We have once again with us, Norman Snyder, the CEO of Reed's. The format for today will be a management presentation for the first 20 or so minutes, followed by Q&A. For those of you in the audience that may have a question, please type it into the Q&A box at the bottom of your Zoom screen, and I'll read the question out loud. So, with no further delay, Norman, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Anthony. I appreciate it, and it's a pleasure to be here. I look forward to some great questions at the completion of my presentation. All right. For those that don't know Reed's, great history. The brand has been in existence for over 37 years. Virgil's is not too far behind. It was acquired by the Reed's Company in 1999, and both brands are known for their innovation, their quality, and their category leadership. We're proud to work with both of these brands. Reed's went public in 2006, moved the company headquarters in 2018 from Southern California to Norwalk, Connecticut, and brought in a new management team. Since then, there's been a steady stream of innovation and product extensions. We've been very busy trying to keep up with time and really turn Reed's into a modern company.
Through 2023, we've had six consecutive quarters of operating expense and profitability improvements. However, we hit some headwinds midway through 2024, where the balance sheet really challenged our ability to grow, particularly our line of credit, which was not really favorable for our situation, and it created a bunch of short shipments that I'm going to talk about, which really impacted, particularly in this past third quarter, our ability to deliver to our customers. However, you know, from the point, if I could go back in time from when I joined the company in 2019 into COVID, we really had, we were really challenged, like most companies, with supply chain challenges and, more importantly, the inflationary cost of all of our goods. I've never seen every one of our input costs go up multiple times over a two-year period, and we just couldn't take costs up fast enough.
Our transportation costs, like everybody else's, went through the roof. So we struggled through that, but really focused on three things: one, right-sizing our cost structure to the point where we become cash flow neutral or cash flow positive. Then we were going to attack the balance sheet and clean that up. We had a very heavy debt load, which was adversely impacting our ability to move forward. And then three, to be relisted in a major exchange. Well, post-COVID period, we really made progress with our cost structure. We brought our gross margin up. We took our operating costs down. We really created a lean operating environment to the point where we were cash flow neutral, but we still had the overhang of this balance sheet.
I'm really happy to announce that this past October, one of our investors came in and increased their position and then worked out a deal where they bought out all of our senior secured debt from Whiteb ox, which is a material change in our debt position. In addition, Whiteb ox, that we have a great working relationship, was able to take out our existing asset-backed line and provide a less costly but more flexible $10 million line of credit, which provides us the ability to really meet demand, and we've been ramping up our inventory position since then. In addition, we've streamlined our board, and we brought in some new leadership, particularly in the public sector.
And we've changed from being in really survival mode and transforming the company now, focusing on growth and profitability, which has been a remarkable change and something that we've, you know, inherently everybody wants to do, but we've been really focused on really survival and improvement, and we'll continue to take those lessons forward. Talking about return to top-line growth, which, you know, we're champing at the bit. We're going to do that through several different avenues. One, by reducing short shipments and improving our delivery and service to our customers, we're going to increase sales velocity and ACV penetration. And a lot of that's happened, at least from the ACV expansion, has happened this year, and we'll lead into that for next year. We'll also go into new channels and expand on-premise food service.
We've built back our e-commerce business, club, and convenience, our channels that we look to expand. We also have some new innovation, and I've talked about this previously in our earnings call, but we're really excited about this. We have a ginger adaptogen functional line, which we've showed to several retailers, and we have authorizations, and we'll point out some of those later on, but we're really excited to introduce this product line in 2025. We really believe it dovetails nicely with our ginger base, who we are, and that's what we're really focusing on, and it's a big point of difference for us. We've converted to Virgil's full sugar cans to help with pricing pressures that's impacted the entire marketplace.
We've come out with some variety packs, which we've used at club stores, and then we have seven and a half ounce cans, which we're using at food service and on-premise. So all these product extensions have been accepted very well. While we have this, we're not going to turn or ignore our profitability and our ability to continue to grow that. We've improved margins significantly since the COVID days, but we're going to continue to do that through formula optimization and cost reduction in virtually all of our categories: cans, labels, ingredients, corrugated wraps, things that we really incurred massive increases during that period of inflationary pressure. We'll also continue to really monitor and manage our operating costs. We have a very lean cost structure. We'll continue to do that. We'll make additional key new hires as necessary to continue to build our business and really focus on results.
