Good morning, everyone, and thank you for tuning in. This is Nik Modi, RBC's Co-Head of Consumer Research, and I'm the analyst covering household personal care, packaged food, and beverages. We have a special fireside chat with Primo Brands this morning, and I would like to welcome its new CEO, Eric Foss, as well as Primo CFO, David Hass. They are joined by Traci Mangini. Let me kick it over to Eric very quickly for a few words, and then we'll get into our discussion. Eric, over to you.
Thanks, Nik. Good morning. It's great to be here, and I hope you and all the others had a great holiday and your new year's off to a great start. As you mentioned, I'm joined today by David Hass, our Chief Financial Officer, and Traci Mangini, who is our newly appointed Vice President of Investor Relations. Traci spent the last six years at Molson Coors Beverage Company, where she was the Vice President of Investor Relations. And prior to that, she was involved in other senior leadership roles across investor relations, corporate finance, and equity research. And I can tell you that I and we are very excited to have Traci joining the team Primo. So, Traci, welcome to Primo Brands.
Thanks, Eric. I'm so pleased to be here. I've spent over 20 years in various financial roles within public companies and in equity capital markets, and nearly all of that has been focused in the consumer sector. So I well recognize that this is such an exciting and pivotal time at Primo Brands, and I could not be more excited to join the team. Now, today's discussion will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. I'd like to direct you to the cautionary statements regarding forward-looking statements included in our most recent Form 10-Q filing and earnings release, which are both available under the Investor Relations section of our website. The Form 10-Q and earnings release include a discussion of the important factors that could cause results to differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.
As is customary, the content of today's discussion will be governed by this language, and the company undertakes no duty to update these forward-looking statements, except as expressly required by applicable law. In addition, during today's discussion, we may discuss certain Non-GAAP financial measures. These Non-GAAP financial measures exclude certain unusual or non-recurring items that management believes impact comparability of the periods referenced. Please refer to our historical earnings releases and presentation materials available under the Investor Relations section of our website for reconciliations and additional information. Finally, we will not be commenting on our fourth quarter or full year 2025 results. Any discussion of our performance today will be based on our results through the end of the third quarter, unless otherwise noted, and with that, I'd like to turn it back to you, Nik.
Thank you, Traci. And again, welcome and congratulations on the new role. So, Eric, just to start things off, maybe you can just walk us through what you've learned over the past few months as you've gone from board member to now CEO and operator about the current state of the business.
Sure. Well, I think first, Nik, as you mentioned, I had a front row seat as a director at Primo Legacy, and really, I think as you date back and think back about where all this started then and still today, I think it is just the reality that the industrial logic of this deal remains very clear and very compelling. It did at the time, and it still does today as I've stepped into the chairman and CEO role. What we've done is put together a leader in healthy hydration. We've got a comprehensive and a very well-positioned portfolio that can actually serve consumers across channels, segments, usage occasions, et cetera. In addition to that, we've got a very powerful route to market, and the synergy capture is tangible and doable.
And again, I think not only myself, but the management team continues to have a high degree of confidence in our ability to deliver against the run rate synergies. I'd say a second observation or learning is that integrations are very complex, challenging, and can take some time. Having been through these at other companies, there's three things that are really critical to any integration success. One is the culture. Second, a successful integration process. And third is achieving the synergy capture. And again, while we've made and continue to make a lot of progress across each of those, coming into the new role, from my perspective, there's still a lot more work to do. What we've done here is basically take two very similar-sized companies, BlueTriton Brands and Legacy Primo. One was public, one was private.
They had similar business models, but to be perfectly honest, they were run and operated very differently. So one of the first steps is to make sure we've got alignment on a one Primo culture. At the centerpiece of that culture, we've got to have a performance-oriented culture while also having a recognition culture. We need to put the customer first. We need to make sure we're frontline-first focused. And really, as leaders, we're here to support those folks on the frontline that make moves, sell, and deliver our products every day. And then as you think through the integration, we had some disruption in the supply chain. We had some business process disruption. We had some tech transfer challenges. And while we're making progress on all of those, again, it's not unusual to have speed bumps, setbacks as you work through any type of integration.
But I come back to, from my perspective, and I want to make sure that I'm clear on this, that the long-term investment thesis, from my purview as the Chair and CEO, is fully intact. This is a major player in branded beverages. We're actually the third largest player in LRB as measured by volume, pretty much week in and week out, which gets us a ton of credibility and a ton of leverage with the trade. We obviously compete in a very attractive category. The category is large. The category is growing. The category is profitable. We're a clear leader in the space in which we participate in, which is water and healthy hydration. And again, we've got strong brands and advantaged route to market and tons of exciting growth opportunities across multiple vectors.
