Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Staples Forum. It's a pleasure to introduce our first speakers of the day, Jarrod Langhans, CFO, and Toby David, Chief of Staff of Celsius Holdings. It's certainly an exciting time for Celsius, having fully integrated their Alani Nu and Rockstar acquisitions into PepsiCo distribution system, while the company's full portfolio of brands now holds an impressive 21% dollar share of the fast-growing energy drink category. Celsius just released impressive Q1 results last week and has some exciting new innovation within the better for you functional beverage space that is poised to generate significant shelf space gains this spring. With that, let's jump into things this morning. Welcome, you two. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for having us.
All right. I thought we would start off high level on the category and, you know, it's really been on fire this year. It's incredible how fast the growth has been despite some of the macro headwinds that we've seen. You know, I'm thinking about lapping the tough comps from last year. Curious to hear from your perspective, really what's been driving this recent category growth and, you know, ultimately where has this category been sourcing from?
I think when you take a look at the category, it's really the evolution of energy really over the last 15 years has gone from more of an impulse-driven, male-oriented category, convenience store driven, to it's really morphed into an occasion, a part of a lifestyle. You look at the different iterations of energy out there, sugar-free is really driving it, lifestyle. Instead of just strictly that impulse convenience, you're seeing the growth, you know, across MULO. You see it becoming part of a daily lifestyle for people, whether it's something they drink before going to the gym, pairing it with meals, you know, later in the day just for a pick-me-up instead of, you know, maybe an evening to, you know, get you going for the evening or in the morning to get you going for the day.
The category really is exceptionally strong. I think it's probably exceeded most people's expectations, even ourselves, this year. Coming off, you mentioned the tough comps from last year. Thought maybe it would be in upper single digits this year. I mean, really across the board, you know, from the two biggest players including our green friends out there in Corona, they're having a tremendous year. You know, Alani's really driving the category quite a bit. You take a step back and look at when we acquired Alani last year, I think they were about a four share. You look at it today, they're really getting close to a double-digit market share with so much room for growth to continue. You know, still growing at 50%+.
You know, really the whole category, it's an exciting time. We're getting a ton of shelf space. The category as a whole, as you see other categories are getting shrunk. Alcohol. I think alcohol is really the interesting one.
Yeah.
I don't know if you'll see it as much of this year in the resets. I think even next year, as you see the consumers really, I mean, everyone's spoken about this at length, so no reason to really dive into it. I think you're gonna you know, continue to see energy as a category grow in space. You'll see maybe alcohol could cede some space, especially within convenience. When you're growing as much as this category is, I mean, the retailers see it. A really exciting time within the category and, you know, the view forward is really strong.
That's helpful. Are you also seeing some of the existing consumers in the category consuming more? Has their usage occasion also increased once you convert?
Yeah, I think I mean, you're seeing a lot of different iterations in packaging. You know, even Alani, for example, we have the minis out there that are maybe a different day part of later in the afternoon.
Yeah.
People are sometimes concerned or really maybe, "Should I have an energy drink at 3 or 4 in the afternoon?" I think having some different iterations out there are helping within our portfolio right now. Yeah, you're seeing people I mean, it's really Caffeine's always been a staple for a large portion of folks out there, whether, you know, start with coffee and now with energy. You know, you look at it and people really consuming energy early in the morning. Throughout the day now, it's becoming part of that lifestyle, as I mentioned earlier, whether it's going, you know, before you go to the gym or just as a pick-me-up in the afternoon or with a meal. Yeah, you are seeing people pick up a second beverage throughout the day.
The growth has been phenomenal.
All right, let's pivot a little bit, thinking about your results last week. Impressive 138% top-line growth in Q1, certainly a benefit from the Alani Nu acquisition. Thinking about your CELSIUS brand, growth has been a bit tempered recently. Wanted to kind of unpack that a little bit and maybe hear from you know, what you see as some of the drivers more recently of some of this slowdown. You know, is it, you know, limited innovation I think we've talked about before? Maybe some cannibalization occurring from Alani Nu, certainly the SKU rationalization. Anything else or?