The other opportunity, and we've done a lot of work here, is on our logistics and warehouse cost reductions. We did a study a couple of years ago, and we determined where the best operating locations were to service our customer line. And we went through a lot of iterations, but we're in the final implementation of that network optimization. We're looking to improve our OTIF and throughput measurements, which will bring down costs and also help the top line. We've had a big focus on shifting from bottles to cans, although we still sell in glass. We've really turned our mix from about 70/30 bottles to about 65/35 now cans, and that'll continue to grow. And the other opportunity is just more efficient in eliminating out of network shipment.
So, continued top-line growth, continued innovation, but managing our cost structure to become more profitable and continue to make improvements where we've had success. Part of that is, you know, the growth, and we've been talking about this for a couple of years now, is really our big point of difference and where we're going to leverage our future is on ginger. And we're focusing on categories where the total addressable markets are larger. You know, we've gone from just focusing on the ginger beer category. Now we're in the ginger ale category, and we've gone into the flavored malt beverage with our ginger ale and our Classic Mule. So we really think those are categories that will really drive growth.
Now, one of the things that's not on here is, again, the functional ginger and adaptogen-based product, and that's a very fast-growing category, and we think it plays right into who we are. Ginger beer category, still growing high single digits, and we'll see great growth there. We've also converted into cans, not only the seven-and-a-half-ounce, but the 12-ounce can, which has been received very well, and we'll continue to see growth in our ginger beer. One of the categories that we talked about, I talked about earlier, which I'm very excited about, is the ginger ale. Big, big category. Now, the growth is not as high as some of the other categories, you know, at just under 4%, but it is a huge category.
We are the only national ginger ale and ginger beer for that actually uses real ginger in their product. I think that's a big point of differentiation. It's a quality product that tastes good, but actually has ginger ale in it, and we're really going to play that up and expect to see a lot of growth in the ginger ale category moving forward. This is a product shot of our full sugar and zero sugar ginger ale. I mentioned the RTD category, and we're in there with our Classic Mule and with our ginger ale. Again, this is a category where we see a lot of potential. This has been a slow build for us. We've really focused on retailers that we've had great success with Reed's, the Reed's brand, and that consumers know us. It's a slow build.
We've really focused on Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, and now we're branching out into some additional retailers where we've had great success, and we expect to see a big growth on this category for us. Obviously, it's a huge category in North America, and it's still having pretty high growth rates and a lot of opportunity. Oops, wrong way here, and this on the left, you can see our Hard Ginger Ale, and then on the right is our Classic Mule. Zero sugar is, again, another category that's showing strong growth, 11% compound annual growth rates. We have both zero sugar in our Reed's side and our Virgil's, but see a big opportunity in the all-natural or natural zero sugar category with Virgil's, and we're seeing some growth there, and quite frankly, see a lot of great opportunity.
So those are really, you know, if you break down our portfolio where we're looking at, but we see, you know, growth opportunities, obviously, in the ginger ale, which is a large category. We see it in the flavored malt beverage category, again, the functional carbonated soft drink, which is a new emerging category, and there's been a lot of space created there, and we're excited about our ginger-based product there, and then obviously the zero sugar. One of our strengths and what we will continue to leverage is our national footprint. We have distribution in all 50 states. We're in every major retailer in terms of grocery and the natural channel. We're growing in the mass and in club stores.
You know, the one category that we've been challenged, and I think most premium natural beverages have been, is the convenience, but we're working on products to really crack that. And as more convenience come into offering better- for- you products, and they seem to be sticking and moving, we'll take advantage of that. We're also online at Amazon, Shopify, and Instacart, and that aspect part of our business has been growing. But I think that the point is here, we have a national presence, there's a lot of white space to grow, and we have the ability to really take advantage of that. And I think with our strategy and our product line, 2025 will be a year of significant growth. If we look at our performance, and this dovetails with what I've said earlier.
If you look, the green bars are top line, and you can see through 2022, we did have year-after-year growth. You can see from 2020 down to 2022, the impact of the inflationary pressure and how it took our margins backward, and if you look at the EBITDA loss numbers, we were moving in the right direction, and obviously that put pressure on that to go down further. Our margins recovered in 2023, although our top line came down a bit as it did in 2024, but the margins continued to improve, and you can see the EBITDA loss did, and you know, that was both a combination of gross margin improvements, lower sales in general and administrative costs, but as important as transportation reductions and warehouse fees, we've become more efficient, and we still think there's a big opportunity with all three of those.
