Greetings, and welcome to the Simply Good Foods Company Fiscal First Quarter 2021 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr.
Mark Bergarian, Vice President of Investor Relations for the Simply Good Foods Company. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you, operator. Good morning. I'm pleased to welcome you to the Simply Good Foods Company earnings call for the Q1 ended November 28, 2020. Joe Scalzo, President and Chief Executive Officer and Todd Comfort, Chief Financial Officer will provide you with an overview of results, which will then be followed by a Q and A session. The company issued its earnings release this morning at approximately 7 am Eastern.
A copy of the release and the accompanying presentation are available under the Investors section of the company's website at www.simplygoodfoodscompany.com. This call is being webcast and an archive of today's remarks will also be made available. During the course of today's call, management will make forward looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. The company undertakes no obligation to update these statements based on subsequent events. A detailed listing of such risks and uncertainties can be found in today's press release and the company's SEC filings.
Note that on today's call, we will refer to certain non GAAP financial measures that we believe will provide useful information for investors. The presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to today's press release for a reconciliation of the non GAAP financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Joe Scalzo, President and Chief Executive Officer.
Thank you, Mark. Good morning and thank you for joining us. Today, I'll recap Simply Good Foods' Q1 results and provide you with some details on the performance of our brands. Then Todd will discuss our financial results in a bit more detail and we'll wrap it up with a discussion of our outlook before opening the call to your questions. Before I discuss the Q1 results, let me briefly remind you of the unique advantages of our business and why we're confident that we're well positioned to drive long term sustainable growth.
Simply Good Foods is a U. S. Leader in the attractive nutrition snacks nutritional snacking category. And while the category has significantly grown household penetration over the last 5 plus years, it is still well under penetrated compared to most food categories at about 50% of U. S.
Households. We have 2 large scale brands in Atkins and Quest with meaningful consumer benefits and broad appeal among 2 different consumer targets. Furthermore, we have demonstrated the marketing capabilities to grow new loyal consumers over time. We benefit from long term compelling consumer megatrends of snacking, health and wellness, convenience and on the go nutrition. We have a diversified business across retail channels, customers and products, which provides us multiple pathways to win in the marketplace.
We operate an asset light business model that has proven resilient and flexible in a volatile demand marketplace and generate strong free cash flow to fund organic growth, while also enabling us to participate in M and A. And despite temporarily reduced consumption during the pandemic due to fewer on the go consumption occasions, our businesses quickly resumed growth even though consumer mobility is still well below pre pandemic levels. For these reasons, we're confident that as consumer mobility improves, the growth rate of our brands will also improve, driven by the underlying benefits of the consumer megatrends I mentioned earlier and our ability to attract new consumers to our brands. We remain committed to operating our business for the long term and do the right thing for our brands, our employees, our customers and our consumers during these challenging times. Lastly, I'm encouraged by the start to the year as first quarter sales and earnings growth as well as retail takeaway all exceeded our estimates.
Moving to Slide 5, the 1st quarter net sales exceeded our expectations, driven primarily by strong e commerce growth, retail takeaway that exceeded our expectations and the timing of shipments related to the seasonal inventory build by certain retailers. Adjusted EBITDA for the Q1 increased 53.2%, primarily due to a full quarter of Quest, a greater than anticipated increase in sales versus our plan and strong cost controls. Total Simply Good Foods Q1 retail takeaway in measured and unmeasured channels increased mid single digits and steadily improved as we move through the quarter. Our performance was driven by the snackier portion of our portfolio, primarily confections, chips and cookies that are consumed mostly at home, while bars for both brands remain pressured in measured channels due to fewer on the go occasions. Importantly, we gained overall market share versus the category which declined low single digits.
Our performance in the mass channel improved a bit versus last quarter, but is still lower than the year ago period due to reduced shopper trips since the start of the pandemic. The commitment to the nutritional snacking category by major retailers remained strong and our distribution gains on new products was in line with our estimates. Early consumer off take of these new items is encouraging. As we discussed last quarter, measured channel retail takeaway In September, the 1st month of our fiscal Q1, our retail takeaway growth was flattish due to a weaker back to school season. However, in October November, our marketplace trends steadily improved.
