketplaces. With the addition of new sales and marketing leadership, we'll be working through the best opportunities to expand each of them. To that end, we are building out a robust innovation platform and will be overhauling our marketing approach in order to drive growth in brand awareness and trial of our products. We will also share more on these topics in future calls. The near term still includes remaining integration work and some associated costs, but the longer-term picture is becoming clear. We've assembled a scaled, diversified superfood company with complementary capabilities, stronger economics, and multiple paths to sustainable growth. The integration of Navitas is complete.

The synergies are beginning to show up in our adjusted EBITDA and the commercial momentum, particularly in categories like Cacao and coffee, and with our expanded retail footprint, gives us confidence as we look ahead. With the capital and strategic support of our partners at Nexus, we remain well positioned to continue executing our roll-up strategy and building what we believe can become the leading platform in this category. I'll turn it over to Anya now for more details on the numbers, and then we'll open it up for questions.

Thank you, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. As Jason highlighted, second quarter was a transformational quarter for our business. I will walk you through what drove our Q2 results and then spend some time on how we're thinking about the full year picture for the combined three brands business. Net sales for the second quarter of 2026 were $41.3 million, up 244% compared to $12 million in the second quarter of 2025. The increase in sales was primarily due to the contribution of the Navitas and Terrasoul acquisitions, as well as organic distribution expansion in our wholesale channel. Wholesale was our largest channel this quarter, growing over two and a half times year-over-year to $21.3 million and representing 51% of total net sales, driven by the addition of Navitas and Terrasoul.

E-commerce sales grew over two times year-over-year to $20.0 million and made up 49% of total net sales, led by the addition of Navitas and Terrasoul sales, as well as growth on amazon.com, offset in part by softness in our direct-to-consumer channel. For the first six months of the year, net sales were $55.2 million, up 134% compared to $23.6 million in the prior year period, with wholesale contributing 52% of total net sales and e-commerce channel contributing 48%. Gross profit in the second quarter was $12.5 million and gross margin of 30.3% of net sales, compared to $4.8 million or 39.9% of net sales in the prior year period, a contraction of 9.6 percentage points. The margin compression was primarily due to addition of the recent acquisitions, along with some continued impact from unfavorable channel and product mix and inflationary commodity costs.

On a year-to-date basis, gross profit was $17.2 million or 31.1% of net sales, compared to $9.7 million or 40.9% of net sales in the prior year period, reflecting the same underlying drivers as in the second quarter. Total operating expenses were $14.4 million in Q2 2026, compared to $5.2 million in the prior year period, an increase of 178%, largely driven by the cost of bringing the three businesses together, as well as one-time acquisition and integration expenses. Sales and marketing expenses increased 139% to $7.1 million, reflecting the larger scale of the business following the acquisitions, variable selling costs on higher sales volume, increased people cost as we build out the team to support the broader organization, and higher marketing investment across both online and retail channels. General and administrative expenses increased 229% to $7.3 million.