I mean, it's a bit of each of those, right?
Okay.
We've got an optimization project that we undertook with brand CELSIUS to really boost productivity, boost velocity, you know, $ per location. You're starting to see that come through. At the same time, we moved Alani into the distribution system. We finished integrating Alani as a business. We got significantly along the path on plan with the Rockstar business as well. We undertook quite a bit in Q1. I'd say probably the optimization project in terms of from an execution perspective, we hadn't, you know, we'd want it to be a little quicker than it was. It's probably kind of like Eric said last week, about a 2-quarter roll as opposed to a little quicker from that perspective. I'll let Toby talk about a few of the data points, but we had some of that.
We also, from an innovation perspective, we pushed some of our innovation out to early 2027 for brand CELSIUS. That would've provided a little bit of a buffer when we were going through that process. If you kind of look at those as a mix, you know, we did execute phenomenally on a lot of what we did, but probably there we were a little slower than we had anticipated. As you look at our resets, they're going well. If you look at kind of the space gains, they're going well. In addition, we're seeing a lot of permanent space gains. Think of more of coolers, what we call IRCs, which are kind of they're not cold, but they're these big units that you find throughout retail, the kind of hangers.
We're getting a lot of good space that's more permanent in nature and not kind of temporary. That's all coming through, and we should see more or less the optimization and the space gains all completed by the end of this quarter.
Yeah. Just to piggyback off of what Jarrod mentioned, you know, listen, we talk to folks all the time. Obviously, everybody's looking at the scanner data.
Yeah.
You know, the one thing that I definitely want to get across today is we are really pumped about where brand CELSIUS is today. Obviously everybody's looking at the revenue numbers and the tough laps and comps we have from last year, but there's really 3 things that we're looking at. First of all, through the optimization progress, we're putting those fast cars on the track. Would we like to get them there a little bit quicker? Absolutely, it's gonna come. First of all, if you look at where we were in terms of $ per TDP back in January and where we closed April, we're up 17% in terms of velocity, in terms of $ per TDP. From a velocity standpoint, strong. Number 2, Jarrod mentioned the optimization project that's underway.
When you look at a couple of different data points and really the health of the brand Celsius on Amazon in the last year to date, we're up 23% on Amazon. That's an area where we didn't undergo a SKU rationalization because that's where we're flowing through the remainder of the product that we were optimizing out of the portfolio. When you look at the disconnect that you're seeing in the scanner data, it's really being driven by this optimization process and just a little bit of a short window in time versus what's really for the benefit of the portfolio and of the brand over the mid and long term. On Amazon, we're up 27% just the last week.
When people are looking at the scanner data and seeing a little bit of pressure right now, when you don't have the rationalization process as part of it, you're seeing strong growth. Even in New York City. In New York City, we didn't undergo as much of a rationalization process. We kept a number of the SKUs in there because our folks up here, our distributor said, "Hey, listen, some of these are our stronger SKUs, so we're keeping them in New York City." In New York City, we're up, I believe it's around 23% in Q1. We're up 29% or 27% just in the last month. Really, when you take a step back-
the health of the brand is really strong. This is a moment in time. We're setting up that foundation for the remainder of the year, the back half of the year, and then in 2027, we have some incredible innovation we're gonna layer on with these fast cars that we have on the track, the most productive SKUs. We feel really good about where the brand is. Obviously, we don't like this little disconnect in timing, but we feel great about where the brand is today.
Okay. Two follow-ons. The optimization, is it halfway finished? Because now you mentioned it's also gonna continue with this quarter. Is it more than halfway done as you kind of, again, optimize or rationalize? Would love to hear if you could help quantify, you know, what you're removing, the SKUs that you're removing from the CELSIUS brand, and maybe what % of the mix they represent in terms of either volume or sales.
