Earnings call transcript: Simply Better Brands Q1 2024 sees strong growth

Simply Better Brands Corp, trading under the symbol SBBC, presented its Q1 2024 earnings call, showcasing significant growth in revenue and strategic plans for future expansion. The company’s stock saw a decline of 5.75% in recent trading, closing at $0.87, amid broader market fluctuations. According to InvestingPro data, the stock has shown remarkable volatility with a beta of 2.79, while delivering an impressive 148.57% return over the past year. Analysis from InvestingPro suggests the stock is currently undervalued based on their proprietary Fair Value model.

Key Takeaways

• Simply Better Brands reported a robust revenue growth forecast of 69-77% for 2024.
• Truebar, a key product line, experienced a 95% increase in gross sales.
• The company aims to expand its distribution to 25,000 stores by 2025.
• A rebranding initiative will see the company transition to the name Truebar.
• The stock price fell by 5.75% in the latest session.

Company Performance

Simply Better Brands has demonstrated impressive growth in its Q1 2024 results, with a focus on its Truebar product line. With a market capitalization of $67.11 million and a strong gross profit margin of 58.02%, the company is effectively capitalizing on the U.S. bar market, which boasts over 100,000 potential distribution points. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company maintains a healthy current ratio of 1.29, indicating solid short-term financial stability. Currently, Truebar is available in over 15,000 stores, with plans to increase this footprint significantly by 2025. The company is also seeing strong performance on Amazon, with a $13 million run rate and two flavors ranking in the top 10 protein bars.

Financial Highlights

• Total revenue growth forecast: 69-77% for 2024
• Gross sales for Truebar: 95% increase
• Net sales growth: Approximately 77%
• Current gross margin: 30%, with a target of 40%
• Trade spend: $20 per $100 of sales, aiming to reduce to $15

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, Simply Better Brands is focusing heavily on the growth of Truebar, aiming to expand its store distribution to 25,000 locations by 2025. The company is also planning to broaden its reach into convenience, grocery, club, and alternative channels, with international expansion through strategic partnerships in Mexico and Canada. The guidance for the coming years includes an EPS forecast of 0.06 USD for FY2025 and revenue forecasts of 48.8 million USD for FY2024 and 77.6 million USD for FY2025.

Executive Commentary

CEO Kingsley Ward emphasized the company’s commitment to Truebar, stating, "We are all in on Truebar, folks." This focus is supported by a strategic plan to enhance product offerings and expand market presence. Erica Grausman, Truebar Founder, highlighted the product’s appeal, saying, "Once you try it, you’re hooked." These statements underline the company’s confidence in its growth trajectory and product appeal.

Risks and Challenges

• The company faces the challenge of reducing its Costco concentration from 80% to 60%, which could impact sales if not managed effectively.
• Maintaining and improving gross margins amidst rising costs and competitive pressures in the market.
• Execution risks associated with international expansion and new market entry.
• Potential supply chain disruptions that could affect production and distribution.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s marketing strategies, which include influencer partnerships, PR initiatives, and paid media campaigns. The leadership team assured that there are no significant impacts from global trade dynamics and emphasized a strategic and measured approach to retail expansion.

Simply Better Brands’ strategic focus on Truebar and its ambitious growth plans set the stage for continued success, though the company must navigate several challenges to sustain its momentum.

Full transcript - Simply Better Brands Corp (SBBC) Q4 2024:

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to Simply Better Brands Fourth Quarter and Fiscal twenty twenty four Investor Webinar for the period ending 12/31/2024.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Recording in progress.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: This call is being recorded. I trust that everyone has received a copy of our financial results press release that was issued today. Listeners are encouraged to download a copy of our quarterly financial statements and management discussion analysis from sedar.com. My name is Pardeep Sanga, and I’ll be moderating the call today. Next slide, please.

Please note portion of today’s call other than historical performance, including statements of forward looking information within

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: the

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements are made under the safe harbor provisions of those laws. Please refer to today’s press release and in our management discussion analysis for our disclosure of risks and uncertainties. We provide forward looking statements solely for the purpose of providing information about management’s current expectations and plans relating to the future. We do not undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release or update any updates or revisions to any forward looking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances under which such statements are based, except if as required by law.

