Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Lassonde Industries 2025 fourth quarter and year-end earnings conference call. The corporation's press release reporting its financial results was published yesterday after market close. It can be found on its website at lassonde.com, along with the MD&A and financial statements. These documents are available on SEDAR+ as well. A presentation supporting this conference call was also posted on the website. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. 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 zero for operator assistance at any time.
Before turning to management's pre-recorded remarks, please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information is based on management's current expectations and assumptions and is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. For a discussion of key assumptions and risk factors, please refer to the Forward-Looking Statements section of the MD&A. Also note that all figures expressed on today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated, and that most amounts have been rounded to ease the presentation.
This call will also include certain non-IFRS financial measures and ratios that are not standardized under IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures used by other issuers. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable IFRS measures and related definitions are provided in the appendix to the presentation and in the corporation's MD&A. This conference call is being recorded on Friday, March 27, 2026. I now turn the call over to Vince Timpano, Chief Executive Officer.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm here with Éric Gemme, our Chief Financial Officer. We appreciate your time today as we review our results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31st, 2025. Please turn to slide four. 2025 was a record year for Lassonde. We delivered record sales and a strong increase in profitability despite a challenging and rapidly evolving macroeconomic environment. Even with this context, each of our divisions recorded sales growth over the prior year. These achievements reflect our team's continued focus on executing our strategy, supported by a deep and diversified product portfolio. They also show the resilience of our business model and the effectiveness of commercial execution in a challenged demand environment. More specific to the fourth quarter, sales increased 4.1% to CAD 768 million, while net profit doubled to CAD 54 million.
Now let's turn to slide five for a closer look at operations, beginning with U.S. beverage activities. Lassonde gained market share in the fourth quarter, increasing its total volume while the category was down mid-single digits. Our private label business was in line with its category as positive impacts from our build back plan were balanced by pricing discipline. With our ability to bring more volume to market, we are well-positioned to benefit from private label momentum, which is gaining share as consumers increasingly seek value in uncertain times. Market share gains were more important in our branded business, driven by a sharper focus on higher velocity SKUs following key investments in single-serve and juice box platforms at our North Carolina facility. We are increasingly reaping benefits from the relocation of production assets from a U.S. co-packer into our network.
Over the coming months, this transition should continue to improve throughput, allowing us to capture additional volume across both U.S. -branded and private label products. As for our new facility in New Jersey, the pace of construction is progressing well. The project remains on budget and on schedule, with the building expected to be enclosed in the upcoming weeks. We plan to gradually begin transferring existing production activities from the current facility by late 2026 and complete this phase in early 2027. Turning to slide six for our Canadian beverage activities. While category volumes declined mid-single digits in the fourth quarter, we continued to gain market share. Lassonde's national brands meaningfully outpaced the category, supported by distribution gains across both shelf-stable and chilled products, and strong growth in single-serve formats.
We continue to execute disciplined pricing execution alongside targeted promotional and marketing efforts, ensuring balance between pricing effectiveness, brand building, and supporting consumer value in a challenging environment. For instance, our Oasis of Light marketing campaign launched in the quarter delivered strong results, enabling distribution gains, raising awareness and brand engagement while reinforcing our Canadian heritage. In quarter four, we also continued to benefit from a buy Canadian sentiment, but to a lesser extent. We also continue to reduce our commodity exposure through innovation by increasing the proportion of juice blends and of less than 100% juice beverages within our portfolio. Innovation is one of Lassonde's core strengths, as it allows us to capture opportunities in on-trend and growing beverage segments.
To reinforce our commitment to innovation, we are developing a multi-year pipeline aimed at further reducing commodity exposure and, more importantly, expanding consumption locations by addressing evolving consumer beverage needs. Moving on to food service on slide seven. Food service activities had another strong quarter. Growth was driven by volume gains with broadline distributors in the United States and by ongoing progress in improving national account penetration in Canada. The deployment of our new bag-in-a-box aseptic packaging line continues to progress. We are exploring various opportunities to increase the market penetration of this packaging format and remain in active negotiations and bidding processes with large national customers and various other regional players across North America. Now let's turn to specialty food on slide eight. In the fourth quarter, we continued our efforts to integrate our North America specialty food network.