Yeah. I would say, you know, without putting a firm dollar amount on it's a significant chunk of revenue. You know, don't wanna put the figure out there today. It, and the issue that we've seen is that the SKUs fall off that we're optimizing out of the portfolio prior to when we're getting the faster moving velocity SKUs on the track. There is a little bit disconnect in timing. I would expect that, you know, over the next handful of weeks, you should start to see some improvement.
Okay.
I do think, you know, when you look at it, and Jarrod kind of alluded to it a little bit.
Yeah.
We have one of the larger retailers in the country without naming them. Like, because I know a lot of people look at TDP as an example. We're down 10% at that particular retailer in TDP. The overall space gains that we're getting because of incremental placements, we're going to be up when the optimization is done, up 45% in total space within that store. Where we're getting that space gains from is these incremental end caps that are going to be permanent. We're getting a ton of cooler placements, so you're getting higher velocity locations in the store instead of the warm placement on the shelf.
The issue that we've seen is the SKUs fall off first, and then it's sometimes it's up to a 12-week process to get all these SKUs put on the shelves in these incremental placements. Unfortunately, there is this timing dynamic that we're seeing right now, but that's why we reference at CAGNY. We are still confident about getting 17% shelf space gains in totality, but it's just taking a little bit more time. You have tough comps from last year. There's that disconnect in timing. That's why I wanted to reference those data points earlier because the health of the brand, Celsius, is actually really strong. Once we get this, the whole process complete, we're gonna be really set up for success.
Okay. Remind me, because you touched on innovation too. Am I understanding it's more limited innovation this year?
Versus prior, you had several launches behind CELSIUS. Now I believe, you know, you've rolled out Electric Vibe, and I think you've mentioned there's one other. Do we know what that is right now?
Yeah, yeah. Last year, I mean, really for the last three or four years, we had quite a bit of innovation.
Yeah
at Celsius, and that's part of the reason why we've undergone this optimization.
Yeah
process. I mean, we used to get questions of, "Well, do you guys have too many SKUs?
Maybe, and that's why we've kinda trimmed the tail. What we're seeing right now is, you know, we've had a limited innovation launch. Part of the logic behind that is when you're integrating a 1 to 1.5 billion dollar Alani business into the PepsiCo system, we really wanted to create an environment where we simplified that, so you weren't launching a bunch of SKUs like we did last year. I think last year we launched 4 SKUs.
Four, yeah
4 flavors in Q1, a couple flavors in Q2. You know, as part of the integration process with Alani, we decided, okay, let's limit the innovation for the first half of this year. Let's make sure that we get all the right Alani SKUs on the shelf as part of this integration. You're seeing a lot of success with Alani because of that, which I think is still exceeding folks' expectations because of that integration process. Because of that, we limited it for Celsius. That being said, we do have an LTO that we'll be rolling out in Q3. It might have some crossover in terms of revenue into Q2 because of the timing of when we have to fill out the PepsiCo system. I don't think we've announced what that flavor is.
Yeah.
My marketing team would kill me if I announced it up here.
Did I taste it last year at ?
I'm sure folks could find it on Reddit or wherever else.
Yeah
they're looking these days to find the innovation. Between, you know, CELSIUS, we do have another LTO coming out in July. We'll have another one in the back half of the year as well. Alani has a very robust innovation pipeline. We'll probably talk about it later, but I'll reference it now. I know we have some tough comps with Alani because of how productive they were last year with our Cotton Candy launch in June of last year. You know, we have an LTO for them that's gonna be coming out roughly around the same time that we're really excited about. Think it's gonna, you know, it's really gonna do well. We're confident in that one.
Alani, we've really maintained the same cadence and maybe even a little bit more as far as innovation this year. For Celsius, you know, we did limit it this year.
Yeah.
