Premium Brands Holdings Corporation (TSX:PBH)
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76.00
+0.16 (0.21%)
Sep 18, 2026, 4:00 PM EST
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Earnings Call: Q2 2026

Aug 6, 2026

Summary

Organic growth in Specialty Foods slowed to 6% in Q2 due to deferred launches, but U.S. initiatives and Stampede sales remain strong. Adjusted EBITDA guidance was lowered, driven entirely by timing, not business weakness, and positive free cash flow is expected to accelerate as CapEx declines.

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Premium Brands Holdings Corporation second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 6th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to George Paleologou, CEO and President of Premium Brands, and Will Kalutycz, CFO of Premium Brands. Monsieur Paleologou, please go ahead.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Thank you, Ina. Good morning and welcome everyone to our 2026 second quarter conference call. With me here today is our CFO, Will Kalutycz. Hopefully, you've had a chance to listen to our pre-recorded remarks posted on our website this morning. We will now take your questions. Ina?

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star four followed by the one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone that your hand has been raised, and should you wish to cancel your request, please press star four followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Martin Landry from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Martin Landry
Analyst, Stifel

Hi. Good morning, George and Will.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Good morning, Martin.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Good morning, Martin.

Martin Landry
Analyst, Stifel

My first question is on your Specialty Foods segment. For the Q2, I think your organic volume growth was 6%. When I look at it seems to be the lowest it's been in the last four quarters. You seem to have had an easy comparable period last year at the comp. I was wondering if you can discuss a little bit the environment out there. The U.S. economy seems to be doing well. Are your clients hesitating on some projects? Are you losing bids to competitors? Just a little bit of color on the competitive dynamic would be great.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. An absolute no on both those points, Martin. Our U.S. sales pace is doing well. You saw we generated 25% organic volume growth on our protein initiatives in the U.S. There's no sign of slowdown there. It just continues to be strong. The headwind in the quarter was similar to last quarter with the loss of a major LTO with a customer that we had expected to come back in the second half of this year, but it'll be now early 2027. The only new factor in the equation on the Specialty Foods side is really in Canada. We did see some slower sales in Eastern Canada. We're expecting it was weather related. Outside of that, everything is green.

Martin Landry
Analyst, Stifel

Okay. Can you discuss a little bit how you see the rest of the year shape up? Is the growth going to be more back-end loaded towards Q4 or spread evenly in Q3 and Q4 using your revised guidance?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. Pretty evenly over the quarters. Maybe a little bit weighted to the Q4 because as part of our revenue guidance revisions, there were really three key factors as we talked about in our MD&A and press release. One of the factors, really there's two elements, and that's on our Specialty Foods initiatives in the U.S. As I mentioned on your last question, the LTO deferral, obviously that's going to impact us as that moves to 2027. The factor that maybe impacts your current question a little bit is the other thing that hit our guidance or resulted in revised guidance was on the retail side of our U.S. business. We had two major launches happening in the back half of the year. One, it launched, but the customer went with a phased-in approach instead of a all out bang approach with all their stores across the U.S.

That is going. Initial indication it's going very well, so we have no hesitation there. Corresponding, as it's a phased event, a phased launch, that'll push a little bit of the growth more in Q4 versus Q3 from that perspective. Then we also have a second large launch that we thought was going to occur late in Q2, early Q3. It is now scheduled for October. It's with a large customer in the U.S. It's a 1,500 store launch, so we're pretty excited by that. Like I said, that's going to happen in the Q4. Those factors will push a little bit of the growth into Q4 versus Q3. We're still expecting Q3 to be a solid growth quarter.

Martin Landry
Analyst, Stifel

Okay. Thank you for the color. Maybe last question. I noticed that Stampede Culinary had a pretty solid quarter in relation to their Q1 sales. Their Q2 sales were pretty strong. Is this just a seasonality or did they win new contracts?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Well, they're growing very nicely. They're winning new contracts. That's part of it, but certainly seasonality is an element as well. Overall, Stampede is on plan today with their sales.

Martin Landry
Analyst, Stifel

Okay. Thank you for all the color, and best of luck.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, Martin.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of George Doumet from Ventum Financial. Please go ahead.