Total Simply Good Foods' nutritional snacking category retail takeaway in Q1 outpaced the category across all time frames, driven primarily by the more at home snackier portion of our portfolio as well as improving active shake trends and the last year's launch of Quest Shakes. In December, the 1st month of our fiscal Q2, our performance continued to sequentially improve. Turning to the Q1, net sales increased 51.9% driven by the Quest acquisition. Specifically, Quest's net sales increased $78,700,000 to $95,800,000 Atkins net sales increased 2.2% and was a 1.9% contribution to total company growth. The divestiture of Simply Protein Business was a 1.7% headwind.
The increase in adjusted EBITDA is a direct result of higher gross profit driven by the inclusion of Quest, legacy Atkins Cost Control and Quest acquisition synergies. Tom will provide greater details on these metrics in just a bit. Atkins Q1 IRI new low plus C store measured channel retail takeaway was off 5.7%, but outpaced the weight management category. Similar to last quarter, Atkins bars were pressured due to lower on the go usage occasions for this forum across the category. Atkins Shakes sequentially improved throughout the quarter and in November, our shakes retail takeaway was about flat versus the year ago period.
Atkins Confections momentum continued with retail takeaway up 13.2% as these products are primarily consumed at home. We were encouraged by our improving marketplace trends during the quarter, especially given the soft start in September, partially due to the weaker than expected back to school season. While still early, we're pleased with the distribution gains and consumption performance by our recently launched new products, particularly our iced coffee protein shakes and indulged dessert bars. E Commerce growth continues to be a strength with consumption up 45% in Q1 with new to e Commerce consumers representing 1 third of sales. And shakes continue to perform well in this channel, up double digits.
E commerce is now about 10% of Atkins sales, up from 4% just 2 years ago and should continue to be a driver of growth. Our brands are responsive to marketing initiatives and we're pleased that new buyer growth resumed in the quarter. It was encouraging to see this positive trend as it was the Q1 of positive growth since the pandemic began. As expected, overall buy rate was down versus last year, reflecting lower on the go usage occasions. As we move into Q2, we expect continued strong e commerce growth, improving consumption from new product distribution gains and New Year's seasonal merchandising that is least equal to a year ago.
Although we remain cautious about consumer seasonal participation, given the recent surge in COVID-nineteen cases throughout the U. S. Let me now turn to Quest, where Q1 retail takeaway increased 15.2% in the measured IRI new low plus C store universe, driven by improving trends across major food, mass and club channels. Similar to last quarter, our performance was driven by cookies, chips and confections and the year ago launch of shakes, as well as distribution gains on new products. Quest Snacks, Chips, Cookies and Confections performed extremely well with retail takeaway in Q1, up 76%.
Retailer and consumer demand for these products remains strong and represents about 26% and growing of the Quest business in Q1. The majority of the Quest shaped distribution gains occurred in calendar 2020 and is a slight headwind as we make our way through the remainder of the year. Quest Bars declined 8% in Q1, better than the bar segment, which was off low double digits. As mentioned previously, bars have been impacted by lower on the go consumption occasions. As I stated earlier, Quest's e commerce business continues to do well with retail takeaway up 60%.
Our business in Amazon continues to excel with similar growth rates for bars, chips and cookies. As we move into Q2, we anticipate that retail takeaway will continue to be solid and it will outpace the category. E commerce will remain strong, chips, cookies and confection distribution gains will be a benefit and New Year's seasonal merchandise will be greater than last year. However, similar to Atkins, we remain cautious about consumer seasonal participation given the recent surge in COVID-nineteen cases. Additionally, Quest retail takeaway comparisons in the year ago period, up 26.8% are strong partially due to last year's Shake launch.
In summary, we're pleased with the better than expected start to fiscal 2021 despite the ongoing challenges of operating in the COVID-nineteen environment. We exceeded our estimates, driven primarily by strong e commerce growth, retail takeaway that was better than our expectations and the timing of shipments related to the seasonal inventory build by certain retailers. We're encouraged by our improving marketplace trends and confident we'll outpace the category. Although in the near term, it could be challenging given the increase COVID-nineteen cases across the U. S.
We'll continue to engage with consumers and be flexible in our approach to brand investment to drive growth as we execute against our strategies to drive sales and earnings during the fiscal year. Now I'll turn the call over to Todd to provide you some greater financial details.
Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with 2 points as they relate to the numbers you see on the slides that follow. First, for comparative purposes, we will review financial statements for the 13 weeks ended November 30, 2019 versus the 13 weeks ended November 28, 2020. 2nd, given our asset light strong cash flow business model, we evaluate our business performance on an adjusted basis as it relates to EBITDA and diluted earnings per share. We have included a detailed reconciliation from GAAP to adjusted historical items in today's press release.
