Earnings call transcript: Karat Packaging Q4 2024 misses EPS forecast

Karat Packaging Inc. (KRT) reported its fourth-quarter 2024 financial results, revealing a shortfall in earnings per share (EPS) compared to expectations. The company’s EPS came in at $0.29, missing the forecasted $0.38. Revenue was slightly under projections, reaching $101.65 million against an anticipated $102.27 million. Following the announcement, the company’s stock price decreased by 1.98% to $28.95 in after-hours trading. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a strong financial health score of GOOD (3.0), with particularly robust scores in profitability (3.72) and cash flow management (3.59).

Key Takeaways

• Karat Packaging’s Q4 2024 EPS missed expectations, impacting investor sentiment.
• Revenue growth was 6.3% year-over-year, driven by a 13.9% increase in sales volume.
• The company plans significant operational expansions, including a new distribution center.
• Eco-friendly product sales increased, now constituting 34.5% of total sales.

Company Performance

Karat Packaging demonstrated solid year-over-year growth in several key metrics for Q4 2024. Net sales increased by 6.3%, while sales volume rose by 13.9%. The company also reported a significant increase in net income, which climbed 40.3% to $5.9 million. Despite these positive trends, the earnings miss has raised concerns among investors. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company’s strong financial position, with a current ratio of 3.12 indicating excellent liquidity. The company has also maintained its dividend growth streak, raising dividends for three consecutive years.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $101.65 million, up 6.3% year-over-year
• EPS: $0.29, below the forecast of $0.38
• Gross margin: 39.2%, up from 35.7% the previous year
• Adjusted EBITDA: $11.3 million, an increase from $8.6 million

Earnings vs. Forecast

Karat Packaging’s EPS of $0.29 fell short of the $0.38 forecast, marking a notable miss. This 23.7% discrepancy from expectations could be attributed to unfavorable pricing impacts amounting to $5.4 million year-over-year. Revenue also narrowly missed projections, coming in at $101.65 million against a forecast of $102.27 million.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings report, Karat Packaging’s stock declined by 1.98% in after-hours trading, closing at $28.95. The stock’s movement reflects investor disappointment with the earnings miss, although the company remains within its 52-week range of $23.10 to $33.89. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears to be trading near its fair value. The company maintains a P/E ratio of 20.58 and has delivered a 6-month total return of 19.6%, demonstrating resilient performance despite market fluctuations. For deeper insights into KRT’s valuation and 12+ additional ProTips, consider exploring InvestingPro’s comprehensive research report.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Karat Packaging projects a revenue growth rate of 9-11% for 2025, with Q1 2025 net sales expected to increase by 6-8%. The company aims for a gross margin of 36-38% and anticipates continued double-digit volume growth, driven by strategic expansions and product innovations. This outlook aligns with the company’s historical performance, as InvestingPro data shows a strong 5-year revenue CAGR of 18% and a current gross profit margin of 38.07%. The company’s moderate debt levels and strong cash flows position it well for planned expansions.

Executive Commentary

CEO Alan Yu highlighted the company’s strategic shifts, stating, "We’re seeing the California market stabilize and growing modestly." He also noted the company’s supply chain diversification efforts, aiming for only 10% of products to be sourced from China by June 2025.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential tariff impacts on imports from Canada and Mexico could affect pricing strategies.
• Continued reliance on the California market, which has only recently begun to stabilize.
• Supply chain adjustments, including reducing imports from China, may pose operational challenges.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the potential impacts of tariffs and the company’s growth strategies in new geographic markets. Executives addressed concerns about operational efficiencies and clarified plans for inventory and capital expenditures.

Full transcript - Karat Packaging Inc (KRT) Q4 2024:

Operator: Thank you. I’d like now hand the call over to Roger Pondell, Investor Relations. You may now begin.