I guess the final thing is that this is a very attractive financial model in terms of growth, margin expansion, a proven tuck-in acquisition model that's accretive and proven to work, and a business that can generate strong earnings and cash flow generation. So from my perspective, it did at the time and it does today, even though my role has changed. The deal makes a lot of sense. We're making progress. We still have work ahead of us. But the thesis to unlock kind of the growth and long-term shareholder value is still intact.
Excellent. Maybe just if you can talk about some of your experiences at Pepsi Bottling Group and Aramark and kind of how maybe there's some best practices that could transfer over to the situation at Primo that you find today.
As you know, Nik, what I've done really throughout my career is run global consumer-centric, fairly asset- and people-intensive business models, and most of that has been done in the food and beverage space, and I think if you look back, whether it was at Pepsi or Aramark, a proven track record of building brands, increasing scale, improving margins, driving earnings growth, and delivering shareholder value creation, and so I'm really excited about how that transfers here to Primo. There's tons of similarities, tons of transferable, I think, opportunities, and right now, our focus is really here around driving customer satisfaction and loyalty, building an engaged workforce, and making sure we deliver strong and sustainable financial success, which is obviously very similar to what we were trying to do in the prior two roles.
I think, again, if I go back to some of the business model similarities, what's transferable? Again, it starts with building the right team and the right culture. I'm a big believer that the marketplace sets the table. And so in all three of these business models, really getting an understanding of what the consumer needs and wants are to improve customer satisfaction is really, really important. And again, I think if you think about those three companies that I've been privileged to lead, they've all had a strong portfolio of brands. They've all had a powerful route to market, and they've all had a committed team of associates. And so I remember at the time, back pre the PBG IPO, we were sitting around as a leadership team talking about what was going to matter most to be successful.
And it was things like brand building and innovation, things like service execution and operational excellence at the moment of truth. And those are applicable to Primo. And if I go back to the kind of model we implemented at Pepsi, we were on this common, what I call, journey towards excellence. On the marketing excellence, it is about brand building and innovation. On the selling excellence, it is about a clear right to win. On service excellence, it is being great at the moment of truth where we have opportunities here. On the execution side, it is making sure we can drive disparate inventory and points of availability and space gains. And it is about operational excellence in the way we make, move, and deliver in an effective and efficient way. And so those skills, experiences that have been applicable in other careers that I have had are definitely applicable at Primo.
Yeah. And just going back to the leadership and the culture, you made some of those comments earlier. Can you maybe give us some specifics in terms of what you're seeing and maybe where the upside opportunities are?
When I think about leadership, I think leadership is critical. Again, I'm a big believer that I never really viewed myself, I guess, going back to the Pepsi days that I was in the carbonated soft drink business or beverage business. At Aramark, I never viewed myself as being in the food service or uniform business. At Primo, I don't really view myself as being in the water business. I view myself as being in the people business. Each of those companies have thousands of associates that almost on a daily basis are engaging millions of consumers. Those points of engagement each and every day make it really important to be good because we're really in the people business. I'm a big believer that the team with the best players win. I mentioned it earlier.
I'm a big believer that we've got to focus on the front line. If we do that, that's going to have a big impact on how we are able to service and execute and sell against our customers day in and day out. I think we've got to make sure we've got the right winning culture and value set. Again, it's about performance and recognition. It's about one team Primo. We got to make sure we continue to invest in training and tools and technology, particularly for our frontline associates. And again, I think the way I think about our people, I mean, as CEO, I get to do a lot of things. And obviously, we're focused on growth. We're focused on making sure we drive long-term shareholder value. But one of my most important roles, at least from my purview, is really head coach and cheerleader.
And so we've got to attract, retain, grow our talent, make sure we're building careers. And from a leadership standpoint, my leadership model has four key dimensions to it. And so as we look at assessing capability of the team, it really is around whether they can or can't on the capability side and whether they will or won't on the culture side. But my leadership model is really focused on results, people who perform and can put points on the board, people who are good people leaders and can coach and motivate and energize an organization. Influence leadership is, I think, really important in any business today. And the last dimension of that leadership model is really ideal leadership. And it's about vision and strategy. But in these businesses, fast-moving consumer goods, it's mostly about the ability to simplify and focus.
