Welcome to the GURU Organic Energy first quarter 2023 results conference call and webcast, being recorded today, March 16, 2023 at 10:00 A.M. Eastern Time. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following management's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session with financial analysts. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star followed by 0 for operator assistance at any time. GURU's press release, MD&A, and financial statements are available in the investor section of its website and on SEDAR. During the call, the company may refer to certain non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations are available in its MD&A. Also note that all financial figures are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.
I would also like to remind you that today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements about GURU's current and future plans, expectations and intentions, results, level of activity, performance, goals or achievements, or other future events or developments. Such, please take a moment to read the disclaimer on forward-looking statements on slide two of the presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Carl Goyette, GURU's Chief Executive Officer.
Thank you, operator. Bonjour a tous. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call. Joining me this morning is our CFO, Ingy Sarraf. For those who are following the webcast, you will be able to turn the pages of the presentation on your own. Let's now turn to slide four. Q1 2023 marked the last quarter of our Canadian distribution model transition period and was mainly impacted by two non-recurring factors. The remaining balance of the pipeline fill recorded in Q1 of 2022, and the inventory reduction initiated at PepsiCo Hub in Q1 of 2023. In the current context, we continue to manage our business efficiently and in a prudent manner, protecting our gross margin and optimizing our marketing investments, which resulted in a lower net loss compared to Q1 of 2022.
During the quarter, we put into motion our Winter of Good Energy campaign, especially tailored to winter sports, where our presence was felt at key centers and other winter sports centers across Canada to promote our good energy. Over the last year, with the help of PepsiCo, we continued to make our energy drinks more available to retailers and consumers in Canada in preparation for our 2023 product launch and national marketing campaigns. As a result, our better for you energy drinks are now distributed in more than 95% of convenience stores and 77% of grocery stores and drugstores across Canada. The national marketing campaign in support of the launch of our new 2023 innovation called GURU Theanine Fruit Punch, will officially start at the end of the month.
We are excited by this launch since this was the first time in the last three years that we didn't launch a new product in the fall in Quebec. The Theanine Fruit Punch launch comes on the heels of our last innovation, GURU Guayusa Tropical Punch, which has performed very well, becoming GURU's number two SKU in Canada and the category's number one flavored energy drink SKU in Quebec. Our upcoming campaign is based on the learnings of our 2022 activities and will target key urban areas where our brand positioning resonates best with consumers and where our marketing spend gained the most traction last year. The campaign will showcase the functional benefits of our new ingredient, theanine, which is proven to improve focus and mental performance.
With the current inflation, we are starting to see an impact on consumer behavior, with the consumers continuing to drink their energy drinks while buying in bulk or on promotion as a tactic to fight back inflation. For example, in Quebec grocery stores during the month of December, Red Bull gained market share by reducing their 4-pack price by more than CAD 0.50 versus last year. Our price increase resulted in a 4-pack price point that was CAD 1 higher than the previous year. We have not historically been aggressive on promotional pricing. We will ensure that our historical market share growth trend continues, and we will adjust our promotional pricing tactics if required over the coming weeks. Turning to slide five.
In the U.S., consumer scan data grew 20% in California natural food stores in the last 52 weeks compared to previous year, which reinforces our number one energy drink position in the natural channel. Guayusa Tropical Punch also continues to deliver strong results, reaching the number two best-selling SKU in California natural stores only four months after its launch. Lower Q1 revenues were mainly the result of delistings at less profitable locations and the timing of orders. This short-term noise aside, we're continuing to make inroads in California. Following our successful roadshow in 2022, we will start a new 12-week rotational program in over 40 Costco locations in L.A. in June. This win would allow us to showcase GURU Guayusa to a larger market of better for you consumers. Turning now to online sales.
These also continued to show strong top-line performance with improved profitability in Q1, driven by optimized investments. Over the past several months, we have achieved better return on investment and will continue to grow this segment's profitability. As mentioned before, this channel is complementary to our retail presence and distribution, which remains our core focus for growth. I will now turn the call to Ingy, who will provide you with more details on our financial results for the first quarter. Ingy, over to you.