Roger Pondell, Investor Relations, Pondell Wilkinson: Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Carrot Packaging’s twenty twenty four fourth quarter conference call. I’m Roger Pondell with Pondell Wilkinson, Carrot Packaging’s Investor Relations firm. It will be my pleasure momentarily to introduce the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Allen Yu and his Chief Financial Officer, Jan Goh. Before I turn the call over to Alan, I want to remind our listeners that today’s call may include forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Such forward looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the company’s control, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the company’s most recent Form 10 K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and copies of which are available on the SEC’s website at www.gov, along with other company filings made with the SEC from time to time. Actual results could differ materially from these forward looking statements, and Carrot Packaging undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statements, except as required by law. Please also note that during this call, we will be discussing adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted diluted earnings per share and free cash flow, which are non GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Reg G. A reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP measures to the non GAAP financial measures is included in today’s press release, which is now posted on the company’s website. And with that, it’s my pleasure to turn the call over to CEO, Alan Yu.

Alan?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Thank you, Roger. Good afternoon, everyone. We ended 2024 with a strong fourth quarter as sales volume grew 14% and net sales grew 6.3% over the prior year quarter. Despite a $4,800,000 out of period benefit included in the prior year quarter from online sales platform be related to the first three quarters in 2023. We achieved gross margin of 39.2% in the fourth quarter versus 35.7% in the prior year period.

As positive momentum continues in 2025, we are prioritizing to further strengthen our supply chain resilience in preparation for tariff uncertainties. We have reduced our reliance on China for imported goods to approximately 20%, shifting our sourcing to countries with more favorable trade conditions and minimum tariffs like Taiwan. In 2024, we imported over 50% of our global purchases from Taiwan. We continue to actively work on further diversifying our supply chain outside of China and securing additional vendor discounts to mitigate pricing and margin pressures. While we try to protect pricing, we are evaluating product pricing holistically and have implemented pricing increases in certain categories to be effective in March and April.

With a strong U. S. Dollar and expected stable ocean freight rates this year, we expect the recent imposed tariffs to have minimum long term impact on margin. Geographically for the quarter, we experienced the strongest growth in the Midwest and we continue to penetrate market in other regions, including the Pacific Northwest and East Coast. Sales in California, our biggest market, began to stabilize in the preceding third quarter, and I’m happy to report that the positive trend continued in the fourth quarter when sales began to grow modestly in December.

Sales of our Eco Friendly product in the fourth quarter increased 11% year over year and represented 34.5% of total sales. We continue to observe more state and local government legislation requiring recyclable or compostable food service product. For example, California’s ban on styrofoam went into effect on 01/01/2025. We expect demand for our eco friendly product lines will accelerate, and and we continue to actively developing new and innovative products to enhance our competitive position. Our strategic focus for 2025 are to drive sales growth and improve our operational efficiencies.

In January and February 2025, we are seeing robust sales growth and continued strength in our pipeline. We expect the positive momentum to continue into the rest of 2025 and we are closing new businesses expected to convert into revenue in the second half of the year. To support our anticipated growth, as recently announced, we signed a new lease on a 187,000 square foot distribution center near our headquarters in Chino, California. This facility almost doubles our current distribution capability in California and provides much needed capacities to support our anticipated growth and add approximately 500 new SKU of paper products ahead of the peak summer season. We anticipate the new distribution center to be fully operational by about this May.

We are also reevaluating our operating processes and investing in automation and AI support to enhance productivity and maximize operation efficiency with a lean team. As part of our long term growth strategy, we will continue to explore sales opportunity outside of our traditional channels such as the supermarket sector. We are in the product testing stage with some of our large supermarket customers to further expand our relationship with them. And we are working on expanding our sales team with experienced representative focused on this sector. With our strong operating cash flow, as well as liquidity and balance sheet and positive long term outlook, our Board of Directors again approved an increase in the quarterly cash dividend payment to $0.45 per share paid on 02/28/2025 to stockholder of record as of 02/24/2025.

I will now turn the call over to Jan Guo, our Chief Financial Officer to discuss the company financial results in greater detail. Jan?

Jan Goh, Chief Financial Officer, Carrot Packaging: Thank you, Alan. Let me provide an overview of our Q4 performance and I’ll close with our guidance for 2025. Net sales for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter were 101,600,000 up 6.3% from $95,600,000 in the prior year quarter, which included a benefit of $4,800,000 from the adjustment of online platform fees for the first nine months of twenty twenty three. As Alan mentioned, our volume grew 13.9% year over year. Pricing was unfavorable by $5,400,000 year over year.