So I mean, that's kind of the framework for how I think about leadership and how I think about evaluating leaders here or at other businesses that I've run.
Excellent. Now, we have a lot of folks dialed in today, and some are new to the story. So maybe just if you can provide some of your insight in terms of the category strength, right? You talked about Primo's positioning, but talk about the category and why you think this is such an attractive market.
Yeah, sure. Well, let me start with the category, and I want to make sure I incorporate why I think we're positioned to win as well. I think the category attractiveness is driven by a number of factors. I mean, the fact is that municipal water bills continue to rise. If you look at the last five years, they're up about 5%. If you look at the liquid refreshment beverage category, bottled water is the largest beverage category as measured by volume in the U.S. That's been the case for almost a decade. In 2025, we're coming off a year where the category was the second fastest-growing scaled category within LRB. So there's a lot to like. I mentioned earlier, it's large, it's growing, it's profitable. And I think what's even more important is Primo's positioning within the category because we are the market leader.
At retail, we're the largest branded player by value or volume share. We're the clear leader in the home and office direct delivery business. We're the market leader in both the refill and the exchange businesses. We're the number one seller of branded water dispensers. And we've got this industry-leading brand portfolio that really is designed to serve really every consumer occasion across product, across format, across channel, price point, day parts, etc. And so we're excited about that. Again, if you think about our portfolio, we've got a couple of brands that are more than $1 billion. We've got five brands that are $300 million plus. We've got the Pure Life, the natural leader, national leader in purified water, six regional spring waters that in their respective markets are the leader, and two of the fastest-growing brands in our two high-growth premium brands, Saratoga Springs and Mountain Valley.
So again, I think not just the category, but our position in the category, we really are positioned to serve consumers anywhere, any way they want.
Excellent. So let's move on to the water delivery business because I know there's a lot of focus and interest there. How have service rates, fulfillment rates, and customer quits trended since September?
Yeah, sure. I'm sure this is a question that I know there's a lot of interest on the phone. So let me maybe back up if I can, Nik, and talk a little bit about what happened, maybe what I saw as I stepped into the CEO role, what corrective actions we've taken, and then a little bit about what's maybe behind us that we feel like we've solved, and then some of the things that remain in terms of actions and some challenges. So one, I'll also share maybe a few specific metrics that, from my purview at least, are pretty encouraging. So one, we experienced several challenges across the supply chain. And they run the gamut from product availability challenges to equipment and rack challenges that came through the acquisition. We had some tech transfer data management challenges.
And all three of those kind of impacted our order fulfillment and customer service. So having said that, I think we are making pretty significant progress on multiple fronts. Let me start with the supply chain. We've really obsessed about improving and making sure we've got an accurate sales forecast. We have product produced as scheduled. We've attacked and reduced warehouse out of stocks, which allows us to get trucks loaded as ordered. And we've seen the metrics across each and every one of those.
Eric, sorry. Right when you started answering the question, you cut out. Can you just kind of go back when you started talking about the issues that you were addressing?
Sure. Yeah. My apologies. I'm not sure what happened, but sure, so I think I said we experienced several challenges across the supply chain, number one. We had tech transfer challenges as well, and kind of the combination of supply chain, product availability and equipment, tech transfer data management, all impacted our order fulfillment and customer service. So what I was saying is that we have made pretty significant progress on each and every one of those, so I'll take you through some level of specificity just to give you some texture for what we've done in the work that we've got behind us. From a forecast to getting product produced properly to getting trucks loaded properly, all of those success metrics have improved pretty significantly. Our product produced to schedule, which was at one point in the low 80% range, is now 99% +.
Warehouse out of stocks, same thing, 99% +. As we've done that, that translates into reduced customer calls. And we've seen an improvement, importantly, in customer quits. As we saw in fourth quarter, as the quarter continued to evolve, we saw those metrics improve pretty much week in and week out. From a selling and delivery standpoint, we have to continue to focus on making sure we get account services scheduled or what we call delivery success rate. And we have to make sure the most stringent measure here is what we call on time in full, where the order is there not only on the day and time, but in full. And the reality is, the two companies, as I mentioned earlier, they were run somewhat differently across several dimensions. One of those was OTIF. It was measured differently.
So we now have an aligned metric on how we look at that. And the other thing that we've implemented since I got here is something that I've done back in the Pepsi days, which is an initiative we call Respond and Recover. It was clear to me as I was coming in that we were getting far too many calls. And as we tried to connect those calls back from the call center to the depot, to the manager, to the route, it wasn't happening as quickly as we needed to. And so we implemented this Respond and Recover, what we call Solve by Sundown, which to me creates not only the right process, but it creates a sense of urgency and a lot more of a rapid response that once the customer service issue is there, we have the ability to get that fixed.