We use such terms of adjusted EBITDA, gross profit and gross margin, which are non IFRS non GAAP measures. For more information on how we define these trends, please refer to the definition set on our management discussion analysis. Next slide, please. Joining me on the call today are the company’s Chairman and CEO, King Zee Ward, who will first provide an overview of the business and financial summary of financial ’20 ’20 ’4 results. Then we have Erika Grossman, Founder and CEO of Truebar, who will provide an update on Truebar.

And finally, Kinsey will end off with some closing remarks. With that, let me turn the call over to Kinsey Ward, Chairman and CEO. Kinsey? Thanks very much, Pradeep,

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: and good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being with us here today. I am super excited to be here and tell you a little bit about what we accomplished in 2024 and our exciting plans for 2025. As many of you are probably well aware now with our release last night, we are the most important initiative that we’ve got underway for the coming year is this rebranding of the business to Truebar. As you’ll see here, this graph represents a significant effort to restructure this business in the last year.

I’d like to thank all our team to that helped execute a very, very difficult series of activities. But here we are, it’s all cleaned up. All the restructuring is in the rearview mirror. We’re here today really just to talk about TruBar. I’d like to add that our small brand, NoBS, we have a letter of intent on the table to purchase the company, and we’re looking to close it by the June.

So you see the new corporate structure here on the right side. We’re simply going to change the name of Simply Better Brands to reflect the Simply Best brand we have. And changing the name to Truebar, and we’re going to have the two operating entities, U. S. And Canada, underneath that mothership public company.

I just want to point out that there’s no activity required by shareholders to get affect the change of their stock and all the rights with regards to warrants will transfer to our new world. So some highlights for 2024 here. You really see some really strong performance across the board. The difference that 69% to 77% is all about the small brand, No BS being still in the mix. But it’s all about the true bar growth at 77%.

And we’re going to talk a little bit more about that in a slide or two. But there are some of our big accomplishments in 2024. Let’s go to the next slide. This is just a graphical representation, again, of some really strong numbers. Again, the difference there, the total revenue is simply just you add NOVS into the mix for 2024, and that’s why the small differences here.

Back to the Truebar story, gross profit moving forward, cash flow increasing, really fabulous results here. Next slide. I want to take a moment to explain how we are going about growing this business. If you look at this chart, simply better, again, you add the No BS picture, you see the numbers, the gross sales, the net sales and the nice growth. All right?

But let’s go to let’s go to Truebar because I think this is really, really important for everyone to note. Gross sales are up almost 95%. Now you work with your retail network and you’re you’re executing trade discounts, etcetera, etcetera, to get yourself to a to a net sales number. And there you have it, still incredibly positive, almost 77% growth. And on the quarter, that’s year to date, I’d like everybody to focus on the year.

Okay? There’s some noise in the statements due to the restructuring and some accounting work that we had to do to clean up twenty twenty four. But then you look at the even at the quarter over quarter performance, and it really is staggering. So we can come back to that in the Q and A if you’d like, but just wanted to give everybody that picture of gross net and on to the year and quarter. Next, a little bit on the balance sheet.

Again, across the board, some very, very significant improvements across the board here on the balance sheet. Next slide. Before turning over to Erica to let her tell you a little bit about our plans in 2025, I really think it’s important just to come back to the story of Truebar, look at this graph and what Erica has been able to accomplish in really four years of having some small resources at the beginning and now a lot more resources to deploy. But look at that CAGR, it’s truly amazing. You see some of the growth initiatives and the catalysts here.

Erica is going to talk about that. So without further ado, Erica, twenty twenty five.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Here we go. Hi. Hi, everyone. I’m Erica Grausman, and I am the CEO and founder of Truebar. Really excited to share more about what is going on.