Thank you, Carl, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide seven. For the last 12 months, consumer scan data in Canada showed a 24% year-over-year sales increase over the same period last year, reflecting continued demand at the consumer level. Because we are still overlapping our transition year, this growth in consumer sales has not yet translated into revenue growth. Net revenue for the first quarter was CAD 5 million compared to CAD 7 million for the same period in 2022, mainly due to the remaining balance of the initial PepsiCo pipeline fill in Q1 2022, and the reduction in inventory on hand by PepsiCo in Q1 2023, which together had a CAD 1.5 million impact on net revenue.
US sales decreased to $0.8 million from $1.2 million in Q1 2022, mainly due to the delisting and the timing of orders. In Q1 2023, gross profit totaled $2.7 million, compared to $3.8 million for Q1 2022. Gross margin remains strong at 53.7% in Q1 2023 versus 54.5% for the same quarter last year. SG&A was $5.7 million for Q1 2023, compared to $7.1 million for Q1 2022. Selling and marketing expenses accounting for $2.9 million of the $5.7 million in SG&A in Q1 2023. That went towards targeted sales and marketing activities, including the Winter of Good Energy campaign.
In Q1, adjusted EBITDA amounted to a loss of CAD 2.6 million, a CAD 0.4 million improvement from a loss of CAD 3 million for the same period last year, mainly due to the lower selling and marketing expenses. Net loss for the first quarter was CAD 2.6 million, or CAD 0.08 per basic and diluted shares, compared to a net loss of CAD 3 million for the first quarter last year, or CAD 0.10 per basic and diluted share. The decrease in net loss reflects the decrease in costs associated with brand, sales, and trade marketing activities. As of January 31st, 2023, we have cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments of CAD 42.5 million and unused credit facilities totaling about CAD 10 million.
Our prudent balance sheet management puts us in a strong financial position to continue self-funding our growth with the ability to deploy the right investments aimed at our eventual return to generating sustained profitability. Carl, back to you for concluding remarks.
Thank you, Ingy. Turning to slide eight. The next quarter will mark the beginning of a new chapter for GURU, with the end of the transition period with PepsiCo and the launch of GURU Theanine Fruit Punch, Canada's first mental performance energy drink, and the hiring of our new Chief Revenue Officer, Rajaa Grar. Rajaa brings with her an impressive track record in brand and digital marketing, most recently with C4 Energy, where she doubled the company's digital and total revenue over a two-year period. Her expertise and extensive knowledge of the U.S. energy market makes her a strong asset in our drive to increase brand awareness, market share, and revenue. She will no doubt play a key role in our growth strategy to drive our expansion in Canada and in the U.S. We couldn't be more excited to have her on board.
We are now in a much stronger position than we were last year when we undertook the same annual planning and marketing initiatives. Our energy drinks are now available in almost all convenience and gas stores and the vast majority of grocery drug mass retailers in Canada. The significant changes in our business models and the related transition process are now behind us. We have over a full year of working in partnership with PepsiCo under our belt. We have a strong and motivated team eager to share good energy. We have a strong balance sheet to invest in our growth for the years ahead. In short, the remainder of 2023 will serve as a launch pad for our long-term growth. We will remain strategic in the investments we make to increase GURU's brand awareness and capture market share.
We are confident that we have all the right elements to succeed and meet our objective of cleaning up the energy drink industry and for GURU to become the undisputed leader of organic better-for-you energy drinks in North America. This concludes our formal remarks. I will now turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw a question, please press star then two. At this time, we will take our first question. Our first question comes from John Zamparo with CIBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning, John.
Hi, John.
Hi. I wonder if you can give us a sense of the current inventory position at PepsiCo versus, say, last year or a year ago. I'm not sure how you measure it, whether it's in typical days or week sales, but any color would be helpful there. Would like to get a sense of what the replenishment pattern will be moving forward and if you think it'll be smoother than over the past year or so.