So net- net, we've had a lot of progress. Again, we still have more work to do. But I would tell you, I was very encouraged by how we saw the metrics improve as we went through the quarter in Q4. And it did translate into improved growth trajectory or the performance of the customer direct business trajectory-wise, improved each and every month as we went through the quarter.
Excellent. Okay. Now, that's very helpful and really good detail. Maybe just when you think about the customer acquisition strategy, and I just want to because there's two components here, right? It's kind of getting back the service levels, continuing to recruit new customers, and then to this point, make up for some of the lost customers that you've kind of gone through over the last few quarters. So maybe just talk about the plan or the path and the timeline of customer acquisition, your strategy there as it relates to digital clubs, inorganic, etc.
Sure, so I think, again, as it applies to customer direct, let me talk about kind of ads, quits, and nets. As we got through the month of December, while still negative, we were much closer to the standard range that was actually pre-deal than we had been pretty much since early in the year, so we continued to see sequential improvement, and we are encouraged by, I think, the top of the funnel kind of customer demand, which continues to remain pretty strong. Again, we still have some actions to take, and I want to maybe, if I can, Nik, in addition to talking about customer acquisition, maybe just take the group through what other work remains relative to customer direct as we go forward, so while we've taken a lot of actions, there are still some actions ahead of us, and so let me try to cover that.
If I don't cover your specific question, please come back to it. But I think, number one, we are going to be implementing a new warehouse management system that will further assist us in our ability to get the supply chain executed flawlessly. Second, there's a lot of work underway around SAP integration and data harmonization so that we can have more unified reporting. To your question, we've got work underway to make sure we continue to enhance and deliver a better digital and customer app experience. We've got a body of work underway around customer journey optimization so that we can treat our most valued customers appropriately. We've got win-back initiatives that have been in place and will continue in place for some time with investment behind that.
And then we have what I'm going to call kind of our future state call center where we want to continue to reconceptualize our processes, our technology, and our capabilities. So again, while I'm pleased with the progress we've made, there's still plenty of heavy lifting ahead of us on this. And that applies both to kind of the back of the house, supply chain, technology, as well as some of the things we're doing on customer acquisition.
Excellent. And just if I can just clarify, historically, is December a month where this business typically sees customer losses just from a seasonality standpoint? I just want to make sure I understand kind of how it works seasonality-wise.
Yes. I think that's fair. I think you should think about the seasonality of this business like you would any beverage business between summer and then the off-peak months. So yes, I think the answer is correct.
And to the degree you're comfortable, Eric, maybe you can give us kind of thoughts on phasing, right, the shape of customer recovery in 2026. How should we think about it? Because I think a lot of investors, I don't think there's much debate around the investment thesis to your point. I think it's pretty clear. It's more of a timing issue in terms of the shape. So maybe you can just give us some comments if you care to.
Yeah. I think it's tough for us to talk much about the shape of 2026. I think that's something Nik will come back to as we report in February. What I can do if you want is I can maybe frame up for you a little bit of kind of the strategy that I have and maybe how that applies specifically to growth because I do want to make sure that investors are obviously aware that while customer direct is an important part of our business, so is the retail business. And as we think about growing this business, I think there are several steps we need to take. So from my perspective, strategically, we're right now in kind of this phase of what I'm going to call Fit to Win. And we've got to get some of these issues that we have behind us.
And that's all about synergy capture, an effective and efficient SG&A structure, making sure we get the integrated supply chain set up for service speed, cost advantage, really driving operational excellence day in and day out. And then we get this customer direct service model to a point where it's creating a great customer experience. But what's most exciting to me is our ability to grow this core and really return to growth, given we've got multiple growth vectors around really unleashing the brand power first and foremost, getting the full potential of the customer direct business across direct exchange and refill performing. But at retail, we still have a lot of opportunities to drive largely the playbook we ran at PBG, which was really driving service and executional excellence. And the ability to do that through feature frequency and display inventory and space is certainly here.
You're going to see us put a really big push around conquering cold and continuing to move our premium business, and then another lever that I don't think we've used as strategically as we can here is just the whole revenue management price pack architecture, which again was another one that was critically important to us, and I think if we do that, that'll put us into kind of a third phase of more transformation. Obviously, we want to innovate and we want to make sure that we get back to the accretive tuck-in acquisition model and other opportunities we have out there, but there are just tremendous growth opportunities, I think, across this business that goes well beyond customer direct.
