Perfect. I think we're on time, so we're going to go ahead and get started. Hi, everyone. Good morning. My name's Jim Salera. I'm the packaged food and beverage analyst here at Stephens. With us today from Utz are Howard Friedman, CEO, BK Kelley, CFO. Howard, BK, thank you, guys, for joining us this morning.
Thanks, Jim. Good to see you.
Thanks for having us.
Kicking things off, can we start by talking a little bit more about the California expansion that you announced in your most recent quarter? How does that impact your 16% margin target? Should we think about the California investments as ongoing or more of a one-time step up in 2026 that then normalizes over time?
Yeah, I appreciate the question. I think it's important to clarify a couple of things, especially as it impacts 16% in 2026. I think the first thing to just tell everyone is the only difference between our original plan to get to 16% and what we said last month is a modest upfront investment to get California started. 16% is still very much an achievable target for us, and it is the goal for the business. As you think about 2026, there will be a small, one-time incremental investment to drive the medium and long-term benefits of opening up a category and opening up a market that you'd expect. I would start with reminding everyone, this is very similar to the playbook we had in Florida. When we started in Florida a few years ago, we started with an anchor customer.
We built out a DST system to make sure that we could provide both direct-to-warehouse as well as direct-store delivery into those markets and make sure that we could get the support that we would have expected. California is just a larger market, and it's 10% of the overall salty category. For us, we just think that a preliminary range of, call it, $4 million-$6 million in the first year is the appropriate way to think about it. It is a startup cost. It's not an ongoing change to the overall business.
On Insignia particularly, can you tell us anything about the terms of the acquisition? I think you just mentioned part of the startup cost, what you paid and why you felt that it was necessary to add those capabilities to really open up California?
Yeah. I mean, first of all, I would tell you that we spent a de minimis amount. And when I say de minimis, I actually mean de minimis. The cash outlay was really for some vehicles, some equipment, and the inventory associated with the routes that were there. You think about we assume some warehouse leases. There are employees who are working in those warehouses. This is just a way to actually help us launch the brands that we have into California. Today, we are $79 million in overall sales, and it is predominantly the vast majority is direct-to-warehouse. We have several large customers who are presenting opportunities for us to be able to bring our products into California as we get into the first half of next year, with the expectation being that we can then meet and service the demand in-store with DST.
In a couple of cases, we have the authorizations in hand, and in a couple of others, the conversation is when you have the capability, come back and see us. As you think about it, we just feel like it is a great opportunity. The assets we acquired cover the entire state, and it gives us a lot of opportunity. Frankly, opportunistically, it was a diminished amount of cash and really very little limited capital required. It gives us a good line of sight to be able to mature and develop this market running the play that we've done in California, or sorry, in Florida and elsewhere over the last couple of years.
If we think about that modest investment, what should we think about as kind of the metrics for success in that market over the next 12 months, 24 months, if you can offer anything from whether it's a distribution standpoint or margin uplift?
Yeah. I mean, we'll obviously get into the exact metrics as we go, but we'll talk a little bit about sort of where you can kind of think about us as we go. Think about the upfront costs being things like the cutting of distribution, the racks that we wind up putting into store, and make sure that we're getting the execution and then driving consumer awareness as you enter into a market where consumers will have some limited experience with the brands. All of those things tend to cost a little bit more upfront as then the brand starts to mature and develop and the business grows. There tends to be a lag between the investment and the return. With that in mind, kind of there are four things that I would tell you that we're looking at.
First is the distribution gains that you would expect kind of in the first year. If you look at Florida, you see incremental shelf space early. Our core four assortments start to come in. In the California case, you're going to wind up seeing Hawaiian, which is a big business for us out there, kind of developing and building into the shelf set. Second is you'll start to see the top line grow and market share gains that should naturally occur as we gain the distribution, and then a progression of the margin recovery and then actually kind of a more normalized margin as we go forward.