We believe these adjusted measures are a key indicator of the true underlying performance of the business. I will begin with a review of our net sales. Total Simply Good Foods net sales increased 51.9%, driven by the Quest acquisition. Specifically, Quest net sales increased $78,700,000 to $95,800,000 a contribution of 51.7 percent to total Simply Good Foods' 1st quarter net sales growth. Recall, we only owned the business for 24 days in fiscal Q1 2020, so the majority of the increase in this quarter is driven by the acquisition.
Atkins net sales increased 2.2% and was a 1.9% contribution to total company growth, driven by strong e commerce performance, solid international growth in Australia driven by increasing velocities of existing items, distribution gains and innovation and the timing of shipments related to the seasonal inventory build by certain retailers. We estimate that these factors contributed about 2 to 3 percentage points each to Atkins growth. These gains were partially offset by softness in measured channels. As Joe mentioned, Atkins IRI measured channel retail takeaway in the Q1 was off 5.7%. The divestiture of Simply Protein on September 24 was a 1.7% headwind.
As previously stated, the divestiture of Simply Protein and the exit from Europe is about a 2% headwind to both the first half and full year fiscal 2021 net sales growth. Now for review of 1st quarter results across other major metrics. Gross profit was $94,000,000 an increase of $31,800,000 or 51.2 percent versus last year. The increase in gross profit was primarily driven by the Quest acquisition. Gross margin was 40.7% in the Q1 of fiscal 2021, a decline of 20 basis points versus last year due to the full quarter impact of the lower margin Quest business and unfavorable mix.
Gross profit in the prior year was affected by a non cash $2,400,000 inventory purchase accounting step up adjustment related to the Quest acquisition. Recall the non cash inventory purchase accounting step up was a 160 basis point headwind in the fiscal Q1 of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA increased 53.2 percent to 48 $700,000 driven by the increase in gross profit, partially offset by a 36.7% increase in selling and marketing expenses, primarily due to the inclusion of Quest. For the full year, the company continues to anticipate that marketing will increase at least in line with organic sales growth. General and administrative expenses increased $7,300,000 as a result of the inclusion of Quest and integration costs, restructuring expenses and stock based compensation totaling $4,900,000 Moving to other items in the P and L, interest expense increased $3,400,000 to $8,400,000 due primarily to a full quarter of Quest related acquisition debt.
Our effective tax rate in the Q1 was 27.1%. As a result, net income in Q1 was $22,500,000 versus a loss of $4,800,000 in the year ago period. Turning to EPS. 1st quarter reported EPS was $0.23 per share diluted compared with a loss of $0.05 per share diluted. Impacting reported EPS includes depreciation and amortization expense of $4,500,000 higher versus last year due to the inclusion of Quest, stock based compensation of $1,100,000 integration costs of $1,200,000 and restructuring expenses of 2,500,000 Meanwhile, adjusted diluted EPS, which excludes the items just mentioned, was $0.29 an increase of $0.07 versus the year ago period.
Note that we calculated adjusted diluted EPS as adjusted EBITDA less interest income, interest expense and income taxes. Please refer to today's press release for an explanation and reconciliation of non GAAP financial measures. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow. In November 2020, the company paid down $25,000,000 of its term loan. And at the end of the Q1, the outstanding principal balance was $581,500,000 In the Q1 of fiscal 2021, combined cash flow from operations and proceeds from the sale of Simply Protein was about $21,000,000 As of November 28, 2020, the company had $91,500,000 of cash and the trailing 12 month net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 2.9x.
Capital expenditures were nominal in Q1. However, we still expect $5,000,000 to $6,000,000 of CapEx in fiscal 2021, driven primarily by equipment for our new warehouse. Our outlook this year for interest expense remains unchanged at approximately $30,000,000 I would now like to turn the call back to Joe for closing remarks.
Thank you, Todd. As consumer mobility increases, we expect the growth rate of our business to improve. We have a portfolio of brands aligned with consumer megatrends of both health and wellness, convenience and on the go nutrition. Additionally, consumers continue to express that high protein, low carb and minimal sugar are important attributes when making snacking decisions. As such, we feel good about our long term business prospects.
Our business is performing well and improved month to month in the Q1, driven by the growth of confection chips and cookies, which are more often consumed at home. A return to more normal consumer shopping behavior is on the horizon, given the multiple vaccines that are now being deployed in the U. S. However, at this point in time, it's difficult to predict when this will occur. Therefore, the unknown duration of reduced consumer mobility could continue to pressure bar usage occasions and trips in the mass channel through the balance of the fiscal year.