Yeah. And just before we move over to the retail side, just real quick, you mentioned synergies earlier, but does the math work in a way where you have to spend more money in order to kind of retain existing customers, recruit those new customers? I mean, do you still feel comfortable with the initial synergy target, or do you think that you're going to have to effectively spend more than what was originally anticipated given some of these challenges?
I think we feel comfortable with the synergy target that we will capture it. But to your point, there has been, and over the near term, there will continue to be investments to make sure we stabilize this business. So there's no doubt that there have been as we went through 2025, and there will continue to be, I think, particularly in the early part of 2026, to make sure we stabilize that business. That is priority one for us right now.
Okay. Makes sense. Makes sense. All right. Let's move on to the retail business. So 2025 was a substantial year of distribution gains. So maybe help quantify those gains, the financial impact, and kind of how we should think about that moving forward because I'm sure you can see it just like I can. Aquafina and the decision that Pepsi made there has opened up, I think, a lot of opportunity for competitors. And I think Coke is not focusing on case pack water for Dasani either. So maybe just give us your thoughts there on that side of the business.
I think to your point, we were certainly pleased with the roughly 10% kind of double-digit total points of distribution that we saw in our retail business in 2025. Again, as I think about retail growth going forward, distribution points of availability will be important, but driving executional excellence is really all about improving your feature frequency, driving display inventory levels, making sure we can penetrate the perimeter, conquering cold drink. Again, that journey of excellence that I talked about earlier really changes what I think has been an orientation around points of distribution to a much more comprehensive development approach.
And I know our retail teams are really working hard against this, but we are excited and believe that, again, given our brand portfolio and given our increased focus and attention around driving executional excellence, we'll continue to see solid momentum around some of those key causal indicators.
Great. And with the premium channel experiencing over 40% growth the past few quarters, what makes you confident? I mean, you mentioned it in some of your earlier remarks that this can continue.
Sure. Well, I think premium is one of those many growth vectors I highlighted earlier. So both Saratoga and Mountain Valley continue to see improvement. And I think what makes this sustainable from my standpoint is you start with looking at brand equity. You start at looking at some of the consumer purchase funnel metrics. As you think about things like awareness, value, affinity, consideration, past 12-month purchase and usage, all of that is trending in a very favorable direction. In addition to that, household penetration continues to improve on both brands, but it's still at a very de minimis level. So with a ton of room to grow that as we go forward. And I feel good about the marketing plans that the marketing team has built on Saratoga. We've got a new campaign that you'll see across TV, print, digital.
Mountain Valley, we're going to be sponsoring the American Country Music Awards, and so to me, we also have an executionally, I would say, long runway ahead of us. Again, some of the same things I just talked about more broadly on our retail business certainly apply to premium, so we love where we are with both of these brands in the premium space and see continued growth as we walk this forward.
Excellent. In this last portion of our call, it was called five to 10 minutes. I wanted to take the discussion just at the enterprise level, right? So just kind of total Primo, and when you think about taking a step back, how should we think about the growth algorithm in 2026 in terms of the building blocks? There was a part of the thesis was there was going to be pricing in the HOD or direct business. Obviously, you can't do that while you're going through some of these challenges. So if you could just give us some of those building blocks, and is pricing still part of the plan at some point in the future?
Yeah, it absolutely is. I mean, I think about it as there's really five building blocks to think about as we enter 2026. One is our ability to restore the service model around customer direct. So that will be a really important driver and certainly one of those building blocks. Second, our ability to continue to drive executional excellence at retail will be the second building block. Third, prioritizing premium that we just talked about will be a building block. Conquering cold drink. We've got a small format cold drink direct store delivered test that will start up in Texas that we're very excited about. So you should expect cold drink to be part of that building block scenario.
I do think, Nik, that what I'm going to call a strategic and a proactive revenue management approach across price, pack, channel, we do have opportunities certainly from a mix standpoint, but we also have some targeted rate opportunities, right? I mean, the closer you link purchase to consumption, the more oriented that consumer is on convenience versus price. And yet, obviously, with our case pack business, the more you delink purchase and consumption, the more price value oriented they are. So because of our portfolio and breadth across the channel reach, we will have pricing opportunities as we think about both, I would say, our customer direct business and our retail business over time. So those are the five building blocks.