The last thing that we look at is do we then in year two and year three gain incremental average items carried and incremental distribution gains and shelf space over time, which is kind of how the retailer rewards you with actually demonstrating and growing as we expect. You will see DST come out to market. You will see the impacts on share. You should see the distribution gains as well. You will see over time the flywheel start to spin very much like you would have seen in Florida when we started.
It won't affect your leverage targets given the de minimis amount. It won't affect your ability to deleverage. And from a margin standpoint, you guys are still on pace. Is that a fair way to?
Yeah, sure. As Howard said, the cash outlay for the infrastructure with Insignia was relatively minimal and de minimis. It really does not change our full year cash flow materially or our ability to deleverage at all. We committed to approaching 3x by year end. The drivers that get there, you think about just in three buckets after we get to the increasing levels that you would offer the quarter. The first bucket for us is working capital initiatives that we have line of sight to. We'll have a third of our normal working capital release given the seasonality of our business. Then a third that comes from planned sales of existing real estate excess that we have that was unlocked by our supply chain transformation and consolidation. There may be some movement between the categories, but that's a pretty good way to think about it.
For 2026, we indicated our preliminary review of CapEx is around $60 million-$70 million. That's down from the $100 million that it had been this year and last year. We're focused on improving free cash flow further in 2026. With that, getting leverage below 3x is what we are targeting by the end of 2026. We are striving to grow, expand our margins, generate our cash, pay down debt. We think being through most of the supply chain transformation really sets us up for that next level.
Great. Then zooming out of California and just thinking about the business as a whole, you've outperformed Salty Snacks for, I believe, nine straight quarters now. What should we think about as the driving force behind that outperformance given a lot of the commentary we hear about the category is kind of broad-based pressure?
Yeah. The first thing I think we've been pretty insistent about, even going back to the investor day, was that we're not solely dependent on the category for our growth. We laid out a very simple algorithm that said if we can hold market share in our core volume share as flat and we can grow basically 30 basis points of volume share in our expansion markets, that should translate into the top line algorithm that we had offered. Obviously, the category has been more subdued than we would have anticipated over that period of time, but our outperformance has largely come in the way we would have expected it to. I think with the one wrinkle really being that we were actually able to gain market share in our core.
That has obviously been helpful as we've brought our power three of our power four brands. Utz's core was our historical core. If you look at On the Border, Zapps, and Boulder Canyon, bringing them into the core geographies and gaining distribution has obviously helped bring that tailwind. Expansion markets, obviously, we've been very fortunate to have the retailer partnerships and the IO partnerships we've had. The expansion markets, we've been able to introduce our power four brands as we're moving westward, and we've actually been able to deliver against that 30 basis points of volume share. I think those two things together are actually accomplishing a lot of what we expected. The last thing I'll say is our productivity has been very strong.
We have talked a lot about we wanted to increase our marketing support 40% year-on-year as we went, funded by that productivity. Last year, we were able to deliver almost 70% increase in ANC spend. This year, we are more in the 30% range, but that is also being able to drive consumer awareness and availability as we go.
Affordability has been a key focus for consumers this year. Pricing across your portfolio has been down modestly. Does that reflect just greater promotional intensity across the group? Is there a shift in mix we should be considering, something else going on? If you're able to, maybe offer initial thoughts of what we might see from a price mix standpoint as we go into 2026?
Yeah. I mean, I think first of all, not to retrack old conversations, but to retrack old conversations very briefly. We obviously had a discreet event called the bonus pack program in the first quarter. And that was obviously a great way for us to introduce our products and our brands and drive trial and awareness. When you look at our pricing more broadly, we've said over the last couple of quarters that we expected basically a 1% headwind, which is what we delivered in Q3. And that's really being driven by what we would reflect more targeted promotions in some of the markets that we're entering into. I think the category has been pretty rational. Obviously, last year was a little bit more, there was a little bit more intensity to the category. I think we expected it to normalize, which it did.