I would expect that you'll see quite a bit more in 2027 once, you know, you've had Alani fully integrated into the PepsiCo system, gotten them the strong expansion that we expect this year.
You know, again, we feel really good about the portfolio right now. We're sitting at roughly a 21% market share. I mean, think about that. 1 out of every 5 cans of energy drinks consumed today is part of our portfolio. While I know that people are looking at the pressure that Celsius is under, it's really, I mean, almost entirely because of this optimization process. Once we get that complete, we feel great about where we're at.
You bring up a good point in thinking about the acquisition. You mentioned, you know, Alani's share being so much smaller, and these two brands, would you agree, are better, you know, coexisting at this point? Any learnings from that given, you know, what are we, close to a year in terms of putting these brands together?
Yeah, absolutely. Listen, I know that you know, you look at Celsius, and I think we were probably the original brand that was characterized as maybe female leaning.
Yeah.
Even though we were neutral, 50-50. When most women were coming into the category originally, it was really an opportunity for us to capitalize on that. You've seen some other brands come in the fold, Alani really being the most significant 1. You know, as I always say, and, you know, I know people speak about cannibalization quite a bit. We really haven't seen up to this point.
Okay
any more cannibalization with Alani than we see with a Red Bull. You look at the And what I like to talk to folks about is just trying Alani. If you stop in and meet with us today, we have some Alani in there as well. If you're familiar with the taste profile of the CELSIUS, it's a very different taste profile. Has a sweeter profile, more, you know, whether it's a Cotton Candy or a Pink Slush, we're more fruit forward leaning. They are a strong female demo, but it's a little bit younger female. They're that's expanding into, you know, even an older female, and even some males are starting to enter the fray there.
It's a very different taste profile. We feel like as you look at what's growing the category, the two biggest drivers are sugar-free and female, I can't think of a portfolio that is gonna be able to lean into that, you know, any more than CELSIUS. We're well positioned. You know, obviously, you know, we have Rockstar as well, which, you know, we don't have a lot of conversations about them. We're still excited about what we can do with Rockstar. We're trying to temper expectations, you know, undersell, overdeliver. That's a very different profile, very male leaning. As far as Alani, it's a different profile than we have for CELSIUS. I just say, you know, try the product and you'll see it's a different consumer than what's consuming CELSIUS.
You touched on this a little earlier because Alani, you know, the growth has been so robust, and you mentioned difficult comps. You know, ultimately, what gives you the confidence that Alani's growth is going to continue? I mean, you mentioned some of the innovation. You know, anything else that gives you the confidence that.
Yeah, I think just distribution. They're just getting into convenience for the first time.
Yeah
the biggest growth driver within the category. I was in a 7-Eleven, I believe it was Sunday, the one that I happen to frequent that's by my house. I heard an ad coming over the radio or sound system.
within the 7-Eleven, it was talking about Alani, which always gets me excited when I hear one of our brands being advertised while I'm in there. I, you know, these retailers are really leaning into the, especially convenience, to the female consumer because.
Right
It's a new, different dynamic. Drawing the female from the pump in the store now that they, you know, prior, you had really CELSIUS was the only one they might go in and consume. Now with Alani Nu, convenience is a huge opportunity for them 'cause they're underdeveloped there within convenience. You look at geographically, I mean, they're really strong up the central part of the country. Coastal, I mean, good luck in New York City right now. It's very limited, and it's a huge opportunity here, down in Florida, the whole East Coast, the West Coast. I talk to folks all the time and, you know, they know CELSIUS. You know? Now it's really changed. I've been with the company, this is my 14th year. You know, back in the day, it was like spotting Bigfoot when somebody actually knew.
Yeah
knew what Celsius was. Now everybody know.
Yeah
knows what Celsius is. When I tell them, "Oh, have you heard of You know, we, you know, we own Alani Nu," you have to kind of like spell the name for them.