So we have, obviously, Truebar. For those of you who don’t know or haven’t been familiar or tasted Truebar, they are 12 grams of protein, a 90 calories, all indulgent nutrition. We have many flavors, and they’re all delicious. They have no seed oils, no sugar alcohols, kosher, soy free, and plant based. So we have recently, just in the past six months, built out this world class leadership team, and they have combined over a hundred years of CPG skills.

So they are gonna be there to help us support the growth and momentum that is behind Truebar. And we have so much so much to go. We’re just getting started. Here’s our distribution expansion. So as you can see in ’23, we did 4,500.

And then in ’24 in the year ’24, we did over 15,000 stores. And we have this huge goal that we think will surpass of 25,000 stores, national, regional, as well as global. I can announce that we launched Costco Mexico so that we are now live in Costco Mexico and looking at other other places to go with this amazing partner. Here’s our Amazon breakthrough. So as you know, we’ve gone look at this chart.

It’s unbelievable. It’s it’s a true reflection of consumer demand. And we right now are at a $13,000,000 run rate. And we plan to just continue to see this grow. So this is a very important slide, and it shows just how amazing we’re doing as well as that two of our flavors are in the top 10.

We are an asset light operating model, and we have co man’s as well as, you know, headquarters, three p l distribution, you know, strategically across The United States so that we can get to all of our consumers. We also are building a great quality and food safety state of the art. And we also have just been working on our ERP implementation with this amazing new team that we have, and that is gonna be completed by the end of q two. Here’s our innovation pipeline. So we are working on getting flavors into retailer innovation as well as flavor and different pack sizes.

And a lot of our flavors are already selling out, so you can see this. Here’s our marketing approach. So we are going into all these different areas. And in ’24, we did an amazing job. But now we are you know, the brand is getting noticed and remembered, and we’re really excited to continue all of these activations and and really get the brand out there into a whole new level.

I I’m super excited about 2025. The doors, I mean, we are going to be in so many new retailers with new flavors. We’ve got new formats, different size packs. And, you know, the best thing is, as you can see from Amazon, we are outpacing the category. So the brand awareness is rising.

Like I said, we are getting noticed, and we are getting remembered. People are going out there and searching for us and buying us and buying us on Amazon.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: So folks, that brings our presentation to conclusion, and we’re happy to open up the floor to questions or comments here. Hardeep, over to you, sir.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Yes. Thank you very much, Hinck Sweeney. Priority will be given to equity research analysts. Equity research analysts will ask questions live. Other listeners who would like to submit a question, you may do so by using the Q and A button on your Zoom screen and typing in your question.

Your questions will be read out for management team to reply. Just give them a minute here to queue up some questions. First question is coming from Noel Atkinson from Clarus Securities. Go ahead, You can unmute your line.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Well, it looks like you’re still muted.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: No. You can unmute.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: No. You’re still you’re still muted. Let’s go

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: to let’s go to Najeeb Islam from Canaccord. Najeeb?

Najeeb Islam, Analyst, Canaccord: Sure. So I was wondering if you could please provide some more details about the marketing plans you have for the year ahead. Could you give me some details on which channels you’re looking to prioritize?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yeah. We’re we’re looking on all fronts. So we’re gonna be doing, you know, influencer, PR. We’ve already done a lot of PR. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.

We’ve been in a lot of new articles and TV shows. And so there’s a lot going on around PR, influencers, and we’re going to be doing a full funnel paid media. So driving awareness and conversion, national ad campaigns. We’re investing into our Walmart, our Target, you know, our other retailers that we’re in to to just, build the brand awareness. That’s the most important, the trial and the awareness.

Najeeb Islam, Analyst, Canaccord: Sure. Thanks. And another question I had is, could you provide me a bridge from sort of the 15,000 stores you have in 2024 to the 25,000 you’re targeting in 2025, which are the major retailers that are gonna be driving that?

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Wanna speak to that a little bit?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: I mean I mean, we just we’re you know, we have some doors that we’re already in that we’re gonna expand. And then there’s a lot of new retailers that we’re bringing on. So I don’t wanna give I don’t wanna give them out, but, you know, it’s exciting. We did actually up our Walmart. We we started in 07/2011, and we just launched about a week and a half ago in an additional hundred.