As a result, it remains difficult to provide the full year fiscal 2021 outlook at this time. Given our better than expected Q1 results, we've updated our outlook for the first half of the fiscal year. Assuming U. S. Consumer movement restrictions remain at the current levels, we now anticipate net sales of $455,000,000 to $465,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $85,000,000 to $90,000,000 This includes a 2% headwind to net sales growth related to the Simply Protein divestiture and Europe exit that Todd mentioned earlier.
Additionally, we reaffirm our expectation that full year gross margin will be about the same as last year and adjusted EBITDA margin should increase. We have an advantaged asset light variable business model that enables strong cash flow from operations that provides us with financial flexibility. We are executing against our strategies and are well positioned for long term sustainable net sales and earnings growth that we expect will create value for our shareholders. We appreciate everyone's interest in our company and now are available to take your questions.
Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Brian Holland with D. A. Davidson.
Please proceed with your question.
Yes, thanks. Good morning and congrats on the strong quarter here. I wanted to ask a couple
of questions about the Quest business. I think you were surprised
as you acquired the business kind of the expandability of it, kind of the performance in some of these adjacencies that were rolled out. Clearly, that appears to continue to be a catalyst. As we see bars as a
category sort of underperform, how quickly and how much of a focus
is expanding into the chips, the cookies, some of the frozen products, etcetera, the adjacencies for Quest that seem to be doing quite well?
Yes, good morning, Brian. It's a good question. I think first of all, we had high expectations of the Quest business when we bought it and it has exceeded our expectations over the last year. The question you're asking about is around the balance between the protein bar business at Quest and the all other forms. And I think it's important that we stay focused on ensuring that the bar business continues to recover and starts growing.
And the metric I would point to is unlike the Atkins business, the Quest business overall brand awareness is still relatively low. For the most part, most households in the United States are not familiar with the Quest brand. So, the job from a brand standpoint is to continue to build brand awareness and get the brand better known. The easiest avenue to do that is through the protein bar business, which is the largest most important part of the business. So you should expect us to continue to focus on that.
That said, alternative forms, especially right now when at home consumption is more important, is an important component to the brand. So focusing on the chips, the cookies and now the confections on that business helps us introduce the brand, build brand awareness and drive consumption in at home. So, think you should see us continue to balance between those two things, because we believe that there's upside growth in the bar form as well as the alternative forms.
Understood. Appreciate the color. And then just one other follow-up there on the Quest business. Could you just remind us, it started from a lower gross margin base, product mix, etcetera, how where we are in the integration of that asset and thinking about the synergies flowing through this year and any changes as far as opportunities there to take costs out of that business or get those margins back up comparable to legacy Atkins?
Yes. So this is Todd. The margins are we're seeing improvement on the Quest side. They are definitely getting a bit closer to the legacy Atkins business. So we're probably about 2 points below from a margin gross margin perspective.
Some of the synergies have kicked in from a logistics standpoint. Some of the we're starting to see some of those benefits. We have a number of other projects from a supply chain perspective that will kick in later in the year. So I think we'll continue to see some progress against those gross margins. Again, just the business channels that it's in, some of the forms that are in long term, it's probably always going to be a little bit less than legacy Atkins, but we're definitely making some progress.
Okay,
Go ahead.
I'll follow-up to that. Given the size of the bar business in both of the brands, it is it tends to be the more profitable form from a company standpoint. So driving bar performance over time is a margin enhancing
question comes from the line of Jason English with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good morning folks. Happy New Year and congrats on the improving sales momentum throughout the quarter. I guess, let's pick up where you just left off on margins. Looking out to 2Q, I get that 2Q is sequentially always a bit of a margin step down from 1Q given the seasonality. But questions in the prior year base, why are we going to flip to so much margin compression year on year, at least based at the midpoint of your guidance?
Yes. I don't think we're going to have a lot of margin compression from a Q2 to Q2 perspective. We'll have potentially a little bit depending on where the product and channel mix comes in. But I think the margins should be relatively in line with last Q2. From Q1 to Q2, as you talk about, Q2 is always the lowest gross margin and EBITDA margin quarter for us just because of the heavy intensive merchandising that occurs in this quarter.
But year over year, we should be fairly similar.
Are you referring to gross margin or EBITDA margin?