Yeah
They don't even understand what you're saying. You're like, "This is great.
Yeah.
I love that. That speaks to the opportunity as people are learning this brand. There's a ton of runway left. You know, the power of the PepsiCo distribution system for not only the planogram traditional retail, but the up and down the street, the food service opportunity, university opportunity.
You know, there's quite a bit of runway left with Alani, and I think that's what's most exciting. You think about where this brand was last year when we acquired them, and I think a lot of the folks probably listening and in the room today, they had to do some quick recon back, at CAGNY last year when we announced.
Yeah
Alani Nu, like, "Who is this brand?" You see this high growth.
Yeah.
I think Alani was growing around 70% at that time, then accelerated into triple-digit growth. If you had told anybody 12 months ago that Alani would be sitting close to double-digit market share, I think people would say, "Holy cow, what, you know, what is the opportunity for this portfolio." We're sitting at a 21 share today, and we certainly think there's quite a bit of runway left, not only with Alani, but as we get, you know, back to CELSIUS. As we get CELSIUS and that foundation firmed up over the next month or two, then get into the back half of the year and early next year, we certainly expect CELSIUS to grow again.
That's why I wanted to give those anecdotal data points of what you're seeing on Amazon, what you're seeing in New York City, what you're seeing with the velocity. There's, I mean, a ton of runway left with both of these brands.
A couple thoughts on Alani, before maybe we move on. You mentioned differentiated customer for Alani. I think you mentioned that last week. You know, how are you expanding the reach? What are some of the key innovations on Alani Nu that you're excited about in the near term that you're rolling out that you can share?
I'll throw one more thing out there.
Oh
that gives us confidence, is if you look at as we're expanding the ACV and extending, expanding all these distribution points.
you're seeing the velocity sticking, if not, you know, even getting stronger in some places. Especially convenience, where they were, you know, they're underdeveloped there, but the velocity is very strong there.
Okay.
Sometimes we get comments about a female-focused brand.
Yeah.
How is it gonna do in convenience? As we expand into convenience, we're seeing the velocities really hold, if not strengthen. It's Alani's got a super strong velocity, a super loyal following. From an LTO perspective, we've got a lot of good flavors and a lot of good things in the hopper. I think you know, when we get to the back half of the year when you see the Witch's Brew, we got something interesting and unique that'll be coming out from that perspective, so that's something we're excited about. It's such a great community.
They continue to expand that community as they expand the distribution points, and it's a very loyal following.
from that perspective.
Yeah, I would just add, you know, I mentioned CELSIUS' strong velocity that we've seen from January through April through this optimization project. You look at Alani, I think the expectation from a lot of folks was as you get this really robust growth from a TDP standpoint, 'cause they were so underdeveloped in convenience, that there was an expectation that, okay, velocity will probably dip, then, you know, it'll have to climb back through the remainder of the year. What we've in fact seen with Alani is their community is so strong, and there's such a passionate base and people that want this product, is that their dollars per TDP from January through April went up 13%. It actually increased, which I think was surprising to a lot of folks.
That's again, when you talk about what gives you confidence about Alani is I think a lot of people thought, "Okay, as they get stretched out across the country, will it reach a tipping point?" Maybe, you know, I think maybe some of the bear cases was, "Okay, They're gonna tap out and max out.
What we're seeing now is velocity increasing as they're getting all these massive TDP gains. As people get accustomed to walking into stores and seeing a full shelf and a half of Alani in convenience, there's really a huge opportunity in the back half of the year to capitalize on that with these increased velocity numbers as they're getting this higher TDP number.
Mm-hmm. Okay. That's helpful. One other thing I wanted to ask you about and talk about is obviously now in the PepsiCo system and they're distributing it, can you talk about or how should we think about the contra revenue, you know, on Alani Nu now that it is again being distributed by PepsiCo? Will that start to increase as we think about, you know, greater distribution from PepsiCo and maybe the cost of doing so?