So we are growing there. You know

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: I’m going to add some color, I think, that might help. Folks, look, 2024 was still a year of concentrated activity at Costco. They’re a fantastic partner, and we continue to build momentum with them. But what undertaking right now is expanding our reach across multiple, multiple channels and getting our we had about 80% of our business in Costco last year. We’re going to work towards getting that to 60% or less.

And we’re excited in some of those big names that you’ve seen in the recent announcement of Target is super new. We’re going to see what Mexico has to offer with the recent launch in Costco, Mexico. So hopefully that helps give you a little bit of color about where we’re going on the distribution front.

Najeeb Islam, Analyst, Canaccord: Sure. Got it. Thanks. And I know like you mentioned that Costco has been a very important partner for you. And it’s I know it’s still very early days.

But is there any details you can provide on how the Western Canada rollout is progressing there?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Right now, our numbers are phenomenal. They’re really loving it. So thank you for all of you who have been purchasing them and enjoying them. So that’s really all I can say right now.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: I’m going to add that the sell through numbers across the board are extremely strong. So we’re gaining traction on all fronts. I really can’t think of one story you’re telling me or what the team’s bringing forward in terms of any point of distribution that’s experiencing anything, but very, very positive sell through.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: We can go back to Noel Atkinson at Clear Securities. Noel, go ahead. Hi, can you hear me now? Yes.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Thanks, folks. Hi, Kingsley and Erica. Congrats on great ramp in true bar sales over 2024. First off, just going back to sort of the focus of adding doors in 2025, you’re now national with some of the leading bar retailers. Are there channels that are big drivers of bar sales that you guys still wanna get into?

Like, is it convenience? Is it grocery, like, regional grocery? Like, what what would be your sort of ideal sort of growth mix here?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: All of the above. I

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: was gonna guess you were gonna say that.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: We’re working on everything. Right? We we kind of break out our sales team as convenience, grocery, club. Right? So and then and then we also are are working on other channels, so alternative channels, food service and such.

So we’re working on all fronts and and plan to grow in all avenues.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: The market in The U. S. Is just enormous, folks. We’re talking well north of 100,000 doors that we need to break into. And you can only go so fast building the team and building the entire distribution ecosystem.

But we’re well underway and with the team that’s been assembled. I think the most important thing is to and the ERP system that’s coming into play is to make sure that you don’t have a big whoopsie with a major retailer. And I’m very, very pleased to report that everything we’re seeing on the, call it, the back end of the business and the partners that we have, the co mans, the distribution partners, it’s all Tier one quality and we’re delivering on all fronts. So we’re just going to look to build as many distribution points as we can as quickly as we can. Okay.

Great. And then next, terms of the gross revenue versus net revenue in Q4, it looks like there was some reallocation, some true ups of, I guess, marketing spend quarters and putting it into trade spend to be more representative of maybe where it should have been captured. Can you talk at all about what the normalized Q4 sort of trade spend was like or gross margin or something like that? And what you guys might hope to do in ’twenty five? Like I think it was blended, it was about 30 gross margin, I think, in 2024, up a little bit from ’twenty three.

Can you kind of

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: help us a little bit on that?

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Yes. Look, remember, we were still in cleanup. We’ve had a significant addition to our a couple of additions to our accounting team. And we made some, exactly what you said, some adjustments at the year end, similar to what we had to do in ’twenty three before I got on the scene. And we definitely want to normalize.

We’ve got a lumpy revenue picture in the past. I think it’s going to flatten out a bit. Well, when I say flatten out, mean in a normalized and build and very positive forward momentum. So in anticipation of that question, Noel, I actually have a slide that I’d like if you could bring that slide up. I want to take you to where we are and where we’re going here.

Look, folks, if if you simply look at a hundred dollars of sales, we’re averaging right now trade spend around around $20. And, you know, that that’s discounting. That’s listing fees, that’s couponing, right? So you look at over time, we want to try to bring that trade spend down more to a 15% level. And then you get to your net sales line on the COGS front.