I'm referring to gross margin.
Okay. I think your guidance and maybe I need to go back and check my math, but at the midpoint of your guidance for the first half and obviously we can back out 1Q implies that EBITDA margin would be down year on year. Is there something happening in the belly of the P and L like stepped up SG and A or maybe it's just maybe I need to see to go back and check my math?
Yes. A slight increase in the SG and A rate is what we're projecting a little bit on the marketing side. So we'll see a little bit of a bump up in marketing. We will see G and A as a percent a little bit higher. We just have some projects going on there, which will have some increase.
And from quarter to quarter here, it always bumps up in the second quarter
as the
start of the new year, we get pay increases, FICA taxes start to kick in again. So the G and A always tends to be a bit higher in Q2 as well. So again, gross margin should be similar. EBITDA margins may be a little bit lower, but no significant changes.
Okay. And with most of the shelf resets either behind you or good visibility to them, can you give us an update on how you believe your share of shelf has changed? Yes, Jason. We had a good fall reset season so far early returns, right? You got to see consumption, but for the most consumption that gives you visibility to TDP growth.
So, both brands growing TDPs in the high single to low double digits on a percentage basis. So, we did pretty well. Now, you got to it all comes down to how productive those items are and how incremental those items are to really understand the impact on consumption. January, February, March to better understand that. As you know, November, December are low consumption months and so you don't want to read too much into early reads.
But for the most part, most of our new products, offtake has been pretty positive early. We want to see a little bit more data before we feel good about that. Got it. Good stuff. Thank you, guys.
I'll pass it on.
Yes. Have a good day.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Growe with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good morning and nice quarter there. Good
morning, Chris.
Just had a question.
Thank you. Hi. Just had a follow on to Jason's question. As I think about you had some nice shelf space wins. Thank you for the quantifying the TDPs there.
I'm just curious to how you define the competitive situation in your categories and what you're seeing from other big brands? Are you competing with Atkins and Quest? And if it also adds to that or maybe you could get some perspective on kind of the new products and how those are contributing to your sales growth? You have a pretty good new product lineup. Is there sort of incremental contribution you could help define from those new products?
Yes, talking about our sell first, still really early innings from a consumption of new items. So we just look at kind of week to week velocities off take appears to be pretty good. So the peanut butter cup, the lemon bar on Quest both performing well on Atkins, the iced coffee shakes and the indulge dessert bars all off to pretty good starts. But again, November, December are typically soft consumption months, so you don't want to read too much into that. But overall, we feel pretty good about the start.
It looks like and I'll steal a little bit of Jason's theory, but I think retailers are coming back kind of in a COVID environment, supporting bigger brands, it appears. So in our category, it looks like Premier has done pretty well. Clearly, Atkins and Quest have done pretty well. I don't, haven't really looked at the bar set. It appears that KIND has done pretty well most recently from a bar standpoint.
So looks like maybe retailers have invested in leadership brands in order to drive the category kind of innocent kind of COVID environment. I want to see a little bit more data before I form a stronger opinion in that. Consumption obviously becomes more important than just looking at shelf space.
Okay. And I
just want one other follow-up, which is in relation to channel performance. Are you seeing a stronger performance in the mass channel versus say grocery? And does that relate to retailers getting behind some of these big brands? Is that going to help at a large retailer, for example, kind of help push your performance there?
Yes. During the quarter and in the early part of Q2, in general, mass got a little bit better. So, steadily improved their performance, I think, based upon the fact they got behind the bigger brands and their consumption improved. So, in general, our business got better in mass. In general, mass business relative to other channels got better.
So, we saw kind of steady incremental improvement, even the bar business in mass got a little bit better. So I think coming out of the fall resets, mass in general improved their position and obviously they were leaking market share for a while. They're starting to move in the right direction And that's obviously given our development in mass, that's important to us. Shopper traffic got a little bit better, but we didn't see significant improvements in shopper traffic yet. We haven't seen that yet.
And obviously with kind of COVID cases spiking as we close the year and enter the New Year, I think that will be one of the headwinds that we want to keep continue to keep our eye on.
Okay. Thank you for that color.
Yes. You're welcome.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Baumgartner with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning. Thanks for the question. Hi, John. I guess going back to Quest and the peanut butter cups specifically, still very early days, but the Nielsen takeaway looks very good. It looks like annualized is running around $9,000,000 or so.