George Doumet
Analyst, Ventum Financial

Yeah. Hi, George and Will. Just a quick follow-up. It looks like you guys are—h ey. You dropped the adjusted EBITDA guide by CAD 35 million at the midpoint. I just wanted to know how much of that is purely timing related. You did call out some stuff earlier. How much of that CAD 35 million is purely timing related? How much of that would be, for example, the beef processing capacity closure and maybe some weakness in the consumer? If you could just break that down for us, that'd be helpful.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

George, it is 100% timing related. If you look at the midpoint of the drop in our revenue guidance was about CAD 200 million. Our EBITDA drop was at CAD 30 million, as you mentioned. That's a contribution margin of 15%, which is low. It's low relative to the sales because half of our sales are, as I mentioned earlier, the delayed initiatives in QSR and retail in the U.S. Good margin business. The other half was related to the shutdown of a facility in Ontario. We're exiting a bunch of products that had very low, if any, contribution margin. Then foodservice weakness in Canada, which again, is a lower contribution margin business. When you take that mix, you come up with that 15%, and it's all sales related. None of our assumptions have changed. We haven't changed any of our assumptions on the commodity markets.

Operations are going well. Our startup costs are on plan. In terms of commodity, while we haven't reflected it in our outlook, we did mention it in our MD&A that we are starting to see possible cracks in the beef market. There could be some upside in our outlook from that if that continues to develop like early signs seem to be indicating.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

I would add to that, George, that the general commodity input environment has been very inflationary in the last five or six years, and we're seeing evidence that prices are either flattening or declining. That's not incorporated into our projections. That applies not to just beef, but some of the other species as well.

George Doumet
Analyst, Ventum Financial

That's helpful. Thank you. Just a follow-up from me on this weakness in Canada in the foodservice segment. Does that at all impact the monetization process that's going on right now from perhaps a values perspective and from a timing perspective?

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

No. You know what? We say weakness, the reality is our distribution business generated about 5%-6% organic growth. It was mostly price driven, though. Their volumes are relatively flat. 5%-6% in that industry, if you look at Sysco's international results, we're in line with them. The business is doing well. It's just customers aren't spending as much in that channel and volumes are down a little bit. It continues to be profitable and the long-term outlook and perspective of that business has not changed one iota.

Having said that, George, we also benefit in other channels when the foodservice channel is flat or is not as strong, right? Because people still have to eat.

George Doumet
Analyst, Ventum Financial

Okay. Thanks for your answers, guys.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Again, George, I just want to emphasize your question on the valuation of that business.

George Doumet
Analyst, Ventum Financial

Right.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

We did revise our guidance, but nothing fundamental has changed in our business. We're talking certain initiatives moved out a quarter, maybe a little softness in foodservice, but the fundamentals have just not changed at all.

The question here, guys, is that we have capacity and we have demand for that capacity. Ultimately, as we've said before, we are dealing with very large customers in the U.S. and very large launches. Ultimately, when they make a decision to defer a launch, we still have to keep that capacity for them. We have no issue filling some or all of that capacity with other customers. Ultimately, obviously, we want to execute for these large customers, right? That's kind of where we're at today.

George Doumet
Analyst, Ventum Financial

Thank you.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, George.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Luke Hannan from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Luke Hannan
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Thanks. Good morning, guys. Hey, guys. Look, I wanted to follow up on that last point that you made there. Clearly the demand is still there and you want to keep capacity available for that. I imagine your customers wouldn't be making these decisions, or maybe the question is, why exactly, what's your view almost driving them to shift out the timing for some of these LTOs? Because obviously there's big implications for you guys in trying to build your business going forward. I'm just curious, maybe what's the rationale they would have given you from choosing to launch at a certain time versus another?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Well, you have to break the initiatives between the two retail initiatives we're talking about. That's just a question of scheduling, timing, there's no kind of specific thing you can point at. It's just we had to make some assumptions in the original numbers. They've turned out to be a little bit off in terms of the timing. That's all that is. On the LTO side, it's interesting. It's with a major QSR customer. They're going through some internal changes. They're addressing some other issues in their business. This just got kind of pushed down the list for the time being.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Again, I think Will mentioned it before. We had a similar situation with a very large club customer last year with the launch of a great quality, very successful stick product with them. I think we've talked about that in the past. Ultimately, that launch was delayed for about a year, again, for their own reasons. It was a very significant launch. We kept that capacity available for them. We executed extremely well, right? These things happen. It is the nature of the size of the customers and the size of the opportunity.

Luke Hannan
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Got it. Thanks for that. Then for my follow-up here, then I'll pass the line. George, in your prepared remarks this morning, you had touched on the fact that the sales pipeline is as robust as it's ever been in the history of the company. Can you frame up for us how much of that is demand from existing customers that you already work with, or from new customers? Is that demand for many products that are expected to stay there over time? Is it weighted more towards LTOs? Can you just frame up for us what that pipeline looks like?