Of course. Yes, over the, over the course of the last year, we obviously established more reporting, more better ways of working with PepsiCo. We now have, we now have visibility of inventory at PepsiCo hubs, which stands, if we wanna speak in weeks, around six weeks. In our estimates, we didn't have full visibility last year, but we estimate that it was around 9-10 weeks last year. There was a reduction that happened in December, like we mentioned in our remarks. They did reduce their inventory. We have, you know, based on the ways of working and the discussions we have with them, this is now the level of inventory which is normal for them.
We don't expect big changes on that side. It could always fluctuate, obviously, but because we don't control that, but we don't expect any big fluctuations. In the second part of your question, which is relating to shipments versus inventory, obviously, we expect shipments to exceed scan data in some periods. For example, we have an upcoming launch that's coming, and there's a first focus in the month of April. We expect PepsiCo to ship more product than they would be scanned. We want actually retailers to increase their inventory prior to the summer. We've been looking forward to these months, right? This is the spring.
The summer's coming up, so yes, we expect that we will be shipping more over the coming weeks than in the past weeks, for example.
Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. One housekeeping question. You shared the 52-week consumer scan data growth in Canada of 24%. I wonder if you have a figure just for the latest quarter.
Yeah. The latest quarter was lower. I don't remember top of mind. It was lower 'cause you saw a decrease. I think we were around the 30 range for the last year, now the latest numbers decreased that to around 25, 24. The main reason for this, as we spoke about this in our last call, we now have better visibility, we had two months where we were more flattish around growth, around 2% or 3% in December and January, or 5% in January. I don't have the exact number, almost flat, which was the first time in several years, in fact, I think since COVID, since the beginning of COVID, that we were flat.
Obviously, we took a deep dive to better understand this, and this is why we mentioned this on our last call, and we're mentioning it again in our remarks today. There was more pricing activity from our competitors in December and in January. It seems like based on what we're looking, the bulk of the movement was done in multi-packs. Consumers are more sensitive to price based on what we're seeing. They tend to buy in bulk or in 4-packs and multi-packs. For example, buying in 4-packs today is pretty much the only way you can get your energy drinks at what I would call the old price or the pre-inflation price. For example, the traditional price for a 250 ML energy drink was two for four, right?
CAD 2 per can. Now you can't get two for CAD 4 for 250 ML anymore in convenience stores unless you buy a 4-pack at CAD 8, right? If you're buying a 4-pack at CAD 8, then you're still getting your energy drinks at the old price. Consumers are getting smarter. They're buying a little bit more so they can avoid, they can avoid inflation. Red Bull benefited significantly from those price promotions in December, continued into January. Monster's been also aggressive in January around that. That's why we're saying we're looking at that. We better understand. If we need to be more aggressive on price, we will, just to make sure that we continue our momentum on scan and market share growth.
Okay. That's very interesting. Is that mostly, your comment, is that mostly specific to grocery rather than C stores?
For multi-packs is in grocery. It did happen. There was a big push in, especially in December, in convenience for 4-packs. four-pack, you know, around Christmas, 4-packs is big occasions, all the family gatherings, the party, the parties. This is, we spoke about that again in our last call, but it was mainly. No. It's really in both channel, although the contribution of 4-packs is higher in grocery stores obviously, because there's more of a take-home place there. Again, the most of what I'm talking about here is it happened across the country, but there was more impact in our home market, where we have a bigger market share in Quebec. Right?
Understood.
Less of an impact.
Just one-
Less of an impact, obviously, in rest of Canada.
Right. Okay. just one more, and then I'll pass it on. On sales and marketing, that's been pretty volatile over the past year. I wonder what you see as a sustainable level for sales and marketing spending over the next year or two, and is there any direction you can give on seasonality of that spend?
Yeah. I'll start, and I want Ingy to add to this.