We’ve got a great team that’s working to bring our COGS lower and lower. And then you get to this gross profit here picture of around 30% today. And our plan is to build it towards 40%. It’s going to take time. But I think it’s important to note that we’re active on all fronts here.

And I am hoping that our financial profile is going to get much easier to understand and build in very, very positive manner over the year. Does that help, Norm? Yes. So this is going from Model A to Model B to Model C is the progression you hope to achieve over sort of a multiyear time frame? Well, ideally, I’d like to hope that we could do this in twelve to eighteen months, get to see.

We’re active on this every day. Please come back to the incredible team that and the depth of experience. Erica mentioned, we got one hundred years of CPG experience now loaded into our world. And so like I said, we’re active every day building towards Model C. But you’ve got to evolve, right?

And the trade spend is absolutely necessary today to help build that consumer awareness through trial. And we’re very, very active on that front. So do you have anything to add

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: on that?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: That’s what I was going to add, that we need this trade spend, right, to really get the trial and the awareness out there. And that is what helps us gain new customers who then are repurchasers and wanna see it other places. So it’s very important to have trade spend. If we didn’t, if we did lower it, you know, dramatically, it would it would hurt us because we wouldn’t be able to do the trade in. That that’s the most important, you know, to get trial and awareness.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Yeah. So

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: And let’s not forget too, right, that all the all the work that we’re doing, especially with Costco, but across the board, is driving that direct to consumer activity. And that you can see it’s working. So we’ll be working on all fronts to drive a better gross margin, but it will take some time. Okay, great. One last quick one, if I can.

Do you have any kind of relative performance of reorder or sell through or whatever for Truebar in recent months versus you know, your peer group?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: I mean, you can tell from Amazon, like, that is really a direct correlation. I don’t have any examples of any particular retailer, but I can tell you, just an example, I recently had a meeting and we did a small launch test. And it was like there we did, like, 12 bars per week per store, which is how you kind of equate how bars are. And their best bar that has marketing behind it, right, we didn’t do anything because it was a small test and couldn’t. And they’re only, like, 13 bars.

So we’re doing really well. We’re doing, like, above expectations. And if any of you have tried it, which I know know you have, I mean, they just once you try it, you’re hooked. So that’s really the the name of the game. Maybe

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: maybe you wanna comment on some of that spins data on the eight thousand store. Is that a can you put a little color around that?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: So we have SPINS data, and and it shows that we are above, you know, we are above what our competitors are doing, that we are thriving and and selling above.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Is it is it accurate? I think the numbers I saw were, like, 30 plus percent.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yeah.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Better performance than our

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: That’s correct. Yeah.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Competitors. It is. And this was a sample that we took of 8,000 stores and, you know, worked through the

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Above the category. Yeah.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: So hopefully, helps, Noel. Yes. So we’ll move over to questions from the Q and A coming in from the listeners. A question here from listener, Kenny. Given recent global trade and market dynamics, has the company adjusted its international expansion plans, particularly regarding Costco or distribution efforts in markets like The U.

K, Mexico or Australia?

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: You want to take that?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yes. So originally, the tariffs came out, that’s what you’re referring to, there was tariffs on everything. They’ve, you know, everyone knows, changed a couple of times. So right now, it’s not interfering directly with any kind of export that we’re doing, hence, or to Canada. So there is no there is no issue there as day by day as everybody is doing.

We’ll see how it how it flows. But right now, you know, we’re just kinda staying on path and and seeing how it evolves.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: From a financial standpoint, I think, you know, to summarize it, folks, it’s it’s we’ve we we don’t think that the tariffs are gonna have any significant effect on our our business. I think that’s

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: It’s nominal.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: It’s it’s nominal. So and we’re managing. Okay? So every day, again, teams have worked to try and manage through the changes. But right now, we do not see a huge bogey on the horizon, even moving into these different markets.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: We’ve got several questions that have come in that are very similar, and Andrew is one and some other listeners here as well. This is regarding the name change. And maybe, Kinsley, you can talk to this. Can you please confirm the company’s intentions moving forward with regards to the name change and whether you’re splitting attention between Truebar and searching for an acquisition?