Online platform fees decreased $3,400,000 from the prior year quarter, reflecting the impact of the prior year out of period adjustment. By channel compared with the prior year quarter, sales to our distributor channel for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter were up 13.8%. Sales to the national and regional chains were up by 1.7% and sales to retail channel decreased 1.4%. Online sales were down 6.1% or $1,100,000 reflecting the impact of the prior year out of period adjustment. Cost of goods sold for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter was $61,800,000 which included an additional import duty charge of 600,000 on paper shopping bags.

Cost of goods sold for the twenty twenty three fourth quarter was $61,500,000 which included an additional import duty reserve of $2,300,000 and the adjustment of $3,400,000 of certain production expenses for the first nine months of twenty twenty three. Product costs increased $4,200,000 year over year, primarily as a result of volume growth, partially offset by a favorable impact from reduced vendor pricing, a stronger U. S. Dollar and an increase in imports as a percentage of total product mix. Gross profit for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter increased 16.8% to $39,800,000 from $34,100,000 in the prior year quarter.

Gross margin expanded by three fifty basis points to 39.2 in the twenty twenty four fourth quarter from 35.7% in the prior year quarter. The twenty twenty three fourth quarter included a net unfavorable impact of two ninety basis points from the out of period adjustments related to online platform fees and production expenses as well as additional import duty reserves. Gross margin benefited from lower vendor pricing, favorable foreign currency impact and product mix, partially offset by higher freight and duty costs. Operating expenses for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter increased 10.4% to $32,500,000 from $29,500,000 in the prior year quarter. Selling expenses for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter were $13,900,000 compared with $16,000,000 in the same quarter last year, which included the impact from adjustment of 4,800,000 of online platform fees for the first nine months in 2023 and an adjustment of $1,500,000 of sales team labor costs for the first nine months in 2023.

General and administrative expenses were $18,400,000 compared with $13,200,000 in the prior year quarter, which included a favorable impact from the adjustment of $3,400,000 of certain production expenses for the first nine months in 2023 into cost of goods sold and an unfavorable impact of 1,100,000 in write off of a vendor prepayment upon the resolution of a legal contingency. Additionally, the year over year increase in general and administrative expenses was driven by an increase in labor costs and rent from workforce expansion and additional leased warehouses and higher stock based compensation and transportation costs. Operating income for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter increased 57.8% to $7,300,000 from $4,600,000 in the prior year quarter. Net income for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter increased 40.3% to $5,900,000 from $4,200,000 in the prior year quarter. Net income margin was 5.8% in the twenty twenty four fourth quarter compared with 4.4% in the prior year quarter.

Net income attributable to carats for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter increased 44% to $5,600,000 or $0.28 per diluted share from $3,900,000 in the prior year quarter or $0.19 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA increased to 11,300,000 for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter from $8,600,000 for the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 11.1% of net sales for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter compared with 9% for the prior year quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings per common share rose to $0.29 for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter from $0.24 for the same quarter last year. We generated operating cash flow of $8,300,000 in the fourth quarter and ended 2024 with $114,600,000 in working capital compared with $110,500,000 at the end of twenty twenty three.

Our free cash flow was $7,500,000 in the fourth quarter. As of 12/31/2024, we have financial liquidity of $67,800,000 with another $28,300,000 in short term investments. As Alan mentioned earlier, our Board of Directors approved another increase of our quarterly dividend to $0.45 per share. We remain committed to a balanced capital allocation strategy between shareholder return and long term growth investments. We expect net sales for the twenty twenty five first quarter to increase by 6% to 8% over the prior year quarter.

Our gross margin goal for the twenty twenty five first quarter is approximately 37% to 39%. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin to be between 911%. On a full year basis, we expect year over year revenue to grow 9% to 11% in 2025 and gross margin to be in the range of 36% to 38%. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin to be in the low to mid double digits. Alan and I will now be happy to answer your questions.