Yeah.
For us, 2023 is still an investment year. We still believe that there is a lot of room for growth for this brand. We will continue investing in sales and marketing to grow this brand. In terms of direction, maybe Ingy you can jump in on how you see the rest of the year.
Yeah. I think it goes with our marketing campaigns and with the seasonality also of, you know, the energy drink. We will be investing much more in, I would say, in the coming, in the coming months, right? Spring and summer, like Carl said, to get us ready for the new launch and for the big summer campaigns that we have going. It levels off a bit, in Q4.
of course, like you saw even last year, Q1 is always the lowest, then it goes back up in the future quarters.
Yeah. Q1 was especially lower, John, this year.
Yeah.
We did not launch an innovation in Q1. Right? Last year, we were launching Guayusa in Q1. There was extensive marketing support, because it made sense. Now we saved a little bit of that money to make sure we can support aggressively, the launch of our new innovation in the next few weeks. Less marketing investment obviously impacted sales, but, we're very optimistic about Theanine the upcoming weeks.
Okay, that's great. I'll pass it on. Thank you very much.
Thanks, John.
Thank you, John.
Our next question will come from Martin Landry with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Carl and Ingy.
Good morning.
Hi, Martin.
My first question is on your new product, the Theanine Fruit Punch. Carl, I was wondering if you can discuss your new planograms for this spring. Is that product, you know, helping you gain market share, or is this product replacing some of your existing SKUs and you're maintaining your shelf space? Or just trying to get a little bit of an understanding on what we should expect in terms of your planograms for the spring and moving forward.
Yeah. Well, the goal is always to gain space, right? The reality is it's sometimes difficult. We've been growing market share. When we grow market share, usually retailers apply a rule that's called fair share of space. When you gain market share, you get incremental facings. It really does vary from retailer to retailer, so it's hard to give you a precise answer on this, Martin. The guideline is really obviously incremental space, incremental activities in stores for sure. It will vary. In Quebec, I'm very confident that this will result in a gain of space, except in banners where, for example, if we already have... Let's say we have 30% of the space and 20% of market share in that banner, it might be more difficult for us.
If we have 10% of the space and we have 16% market share in that banner, then it gives us every reason to convince retailers to give us incremental space, right? In, in the rest of Canada, we usually have more space than our market share, right? In that case it might be a bit more difficult. It makes it more difficult. In a lot of instances, for example, Theanine will replace our lower selling SKU, which is matcha. I think in the broad spectrum, that's the, that's what I can give you.
Yeah. That's helpful. Like, how many doors are we gonna be able to find, Theanine, you know, this spring and summer? Is it gonna be mostly in all your retailers or, you know, how? Can you break down Canada versus US, just to get a sense of the rollout?
It's launching in Canada for now, it's not launching in the U.S., but it will be everywhere in Canada, right? Everywhere GURU is sold, the goal is if GURU is sold, Theanine Fruit Punch is sold as well, right? Guayusa was such a success. We have PepsiCo's full commitment on this. PepsiCo is extremely strong at launching innovations very fast. Expect this to see this, expect people to be GURU Theanine Fruit Punch to be everywhere.
Okay. Just to try to get a sense of, you know, how's, you know, last fall, last summer, last fall, you've had out of stock items. Just trying to get a sense of how's that going right now. Do you still have some out of stocks at retail or not at all?
No. No out of stocks at retail right now, unless on a few, you know, there could be hit and miss, right? But there is no out of stock that. You know, in the beverage industry, out of stock or kind of limited out of stock, I would say are normal. What we saw last summer was really wasn't normal, right? It was way beyond what we expect, and that's why, you know, this is a hot topic in preparation for the summer.
This is why we're talking about increasing inventory levels at retail, working, establishing ways of working with PepsiCo to make sure that we win this summer, having some incentives for retailers to buy a little bit more in the summer to make sure that they have enough, and that they go through more of a replenishment mode in the summer instead of struggling to get their main orders. Right? It's a hot topic for us, working very collaboratively with PepsiCo to get ready for the summer.