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Yeah. Look, we've made a lot of comments in the past. We've bought a lot of capacity, we've built a lot of capacity. We've always been confident that we would fill it. We have been filling it, as you could see from our numbers. Really, why are we so confident, right? Again, we do follow the CPG space. A lot of the companies are facing volume declines, most of them are. We're growing. Why is that, and why are we so confident? Effectively what we've done is we've gone and executed a lot of great innovation. We've launched a bunch of products with customers in the U.S. A lot of these customers are growing. They're doing well. Then, of course, because those products are doing well, other potential customers join us. Call. Sorry, I have to answer this.

They contact us, and they say, "Could we list your products?" Right? As we've added capacity, we've rolled out these products to more customers in the retail space, in the cloud space, and in other channels, right? That's really how we've done it, right? We prove out the demand with one customer. It does really well. It gets noticed, and then we have opportunities to sell products to other customers. If you visit the U.S. today, we've got products in all states, and we continue to add SKUs with all the major retailers.

Luke Hannan
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity

Got it. Thank you very much. I'll pass the line.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ty Collin from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Ty Collin
Analyst, CIBC

Hey, George and Will. Thanks for taking my questions.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Hey, Ty.

Ty Collin
Analyst, CIBC

Hey. Just to start, maybe a question around margin. Gross margin stepped down a little more than expected in Q2. SG&A margin was also a little bit lower. Is that mostly due to just mixing in higher Stampede sales, or were there any other margin factors that kind of accelerated or decelerated sequentially in the quarter that you want to call out?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

No, it was 100% Stampede. I think in the MD&A, we give a normalized gross margin number. You can see Stampede is quite a bit lower than our average in our Specialty Foods segment. It was 100% due to that.

Ty Collin
Analyst, CIBC

Okay, great. Then just back to the comments you made on the commodity picture starting to get a little bit more favorable and focusing on beef in particular. When would you start to see the benefits of lower beef prices or lower commodity prices starting to hit the income statement? Do you think that you would need to kind of give any of that back to customers one way or another, given the focus on affordability?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. No. In terms of the timing, yeah, if we started seeing that happen significantly, it's probably later part of Q3 at the earliest, just because of inventories and hedging programs and those sorts of things. In terms of giving it back to customers, it depends on how far it falls. At some point, we're always very transparent with our customers and similar with when prices are going up. That transparency helps us put through price increases, and as they come down, we'll pass those on. Similar to the delays on the way up, there'll be delays on the way down. We will capture some extra margin over above normal margin levels for a short period, but ultimately, in the long term, we would pass it on.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Also, Ty, if the retail price points come down, we will benefit from more volume. Is that right?

Ty Collin
Analyst, CIBC

Right. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Thanks for that color and all the best.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, Ty.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Li from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Chris Li
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Good morning, George and Will. Hope you're both doing well.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Good morning, Chris.

Chris Li
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Good morning. I wanted to just maybe pivot to the positive free cash flow that you guys generated in Q2. I think in your prepared remarks, Will, you mentioned that you expect the trend to accelerate in the back half. I just want to confirm that is the case and what are some of the key drivers. Thank you.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah, absolutely. Clearly working capital was a major drag in Q1. That was somewhat neutral in Q2. It should become more positive in Q3, that will be a driver. The continued growth in our EBITDA will be a driver. The tailing down of our CapEx will be a driver, and the tailing down of our restructuring will be a driver. In short form, there's a lot of factors contributing to that, Chris, as we come to the end of this major CapEx cycle we've been in. We're just at the tail end of that, and each quarter that goes by, you're going to see the positive results of that flowing through. Certainly, EBITDA will be the big part of that.

Chris Li
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay. That's helpful. Maybe one more for you, Will. Just on the Specialty Foods EBITDA margin, it improved by around 40 basis points in the first half of the year. Do you expect that rate of improvement to continue in the second half?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

It should show some continuous improvement, driven by the—w e're starting to lap all the overhead increases with our different facilities and as we continue to grow. You should see some continued improvements. In terms of the trend line and the numbers, it's probably going to be similar to Q1, Q2, 30 basis points, 40 basis points.