And I’ll turn the call back to the operator.

Operator: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Carrot Packaging Inc. Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Myers from Lake Street Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Brian Myers, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Hi guys. Thanks for taking my questions. So just thinking about what you gave for the first quarter revenue growth guidance, walk me through kind of what you guys are expecting as far as an acceleration of growth goes. Because if you look at the full year guide, obviously it implies that sequentially throughout the year the growth is going to accelerate. Just wondering if there’s anything to call out there or anything we should be aware of?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Well, first of all, we’re seeing already seeing California has in the past two years, California market has been basically a market that we saw we have seen decline until the fourth quarter. And that is one of our biggest market. And we’re now seeing that California market stabilize and growing modestly. And our largest market in Texas, we’re seeing that market growing big time in the Midwest. That’s where we’re seeing that more people are switching out of plastics, Styrofoam into other type of material.

It could be plastic, it could be compost wine and also plastic bag into paper shopping bags. So we’re seeing more and more of that in Midwest. Midwest has been a market with a lot of heavily on Styrofoam and now there’s finally moving away from Styrofoam. And basically if the Trump tariff goes through with the Mexico Twenty Five Percent and also 25% in Canada, we’re going to see a major run on our product in the second quarter. So we’re ready for the tariff basically.

That’s why we leased double the size of our California warehouse and we’re actually shipping not only before previous year, we normally ship 25% increases from our normal volume in summer peak season. This time of year, we’re asking our overseas production manufacturer to ship 200% to 300% of what we used to sell in the past year. So we’re ramping up our inventory as the ocean freight is kind of in a good pricing right now. And we know that there’s still many uncertainties, but we know for sure anything coming out of China, it’s basically like paper product, it’s now being taxed 45%, which whoever is importing from China will stop immediately. There’s no way they can afford that.

And the reason the import is really helping us basically. It’s not a tailwind, it’s actually not a headwind for us to turf. It’s actually we’re seeing as a tailwind for us.

Brian Myers, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Okay.

Jan Goh, Chief Financial Officer, Carrot Packaging: And Ryan, this is Jan. If I can just add on real quick to what Alan was talking about. Also what we build in this model behind the guidance for full year revenue growth is, we are taking into consideration what we are seeing in our pipeline, the new deals that we signed or are very close to get signed that we expect to expect to convert into revenue around that part of this year.

Brian Myers, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Okay, got it. And then just as a follow-up that I will ask a similar question on the adjusted EBITDA margins, obviously guided 9% to 11% in the first quarter, expect to end the year low to mid double digits. Is that just a function of you guys are gaining scale kind of on the operating expense lines as you ramp revenue or is there anything else to think about there as far as the difference between the first quarter and full year?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Yes. One thing that we’re seeing with us in the fourth quarter, we ramp up online sales and we also sell online shipping and also the local shipping cost has gone up. So immediately starting next week or actually following week, we’re actually we found actually a different carrier shipper that would save almost a big time basically. We’re looking at all these operational savings that we can find in terms of shipping our product, not only the online shipping, but also offline shipping. Recently, the truckload shipping from California to everywhere in The U.

S. Has dropped by 35% as well as the, I would say, the rent, the lease. Recently, the operational the newly leased warehouse in California is actually down nearly half of what it was a year and a half ago, the lease rate.

Brian Myers, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Got it. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jake Bartlett from Truist Securities. Your line is now open.

Jake Bartlett, Analyst, Truist Securities: Great. Thank you so much for taking the question. My line was about the composition of revenue growth or the drivers of revenue growth in 2025. Alan, if you could maybe help us understand how much is volume, how much is price, and then I have some follow ups from that.

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: I’m going to say the volume is going to be the double digit in terms of growth. We’re already I would say that anywhere from 10%, twenty % volume growth. Pricing, because of tariff, we already announced price increase. So there’s going to be some type of growth in revenue, but I wouldn’t say a lot because we’re trying to help our customers, trying to increase as minimum as possible and we choose our operational expense and with the savings in ocean freight. So we got to work with our client and that’s why our clients trust us and continue to give us more business because we’re seeing a lot of these existing customer virus chain accounts.