Okay. Maybe just last question on the competitive dynamics. you know, you're talking about some of your competitors being more aggressive on price, but you've also historically, talked about your customer base, being more white collar and maybe being a little bit more affluent than some of your competitors. Would you say that your customer base is less price sensitive than some of your competitors, or how do you see the need to react-
Yeah.
On pricing, and how do you analyze, or what would make you pull the trigger to maybe be a bit more promotional?
Well, historically we have, you know, historically our consumers have been very loyal, right? They're also smart, right? They're also smart, and our price strategy has always been parity with market leader, right? We never want our consumers to pay more for better-for-you energy drinks. We think this should be an easy transition on price. We think it should be an easy transition on taste, and that's been a big part of our success. Now, consumers are smart, and in some instances, for example, if Red Bull is significantly cheaper than GURU, unfortunately some consumers might decide to go back to an artificial energy drink, right? If the price gap is big enough.
We obviously want to keep them in an organic, plant-based energy drink, that's why we're gonna be aggressive. We've been more of a follower on price. As you know, we've never been the ones who have initiated the promotion because this is not how we build this brand. This is a brand that's built on the quality of its ingredients and the brand, not pricing. We're not gonna let our competitors just eat our market share. If we need to react, we will.
Okay. All right. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Martin.
Thank you.
Our next question will come from Amr Ezzat with Echelon Wealth Partners. Please go ahead.
Carl and Ingy, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions.
Good morning, Amr.
Um-
Just on that last point you were making about market share, do you have updated market share data that you could share with us?
Yes, we could give you the numbers. If you want, we can have a follow-up meeting. We can. Like, we've never shied away from our market share. The reality is because of month-to-month fluctuations, we do believe that the 52-week market share is a better indication of how our brand is going because then otherwise, if you look at month to month and reactive promotions is not. I don't think it's the right indication to look at month-to-month market share in a small province. In the follow-up call, we can share those numbers. No problem, Amr.
Understood. I know your Q1 is seasonally weaker, and there's obviously the noise with the pipeline fill last year, as well as the inventory that you guys spoke to. You guys gave an adjusted number to account for the distribution partner noise, and there you guys mentioned that shipments were actually down 2% year-on-year on an adjusted basis. I'm just thinking for last year's quarter, I know that was impacted by Omicron, I believe. I expected the adjusted year-on-year print to be positive as opposed to negative. Any color you could provide me there to help reconcile what's happened?
Yeah, 100%. We also expected growth, right? This is what we're trying to communicate. There is some pricing dynamics that did impact us in Canada. The fact that we did not have a launch this quarter did have an impact versus last year. In the U.S. there was a, you know, there was an impact of some delisting in non-productive, non-productive banners where the cost to play was too high, and we did not invest because we didn't feel it made sense and, you know, we exited those banners. I think this really is a combination of many things, right? Obviously, the bigger one being the pipeline fill of last year and the inventory reduction.
As a secondary piece, there's obviously the fact that we did not launch an innovation this year, and we had a full-on extremely well-performing Guayusa last year in Q1, right? We did have some additional banners, not very high volume banners in the U.S., but enough to make a difference of a few $100,000 in the U.S.
Okay. Were you more impacted by the competitive dynamics or the lack of launch like you had, like the Guayusa launch like last year? Just trying to get a sense of magnitude.
Well, yeah, no, I haven't honestly, Amr, I haven't quantified what it would have, like the market share loss that we saw in December and January. February is better. It's back to more growth.
Mm-hmm.
I could probably try and quantify. It's hard for me to say which one was the bigger ones. All I can say the pipeline and inventory reductions obviously were the bigger ones. If I had to compare, you know, impact of pricing versus Guayusa, I don't know, top of mind, I'm sorry. It's probably in the same range.