So I'm wondering, Joe, if you could speak to the launch, what sort of expectations you have for ACV as F21 progresses moving outside of target? And then also, how aggressive are you with this product in ecom, non measured channels? And how do you expect the marketing and distribution push will compare coming out of the gate relative to the cookies when they launched a few years ago? Thanks. Yes, actually, I haven't looked at it relative to cookies.
I think in general, peanut butter cups will build faster just because of the organization that's now driving it, right? We legacy SMPL organization, probably a little bit faster than building food, drug, mass distribution. And historically, within a year or 12 months of launching a new product, we can get it pretty close to 50% ACV through drug mass. So, I wouldn't I think that's a reasonable target from a 12 month standpoint. It is performing exceptionally well in e commerce and it's we have pretty high expectations.
Confections is a different use occasion, different needs state than the existing business. It has proven, in particular, peanut butter cups in general, proven to be whether it be on Atkins or on SlimFast to be a pretty compelling item. So, we have pretty high expectations for it and it's off to a pretty good start. So, we're very optimistic about it. And again, it ties back to use occasion, need state and it brings in new consumers to the brand because it's just it's a different it's a different type of product and appeals to a different consumer.
So we're pretty optimistic. And yes, I'm sorry, I don't have that comparison to cookies. I'd have to go back and look at the build out from the legacy Quest business. I expect we will do better, frankly.
Yes. Just one follow on to that. I mean, it's doing it's off to a really strong start in C store as well. C store team has done a really nice job getting distribution. We'll continue to get distribution.
It's a fantastic single serve item, not something we don't have a lot of history with on the Atkins side, but it has the potential to be a very large C store item for us as well.
Okay, great. And then just to follow-up briefly on the shelf sets. Obviously, Autumn was the big shelf reset period for you, very successful. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but as you kind of think across next 12 months, the resets that still have yet to come in the market, was there anything discrete that benefited you in this August reset period that may suggest future resets may not be as successful? Or do you think between new innovation coming through, the marketing ramping here in January, maybe more promotion at shelf into kind of beach season that you can kind of sustain this reset momentum as the rest of your retailers kind of come forward here?
So your question is right after I got my reset in the fall, you want me to project what the spring looks like. So look, we feel we could we don't like to talk about what might
happen in our business going forward. We feel really good
about our product pipeline. We said that before, innovation that's coming on both brands. We feel good about our position from an innovation standpoint. And after all, it's the ideas that you have and the ability to attract consumers that attract customers to want to add our items. I think that I think there appears to be a move to drive leadership brands in order to drive the category.
So that appears to play to us and that we've got 2 of the bigger brands in the set. So I feel good about that. But we're still in early innings of a fall reset. Let's see how that performs in January, February, March before we start declaring victories in March, April May.
Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Todd. Appreciate it.
Yes. You're welcome.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Faiza Alwy with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.
Yes. Hi, good morning and congratulations from me also. So I just I wanted to get some perspective on the back half, even though you're not providing an outlook. But if I look at your results this quarter, you weren't actually that far away from what we were expecting a year ago in this quarter on the top line and actually better on EBITDA. So it seems that in some ways you've been able to offset on the go weakness by accelerating these other forms that we've been talking about and maybe even accelerating e commerce.
So just wanted to get a sense from you, how would you frame the uncertainty or the risks and opportunities when things hopefully normalize in the back half, especially in light of easy comps?
Yes. So, wow, great question. To tell you the truth, we haven't given much thought to the second half of the year at this point. I'll talk to it as from a perspective of brand by brand. If you look at the Atkins business, the fiscal year 2020 softness was almost exclusively driven by our inability to grow new buyers at the rate that we were accustomed to.
And if you then multiply their volume input into the business in the second half of the year, that was our miss from a volume standpoint. Probably the most encouraging thing in the first quarter was Atkins grew new buyers for the first time since the pandemic. That's a very encouraging sign. That means people are engaging to some degree back in the category and back into the brand. The opportunity in the quarter was buy rate.
So we just didn't drive as much buy rate and that has to do with the large component of our business in bars and the away from home consumption element of bars. I think if I would summarize on Atkins, the second half of the year, there's 2 simple questions. Can we continue to bring new buyers to the brand at the rate we saw in the Q1? And then can we improve on the buy rate? And obviously, obviously, that's the big uncertainty, both from a new buyer as well as a retained buyer.
If we can get the buy rate back up, I think we can have obviously a good back half of the year. I want to see a little bit more data. It's a little dangerous to read a quarter of data from a panel buy rate standpoint is just a little dangerous because it's just not a lot of data at this point. But that's how I would characterize Atkins, right? Can we get buy rate up?