When we think as you think about it is going into next year, we expect a very rational environment. I think the one other thing I would just remind everyone is we do actually put volume and mix together in one metric. We actually have price separately. When you think about that as being mix has been positive for us given what Boulder Canyon has been able to do. Last but not least, we've done a lot of investment in our revenue management capability over the last couple of years. We are much clearer on the role that we play in the subcategories and the category overall, being a disciplined and smart follower to the overall marketplace as we go. Over time, we would expect to find a good balance between price and mix and volume as we go.
Do you have any thoughts on what the category as a whole needs to do to return to growth? Is it that we're just working through a rough patch with the consumer more broadly and they're tightening their belts and that's kind of flowing through to challenges in Salty Snacks? Or are there maybe structural changes in how we see the consumer engaging with snacks? That presents maybe a more deep challenge that the industry has to confront?
Yeah. I mean, I think I've been pretty consistent with my answer here. I don't actually believe that there's anything structurally wrong with snacking. I think if you look at how snacking is defined and how consumers snack in general, that you see higher incidence year over year. Certainly even in Salty, without getting into the category debate, has been what's wrong with the category. I look at household penetration and try and say, do more households want this category in their pantries this year versus last? If you look at any of the time series over the last couple of years, household penetration continues to grow. I don't believe that there is a structural issue to speak of. I do think that there are two things that obviously will continue to drive the category.
One is it is not surprising to me that given the pricing that we saw a couple of years ago, that it's taken some time for the consumer to kind of wear in and adjust to higher overall prices. There are some trends that I think are going to be accommodating as you go forward, whether it's things like non-seed oil or the elimination of FD&C colors within the category. I'll just remind you that over 80% of our business today is free of artificial colors. This is something that I think consumers are continuing to look for. I think there are other trends out there, better for you and presence of positive that will continue to help. What this category has always been about is innovation, marketing support, and brand-led.
I think that that will continue to be the case as this category kind of evolves through. If you look at the last period, while it's not yet a positive up to the right trend, you are seeing more periods where the category is trying to inflect positively as we kind of had expected.
Specifically within your portfolio, growth continues to be led by the power four brands, Boulder Canyon, Zapps, On the Border, Utz. How do you think about balancing your investment across those brands, particularly given the interplay between the exposure in the core market versus the expansion market? I would imagine that in different geographies, different brands play better or worse.
Sure. Yeah. Look, I think a couple of things. We've talked historically. I always kind of talk the three Ms in marketing, which are margin, momentum, and materiality. So are you making enough money on the advertising? Does the brand or the message have some sort of momentum? And is it enough to matter when you spend the money? I think that's kind of how we think about the world. We try and create a balance between each of the businesses. Obviously, as you think about materiality, momentum, and margin, our power four brands all have the opportunity to build. The last thing is what do we have to say? Right? We have a couple of great brands that have lots to say. Utz certainly does. Zapps certainly does.
We're building out a Boulder Canyon campaign right now to be able to drive those businesses as we go. It is just a combination of what is the opportunity, either consumer or market. We're fortunate we have plenty of high ROI investments still to make as we go forward.
The marketing mix, again, as you drive those incremental marketing dollars, is it kind of proportional to the size of the brand relative to its position in the portfolio?
No. I mean, I think it's actually more about the potential impact of the dollar. Right? As you think about entering into a new geography, retailers want to know you're going to support the brands and make sure that their shoppers can find it. If you think about Boulder Canyon as an example, it is growing quickly. We have opportunities to drive awareness and benefits of the brand that even though it is smaller than, say, Utz, the impact of the future is actually meaningful. In Utz, it's a little bit more of an established brand, but it is being introduced to new geographies and new consumers. We have a great story around the product delivery, our ingredient story, and our heritage around value and quality, all of which I think come through.
It's not necessarily so linear as if you're this big, we'll spend it on this kind of money. The last thing I think for us is we will continue to invest in seed markets as we go. There will always be a net investment in some of those geographies in an expansion scenario. In our core, we expect good returns consistently.
Of the power brands, is there any one brand that stands out as particularly adept at bringing new households into the Utz portfolio?