Okay. on the 12-week rotational program in the U.S., I just wanna make sure I didn't miss that. You guys said it was Costco?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
We've mentioned in the past that we have a very successful rotational program with Costco, from the L.A. division with Guayusa. Consumers love this product everywhere it goes, and it's sold very well. Guayusa-- other products were available in that roadshow, but Guayusa was the star of the show, right? together with the buyers at Costco.
Mm-hmm.
We decided to go ahead with, a 12-pack of Guayusa Tropical Punch there.
Oh, okay. Any expectations you dare to share with us on this call on, would it be like the same magnitude as like Sam's Club last year?
No.
Bigger or smaller?
It's another size. You know, there was some learning. As you saw, we maybe were a little bit too optimistic last year in Sam's Club. Remember last quarter, we did have a promotional reduction as because we went too hard, too heavy on loading the stores. We're being a little bit more conservative on the quantity per store, right? It's 40 stores and 40 Costco locations. They are the very best Costco locations in the L.A. division, in fact, right? Sam's Club was more, right? Sam's Club was 200 locations. Yeah, it's probably a third or half. You know, I think it's a third of the quantity of the Sam's Club.
Fantastic. There may be one last one for me on Rajaa joining as CRO. Can you speak to the background behind this move? You spoke to a pretty impressive background, and we heard a lot of, I think it was like doubling sales in two years that you said. Can you speak to her role within the executive team?
Well, first, you know, Rajaa's been a business contact for several months and, you know, obviously I love the human behind, right? From a culture fit, it works perfectly. She's full of good energy. She's passionate. She speaks French, right? Which is a great asset for the team. From a cultural fit, it's great. What she does bring to the team is very strong experience in digital and social influencers, which was a gap for us. You know, this is an area that's extremely important in the industry, but we wanted to have a true expert who's done this in several industries, including Amazon, including skin care, beverage. Really a mix of great experience.
Her role is really is Chief Revenue Officer. Obviously, in the short term, the main focus is marketing and building this brand, but working with the whole team on marketing strategy and sales strategy and how we win and how we grow this brand across North America. Very excited about her arrival. It's only been a few days, few weeks, but it's great.
Fantastic. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Our next question will come from Sean McGowan with Roth MKM. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Carl, Ingy. I have a couple questions.
Good morning.
Could you give me a little bit more color on-
Hi, Sean.
Hi, Ingy. A little bit more color on the Pepsi reduction. Is that, the inventory reduction, is that something where they just kinda wanted to get a feel for what the right number is? Or was there some other shift kind of in their thinking, either around the brand or, you know, or at the corporate level about inventories?
No, it's just applying a principle that they have, right? They do have different principles on different brands and different velocities. Based on these principles, GURU's inventory, not knowing exactly, you know, where. At launch it was a little bit higher than from what we understand, it was higher than what their normal guidelines would be. Towards the end of their fiscal year, they had to reset this to make sure that, you know, going into the new year, it would be at the right level that they applied, where they apply the guidelines, just as easy as that. There's nothing more to read into than just having the right level of inventory, which is around six weeks.
Right. That sounds like it's like, well, they weren't really sure what the right level was at the beginning, and now they have a better idea because they have more experience.
That's it.
That's the level.
Yeah.
Okay.
Exactly. It takes a while before you understand seasonality.
Yeah
... and variations and your new listings. Once you've completed filling the pipeline, you kind of know, okay, that you're not going to be getting large initial pipeline orders from big retailers because you're pretty much everywhere at this point. It's easier to forecast on a second year versus on a first year.
Yeah. Makes sense. Shifting for a second to the US banners where you say that these banners were less profitable. Where would that impact of that lower level of profitability show up? Is that primarily a gross margin thing? Like, and is that a contributor to, you know... I mean, gross margin was actually better than I thought it would be. Is the gross margin benefited then by that delisting, or is it showing up in other expense lines?
It's not, you know.
Yeah.