They’re giving us more businesses in terms of the way that we can offer them savings and also different type of savings and also creativity in terms of different type of packaging. Many of them want to switch out of their plastic bag into paper bag and many of them want to switch out of their plastic container into paper corrugated boards. So we’re doing a lot of things on that part.

Jake Bartlett, Analyst, Truist Securities: Got it. So just maybe to dial in on the pricing part, it has been negative. It’s been a headwind for a little over two years now. And it sounds like maybe pricing could remain a bit of something that you kind of used to help drive volumes, right? Is that the right way to think about it, that we should maybe think about slightly negative pricing in 2025?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: I don’t see any negative pricing in 2025. There will be price increase for sure that’s a guarantee 2025, there’s some price increases. We already announced it and it’s just that if there’s going to be more announcement of price increase due to tariff.

Jake Bartlett, Analyst, Truist Securities: Okay, great. And if you can just build on those the comments you just made about the tariffs on Canada and Mexico, just remind us how those what the dynamic is there. Why is that so from those two markets specifically, why would that be a tailwind for your business?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Well, there’s some manufacturers of plastic materials and aluminum items out of Canada. And if the 25% goes in place, basically their existing clients, they will not be able to accept that increase. Same with Mexico. Mexico use has been a lot of these distributors are ordering from Mexico from paper product, not necessarily plastic, more of a paper items, paper porcine cut, paper bag and paper other items, paper goods and janitorial items. Now if The U.

S. Tax Mexico Twenty Five Percent, basically, the importer will have to raise the price. And basically, I mean with us, we’re like I said, we have been very nimble. We have been very importing from different part of the world. It could be from not just we move a lot out of China already.

So our goal is by June of this year, only 10% of the product out of China. That’s our goal. Remember, we were fifty percent two years ago. Now in June, we already know it’s 10% or less out of China. So basically, these new tariffs are not going to hit us at all.

Basically, there’s not a major impact. So we’re moving to a different part of the country in Southeast Asia. And that’s the only thing item that’s basically it’s unavoidable, everybody have to increase is aluminum because the announcement was that the 25% tariff is globally, including Japan, including Turkey, anywhere. So that basically is a given that aluminum product has to go up.

Jake Bartlett, Analyst, Truist Securities: Okay. And then the last question is on the freight. We were looking at the it looks like the kind of the spot market or the open market here for freight has come down a ton in

Brian Myers, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: the last

Jake Bartlett, Analyst, Truist Securities: month. What do you have baked into for freight costs in 2025? And is it potential to see some upside to that or what’s the story? Is that a kind of a lever point where could really help your margins or not?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Well, freight started to drop in the fourth quarter of last year, ocean freight. And there were some additional charges like peak season surcharge up until end of, I believe, February. So starting March, the ocean freight dropped about, I would say, about 20% on that part and has stayed up there down there for a while. And we don’t expect the twenty, twenty five year contract there’s going to be an increase because the shippers are actually seeing the decline in shipping product from Asia and for the domestic trucking because economy seem to be slowing down a lot. So an oil price has come down.

So all these truckers are actually looking for businesses and that’s giving us an opportunity to save on the operational side. So as Jim mentioned, fourth quarter, our operational expense was higher and we’re seeing that starting in March, our operational expenses coming down and second quarter is going to come down even lower than versus compared to fourth quarter and first quarter of this year.

Jake Bartlett, Analyst, Truist Securities: Great. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Thank you.

Operator: Next question comes from the line of Brian Butler from Stifel. Your line is now open.

Brian Butler, Analyst, Stifel: Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions.

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: All right. First question, just maybe can

Brian Butler, Analyst, Stifel: we talk about the segments across the national accounts, distributors, online and retail? How should we think about that in 2025 and what’s driving considering you had such a big outlay or a big performance in distributors in the fourth quarter?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Well, for the distribution channels, we’re seeing California distribution, the major distributors coming to us, tore us to sign agreement because they had to substitute out Styrofoam. So they’re buying more of the plastic hinge containers and we actually forecasted 400% increase in the sales of our plastic container in replacement of Styrofoam. This is from the distribution. Also on the paper back side, we’re seeing a major sharp increase approximately 100% to 200% increase in the paper back because the replaces banning plastic back and some national chain account is actually switching entirely out of the plastic bag into paperback. And that’s where we’re seeing the growth in distribution also on the chain account.