Excellent. And then, Eric, now that you're in the CEO seat, how should we think about metrics, right, that you and the team along with Traci, of course, you just joined, but when we think about major KPIs that investors should be focusing on and disclosures that you'll be providing, if they would be different from what was happening prior?
So Nik, I guess the way I think about metrics is if I go into one of our markets, the first thing I'm going to want to understand is what are the important marketplace metrics: market share, customer satisfaction, or NPS, employee engagement, and I've found over the years that if those are headed in the right direction, I can almost predict where the second chapter of those financial metrics, which are financial, are going to land, but on the financial metric side, obviously, revenue, looking at volume, price, rate, mix, what we do on the margin expansion. I do believe we've got margin opportunity here over time as well. Obviously, profitability and then what happens from a free cash flow and conversion as well as leverage and returns are the core financial metrics that are front and center.
And then the third chapter of metrics is kind of the more operational metrics. I've shared some of those with you today across the supply chain. In addition to what I shared with you, obviously, we'll be very attentive to customer call center metrics. But all of those, customer retention across the supply chain, obviously, ads, quits, and nets are critical operational metrics. The last bucket is probably more of an internal one. There are times where, for obvious competitive reasons, we won't go into a lot of that specificity, but really three buckets: marketplace metrics, financial metrics, and operational metrics.
Excellent, and you discussed kind of margin opportunities. Can you just maybe give us some thoughts on what exactly that would be or those initiatives would look like outside of synergies?
Yeah, sure. I think as I think about margin, I mean, obviously, job number one is to make sure we achieve the run rate synergies, but we do have opportunities beyond that. I think, one, I'm a big believer that great companies year in and year out have a comprehensive development approach to cost and productivity and that starts with making sure we've got an effective and efficient SG&A structure. It extends across manufacturing, warehousing, route, selling, and delivery. Certainly includes procurement, so I think there's certainly cost and productivity across our enterprise that will continue to work and get better at and then the other big lever, in addition to cost and productivity, is the ability to leverage the strategic pricing potential, so both of those will be part of our strategies and plans.
Again, for any great company that wants to achieve long-term success, driving cost and productivity and being strategic and building the right pricing competencies and skills is critically important. That's exactly what we'll do here.
Perfect. A couple of last questions here before we wrap up. Any more non-core divestitures that the investor community needs to be thinking about in terms of go forward numbers?
First, I think we've successfully divested all of the international operations. The OCS windup is also getting close to being completed. That's good. I think as we think about this going forward, over time, we may evaluate our Canadian direct delivery operation. At the moment, with everything else going on, we haven't spent much time on that with any level of kind of strategic review of the business. That's the way I would have you think about it.
Perfect. And then the last one here is, obviously, when things get a little bit more normalized on the direct delivery platform, how do you and the board now think about future M&A? I know tuck-ins, obviously, that's going to be an ongoing thing. But just as you think about the portfolio long term and the business model long term, maybe just chime in on some thoughts there.
Sure. Well, I'd start with I just want to make sure I emphasize that right now, our focus is really around getting the customer direct business fixed, kind of what I referred to as getting fit to win. And then it'll be on growing our core. And so this is something as we get through that, we'll certainly look to. But my value creation model really is all around first, solid and sustainable organic growth. Second, making sure we've got strong productivity and margins attached to that. That generates pretty good free cash flow generation. And then I get to strategic M&A. And I do think at some point we'll look at that where we have opportunities to either add scale, add capability, improve our competitive position.
But again, we obviously are going to continue down the path of deleveraging and making sure those businesses have the right return profile on them. But again, while our primary focus, I'd say, would be the healthy hydration category within North America, there are, I think, lots of opportunities for us as we get more into that transformative chapter that I referred to earlier around M&A.
Excellent. Well, we're at time, Eric. Again, I want to thank you and the Primo team for making yourselves available. I know people have been wanting to hear from you. So this is a great opportunity to start off the new year. Really appreciate it. And best of luck this year. And we look forward to hearing from you guys when you report earnings.
Nik, thank you much. Enjoy the time. And again, just I guess in closing, I would say, first of all, thanks for your interest and continued investment in Primo. To those on the phone, we're continuing to make progress to get this fully restored service model around customer direct. And as I mentioned earlier, we're encouraged, but more work to do. The deal logic and value creation thesis certainly remains. And we're really excited given the strength of the category and our position within it. And as we go forward, we're committed to continuing to grow and create shareholder value as we walk this forward. So thank you and look forward to talking to you on our February earnings call.
Excellent. Thank you. And thanks all for chiming in. Reach out if you have any questions.