I mean, certainly, as you think, it is a tale of two markets, right? Expansion versus core. Obviously, Boulder Canyon is growing both because of distribution and velocity gains across both the natural and conventional channels. So they're bringing in a lot of new consumers and shoppers with the promise of a non-seed oil with a great taste. You can pour the product out into a bowl and eat it, and you do not feel like you're making any sacrifice whatsoever, which I think is not always the case. In expansion markets, our power four brands are driving new households because they're being introduced to new consumers. Obviously, Utz is a significant driver of household penetration as well. On the Border and Zapps are contributing as well. Obviously, the bigger two are the first two.
Can you give us any color around your innovation pipeline? Particularly, you mentioned Boulder in that kind of having a unique value proposition. What opportunity do you see for these better-for-you trends outside of the healthy seed oils? We've also seen things like protein infusion, all kind of seasonal hot flavors. Just walk us through what you guys see in the innovation pipeline and maybe the opportunity for the different brands.
Yeah. Look, a couple of things. First, we have an ongoing pipeline. Obviously, there are things that we can do quickly. It does not take a lot of effort and time—it takes a lot of effort, my marketers might yell at me—to be able to introduce a new seasoning blend or something like that to a flavor. Right? Those things tend to be relatively quick, low investment, and happen every year as normal course innovation. There are things like you are talking about around trends, whether it is non-seed oil or protein or fiber or presence of positive. Those things we take a little bit more time. We want to make sure that we understand the consumer opportunity and the brand opportunity. The nice thing about our power four brands is they all have stretch.
We can actually introduce some of these benefits into those brands without having to go and create a new one as an example or have to take a lot of investment, but we can actually introduce the benefit under the brand. We will continue to look at those things. You will see more innovation from us as we go into next year. I will also say that we have a long runway still on the distribution story. Right? As you think about our expansion markets, even just our core assortment has a lot of room in order to get that shelf space right, which means that innovation for us actually is a cherry on top of the story, not necessarily the entire story, which is important, I think, for us over the next couple of years.
Why don't we stop there and see if there's any questions from the audience?
Can you maybe talk about which of the brands you think provides you the most expansion opportunity beyond California, etc., and then maybe kind of how the marketing strategy has evolved around entering those markets?
Yeah.
You wish you could repeat it real quick.
Yeah. The question was, which of the brands do we think about beyond California? And then how has our marketing strategy evolved? Look, I think all four of our power four brands have actual distribution opportunities, sort of call it west of the Mississippi. If you look at kind of the distribution gains, what we typically try to do is gain perimeter and end cap placement first, be able to build out the drop size and make sure that we're not just getting three SKUs. We kind of, if you do not have, call it 18 SKUs, it is probably not worth the opportunity in the near term because small begets small. We need to make sure that our independent operator partners have enough of a drop to be able to make sense and that we can actually give our portfolio the chance to grow.
When we do that, it tends to work. I think if you think about whether it is in Colorado or Michigan or Texas or the Pacific Northwest, we actually feel like all of our power brands still have average item carried opportunities and ACV opportunities. Utz has been traveling nicely as we go westward. Where California is a little different is Hawaiian is a bigger brand. We think actually that Hawaiian is probably underlevered even in California, which allows us to be able to kind of grow in the near term. In terms of the marketing capability, it's really a balance between business overnight and brands over time is kind of how we talk about it.
Business overnight tends to be things more like point of sale materials and early introduction and just general consumer awareness, putting the end cap up and telling a little bit of our story, retail media, and getting that preponderance right. We tend to be mostly digital and social in nature in terms of the actual brand building, the brands over time equity. We tend to toggle between those two things in partnership with both the brands and the retail opportunity in the near term because feel great about Utz does not really work for us if you do not know anything about our brands, you do not know our ingredient story, you do not know our heritage. It is a lot of driving early trial and awareness in any market, not just California. This has been an approach we have been building and proving over the last couple of years.
In addition to innovation, we've leaned a lot and talked a little bit about retail media, targeted digital spend. Can you offer any thoughts on hurdle rates for those investment dollars, any metrics we should think about, and maybe how that spending scales as the sales base continues to scale?