This is for the chain account on the paperback side. And also for the chain account, we’re seeing some of the chain account moving away from Styrofoam into plastic containers, as well as some jump into the corrugated boxes like these pizza boxes. They used to just put pizza in them. Now they’re putting tacos, they’re putting actually entrees in the smaller size of pizza boxes. So that’s where we’re seeing a sharp increase in the distribution channels.

And some pizza chain accounts are coming towards because they want to consolidate vendor. Here’s the thing with the challenge of having multiple vendors. They can’t get a full truckload per item, so their shipping cost is expensive. And so they want to reduce not their FOB pricing on the cost of goods itself. They want to actually see a overall saving in the landed cost.

So that’s something that we’re offering to our customers that we can provide a landed cost. So this year actually we’re going to be purchasing around 15 to 20 additional trucks and trailers, not just increasing our size of our warehouse, we’re actually increasing our fleet. So we can do more delivery ourselves into these chain account distributors, retail accounts. We’re seeing that, that part we’re going to see we can enjoy more saving in the operational side.

Brian Butler, Analyst, Stifel: Okay. And following up, I guess, on that kind of vendor consolidation, when you think of your revenue growth, that double digit, which is impressive, maybe break that down. What’s the market growing at? And then where are you taking share? Clearly, some of that’s vendor consolidation, but is there other places you’re taking share in ’25?

And is supermarket is there any growth built in there on those trials that you’re kind of in there? Is that part of your 2025 guidance as well?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Yes. Supermarket growth is our part of our guidance. Dash on chain account is part of our guidance. And also introducing new paper products, additional 500 SKU on paper product that is in the bakery bag, in the deli wraps, in the sandwich bag. So these are the sector that we have never been into.

In the past two months, we’ve seen couple of our competitor being acquired by our competitor also. The acquisition actually caused more of a disruption in that industry, which is favorable to us as well. So we’re one company that can ship all the product in one location versus you have to ship multiple locations. And like I mentioned earlier, customers switching out of plastic bag into paper, that’s basically a market share we’re taking from plastic bag. And also we’re seeing this is a major issue with the importers.

The tariff increase, a lot of these smaller importer without the cash flow, they will run into trouble of being able to import product in because of cash flow. Now that you have to put in more money on the tariff side versus on the just on the ocean freight on the product itself. I mean, at Carrier Packaging, Lollipop, we’re strong, robust in terms of our cash flow. So we can utilize this cash flow to bring in more product as well as having increase of storage, investing trucking. So I mean, we have that leverage now.

Brian Butler, Analyst, Stifel: Okay, great. And actually on cash flow, how should we think about that? I mean, you talked about building up inventories in the first quarter. How should we think about cash flow through ’25? And what kind of capital spending are you looking at?

You talked about adding trucks. So maybe how do we think about free cash flow sequentially through the quarters in a total for kind of where $25,000,000 could come out?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: We’re looking at the we actually reduced our in the past year for the past twenty four months, we’ve reduced our manufacturing in U. S. And that also with that reduction, we reduced our maintenance costs CapEx on that as well. So our maintenance CapEx is down very low to approximately maybe $1,000,000 or less a year. Our major capital investment will be on the truck, brand new truck and fleet.

That reduces our expenses and operational costs because we wouldn’t have to lease the truck and maintenance costs. But the thing is, it will increase our EBITDA because that’s back on depreciation. I would anticipate our capital expenditure to be around $5,000,000 this year.

Jan Goh, Chief Financial Officer, Carrot Packaging: Brian, this is Jen. Just to answer your question about the free cash flow, the way to think about kind of the free cash flow is obviously at your way, we were just talking and giving guidance at the adjusted EBITDA margin level. For free cash flow, I would expect the free cash flow conversion ratio to be each of the quarter in 2025 to be fairly consistent with 2024 in terms of the cadence.