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Yes, 100%. Look, folks, we are focused on Truebar, period, full end stop. We’re bringing that simple message to life with the name change, the rebranding, and we are pausing all business development activities and putting all our resources to work on building Truebar. We think we have an absolute unicorn in the space. Eric has just done an unbelievable job getting us to where we are, and there’s just so much to build on here.

And then back to the team, I don’t want to you have to realize the help that Erica has now around the table and the resources to keep not only keep up the momentum, but accelerate. So we’re all in on Truebar, folks.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Question here from Trevor on the line. How did the Canada West launch go? This is probably for Erica.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yes. I think we kind of touched on it a little bit that we’re doing above expectations. And like I thanked everyone for buying them, but we’re doing phenomenal there. The flavor profile hit it on the spot, even though it’s a little bit of a surprise. And so it’s doing really well.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Okay. Another question from a listener here. Given your aggressive expansion and the company’s asset light model, how is the team ensuring product quality, on shelf availability and retail execution staying consistent through its next phase of growth?

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: You want to take that?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Can you just repeat the first part about it?

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Yeah. Just given the the aggressive expansion and and so how is the team ensuring product quality, on shop availability, and retail execution in the next phase of growth?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Did you see the team? Do you wanna pull the team up again? We I mean, they they have they have substantial CPG backgrounds. I’m from Mars to L’Oreal to, you know, Keurig, they are top notch. So there is no doubt in in, you know, continuing to have the utmost products.

And,

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: I mean, look Erica, why don’t you actually step through and actually talk about each of the persons on your team? And that that might be helpful as well.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yeah. So Kate joined us in August, September, and she was at Red Bull, at Sazerac, at L’Oreal, and she’s VP of sales. So she is leading the charge for sales and doing a phenomenal job. Claire, she comes from Mars and Kimberly Clark with global supply chain at the best. Like, she is world class.

I’ve never seen the skills that she is, like, putting together. So it’s very exciting to see all the procurement and operations that she’s bringing to our team.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: And the safety food and safety.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yeah. And the food and safety, yeah, quality control that she’s also she’s heading. So she’s doing great. And Luke Luke just came on about 60 ago. He’s our VP of finance, and he is a wizard with numbers.

So he also comes from Mars, and he was there for also, like, another it’s, like, twenty five years. So tons of experience, CPG heavy background, and really knows how to play with our numbers and make them perfect. And then Natasha, she’s VP of marketing, and we’ve never had someone really controlling marketing. So this is very exciting, and she’s building out amazing plans for us in all avenues. So

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: I want to add to that the ERP system that is hopefully going to go live at the June. Again, world class. We had tier one resources around the table to help guide us to what we need to make sure that, again, we just want world class, best in class activity across all fronts on the operations side of things to be able to support this growth. And you I think I really do think it would be difficult to find a much more qualified team than what we have here, folks. This is very, very exciting.

And they’re going to make sure we get to where we’re going.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Okay. So we’ve had several questions come in with regards to different international Mexico as well as Europe and stuff. So I’ll just consolidate all these questions into one sort of. Just talk about your international plans and then how what that looks like.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: So we’re we’re only going international if we have a amazing partner to go there with. And one of our partners, you know, has shown a lot of initiative for that. So that’s where we went with Mexico. Obviously, we’re in Canada also international. And and then we’ll see what where it goes.

Right? I’m not gonna say that we’re a % going everywhere or that we’re not. And especially with the tariffs and with what is going on, we’re gonna have to just, you know, play it day by day. So there is no straightforward plan.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Really following retailers asks. Right. Right? That’s that’s what our our plan is, folks. There’s just so much opportunity here in the The United States that you don’t wanna you don’t wanna, you know, dilute your efforts.