Summer Garden sales totaled CAD 52 million in the quarter, down from CAD 55.7 million last year, as we lapped a very strong quarter in 2024. The reduction also reflects, among other reasons, a change in third-party mix and the timing of certain promotions. During the quarter, Summer Garden encountered system recovery and restoration issues that led to non-recurring expenses and missed commercial opportunities, impacting their overall performance. The matter was addressed promptly, fully contained, not material to consolidated results, and with only residual impact in the ensuing period. Meanwhile, legacy operations delivered solid sales and profit growth, driven by premium pasta sauces as well as in the soup category.
As we sharpen our specialty food strategy to drive sustainable and profitable growth, we recently proceeded with key nominations to newly created positions that mark important steps in the evolution of the division, as you can see on slide nine. First, we appointed Jean-Philippe Leblanc as President, North American Specialty Food Division. Throughout his career in the food and beverage industry, Jean-Philippe has distinguished himself through a deep commercial expertise and operational understanding of complex business environments. He brings a proven track record of leading sizable branded private label and third-party brand portfolios and of developing high-performance teams. We also named Jamie Bradford as Chief Marketing Officer, North American Specialty Food. Jamie has been with Lassonde for over a decade, most recently as VP Innovation, North America. As CMO, she will focus on building new marketing capabilities for our specialty food brands to capture new distribution opportunities and accelerate innovation.
With these appointments, the structure of our specialty food division now aligns with that of our beverage division, featuring a North American president, a Chief Marketing Officer, and general managers overseeing private label and branded products. Now, before turning the meeting to Éric, let me highlight two additional key nominations to our corporate executive team. I am pleased to welcome Francis Trudeau, who joined us earlier this month as Executive Vice President of Finance. Francis brings more than 25 years of experience in corporate finance, mainly with dynamic growth-oriented companies. We believe his leadership skills and proven background in strategic planning, corporate development, and operations will allow Lassonde to sustain profitable growth and achieve its long-term objectives. His nomination is part of a leadership transition that will culminate with Francis being appointed Chief Financial Officer on May 19th. This is a carefully planned phase transition.
Éric and Francis are working closely to ensure full continuity in reporting discipline, capital allocation, and strategy execution. Finally, earlier this week, we were pleased to welcome Minh Quan Dam as Chief Information Officer. With over 20 years of experience in technology strategy, digital transformation, and enterprise modernization for prominent Canadian and international organizations, Minh brings substantial expertise to Lassonde. In this new position, he will guide strategic vision for systems, infrastructure, data, and AI projects, ensuring strong cybersecurity and foster skills and innovation to support future growth. I will now turn the call over to Éric for a review of quarter four results. Éric?
Thank you, Vince. Good morning, everyone. Let's get to the numbers by turning to slide 10. Fourth quarter sales were CAD 768 million, up 4% year-over-year. This increase was entirely organic, with negligible foreign exchange effect. The growth reflects disciplined pricing actions, mainly in Canada, and higher sales volume in the U.S. Moving to slide 11. Gross profit reached CAD 225 million, up 17% from CAD 193 million a year ago.
This CAD 32 million increase reflects a favorable impact of selling price adjustments, a positive shift in the U.S. sales mix, and the absence of certain prior year start-up costs and costs related to a production disruption in North Carolina due to Hurricane Helene. These factors were partly offset by an increase in certain conversion costs in the U.S., mostly related to the deployment of new assets in North Carolina. SG&A expenses were CAD 154 million, up slightly from CAD 150 million last year due to increases in certain administrative expenses, performance-related compensation expenses, and finished goods warehousing costs, mainly in Canada. These were partly offset by lower transportation costs to deliver products to clients and costs incurred last year related to the strategy and the Summer Garden acquisition.