Yeah. We talked when I first got here about this sort of push versus pull marketing, right? Push being you enter into new markets and you really want to drive consumers to be aware of the item. Over time, we would expect to be more of a slightly more balanced push versus pull. We were very much a straight push business, pull being consumers are aware of the products, have seen some advertising, heard about innovation, and are highly responsive to those things. I kind of think about retail media and consumer media the same way, right? Over time, what we have been working toward is off of what I would consider a very low base. I think we were under 1% of revenue in advertising three years ago. We are approaching 2% as a percentage of revenue in advertising.
I think investor day, we promised 40% over three years. That would get us, call it into the mid to higher twos. What we've learned is that there tends to be a little bit of a balance between retail media and pure brand communication. We kind of think about them very flexibly. The ROIs are good on both because when you're still ramping up your investment, the returns should be better than average. They tend to be equally valuable to us. It's really a question of where we feel like the state of the distribution is and whether that creates a better selling opportunity for us in the near term. Over time, you'd expect those things to also come into balance as we go. Right now, I think the ROI is very strong across most of our activities because we still are scaling.
Is it fair to think about the spend mix as being over-indexed to the expansion, just given the greater opportunity for the awareness?
No, I actually don't think that. I think it's fair. I think we tend to, we will be over-investing in terms of the return on investment in the expansion markets. The core market return on investment is kind of part of what helps fund that inefficiency, right? I think when you bring it all together, it kind of is, I think, a pretty balanced return.
Okay. You saw your market share you mentioned earlier grow within both core and expansion in Q3. Traditionally, and when you guys had your investor day, that was really the expectation was just to hold in core and then grow in expansion.
Yeah.
Is there anything particular we should think about that's driving that dynamic in the core markets? Is there maybe a higher ceiling for your share there than previously thought about?
Yeah. I mean, look, I think part of what made our core interesting is it was really Utz's core, right? I mean, we also had said that we thought we had average items carried and ACV opportunities in our core for Zapps, Boulder Canyon, On the Border. I think that that has been, continues to be true. Boulder, obviously, has been growing very quickly and has been a very positive tailwind. We're gaining share in our food channel, which is obviously our largest, but we're also starting to bend the trend in Seastore. We're not where we want to be quite yet, but we're gaining on it. I still think over the near t-term, holding in the core is probably the right way to think about it. We'll take the opportunistic share gains as we go as long as they are profitable and sustainable.
So far, we feel really good that that is what we're building against. Could it be higher than that? Let us mature the expansion markets, and then we can talk about is there a path to even higher core market share as well.
You mentioned Seastore. What historically has been the challenge there? Recently, what have been maybe some of the—I do not know if innovation would be the right word, but changes, dynamics that have helped that?
Yeah. I feel like we've been talking about Seastore for years. Actually, I think quite literally we have. I think if you went back a couple of years ago, we made some assortment choices. We upsized the bags that we were carrying, and we changed the assortment to maybe over-index a little bit more to take what we would call a take-home bag, think family and party-sized chips as opposed to single-serve. If you think about Zapps, Zapps is very much a me experience. I'm going to buy the bag and eat the bag myself. I would eat an entire party-sized bag of chips in the car, but most people want to have a smaller proportion. We got that assortment kind of out of whack for a period of time. We corrected that.
The thing that's interesting about Seastore is it's such a broad and big channel with a lot of—there are chains, but then there are independents, and then there are indirect. It is just taking us a little bit longer to get back to what we want. We've corrected the assortment. If you look at sort of some of the bigger retailers, you're seeing nice share growth and nice top-line momentum. It is really some of those indirects that are taking a little bit more time, but we're certainly moving in the right direction. That's part of what you're seeing in the core, which tends to be overexposed to that channel.
I definitely share your propensity to consume when it comes to salty snacks. Anything else that's worth touching on in terms of kind of pack sizing, pack format across multi-packs? We talked about some opportunity in club. Outside of Seastore, opportunity that's worth highlighting.