Chris Li
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay, that's helpful. George, I just want to ask you about just what you're seeing in terms of the M&A environment. I noticed you guys removed the slide you usually have on acquisition opportunities. I'm not sure if that's intentional. Just wanted to get your sense of how is the environment right now for acquisitions. Thank you.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Yeah, Chris. Again, we're always happy to disclose what's going on. We're always in a number of discussions, as you know. We are sort of the acquirer of choice for a lot of companies. A lot of companies come to us, and we're in a lot of discussions. As we've gotten bigger and we're getting more attention, when we disclose that we're in an advanced stage of discussions with different companies, there's a lot of speculation going on, and it impacts our NDA and confidentiality agreement. That's one of the reasons why we pulled it. We'll decide whether we will reestablish it down the road, but that's the main reason. Ultimately, we are acquisitive. We're always looking to partner with good companies. Again, that's the reason we pulled it.

Chris Li
Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay, great. Thank you, and all the best.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Thanks, Chris.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, Chris.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Stephen MacLeod from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Thank you. Good morning, guys.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Good morning, Steve.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Morning. Morning, Wi ll. I just wanted to follow up on a couple things. Just given the revised top-line guidance, I was wondering if you could give some color around your expected organic volume growth rate for the back half of the year and sort of how that would shape out between Q3 and Q4.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. In terms of breaking it down between the two segments, PFD, very conservative. Probably similar, we are going to be around 1%-2% growth, most likely. Specialty Foods, I would say it is going to be similar to Q2 carried through for the balance of the year. With a little stronger in Q4 and a little weaker in Q3 as we discussed earlier.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Okay, perfect. Thank you. I just wanted to come back to the pipeline. You talked a lot about it continuing to be very strong for new launches and LTOs and things like that. I guess, would there be a way to sort of frame how much of that is positioned or how much of that would represent your kind of CAD 2 billion sales pipeline that you have created or sales capacity you have created through your capital investment program?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

That LTOs is a percentage of that CAD 2 billion? That's what you're asking, Steve?

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

I'm just trying to get a sense of whether—

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

—the pipeline you've identified.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

We've never actually done that calculation, but just thinking through the initiatives and the pipeline, it's probably a quarter of it at best.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

That would mean that the remaining 75% is other opportunities that are to come in the future.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

It is more focused on retail, B2B or permanent listings in QSR.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Oh, wow, okay.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

The $2 billion pipeline, Stephen, effectively is sold out. We are in discussions with m any customers about different innovation initiatives and launches and listings and all those things, right? We're not concerned that we will fill that capacity, right?

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Yeah.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

It's a question of what mix and obviously maximizing the returns from that mix.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Right. Okay, great. Then maybe just finally, I was just wondering if you could give some color on your CapEx expectations for 2026. I assume they're relatively unchanged. I just want to confirm.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah, no. We've talked about our three buckets in the past. The one bucket being our CAD 1.1 billion capital investment cycle. We've got about CAD 41 million left to spend on that cycle. Our general project CapEx, that's generally running around that CAD 70 million-CAD 80 million mark. We're on track to hit that. Then our maintenance CapEx, CAD 70 million-CAD 75 million, and we're on track to hit that.

Stephen MacLeod
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Okay. That's great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Glen from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Michael Glen
Analyst, Raymond James

Hey, maybe just to follow up on the gross margin conversation with Specialty Foods through the back half of the year and how that falls to you. It does look like you had a pretty good deleverage on the SG&A line this quarter. Would you expect SG&A, it was 9.1% of sales, would you expect it to continue at that type of level? It's a pretty low level relative to historical.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

I think you're not going to see as much in Q4, a favorable year-over-year just because of at least where we're expecting our discretionary compensation pools to be. You will continue to see deleveraging of our SG&A.

Michael Glen
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay. Do you think that off of the gross margin you reported for Specialty Foods in Q2, we should see an increase in that margin in the back half? I'm just trying to it'll be relatively stable at these 19%+ levels?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Again, as I talked about earlier, that 30 basis points- 40 basis points improvement in Specialty Foods, that will be a mix of gross margin and SG&A deleveraging.

Michael Glen
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay. Just to come back to the LTO. A lot of these large restaurant companies, they're continually putting in LTOs. They have to constantly refresh their menus. Do you have visibility? Are they going with a competitor product as a replacement? Do you have any visibility as to what they're running with in store right now with LTOs to replace the program that you're not progressing on?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Well, it's interesting. As I mentioned earlier, they've been sort of distracted with the key one that we've been talking about and the timing around. They've been distracted with some other issues in the organization. They've been focused more on the beverage side and the food side. Yeah, you're right. There's always LTOs, but they're just using in-store products, maybe adding bacon to an existing product or stuff. Not any real innovation. Their franchisees are starting to starve for that innovation. That's what's giving us the confidence that these products that have gone through the product testing, have gone through the pricing, are approved through the system, that they will get launched in 2027 when they get back focused on this. We're doing LTOs all the time, right? We're involved in all kinds of LTOs across the board with all kinds of QSR customers.