Excluding items that impact comparability, Adjusted EBITDA increased 28% to CAD 102 million or 13.3% of sales from CAD 80 million or 10.8% of sales last year. That's a 250 basis point margin expansion, driven by a stronger gross profit and disciplined cost management. Turning to slide 12 for net profit. Adjusted profit attributable to the corporation shareholders reached CAD 51 million or CAD 7.52 per share, our highest quarterly adjusted EPS on record, up 47% from last year. Looking briefly at annual results on slide 13. Sales amounted to CAD 2.9 billion, up 12.8% from CAD 2.6 billion last year. Excluding the contribution of Summer Garden for just over seven months and FX, the increase was 7.2%, driven by price, volume, and mix improvement.
Adjusted EBITDA reached CAD 344 million or 11.7% of sales, compared to CAD 276 million or 10.6% of sales in 2024. Adjusted profit attributable to the corporation shareholder total CAD 156 million or CAD 22.82 per share versus CAD 130 million or CAD 19.05 per share last year. Turning to working capital on slide 14. At year-end, the days of operating working capital ratio dropped to 43 days from 55 days in Q3, returning to the historical range as expected. This decrease was primarily driven by lower DIO and DSO and a modest rise in DPO.
In 2026, with working capital back within historical range, our focus will be on maintaining service levels while staying disciplined with the flexibility to build an inventory selectively if supply conditions warrant it. We should also recognize that working capital may fluctuate from quarter- to- quarter due to usual changes in payables and inventory timing. Now on slide 15 for cash flow. Operating activities generated CAD 122 million in Q4 2025, up from CAD 76 million last year, driven by higher EBITDA and stronger working capital performance, particularly lower inventory as volume purchased earlier in the year were largely consumed.
For the year, operating cash flow was CAD 176 million versus CAD 234 million in 2024, reflecting higher cash used by working capital, mainly due to lower accounts payable and higher income tax and interest paid, partly offset by higher EBITDA. CapEx totaled CAD 45 million in Q4 2025 and CAD 187 million for the year, including $60 million for the construction of the New Jersey facility. While CapEx are projected to reach up to 7% of sales in 2026, including approximately $96 million for the New Jersey project, they remain aligned with well-defined milestones. We are actively managing execution risk and expect to fund the program primarily through operating cash flow while maintaining comfortable leverage. Turning to our financial position on slide 16.
Lassonde's net debt totaled CAD 489 million at the end of the fourth quarter, down from CAD 550 million three months earlier. The decrease mainly results from our solid operating cash flow generation during the quarter, partly offset by CapEx. As a result, the net debt to Adjusted EBITDA ratio improved to 1.4 to 1 at the end of Q4 2025, compared to 1.7 to 1 at the end of the previous quarter. All things being equal, the leverage ratio should remain below 2 to 1 throughout 2026, well within our comfort zone of less than 3.25 to 1. I now turn the call back to Vince for the outlook. Vince?
Thank you, Éric. Now please turn to slide 17 for our outlook. Building on the momentum of 2025, Lassonde is entering 2026 from a position of strength. Our priorities remain executing our strategy and maintaining our focus on capturing profitable and sustainable growth while being mindful of a challenging macro environment and of its potential implications on supply and consumer spending. In this context, we will continue to leverage our diversified portfolio balance with pricing, promotion, and other volume initiatives. Excluding foreign exchange impacts and barring any significant external disruption, we anticipate achieving our stated goal of CAD 3 billion in sales by 2026. This being said, our focus remains on achieving profitable growth and supported by strong cash generation. If market conditions evolve, we will adapt to ensure sustainable expansion rather than prioritizing sales volume solely for revenue growth.