I think it's, if you're talking margins, I wouldn't say there's a huge disconnect on the margin profile. From a contra perspective, it's, there's a couple things. There's the channel mix, there's the pack mix, and then there's the DSD versus direct mix. As we're going into places like convenience or food service or what we call OTS, which is where the metal displays are, these are locations that you really need that white glove service to get to. That's where we're really seeing our ACV expansion. We are moving a bit in to more of a DSD areas with Alani. They were underdeveloped in those locations. Well, you don't really have access to food service and OTS if you don't have a blue truck or a red truck.
From that perspective, we're getting incremental space that we wouldn't have gotten, and a lot of these areas are higher velocity. Like Toby was talking about convenience as an example. From a margin profile perspective, it doesn't necessarily change the margin profile. There's a different cost structure to it, but because of the terms and because of the opportunities, it's more of an incremental play for us. We're seeing, you know, really good gains out of that. I think the mix that we're seeing is kind of ending up somewhere in the 60/40 range in terms of DSD versus non-DSD.
They were much more developed from a direct perspective when we picked them up than Celsius was when we moved into the PepsiCo system, so there was a little bit of shifting that happened where they were probably more like 50/50.
DSD versus direct, now it's more 60/40. You saw a little bit of that happen in Q1 on the bridge. That was really just a matter of getting into, from a mix perspective, more areas that are DSD focused as opposed to direct focused.
I guess maybe the message is as we look at the scanner data, which you're right, a lot of us obsess over, but we've got to think potentially about haircutting that growth that we're seeing for Alani Nu as it flows through.
Right
the P&L.
Yeah, from a DSD-
Got it.
because as we're mixing a bit more into DSD, there's a little bit of a shift in terms of the, a little bit more of the contra.
Okay. Bottom line, long runway.
Long runway.
between innovation channels, you know, increased channels and further penetration, right?
Absolutely.
Shelf space.
Even next year, I mean, you know, the retailer meetings that we're having right now for the portfolio.
Yeah
meet with some of the larger retailers in the country, like around this time of year. Super productive. They're excited obviously about Alani and what the opportunity is there. Even with CELSIUS, there is a lot of excitement about what the opportunities are there. They like the innovation that we're talking about for 2027. They see the stronger velocity numbers. As we sit here today, and you're near a 21% you know, market share as a portfolio, retailers are leaning in. We're excited about next year from a distribution standpoint. I would anticipate Alani's gonna continue to get very robust distribution, you know, into next year as well. There's a lot of expectations for this year. You're seeing it flow through.
Even for next year, there's quite a bit of runway left for Alani.
Okay. In the context of all of this, I wanted to ask you about pricing and maybe could you talk at a high level how you're thinking about pricing on a go-forward basis, and more importantly, you know, revenue growth management. Maybe talk a little bit about some of your capabilities, the initiatives, and what you're implementing on your broader portfolio.
Yes. For revenue growth management, it's really changing for us. It's changed multiple times 'cause we started out as a year ago or a year and a couple months ago, a single brand, right?
A single strategy. As we added Alani, it was, okay, now a 2-brand strategy, and then we added Rockstar, so now it's a whole portfolio strategy.
Yeah.
As we've been doing that, we have been building the team. It's really about people, processes, and technology. There are some things, you know, I always say you gotta do them in that order.
There are ways to speed it up, so there are things we have done. We've brought the leadership on that are really managing the RGM process for us, and the strategy. We've got the leadership teams in place to do that. We're working through all the processes. There's some low-hanging fruit that you can do, such as looking at some different price packs, looking at kind of the sequencing. Alani needs to be the super premium. Celsius is premium.