Here the numbers are just in numerical form versus the graphs. You know, you can see the margins on the bottom line where they started, and then they came back up, went backwards during that COVID inflationary period, have come back up, and will continue. We talked about some of the challenges with the top line, primarily driven by short shipments. The demand has been strong over those past years, and we really look forward to eradicating that with this new capital structure and the fix in our balance sheet. Investment highlights, I think this is pretty, is not really straight from the past. You know, see if a seasoned beverage company with multi-year leading position in the ginger category, as well as the craft soda category.
There's no confusion that both food and beverage categories have moved towards the health and wellness trends and better-for-you ingredients and products, and we've been that from day one. And one of the things that's been challenging is, you know, plant-based and better-for-you has really emerged over the last decade, and we've been there for 30 years, and sometimes we don't get credit for that. We continue to beat that drum in, but I really believe the functional and the adaptogen drink that we're going to come out will introduce Reed's to a much younger audience and help broadcast that message further. I showed you the slide earlier about the national partnerships nationwide and the distribution network we have, which is an asset and a strength. We have an accelerator, or we have an experience management team that will handle the growth and obviously manage through the cost structure.
And then there's so many, as I showed you by the category analysis, there's so many opportunities out there in the near term where we can grow and take advantage of our position and our product platforms. This is, again, a snapshot of our portfolio, you know, the Reed's Ginger Beer, which is in both bottles and cans. We have full sugar and zero sugar, and then three strengths of Ginger Beer, our Ginger Ale, full sugar and zero sugar. And then on our Virgil's portfolio, we have full sugar and zero sugar. And what we don't have in here, we do in the lower right, we have the full sugar root beer, but now we have the full complement of both bottles and cans. Our Flying Cauldron, award-winning Flying Cauldron, and the upper right, our alcohol portfolio, and then our seasonal, which consists primarily of swing lid glass.
Some of the wins, and there's a lot here. I'm just going to point out Kroger. When I talk about the functional assortment, took us in six divisions for 2025, so we're really pleased about that. Whole Foods, we continue to grow, and we did a national alcohol display in July, very successful, and they've been a big partner there. Sprouts is also going to be taking our new product line, but they have a full complement of all of our products. Walmart, we're going into the mixer set with our 7.5-ounce cans. Costco, we're expanding our relationship. Just to mention a few, and then Cracker Barrel, we've taken over as being their primary ginger beer. So a lot of wins on the retail side, and we look forward to additional pickups, but we're getting more products authorized, and we're really excited about the authorization of our new innovative line.
Senior team, in addition to myself, Joann Tinnelly is our Chief Financial Officer. Chris Burleson's our Chief Commercial Officer, and we're presently conducting a search for a Vice President of Operations. Our board that I talked about consists of Shufen Deng, our Chairperson, Lee Edwards, Sam Van, who's new, myself, and then Lou Jaffe. And that's the team. That's our story. We're excited about 2025. I mean, very rarely does a company have the ability to really hit what I call the reset button. And by cleaning off our balance sheet, putting the proper capital structure, giving us the ability to execute on the things that we need to do, and more importantly, turn into a set of playing defense, not playing a little bit of offense and really trying to grow the top line, but also without sacrificing our focus on profitability, is a game changer.
And we really look forward to 2025, and you know, great brands, great recognition. We have great partners, both from our vendor standpoint, retail partners, and we all look forward to working together and having a very successful 2025. So Anthony, I think I'm ready for, and I believe it or not, I think I'm a minute ahead, so I stayed on schedule. So I think we're ready for Q&A. And as I remember the last time I spoke at, and I said this to you before we went on air here, that I was really impressed by the questions that people asked. And that's always a very gratifying aspect of speaking is when people ask questions. So I think we're ready for that, so we'll find out how I did with the questions.
Yes, yeah. Yeah.
And for those in the audience, as a quick reminder, if you do have a question, you can type it into the Q&A box at the bottom of your Zoom screen, and I'll read the questions out loud. And yes, thank you certainly for providing a terrific overview of the Reed's story, getting an update on what's going on here. So I have a question of my own, which I'll combine with one of the questions that came in here. So as far as when you look at your sales channels, right, so you are well distributed, but I guess where do you see the most opportunity? And conversely, I guess which channel do you see the most competition in?