Can the bar start to improve? And can we get back closer to historic numbers? On Quest, I think the one comparison in Quest is prior to COVID, the business started to step up its growth in the second half of the year. And obviously, COVID slowed that down for a bit, but we saw more aggressive comps on Quest. So can we continue and then obviously a big bar business by rate on Quest becomes really important.
Can we grow through the challenges in away from home consumption? So for us, the big metric in the second half of the year is going to be what's mobility look like, how does it impact bars and then how does that impact buy rate on both businesses as we go forward. I think the other metrics that we can control, which is share of shelf, marketing, media investment, I think we'll do the right things there. The overhang will be how does this how does the vaccine rollout? How does it improve mobility?
And then how quickly does the away from home consumption come back to the 2 businesses?
Great. And then as I think about sort of again these other forms, I mean it doesn't sound like that's where the concern is. Like it seems that you can continue to grow that business. You're not worried about the sustainability of trends in those forms even as mobility increases. Is that the right way to characterize it?
Yes. They tend to be, particularly chips and confections tend to be more at home consumption. So, less affected by the pandemic. There's white space on both of those forms. So, we have the ability to fill out white space.
Consumption continues to be good. The job in Quest is to build brand awareness consideration and trial. Again, from a 2 business standpoint, if you just step back and look at the marketing challenges on Atkins, everybody is aware of the brand. The job is to change perspective of what the brand stands for. The job on Quest is to create brand awareness.
It's still relatively low. We have a big loyal consumer group on Quest, but still relatively low brand awareness outside that group. So your marketing pressure, we continue to build awareness, consideration and trial on that business, right. I'm trying to remember the unaided brand awareness. I don't think it's over 20% on Quest.
So lots of opportunity on Quest to build awareness. All the forms matter, right. Bars matter as do the other forms. So we tend to define the issue much more from a consumer standpoint than a product and form standpoint. Got to build brand awareness on Quest, got to continue to change people's points of view of what they believe on Atkins in order to grow household penetration.
The products clearly help us to do that because they attack different needs, states and use occasions and that helps us.
Great. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alexia Howard with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning, everyone.
Good morning, Alexia.
Hi, there. So can we ask about pricing dynamics, particularly on the bars business? We only get visibility into the measured channel data. But would I be right in thinking that you probably did have a pricing benefit at the net pricing line earlier in the pandemic, perhaps because of a pullback in promotional activity. And I'm just wondering with the step up in merchandising on particularly on the Quest side of things, is that going to lead to declines in pricing year on year as we look out through the course of 2021?
And then I have a follow-up.
Yes. I mean, the pricing benefit that we got from the pandemic was actually fairly short lived. If you remember, we talked about on the last couple of calls, retailers in our Q3, in that March to May time period, retailers really pushed out or cut promotional activity just to reduce the complexity in their stores. A lot of those fell into Q4. So we saw some price realization benefit lower volume, but price realization benefit in Q3.
That kind of flipped on the other side in Q4. Q1 of this year, kind of normal. We didn't see much of a change. We don't we kind of have similar merchandising activity here in Q2 as well. So it was really just a short term March to May time period for us where we got that price realization.
So as we lap Q3, yes, we'll probably see higher trade rate in Q3 assuming mobility is okay and maybe a little bit of benefit in Q4 as we don't have as much as we kind of push together a bunch of activity in Q4. But right now, it's pretty normalized.
Perfect. That's super helpful. And then the second question is really around M and A. And now that your leverage is down below 3 times, I know that was a goal to be shooting for, Now have an increased appetite to look for possible deals? And what would the criteria be for any future you might look at?
Thank you and I'll pass it on.
Yes. With leverage improving with the integration mostly not completely all behind us and synergy is on track. We have started to we popped up and started looking at possible assets. Again, we like the category we're in. We search for assets that fit our supply chain and fit our front end customer standpoint.
We like branded strong consumer branded businesses that have shown the ability to attract users. So we tend to look at our business from a consumer brand standpoint first. And I think the only criteria this may have shifted over the last year or so is size. We're probably looking at assets that are above $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 in revenue. So we went it's challenging when you have 2 businesses as big as we are to nurture smaller brands.
So, we're probably looking at assets that are a little bit big issue in size, so that in the portfolio it's meaningful and we can focus on it. So and that was obviously one of the reasons we divested Simply Protein, just it would be size challenge from an organization standpoint. So yes, we are up and looking at assets right now and those are the kind of criteria that we think about.