So but when a big when a big retailer asks, you know, you wanna you wanna support the ask.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Another question here from one of the listeners. How are you balancing wholesale club channel expansion with the growing strength of your DTC channel, particularly Amazon? So the strength of two different channels, and how do you balance that?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yeah. They they really have nothing to do with each other. You know, we wanna be everywhere. So we’re working full force in every direction and, you know, staying true to that. So

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Yeah. The goal is ubiquitous distribution for the brand. And all the different components or all the different constituencies are really their own little ecosystem. But let’s not forget that the heavy trade spend, mainly in certain areas like club, has driven the growth and now transferring over into online DTC activity.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Can you talk about some additional depth on the Amazon? There are some questions here that come in, in terms of how you’re marketing to the Amazon channel and how are you different things in terms of what the focus on the Amazon or direct to consumer in general. Amazon, you also have Shopify as well. So there’s been several questions along those lines. So maybe just comment a little bit on how you’re marketing to that channel and how that works.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yeah. So we’re definitely marketing on Amazon, you know, keywords, but there are a lot of people that are going directly to Amazon looking for us, and other brands are actually using our keyword. You know, they’re using Truebar because there is such a drive looking for us. So that just shows how strong we are in the market and how, people are trying it and want to buy it, want to find it elsewhere.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: And we’ve also just to add a little more color on that, too. We’ve also got some, again, maybe we’re overusing the phrase, but world class advisers helping you on the build out of the plan on D2C, right?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Absolutely.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: So and our current addition to the marketing team, we’re really excited about what 25% is going to bring on that front.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Some questions have come in related to Walmart. Just talk about your Walmart expansion over the past year and kind of what you’re looking forward to going forward.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yeah. So Walmart, I know everyone keeps talking about the 4,700 doors, but we we got in 711 early. And due to our numbers thriving, we’ve only been in for just over five months, and so we got an additional hundred doors. And, you know, I’m sure there’ll be another opening where we get another amount of doors, but we don’t wanna go directly into 4,700 or you know, we wanna make sure that we’re building up strategically and that people are aware of our brand as we grow it and that they’re actually selling through. So right now, we’re on a perfect path.

I couldn’t ask for anything more, and our numbers are perfect.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Some questions have come in, Kingsley, around guidance. I think the plan is to provide guidance maybe later in the year. Is that what are your thoughts there?

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Yes. Folks, let’s get through wrapping up Q1, and we’ll be possibly putting out some guidance here with reporting on Q1 activity. There’s quite a number of significant deals still that we hope to land here this month and next. So we’ll look forward to putting something out there with the guidance with Q1.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: And we’ll be wrapping up here. This is the last question. What should investors be expecting in terms of key milestones or inflection points over the next twelve months?

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Wow. Okay. Well, there’s so many. You just look at the distribution channels and trying to really drive activity on all fronts, all of those distribution points. Innovation.

You’ve got some new new products coming into the market. Right?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Yes. I do.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Hopefully, some some very significant opportunities there. What else? Those are really the

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Different pack sizes, different variety packs. Mhmm.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Yeah. And and, again, you know, accelerating our marketing. You know?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: And we’re seeing new flavors in stores. Right? Like, we launched four new floor four new flavors recently. So actually seeing more SKUs in the doors that we’re already in.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Yes. So again, folks, we’re super excited about 2025. We really, really appreciate everybody’s support as shareholders. Look forward to continuing to gain your trust and build shareholder value and execute this fantastic growth plan.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Any last comments, Erica or Kunzee?

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Just so excited with everything to come. I mean, this couldn’t be a better time. Right now, we are thriving and go out and get some TrueVars down.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: We’re just getting going. Yes. I think that’s really the key message here. We really just are getting going, and the team is positioned to deliver. So super excited.

Pardeep Sanga, Call Moderator, Simply Better Brands: Thank you, everyone, for joining today, and we look forward to talking to you in Q1 reporting. Thank you very much.

Erica Grausman, CEO and Founder, Truebar: Thank you.

Kingsley Ward, Chairman and CEO, Simply Better Brands: Thank you.

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