Brian Butler, Analyst, Stifel: Okay, great. Thank you for taking the questions.

Brian Myers, Analyst, Lake Street Capital Markets: Thank you.

Jan Goh, Chief Financial Officer, Carrot Packaging: Thanks, Brian.

Operator: Next question comes from the line of Michael Francis from William Blair. Your line is now open.

Michael Francis, Analyst, William Blair: Hey, guys. This is Michael in for Ryan. Thanks for taking the questions. First one for me and you talked about sort of that good growth in the Midwest and some stabilization in California and the new DC there. So I was wondering looking at ’25, what sort of geographies you feel you have the most opportunity in?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: I am going to the bank on the Midwest.

Michael Francis, Analyst, William Blair: Okay.

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: That is where we see the most opportunity in Texas, but especially in Texas.

Michael Francis, Analyst, William Blair: Okay. Any reason why in Texas?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Well, our largest manufacturing facility is located in Texas. A lot of our chain accounts are moving into Texas. And we’re seeing I mean, I myself moved to Dallas myself last year and I’m there all the time and see that the growth are growing. People are moving to Dallas and Texas everywhere and restaurants are booming. They’re opening restaurants everywhere.

So basically we’re seeing business. I mean, if you see if you people see that business is slowing down in California, it’s growing greatly in Texas to West. Okay.

Michael Francis, Analyst, William Blair: And then looking at gross margins for next year, the guidance is down about 200 basis points at the midpoint from where you finished this year at. Can you talk about what’s sort of driving that decline? And then are there any sort of positives or offsets that could help there?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Well, right now we the tariff is very uncertain. So for us to set the entire year of gross margin, it’s hard to really to anticipate. We don’t know if the tariff is going to increase on Vietnam or if there’s going to be additional tariff on Malaysia or additional tariff on Thailand or is it going to be globally? So we kind of wanted to anticipate forecast a little bit into it for now, because it’s a lot of things are uncertain right now. But for one thing for sure, the strong dollars, the lower ocean freight, it’s helping us a lot in terms of the gross margin.

But we’ll see after I would say it should stabilize. There should be more clarity after May of this year, because right now this month, we’re still seeing one day there’s an increase of 10%, twenty % and next two days later there’s a withdrawal or a pushback. So right now we’re just waiting to see what’s going to happen.

Michael Francis, Analyst, William Blair: Okay. And then last one for me. You mentioned your operating expenses coming down to the second quarter from the fourth. Can you talk a little bit about what you’re assuming on the OpEx side in 2025?

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Jack, can you go over that with the Michael?

Jan Goh, Chief Financial Officer, Carrot Packaging: Yes. So Michael, just to make sure I’m hearing your question correctly, your question is about what we build in the model for the operating expenses for 2025. Is that correct?

Michael Francis, Analyst, William Blair: Yes, that’s correct.

Jan Goh, Chief Financial Officer, Carrot Packaging: Okay. Yes, sure. So happy to provide a little more color there. So in our model for 2025, we considered a few things at the operating expense level. One is the continued saving opportunities as Alan talked about to be more to drive operating efficiency primarily in the operations in our operations.

Alan talked about potential savings on the shipping side that’s primarily the truckings and shipping of our online orders. The other component of that really also is as we’re gaining efficiency, we’re trying to we’re exploring kind of opportunities to get more savings on the labor side. The third area that we’re building kind of in the on the operation side just in terms of saving opportunities is to look at our online sales. Online has been a great one of our most significant drivers of growth as we in the past made significant investments on the marketing side, on the platforms to really drive that growth. We also have opportunities to potentially scale back on some of the investments and maintain that momentum on the online sales growth.

So those are the major areas that we’ve considered in terms of building the model for 2025.

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Okay. That’s all for me. I need to pass it on. Thank you.

Operator: I’d now like to hand back the call over to Alan Yu, CEO. Go ahead, sir.

Alan Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Carrot Packaging: Thank you, operator, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. We appreciate your continued support. We remain confident about Carrot’s future and we look forward to keeping you appraise of our progress. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.

Bye bye.

Operator: Thank you for attending today’s call. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.

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