Rockstar premium economy. We kind of getting that sequence in order. Those are some quick easy wins you can do, making sure that the multi-packs are set up properly. Then it's kind of going retailer by retailer or channel by channel to make sure that we structure everything properly. Also we need to Where we are versus our competition, right? We don't wanna be at the very top. We don't wanna be at the very bottom. There's different price points that we're working through in terms of where does each of those brands play, and that strategy will help us drive more efficiencies. Other things that are easy, low-hanging fruit is not promoting on top of each other, right?
If we're gonna promote, do a huge Alani promotion, pull back on the Celsius one so they're not promoting against each other. You can see that in more of like the club channels or some of the direct channels where that can be much more impactful. Being more thoughtful about those kind of things. You know, it is a 12 to 18-month process.
Yeah
to get everything set up. You know, if you talk about August 28th of last year was just when we got Rockstar in the system, so there's some work to do.
Okay
you'll see in the back half of this year, you'll see us take advantage of some of the quick wins, and then as we go into 2027, you'll see a ton of opportunity from an RGM perspective.
Okay. Is there a way to You know, I'm thinking about your promos, which you just mentioned, you know, staggering those. If you were to kind of, you know, think through your promos today versus where they were maybe in Q4 and a year ago, you know, are they up, down the promo spending?
It's probably fairly consistent.
Okay
at the moment. You'll start to see that change as we get to the back half of the year and into next year.
You know, we were just moving Alani into the PepsiCo system in December, so the there's only so much work you can do, and a lot of times you have to do it during certain time periods. You'll see some of that in the back half of the year versus kind of what you've seen now. Some of this is getting the people and the processes in place.
We'll start moving through actual seeing changes come through.
Okay. Wanted to ask a little bit more about the shelf space gains. I mean, I know you talked about this earlier this year about 17% space gains for Celsius and triple digits for Alani Nu. How should we think about where most of the space will come from for Celsius? I know you called out, I think, you know, 1 of the larger retailers, and I think you just touched on this, Toby, and I think without saying who that retailer is. You know, is that where the bulk of that space, that 17% increase will come from, or is it more evenly split on Celsius across different channels?
Yeah, I think it's gonna be across the board, probably leaning a little bit more into just MULO.
Okay
You know, when we talk about shelf space, and I know, you know, unfortunately, there is only certain metrics that are privy to the public, and I know a lot of folks are looking at the TDPs.
Yeah.
TDPs are just how many SKUs you have in the store.
Yeah.
If you're actually going through a rationalization process or an optimization process.
Yeah
you're actually gonna see a little bit of a dip.
Okay
in TDP. What we're actually seeing is far more space that we're getting, and that's not gonna be on the warm shelf that you traditionally see in the planogram. It's gonna be in your incremental placements within the store.
Okay.
you know, as I referenced and alluded to,
Okay
you know, the retailer that was I mentioned, you know, which we've all heard of in this room.
Yeah
That will go unnamed. You saw that dip in TDP, a 45% growth in total shelf space. You know, a lot of times within convenience, you don't have a lot of opportunities for incremental placements in the store. You will get a display, you know, occasionally within a 7-Eleven. Within MULO, that's where you get the opportunity for the end caps, more cooler placements, IOD and NOD, so getting displays. I think that's another big opportunity for Celsius to capitalize on, and Alani, this year. You know, you're gonna see these incremental placements in stores, and what's really important is we believe we're gonna be getting higher velocity locations within these, that 17% space gains that we referenced at CAGNY. Because if it's cold, it's sold is the language we always use.
If you're getting incremental cooler placements or in the front checkout coolers.
Man, I'd much rather be there than on a warm shelf in the, you know, back corner of the store somewhere. That's where we would anticipate mostly in MULO, but you'll see some incremental placements within convenience as well.
Okay. Before we run out of time, I wanna pivot to gross margins, of course, which is always topical. How should we think about your cadence of margins for the rest of the year? I know you mentioned, I guess, last week that Q2 gross margins, we should think about being more in line, I believe.
with Q1 or flat. Should we expect a ramp in the back half, but maybe not getting quite to that 50%, but possibly into next year? How do we think about that path back to, you know, low 50% gross margins given everything?