Honestly, Yeah, it's not gross margins. Ingy, feel free to add to this. It's not gross margins, it's the cost to play in some of those banners. I'll give you an example where you have a banner where you're selling for a regional grocery banner outside of California, and you're selling for, let's say, $200,000 a year, right? The cost to play there, if you want, like you need to participate in flyers, right? You need to pay, I don't know, $60,000 for a flyer, which is the normal price to pay, but it doesn't make sense, right? We've declined to participate in some of those activities. It could be display activities, it could be flyers, it could be marketing, other marketing investments that you need to make.
Obviously as a brand, if you're more methodical in your spend, because we've been very focused on growing Canada, then if you're not making that investment and another brand is willing to make that investment, then you might end up being delisted, right? This is something that.
Right
... we were comfortable because We've always said that we would be very methodical about how we grow in the U.S. Our focus would be California with the right banners and the right consumers. When banners were outside of those principles, then obviously we can't spend our precious dollars everywhere, and we need to focus them on Canada and California and online. We've been disciplined at doing this. I don't know, Ingy, if you wanna add to this or...
No. I think this is.
No
... exactly it for this.
Okay. It wasn't a question of promotional pricing that would've hit the gross margin. It was more selling, you know-
Yeah.
Selling products below that.
No, it's more the cost.
Yeah.
Cost of goods.
usually it's also.
Yeah, and then it becomes a package deal, right? No, I'm just saying sometimes it's also a package deal, right? Cost of the staying and doing business and then the additional promotions and percentage of spend. I would say it's overall as well.
Sometimes it's deductions that really don't make sense.
Yeah.
In fact, you look at your business.
Exactly.
There's deductions for this and deductions for this, and you look at the bottom line at the end of that, so it just doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
If you're growing at all costs and you're burning cash and you say, "Well, then you might wanna do this," but we've historically, we've never been like this. This is against our culture, and we refuse to do this, and sometimes it results in a delisting, and we're actually fine with that.
Yeah.
Right?
Right. Thank you for playing our game. Wow. Okay. Last question for me now is, on the balance sheet, Ingy, accounts receivable relative to sales seem a little higher than normal. What's going on? Is that strictly timing or is there something else going on?
Yeah. Honestly, it's strictly timing. Nothing else. Nothing for you to worry about. It's often the payment. Often it's really PepsiCo, right? That's a larger portion of this. It's really about, you know, the timing. It's really a timing thing, nothing else.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Sean, on the US, I wanna add on the US because, you know, you're obviously you're looking at this, but I wanna share some data. Like, Whole Foods is up 25% in the last 52 weeks. Sprouts is up 55%. MULO in L.A. is up 72%, right? Erewhon is up 25%. In the banners where we focus in California, we're seeing momentum, right? Unfortunately you're not seeing the benefit of that because it's being offset by the delisting and some timing of orders. There is a, you know, in where the right consumer is in the right banners, we're really seeing some success.
Right.
Guayusa is driving a portion of that success. We expect to get more listings on Guayusa because it's so successful. The opportunity is really, really there when they're in the right banners with the right consumers.
Okay. You don't expect that, the program with Costco is gonna have a negative impact on, you know, some of those numbers in the natural channel?
No. We actually expect that, Costco is, you know, Costco is gonna help us reach new consumers, right.
Yeah.
It's going to be in Costco for a rotational program. We think consumers are going to discover this product. We know there's a lot of shoppers who do shop at Costco, but also shop, you know, they're the organic better for you consumers, right? They shop also at Whole Foods. They shop at Sprouts. For us, it's a great way to make our brand available to more consumers in Southern California.
Yeah. it's only like.
Just like you, Sean. I know you're a big fan of Guayusa, so
Every day. Every day. I shop at Costco, so I'll be looking for it. I don't know if it's sold at Orange County, but I'll be looking for it.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it will be there.
All right. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you.
This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Carl Goyette for any closing remarks.
I just want to thank everyone for attending and have a great week. Thank you.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you very much for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.