Yeah. I mean, look, I think our price pack architecture remains really important. We were talking a little bit about affordability earlier. Kind of the affordability trend actually requires you to make sure you're hitting price points on the price ladder. If that makes sense. So it's a constant work in process, right? We've launched variety packs across the vast majority of our portfolio at this point in the preferred consumer bag and box format. We will continue to look at other pack sizes on the low end of the price ladder as well as on the higher. If you look at club channels, we have a nice business and growing in club, and that is really being driven by larger pack sizes because that shopper is defining value as a price per ounce versus an absolute price point.
We want to cover the entire ladder, and we'll continue to tweak as we go.
Is there anything when we think through the price ladder and your positioning relative to the biggest player in the space and then maybe other premium products, how you—is there kind of like a constant price gap that you look to maintain? Is there a range? How should we think about that given that the consumer's focus is so heavily placed on value right now and where you position yourself?
Yeah. Look, we've done a lot of work on revenue management and trying to understand that price ladder over the last couple of years because there are a couple of things that are true. The benefit of hitting the price point that the shopper is looking for, whether it is premium or value, is important, right? We've spent a lot of time building the capability and our understanding of shoppers as well as kind of where our competitors are sitting on the ladder. It really depends on the competitor. We do try to maintain a modest price gap to the category leader. Depending on the subcategory will vary. Obviously, what you want to make sure is that you're being disciplined about it.
You are adding value to the category, and you are making sure that the consumer is getting what they want at a price that they can afford. We tend to be pretty disciplined. We do watch kind of what the category leader does and what other competition is doing, as well as what the consumer is responsive to, to make sure that we are kind of hitting price points. We kind of like where our gaps are right now. It is a constant push and pull, right, as we go.
You talked a lot about pricing and the consumption side. In addition to delivering consumption that's ahead of the category, you've also been delivering significant productivity savings as you've been working through the year. Could you just walk us through what's left in the tank on your productivity initiatives, and where should we expect to see that go in 2026?
Sure. So regarding productivity, we've been around—we will be around 6% of COGS this year. That's a very high level. It was really achievable due to the very successful supply chain transformation and consolidation we went through. Looking forward, we've said that next year we'll be at or above the high end of a longer-term range of 3%-4%. We still think 3%-4% of COGS is best in class. Next year, we'll benefit from some of the large projects that were completed in the back half here of 2025. As we look forward, we'll inevitably mature that program. We think 3%-4% is a good long-term framework.
BK, can you walk us through—is all of that uplift from improved plant operations? Are there other components to consider there that help kind of bolster that gross margin improvement?
Yeah. We look for improvement throughout the entirety of the P&L. The majority of our efforts have been focused on the supply chain, but also in the delivery and the network space. There are issues there that have been solved. We think there is opportunity in procurement as we go forward. In other areas of supply chain, there are even further steps in terms of automation, demand sensing, using some of the AI tools and machine learning. There are just lots of things there that we could really benefit from given where we are as a business model.
Is there anything, just double-clicking on procurement, is there any commodities that we should be particularly focused on or aware of, just given all the noise and the fluctuation in commodity that's particularly sensitive to you?
Not really. Any inflation we anticipate is modest and manageable from our perspective. Obviously, we pay attention to oils quite a bit in our portfolio mix of flaggy basket. There is nothing there that, at this point, we think is overly inflationary.
From your seat, how do you balance flowing through those productivity savings to the bottom line to contributing to continuing to deliver the balance sheet versus reinvesting in some of these growth opportunities Howard's touched on? Kind of how does that split look like, or how do you think about the decision tree to decide where those dollars go?
Yeah. For us, the gross productivity savings we've had so far have offset inflation and pricing and any other reinvestments we choose to make. That's been helpful. The size of our productivity this year, for example, has really driven the entirety of our gross margin expansion. Howard's mentioned it a couple of times in our comments this morning. There are other ways to drive gross margin in a balanced way, drivers that include price mix. Not only the productivity savings offset by inflation and reinvestment, but our programs really around RGM could be helpful there as well.