Well, there's competition in every channel. So that's a hard one. I mean, you know, everything that you do, you know, you're going to find great brands and great competitors.
You know, some categories, I think the alcohol category is probably from a competitive in the money that's spent is probably a little bit more challenging, but every aspect that we see, I think there's a, it's competitive. And look at everyone's gotten smarter and better. You know, retailers are better, distributors are better, competitors are better. There's some great brands and there's some great people behind it. So you know, there's nothing that kind of sticks out as more challenging. And obviously, from our aspect, the convenience channel has been the most difficult to gain a toehold in. So maybe that's the answer. But everything that we do, you know, there's plenty of competition.
Understood. Okay. And then when you look at your product mix right now, I guess what's the breakdown between cans and bottles and what is your end goal as far as that's concerned?
Maybe talk about the margin difference between cans and bottles.
Look, and I don't know if there's an end goal. I think the marketplace will organically determine what that mix is based on consumer preference. Part of the, look, if you look at the driving force behind the can, and I don't think it's coincidental, but if you look at all the innovation that's occurred in the beverage space over the last decade, it's been primarily cans. You know, there's, I mean, there hasn't been a lot in glass. There certainly has been very little in PET, but the benefits of, you know, and consumers accept cans now as a premium package, where before it was looked at as a low-end package. Retailers love it. Distributors love it. We love it. I mean, the product quality stands up better in a can, believe it or not. There's less breakage.
The transportation costs, we get 42% more throughput. You know, the total package to produce is cheaper. And the other aspect of that is with what's going on with price increases, it's no secret that volumes have come down, right? Consumers have said, "We're not going to pay those higher prices." Now, there are exceptions, and there always are, but it gives us the ability to offer our products at a lower price point to consumers to sort of combat that inflationary pressure that they're seeing and that we're seeing because they're speaking with their wallets. They're not buying as much as they did prior to these prices going up. So, you know, obviously, we made an effort to get more into cans, and most of our new products have been introduced in cans.
But the consumers are going to tell us, and there's going to be certain channels where glass works better and certain channels where cans work better. But certainly, we've had success, and we've kind of flipped the paradigm. We were, you know, 70, 30 bottles of cans, and I think now we're 65, 35 cans to bottles, and we'll probably get to 70, 30. But there's no real end goal. I mean, obviously, we've made progress there, and we'll let the market determine what that final mix looks like.
Gotcha. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. So, you know, as you expand the product portfolio, can you give us some thoughts as far as how you approach marketing, and are you looking to increase your budget for ad spending to get the word out?
Look, and everyone knows when you're looking to save money, the first thing you do is cut marketing. I mean, and then, you know, you hope not to cut people, but if you have to do that, then you cut heads, but marketing seems like the first thing to go, and obviously we've done that. We're doing the bare, bare minimums. Part of that growth strategy is to bring back marketing, create a budget, create a plan. You know, we're not going to, we don't have the ability to do the entire portfolio, but like I said, I think ginger ale is a big opportunity that people don't know about us. When they discover us, the feedback that we receive is tremendous.
You know, not to name names, but I think I just saw a class action suit against some of our larger competitors in that space that they got their hand slapped previously for not making claims that they had real ginger when they didn't. But now there's a suit out there that's saying that the ingredients they are using to flavor are synthetic. You know, and we're the real deal. There's real ginger in it. I think there's a big opportunity to grab more market share, but we've got to communicate that message out, right? And I think that's a big point of difference in the efficacy of what ginger provides. So I think that's a big category, this new category that we're getting into. I talked about, I think there's a big opportunity there. You know, on the alcohol side, I think there's an opportunity there.
So we'll prioritize, but we'll gradually introduce more spending. And, you know, we're not going to save our way out of this. We're going to grow our way out of this. And I think fixing our cost structure, our balance sheet, and our capital structure provides us the ability to do that in a very cost-efficient manner and grow without sacrificing profitability and cash flow.
Gotcha. Understood. So just curious, so with the recent election, you know, with Trump naming RFK Jr. as the new HHS secretary, and he's, you know, talked about, you know, banning some synthetic or additives or, you know, artificial flavors. Do you think if that he follows through on that, do you think that could play to your benefit?