Moving to slide 18 for strategic priorities by division. For U.S. Beverage, our focus will be on continuing our private label volume build back plan, delivering capacity ramp ups for our single serve and juice box lines, maintaining pricing discipline while being responsive to shifts in consumer behaviors, and completing our new facility to improve capacity and lower cost. As for our Canadian beverage business, our priority remains fortifying our leadership through innovation-led growth initiatives, continuing our focus on effective revenue management strategies, which includes targeted promotion spending while simultaneously investing in brand building activities and strengthening our execution in core channels. Our North American food service team will continue its expansion push in this key market, including through our bag-in-a-box initiative.
In specialty food, our priorities are to achieve profitable growth by optimizing the integration of our North American network, strengthening brand equity and accelerating brand development and growth through a strategic refresh of our G Hughes brand in the zero sugar category. Turning to slide 19 for an overview of certain cost components. On commodities, we're seeing some easing in orange concentrate versus 2025 spot levels, but realized benefits will depend on the timing of our hedges and other risk mitigation actions. Regarding apple juice concentrate, the near term market sentiment remains cautious to moderately bearish, and regional supply constraints are preventing significant price declines. The pineapple concentrates market is shifting from supply tightness towards a more balanced state. We see modest downward pressure on prices as inventories recover. However, availability in Thailand remains relatively constrained.
Despite these improvements in the commodity environment, we must remain vigilant in monitoring changes in consumer food habits and demand elasticity for our products. To alleviate these effects, we will continue to bring innovation to market, which reinforces the key roles of our new marketing leadership in our beverage and specialty food divisions. Recent developments in Middle East also raised our focus on transportation and PET resin cost. Geopolitics and trade remain key uncertainties. We're planning for continued volatility, running scenarios and mitigation plans across sourcing, pricing, and cross-border flows. We're staying agile in this dynamic environment. In closing, as shown on slide 20, we expect to deliver another solid performance in 2026. We remain focused on executing our strategy and capturing growth opportunities.
Our recently announced new leadership in finance and IT, along with a new organization structure supported by new leadership built around our North American beverage and specialty food divisions, supports one of our strategic pillars in building our capacity to act through talent, capabilities, and a winning culture. Driven by the dedication of our employees and the strength of our diversified product portfolio, Lassonde is well positioned to maintain a strong competitive position and sustain profitable growth in the North American food and beverage market. This concludes our prepared remarks. We are now pleased to answer your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question comes from Ahmed Abdullah with National Bank. Your line is now open.
Yeah, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. You saw a good balance of pricing and volume this quarter. How are you thinking about price elasticity going forward, or particularly if we're in an economic scenario here that's seeing the consumer being pressured further into 2026?
I'll answer that, it's Vince. The environment that we're moving into 2026, while we talk about continued volatility and uncertainty, is really no different than what we were dealing with in 2025, where consumers were dealing with persistent inflation and having to adapt to various pricing scenarios. I think what I would take you back to is when you take a look at the core strengths of Lassonde and its ability to withstand some of these changes within the market. I take you back to sort of historically, the business has been proven to be quite resilient. Two, we've got a culture that is defined as agile, which stays true to our strategic priorities, but understands when and how to pivot when required.
I think most important, and this is something that I've shared in the past, is not losing sight of one of our core strengths is the diversification of our portfolio. When you take a look at the diversity of our portfolio, whether it's product diversity, whether it's segment diversity between brand and private label, as well as food versus beverage, as well as package diversity and channel diversity, it does allow us to pivot, to adjust to where consumers are going, in particular in the value segment. What I would reinforce is what we'll continue to do is simply stay the course in recognizing the strengths that we have and making sure that we continue to move that way in the market.
Okay. That's very helpful color. Just on the input cost, you're calling for, you know, a picture that seems a bit mixed in 2026, and rightfully so, given the ongoing uncertainties. Can you just help us frame the net impact we're expecting on margins here and where you still have some pricing flexibility to maybe offset some of that?