Perfect. Thank you very much and I'll pass it on. Happy New Year.
Have a good day.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Bell with Consumer Edge. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, everyone. E commerce has become an increasingly important part of your business. Would you be able to give some context about the share of Atkins and Quest within the space and maybe some of your perspective about it going forward?
Yes, I'll tell you that one. So from a share of business, Quest, for both businesses, it's been accelerating. So it's 20% to 25% of business for Quest. As Joe said in his opening remarks, it's close to 10% right now on the Atkins side. Both businesses doing exceptionally well and we anticipate that will continue to increase over time.
Okay, that's helpful. And would you be able to discuss any consumer work that you've done about how much or how little consumers have focused on weight management during the pandemic? And maybe any forward looking thoughts on that and whether or not that's maybe impacted your marketing efforts around the New Year's resolution period?
Yes, it's a great question. It's one we ask ourselves a lot. Probably the metric that I would point to right now is the new buyer growth in the first quarter on Atkins was encouraging, right, because the concern that we had is while on average people have gained in the U. S, adults have gained about £12 during the pandemic, There hasn't been the trigger point to get them to start acting on that. It clearly didn't occur like we thought it would be a back to school.
We're kind of hoping and merchandising and marketing as if it's going to happen in January, February, March. So I think that that will be the important key. When do people kind of reengage to start making lifestyle changes in order to get that part of their life back under control. So, the household penetration, the new buyer data would suggest people are more engaged in that. It will be interesting to see how it plays out in January for very large.
That's helpful. And one last one for me. I believe you may have mentioned this in your prepared remarks, but could you talk about the sell in versus sell out dynamics versus 1Q during 1Q, right?
I'm sorry, could you ask that question again? Are you talking about inventory or are you talking about sell through consumer dynamics?
The sell in versus the sell out dynamics during the quarter?
So we picked up because of our positive benefit from the shelf resets, We got a nice little pipeline fill from that. That kind of offset, if you remember, we had some back to school time period brought some revenue into Q4 of last year. We thought that was going to be about 2 point headwind to Q1. The reset timing and how well we did kind of mitigated that piece of it largely, that was kind of an offset. So that was a nice benefit for us in the quarter.
And as we talked about, we did have some seasonal shift in between November, December versus prior year. And that helped us by about 2 points.
Perfect. Thank you. That's it for me.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, our final question this morning comes from the line of Rebecca Scheinman with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning and congratulations on the good quarter despite the difficult environment.
So thank you for
the insights on the £12, gained on average during the pandemic. I was wondering about that. I'm also wondering if your consumer insight data shows anything that could point to habits that have potentially changed permanently, that could make weight loss look different when we emerge from the pandemic? For example, home cooked meals have become more prevalent. I'm wondering if there's any way that might potentially dampen demand for meal replacement shakes and bars.
Thank you.
Yes, I don't have data that would suggest that the habits and practices that people have formed during the pandemic is going to change that. I just have observation that as mobility has improved, so has the consumption of our business. So, I think that is probably the big debate going on in food companies with larger food companies trying convince folks that meals are going to come back in vogue and moms are going to kick are going to continue to cook. I just happen to think that, frankly, convenience is always going to be an important consumer benefit that our lives, whether we like it or not, are going to become hectic and time challenged as they were before and on the go nutritional consumption is going to become ever important, right. I just don't think that all of a sudden we're going to return to the 1950s 1960s when it comes to eating meals.
If you look at millennials, they actually almost don't see a difference between snacking and eating meals. In fact, they don't even see them as meal. So, they snacking as everyday eating just as they see a meal. It's almost seamless between the 2. I don't think that's changing either quite frankly.
So, I'm pretty optimistic that just in our own behaviors as a business that when the pandemic is behind us, we're going back to the office because it's not as efficient to operate remotely. And with that will come a lot of the habits and practices that we had prior to the pandemic. My guess is that's going to be more true than not. And so we're pretty optimistic as that mobility improves, so our business and so will bar consumption and that mass shopping behavior will go back to more norms.
Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Yes, you're welcome. I'll be back.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session. I'll turn the floor back Mr. Scalzo for any final comments.
Yes. Thanks again for your participation on our call today. We hope you continue to remain safe and we look forward to updating you on our Q2 results in April. Hope everyone has a happy and safe day. Thanks.
Bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.