Obviously, and I just think creating the visibility that's out there and that people are looking at it is beneficial because, you know, one thing that we've never compromised on is our quality, how we produce it, our ingredients, our formulations. You know, we're really driven by that. And that's something, like I said, that we'd never go back on. And we're even, you know, we continually look for things to improve on because there's always, you can always be better, right? So I think that plays well into us, but that's who we've always been. And that's going to be, you know, our message and our point of difference in a lot of these categories as to what our products consist of, how they're made, and the quality ingredients.
I mean, I wish I had a bullhorn and I could stand on the top of a mountain and scream so everybody could hear it because, you know, we live this every day, and I'm constantly looking at competitive products and looking at labels and tasting. And, you know, I'm proud of what we've done. And I think that just more knowledge and more focus on that only helps us. Right. Yeah. And I've had your products and that you can actually taste the real ginger there. So you spoke about ginger ale and the opportunity there. How big do you think you can get there? And as far as the competition, is it mostly Canada Dry and Schweppes? It's Canada Dry, Schweppes, Seagram's, Vernors is a big. Ginger ale, believe it or not, it's pretty regional, the brands.
Because, you know, if you look at scan data and you look at ACV, you're kind of shocked. It's like, wow, I thought this would be much higher, but it's really region-centric. But, you know, we'd like to have a big, we'd like to have a much larger chunk of that market share. And that, you know, if people knew there was a premium natural alternative that actually had ginger. And I mean, think about ginger ale. When's the first time you had it? You're a kid, your grandmother, your mother gave it to you because you had a stomach ache. One thing I always notice when you fly, when the drink cart comes by, there's always somebody in every row that orders ginger ale. Every row. So obviously, people are drinking ginger ale for a reason.
Ironically, if there's no real ginger in the ginger ale that you're drinking, it's not really doing the things that you want it to. You'd be surprised when you drink a real ginger product like our ginger beer and ginger ale. Two consumer groups that we hear the most from, which makes me very, well, doesn't make me happy for the reasons, but one is from pregnant women that drink it because they found it and it helps with their nausea and cancer patients that drink it because it helps them too. Obviously, you know, there's real ginger in there, so there's efficacy and it works. When you read that, I mean, they get it and they know, and you know, you'll get something like, "Hey, I stumbled on your ginger ale. I used to drink X, and I'm drinking your stuff.
I'll never go back." And that's so rewarding. And it's like, you know that you have a great product. You want to just get it out more and more and more and just see that as a big opportunity because it's a big point of difference. And it's not only better ingredients, but better tasty. Gotcha. And then last question we have. So when you think about the business longer term, it does seem like there's a fairly sizable group of young adults that are choosing to avoid alcohol versus previous generation. Certainly, I think that would be a great time to highlight the, you know, Reed's as far as, you know, your natural products. You know, how do you think about this in terms of your marketing strategy, just overall to, you know, increase the long-term brand power? I think that's part of it too.
That's a group of consumers that we need to tap into and that we're really focused on that. You know, we're focused on it from a non-alcoholic perspective. We view that as a big opportunity, and it's something that you'll start to see a little bit more. Obviously, we want to create drinks that provide, you know, the appropriate usage occasion that they feel good about. We think, look at, we believe we have the underlying fundamental stuff and just our ginger ale and our ginger beer, our great products to start with. As people discover our new functional beverages, I think that's going to open a lot of doors and provide another growth opportunity. We'll go on from there because we recognize that not just younger adults, but a lot of people are drinking less.
And we want to be able to provide healthier alternatives that taste good and that people can enjoy. Because remember, there's still that element of enjoyment when you're consuming beverages. Absolutely. Well, thank you again, Norman. We're out of time. Thanks for sharing the Reed's story. So if anyone has any questions, what's the best way to get in touch with you? Well, obviously, you can. There's a Reed's info at Reed's website, but I think probably through the conference, they can reach out to you guys and then or to our investor relations, our firm Elevate. Through that, you can always get to me, and I'd love to hear back from people and with ideas, collaborations, thoughts, feedback, you know, all is welcome. All right. Well, very good. Well, thank you very much again, Norman. Thank you also, everyone listening in and asking thoughtful questions here as well.
So we'll wrap it up here and everyone have a productive day. Thank you very much. Thank you. Take care. Thanks.