It's Éric, Ahmed. You are correct. Of course, we are seeing yet again a dynamic input cost commodity related 2026. Orange is now at a more reasonable price range, which is good. It remains to be seen if it's gonna be stable at this price. Now from other commodities, absent of the current conflict and the implication, we are seeing apple and pineapple remaining a high price commodity, with limited sight in terms of abatement this year. All in, and again, we're not giving guidance necessarily on profitability like below our top line. However, all in, I believe that we have a relatively wash impact on our P&L. Again, all this subject to whatever will happen in the next few weeks and next few months in terms of implication from what's going on in the Middle East.
Okay. That's very helpful. I'll queue up again, and congratulations on the quarter.
Thank you very much, Ahmed.
Your next question comes from Martin Landry with Stifel. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning, Vince and Éric, and congrats on your strong results.
Thank you, Martin.
My first question, I wanna dig in a little bit in your gross margin. I think it was one of the strongest gross margin you've reported in the last five years. I was wondering if you could provide a margin bridge and quantify a little bit the main drivers of the margin expansion.
Let me take that, Vince. Absolutely, Martin. You are correct. This is a healthy 29.3% margin is not unheard of at Lassonde, but over the last few years, this is a very good performance. I think it's a story of. It's a tale of many stories. I mean, you look at from a pricing to cost gearing, I think now we were at a right place, so basically our commodity were correctly priced in our product, so giving us the right margin there. Second, we had a slight volume effect that helped absorb fixed costs, right? As you know, we are a capital-intensive business, so volume is an important contributor, so a bit of a better absorption. Also last year, right?
If you compare to last year, there was for some one-time costs associated with Hurricane Helene and also the startup of our [Line 5]. Also, we've been investing in this organization over the last maybe year or two to improve efficiency in our manufacturing environment and also logistics. Remember, right, we have a portion of our logistics costs buried in SG&A, so everything that has to do with finished goods, but everything that has to do with raw material is in our cost of sales. If you look at all of those little efficiency projects that we've done, I think they start to show up in our P&L. The sum of all of that, I believe explained a good margin at 29.3% of the quarter and a good margin for the year at 27.6%, I think.
Martin, it's Vince. I just wanna build on what Éric said, that you know, clearly this remains a priority for us as an organization. We're going to use all the tools in our toolbox to be able to continue to focus on gross margin expansion, gross margin dollar expansion, which is important for us. The one item that Éric didn't reference, but I wanna reinforce, is this notion of innovation and also broadening the portfolio, lessening the dependency on commodities as a way that over time allows us to have a more attractive proposition that frankly consumers are attracted to at a margin profile that are attractive for us. I just wanna build, like I said, on what Éric said, which is sort of adds this notion of portfolio and the role that innovation plays that allows us to manage our mix a little more effectively as well.
Thank you, Vince. You're absolutely correct. The mix effect does also play its part on this quarter's margin.
Okay. Just maybe a follow-up to Vince to that question. It's an interesting topic. Would it be possible to have the proportion of your juices that are not 100% right now? You know, is it 'cause I think that's what you're referring to in part, blends and juices that are not 100%. Just an idea of where it is, where it was before, and where it could go.
Martin, this is a good question, very valid question. However, we don't have the information at hand at the moment, so I can see what we can do from a follow-up perspective. I apologize for not giving you.
Yeah, super. No, I know it's not an obvious one, so I understand. Okay. Maybe just moving on to 2026. Following Ahmed's question, I'd like to dig in a little bit. I was in the same boat just trying to understand a little bit where EBITDA margins are gonna land. You know, I heard your answer, Éric. It sounds like you're saying it's gonna be a wash. You know, would you suggest in our model for 2026 that we probably use similar EBITDA margins to what you realized in 2025?