Michael Glen
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay. Thanks for taking my questions, guys.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, Michael.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Vishal Shreedhar from National Bank. Please go ahead.

Vishal Shreedhar
Analyst, National Bank

Hello, George and Will.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Hey, Vishal.

Vishal Shreedhar
Analyst, National Bank

I just want to get your thoughts on the adjusted EBITDA, the CAD 23.8 million backed out, in part reflecting facility closures. Should we anticipate more of these types of costs related to facility closures in 2026? Do you have a magnitude of how they might flow through?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. Nothing material for the rest of this year, Vishal.

Vishal Shreedhar
Analyst, National Bank

Okay. Thank you. With respect to the plant closures that you indicated, are those part of the previously announced greater than CAD 1 billion in asset monetizations? Are those plant closures reflected in your sales guidance?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. In the sales guidance, there's really three elements. I'll start with the last part of your question. There's three elements in there. There's the customer initiatives we've been talking around in QSR and retail. If you take that average CAD 200 million change, roughly half of it's due to that. The other half is due to the foodservice channel in Canada and the shutdown in this facility and exiting some of its sales, which —they were in the beef segment. Deflation has really hurt their margins in recent years. It's an older facility. You put that all together, that's what made us come to the conclusion that we needed to exit that business. In terms of the first part of your question, no, none of that is included in the CAD 1 billion monetization number.

Vishal Shreedhar
Analyst, National Bank

Okay. The future plant closures that you may engage in, are those contemplated in the revised guidance number that you gave?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah.

Vishal Shreedhar
Analyst, National Bank

Would those happen in 2026?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

We're not expecting any others to happen in 2026. In terms of the guidance number, nothing's reflected because nothing's happening.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Probably will be 2027, Vishal, for the rest. The [GTA] facility gets commissioned, which will be early 2027.

Vishal Shreedhar
Analyst, National Bank

Thank you for the color.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, Vishal.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of John Zamparo from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

John Zamparo
Analyst, Scotiabank

Thank you. Good morning, George and Will.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Hey, John.

John Zamparo
Analyst, Scotiabank

A couple follow-ups and a couple questions, please. I wanted to come back to the LTO topic from one of your large customers. I think the prior question was on the sales capacity, what percent is from LTO-style customers. I wonder if you could say broadly what percent of Premium Brands sales or EBITDA comes from these types of products and could be at risk of occurring not when projected.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

I would say not material, John. Some of the growth is built around these. Stampede maybe is our biggest exposure to LTOs now because of their foodservice exposure. As you know, our U.S. initiatives prior to Stampede were almost solely in retail outside of one or two large QSR customers. Not a lot of exposure in the legacy business. A bit of exposure in the Stampede business.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

With regards to Stampede, John, this is actually an opportunity for us because historically, Stampede has been on the beef side of things, and most of their LTOs are beef related with their key customers. Well now with the access to the PB ecosystem, we are showing them value-added chicken-based products or value-added seafood products, which they're showing to their customers for 2027. That's a growth opportunity for Stampede and for our ecosystem and a synergy.

John Zamparo
Analyst, Scotiabank

Right. Okay. Understood. More holistically, when you get one of these LTOs that's meaningful and it gets deferred and it creates a change to Premium Brands EBITDA generation, does it make you more interested in onboarding customers who have more recurring revenue or those who can commit to certain volume purchases rather than relying on limited time offers?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

One thing, John, there's always a strategy with these LTOs to make them permanent listings. That's ultimately our objective, and particularly with some of these QSR customers where we're trying to develop permanent new listings with them and then also leverage then our relationship to maybe take over some of their existing core products. There is a sort of bigger strategy around these LTOs.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Ultimately, John, we want to be seen as an innovation partner with a lot of these customers. We understand the necessity for them to have LTOs in order to drive traffic at different times of the year. We're in a lot of discussions with them in terms of being their innovation partner. We've done really well in the coffee channel by doing exactly that. A lot of our smaller coffee channel customers have actually moved from LTOs now to permanent listings. We're really happy about that.