Yeah, that's consistent with kind of what we walked through last week. If you look at kind of the plan in terms of where are we going to get the margin expansion, if you go back to when we acquired Alani and when we acquired Rockstar was probably a 30%-35% margin profile. Alani was probably low 40s. The path to there was really, if you go and kind of look at the CELSIUS profile from a freight perspective, we were probably 3%, 3.5% outbound freight, which we include in our gross margin. If you looked at Alani and Rockstar, they were running between six and nine, so huge gain there. Getting them into our orbit model and getting them into our freight infrastructure, it also takes a lot of miles off.
Even with fuel costs spiking, if you got much less miles in your orbit, you can keep those costs down. That's a big piece. The other piece is the raw materials. We have seen commodity inflation, but with that said, getting them into our contracts allows us to get some of those costs down. Some of those costs are already locked in, so by getting them into our contracts, we move from call it a more variable to a more fixed, you know, with a lot of ingredients, with the conversion. We do have a little bit of pressure from the LME and from the Midwest premium, which most people do, 'cause you typically, you don't lock everything out 'cause you wanna have a little bit of optionality there.
When we acquired Alani and when we acquired Rockstar, some of those costs were already inflated to begin with.
Sure
you can't kind of eliminate costs that already exist. There's some of that. Some of that was already built in. Some of that we're seeing some of the pressure because of recent spikes back in March and April. Overall, we have a path to getting them into our scale, our orbit model, our raw material purchasing, and you'll see that improve as we get into Q3, and then again as we get into Q4. We've also got a number of other projects, we've done some direct sourcing, but we've got opportunity to do more direct sourcing of ingredients. We've got our second line coming on.
That's right.
I think July of this year, July, August, for Big Bev, that'll be up and running by, you know, fully in Q4, and then we'll get that full benefit in 2027. There's some other vertical integration things we're in the middle of working on. Not ready to talk about them right now, but they're in process. Those will come to fruition in 2027 as well. And then we have additional opportunities from a scale perspective and in working with our manufacturers and in our orbit structure. Good line of sight to get there. A little bit of hedging because we don't know where the-
Yeah
commodities are going. We're at kind of all-time highs. If they go above that could put a little bit of pressure on getting to our target. We do see the ability to get there. Can we get there by the end of the year? Does it take a little bit into 2027? That'll kind of be dependent on where we see commodities go, but we've got a good plan in place, and then we've got opportunities again in 2027 as well.
All right. We only have a minute left, and I did wanna A couple things. I wanted to talk a little more on Rockstar, but maybe we should talk on international because quarter was quite impressive, 55% growth. How should we think about that business for you in the next few years? I mean, we've just talked through the long runway of growth you see in the United States, but, you know, increasingly, is that gonna be a bigger priority for your business? And, you know, if so, what are the advantages that you think you have to succeed?
Yeah, huge opportunity internationally. I mean, you can see what the competition is doing. same kind of macro and same kind of trends.
Yeah
here, you see there. We think modern energy is a huge opportunity there. We're seeing, you know, with the fruit forward, with the flavor profile, with the lifestyle, with the fitness, that's resonating in the markets we're going into with brand CELSIUS. We see the opportunity to do the same thing with brand Alani Nu. We see sugar-free is taking, is becoming a bigger play, especially in, let's call it some of your more Western locations.
Then we see it even moving into, you know, kind of the EMEA region and into Asia and those kind of markets as well. We think sugar-free is a huge opportunity. We think the female consumer will continue to be a big opportunity. We see huge runway for both Alani and CELSIUS as we look out over the next three to five years from a global perspective. We do have kind of that team built up now in Dublin.
Yeah
that can really help launch our international expansion.
Okay. That's great. Thank you so much for your time today.
All right.
It's great catching up with both of you.
Yep.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Bonnie.