Martin, thank you for your question. Of course, you know what I'm gonna answer is I'm not giving guidance. However, what I can tell you, Martin, two or three years ago we had this investor day. We've put a target on where we wanted to be from a sales perspective and where we would like to be from a margin perspective in the distribution. If you see what we've done over the last few years, we are slowly getting to that point. We're happy to see our EBITDA margin today, and we're getting close to where we felt was the right place for 2022. For 2026, I mean.
Okay, maybe just lastly, Éric, any color or events that you can provide for Q1 to help us understand the moving parts and model a little bit what we should expect for Q1? How's this quarter started? How are your sales progression, your listings and your margin? Any color would be super helpful.
We are not gonna give, of course, guidance on 2026. We're of course close to it. We have good visibility on it. Martin, I cannot comment on a quarter that has not been published. No surprise so far on our side. 2026, again, we need to remain very vigilant and agile, given the circumstance. I'm sorry, cannot give you more color on Q1 more specifically.
Maybe what I would turn you to, Martin, is to take a look at our MD&A and our reference to what we're seeing in the category. It's not so much guidance, but just to give you context in terms of the category dynamics in terms of what we're dealing with. More specifically, what you're seeing in Canada is a category that declines have accelerated a little bit moving from. Well, actually have held flat in Canada, apologies, at mid-single-digit. And in the U.S., they've slightly softened from low-single-digit to mid-single-digit. Again, that is looking backwards over the course of the past many weeks, but I would just refer you to that.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you very much, guys, and best of luck.
Martin, one last thing on the margin. We need to focus on margin dollars. Percentage, and I know that I referred you back to percentage earlier, but let's make sure that all of our eyes remain on margin dollars, as well.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Luke Hannan with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Good morning. Congratulations on the great quarter, and thanks.
Hello, Luke.
Thanks for all the commentary thus far as well. I want to follow up on a couple of earlier lines of questioning. If we were to think back to the investor day, you guys gave some great color on how much of COGS is made up of ingredients and then packaging. I think you also gave some incremental color on how much exactly apple and orange juice concentrates also made up as a percentage of COGS. Vince, you touched on using innovation as a lever to sort of diversify a little bit there. How much, maybe the question is: How significantly have you been able to diversify your inputs? Again, if I remember correctly, I think it was around 25% of COGS was apple and orange juice concentrates. How much lower is that number today?
It's still within that range given the price of these commodities. From a volume standpoint, I don't have the exact number, but from what I recall, from a volume, those commodities, we are using less volume of them by themselves, on the back of a higher production volume. The dependency on those commodities is slowly receding.
Okay, thanks. And then I also wanted to follow up on the food service opportunity as well. I appreciate these are ongoing discussions. I imagine they've also been going on for a while as well. Can you just speak to, I guess, how active that pipeline is? Is it fair to say that you could, to the extent that you expect to see wins that could flow through in 2026 as well? I'm just thinking of, I guess, the top-line bridge. I appreciate you guys pointing out that you expect to achieve that CAD 3 billion sales target. Admittedly, it does seem like a low bar and very achievable, so I guess I'm just trying to frame the upside potential beyond that.
Luke, as you would expect, it's a difficult question to answer because you're right. We're in active discussions now with many customers but it's our hope that we can actually land some of those customers and see some of the benefits of those in 2026. It's too early to give you that color. I would say, as that occurs, we'll be sure to let you know when we land a key customer. You know, in the whole scheme of things, when you take a look at our business and when you think that will come into the pipeline, I would say it would represent a relatively small portion of the growth in 2026.
Got it. When we think about the ramp-up of the new facility in New Jersey, I believe you had said you're gonna be transferring production over towards the end of this year. Should we be anticipating, I guess, any sort of margin pressure as you're, presumably, kinda gonna be running two facilities at once. There might be some duplicative cost. Do you expect there to be some margin headwinds related to that, or should it be a relatively sort of smooth transition within that direction?
No. There will be, of course, duplicative cost that will not be capitalized, that will help the P&L. We will, of course, as we are getting into those quarters, be clear in our normalization to call out those non-recurring costs or costs that are affecting the comparability. So you can appropriately model the going forward margin.