John Zamparo
Analyst, Scotiabank

Okay. That's helpful. Then on the closures you expect, I think the prepared remarks referenced there'd be four facilities, and you closed one in Q2. Can you add a bit more color on this? Were these planned previously? Did something change that was particular to Q2? What categories within beef is it that you're referring to on these?

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Again, John, when we decided to build a very large, efficient facility in the GTA, we've considered closing a couple of smaller facilities ultimately and consolidated them into this brand-new facility. As I mentioned earlier, that facility will be commissioned in Q1 2027. Was supposed to be Q4 2026, but right now it looks like it'll be first quarter 2027. Again, we did the math in terms of the improvements in efficiency, throughput, scale, and all of those things. This was planned. As Will mentioned, of course, this beef plant that was basically at the end of its economic life. Then there is one, an older facility in the U.S. that we've actually talked about before. Again, when we purchased Stampede, we bought some facilities with extra capacity. We're looking at consolidating this facility into one of their facilities.

Those are the four plants. Again, it makes a lot of sense to do it. These plants are not investable anymore. Ultimately, they'll be beneficial to the bottom line.

John Zamparo
Analyst, Scotiabank

Okay. Thank you for that. One last one on CapEx next year. Do you expect it'll approximate the 2026 level or do you think it could come down next year versus 2026?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Well, again, maintenance CapEx, we would suspect a similar level. Miscellaneous CapEx, that CAD 70 million-CAD 80 million I talked about, similar level. Outside of that, John, we have no specific plans in the pipeline for anything else. That's the best we can say today.

John Zamparo
Analyst, Scotiabank

Okay, understood. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Thanks, John.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Neal from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Ryan Neal
Analyst, TD Cowen

Hey, guys. This is Ryan on for Derek . Thanks for taking my questions.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Hey, Ryan.

Ryan Neal
Analyst, TD Cowen

Most of our questions have been answered, just curious if you can frame up some of the general opportunities you're seeing at Stampede across the business right now, and how we should think about the runway in that business moving forward.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Well, we don't specifically talk about Stampede, I did mention the two areas of opportunity for us. We're really excited to be in a position to offer items like cooked skewers, raw skewers, a lot of other chicken bites which are extremely successful in retail. We're really excited to be introducing these type of products to them and to have them include them in their portfolio of offerings to their customer base. Similarly, seafood as well. We're very developed in terms of our seafood knowledge and our seafood expertise. Again, I know that they're having specific discussions with customers about seafood offerings. These are very significant opportunities, both in terms of LTOs and regular listings with these customers.

Ryan Neal
Analyst, TD Cowen

Great, thank you. In Custom Culinary, it looked like organic volume is down 3.5%. Do you have an idea of what U.S. volume growth would have been excluding the impact of the LTO?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah, about 4%, Ryan.

Ryan Neal
Analyst, TD Cowen

Great. Thanks, Will.

Operator

Thank you. Once again, should you have a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Ryland Conrad from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Ryland Conrad
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Hey, good morning, guys.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Good morning.

Ryland Conrad
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Maybe just following on the topic of Stampede, could you give us an update there just on how much excess sales capacity that business is currently sitting on? I guess I'm just trying to get a better understanding on the extent to which there's room for EBITDA margin expansion for that business driven by operating leverage, obviously, in addition to the synergies that you previously outlined.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. When we acquired them, they had about $400 million in unutilized capacity. This year we'll obviously use some portion of that, but it's going to have significant capacity still exiting 2026.

Ryland Conrad
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, great. Just on the business, obviously continuing the trend towards 3x or lower leverage target by early to mid next year. I guess how should investors think about the optimal leverage range for the business longer term? Is that 3x range the floor that you intend to operate at or do you see the case for structurally lower leverage, say, 2x or 2.5x that could give you a bit more flexibility around enhancing capital returns through large M&A?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. Our objective is to get down to that 3x or better and stay there, Ryland. That's kind of it. Decisions to go lower will be driven by opportunities to deploy capital.

Ryland Conrad
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, got it. Just last for me on the LTOs and some of those product launches that were delayed. I guess could you confirm whether you're now sitting on any excess inventory that was built up in advance of those launches?

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah, no, absolutely not.

Ryland Conrad
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, perfect. Thank you, guys.

Will Kalutycz
CFO, Premium Brands

Yeah. Thanks, Ryland.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Paleologou , please go ahead.

George Paleologou
CEO and President, Premium Brands

Yeah, I'd like to thank everybody for attending. Enjoy the rest of your summer. Thank you, Ina.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.