Thanks. Last one.
That should hopefully incorporate the benefit of this great investment.
That makes sense. Thanks. Last one before I re-queue. Éric, you did touch on so at the investor day, you laid out a sales target. You also talked about not necessarily a target for margins, but just roughly where the Street should be thinking about margins moving forward. But that was before the acquisition of Summer Garden as well. If we were to be, and I realize at this point in time, it's a very dynamic environment, probably too ambitious for us to assume things are status quo for the near term, but all else equal, just by virtue of that business organically growing higher than the Lassonde base business, there should be some implicit margin expansion overall related to that.
No.
No?
When I go back to this, back then, of course, although that specific acquisition was not line of sight, but getting more of the food segment part of our sales mix was considered. Therefore, a portion of the incremental EBITDA margin was coming from this diversification. You cannot say add to that.
Fair enough.
Remember that's about, what, 17% of our sales, so it will take more of that specialty food contribution at that margin to have a direct impact on or a more meaningful impact on our EBITDA margin, which again, guys, we need to focus on the dollars, please. Margin is, margins coming from food were incorporated in our view back in 2022. 2023, I mean.
Appreciate it. Thanks so much for the time.
Pleasure.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Your next question comes from Frederic Tremblay with Desjardins. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning.
Hello, Frederic.
On the U.S. beverage front, the category was down mid-single digits in Q4. Lassonde made volume gains driven by branded products. I'm just wondering, you know, if you have any thoughts on the sustainable aspect of these market share gains that you've been getting lately. Is that a dynamic that we should expect to continue in 2026, or would you expect to normalize closer to sector performance in the near- to midterm?
Okay. What I would say, Frederic, is most likely a normalization as we build back, and what you should see is volume growth associated with trends in the category that would favor private label in the long term. It doesn't suggest that we're not in continued build back mode because we'll continue to innovate. We'll continue to pursue additional customers that'll help us improve volume. In particular, as you think about the work that we're doing with New Jersey, that'll give us a better cost structure and improved capacity to be able to secure new customers, you know, in the market. You know, that's how I would respond to the question.
Yeah, that's helpful. Maybe moving to pricing. On the last call, there was a discussion about you starting to see the price gap between private label and branded products restore back to normalized levels in the U.S. Just wanted to see if you had any more recent observation on the pricing environment in the sector and the gap between private label and branded products.
I'll need to come back to you on that, Frederic. When I reflect back on it, I think you have seen some of the normalization in terms of the gap to brand and private label. You also see, at the same time, brands in particular intensifying its promotional activity to deal with this in a difficult consumer environment and the need for value. I would say on a everyday retail price basis, there has been some restoration of the gaps to more normalized levels, but I'll confirm that back with you.
Okay, great. Last one for me. I know in the past there was some talk or analysis being done on potentially expanding the specialty foods capacity. I think specifically Summer Garden was being considered. Is that still something that you're considering or are we still kind of in a wait-and-see mode there as you implement the new management structure in that division?
I would say it's still a little bit of a wait -and -see approach that we're taking. Actually, let me rephrase that. It's more of a pause as we fortify sort of the growth strategy for specialty food, in particular with our new leadership coming in. The other thing is, I want to acknowledge that the manufacturing team has done an outstanding job since the acquisition of leveraging our capabilities to help capture additional capacity beyond what we acquired at the time of acquisition within the existing footprint and within the existing equipment. We feel like we're adding capacity with, you know, at a lower cost to be able to go capture that.
We wanna remain prudent not to put too much capacity in the market, so we need to be mindful of that as well.
Yeah, very helpful. Thanks for taking the questions.
Thanks, Frederic.
Thank you, Frederic.
This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Vince Timpano for any closing remarks.
Thank you for joining us this morning. We look forward to speaking with you again at our next quarterly call. Have a great day. Have a great weekend.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.