Yeah. The only thing I would add, I think BK said it well, is when you're a company our size and where we are sort of in the maturity curve, there's always going to be more opportunities to invest than there are going to be dollars to do it. We want to—we maintain a disciplined approach to it, and we will surge to the greatest opportunities first. We will come back around to the others as we go. I think we've been pretty good at making those decisions as we go. We'll always keep a balance of we know where margins need to go, and we know how to get them, and we also know where growth needs to go.
What is nice about us is we sort of have opportunities to fund our growth as we go, which makes us a little bit unusual. We have other growth opportunities that are not dependent on a mature market yet. We feel pretty good about where we are.
Can you remind us where we are in terms of the plant consolidation and transferring volume to the core plants in Hanover? Just if there is any kind of operational things we should consider as you guys are shifting that volume.
Right now, we've consolidated our plants from 15 to it'll be seven at the beginning of next year when Grand Rapids closes. Grand Rapids, we're still in the middle of making those shifts, as you allude to, really ramping up the capability and capacities in the landing spots where that volume will end up. Everything is pretty much on track there as we expected.
Anything we should consider on the capacity side as you go from 15- 7? Do you feel confident in the capacity for the remaining plants to continue to support the growth, particularly as you unlock opportunities in California and in the expansion geographies?
Yeah. We think we have the sufficient capacity to drive our growth. The supply chain transformation was very helpful with automation and all those pieces. The team has also done a lot of work around OEE and other productivity levers to drive efficiency. We continue to be very much focused on just driving more output with our existing capacity that we have.
BK, I think you mentioned earlier your CapEx steps down in 2026. You got some of these initiatives on the supply chain that are already starting to support better flow-through. Should we think about a step up in free cash flow in 2026 relative to 2025? Are there any operational factors we need to consider outside of just the CapEx step down?
Yeah. We'll come back to that as we have a more formal guide for 2026. The building blocks that we've been thinking about, to your point, for next year. Obviously, CapEx steps down from the $100 million level that we are now to we said $60 million-$70 million. We think the one-time charges relative to our supply chain transformation, the friction costs associated with it, will drop down as well. We think that'll be helpful. We continue to have really good initiatives across our working capital, particularly in receivables and inventory. We think working capital monetization will continue to expand. We obviously have some assets that now, with the consolidation of the buildings, we have some assets that are available for us to be sold. There's quite a demand for property in both Grand Rapids and Hanover that will be impactful there as well.
Great. Thinking about capital allocation priorities, we talked at the outset about the opportunity in California and how you felt that was a great use of incremental spend, though modest in the near term. Net leverage in 3Q, I believe, was just under four. Is getting that back to three kind of the first priority from a capital allocation standpoint? Could we see you lean more into share buybacks given where the stock's trading today? Just thoughts around, again, your kind of range of options there.
Sure. To your point, we think it's very important to get as close to 3x as we can as we continue to improve the free cash flow generation of the business. With that, we have more flexibility, we think, around capital allocation. We continue to pay a modest dividend, and we revisit that annually. That's part of our model. After that, debt paydown is currently our focus. Given where we think now the stock is undervalued, we think we would consider a share buyback, or the board would consider that as part of capital allocation. To your point, driving our leverage approaching 3x as we close this year and getting that number below that next year is an important priority for us.
Yeah. Just to comment on the dividend, because we've committed at Investor Day and ongoing to grow it over time, right? To the point of just understanding the overall complex that we have, we will continue to grow that over time while we also balance cash, debt, and obviously the investments that we're making in growth.
Great. Maybe just one question wrapping up. Howard, as you look across where we're at from the consumer standpoint, what you guys have and all your initiatives in place, maybe what's one thing that you're most excited about 2026 and beyond with the brand?
Yeah. I mean, I think we've been doing a lot of work over the last three years. I feel like we are in a position where we're getting the distribution base where we want it. The brands are where we believe that they are ready to go. We have a modernized supply chain that actually can now support growth and demonstrate the leverage, the overhead leverage that you kind of would expect out of a business that's maturing. I feel like we've built a great engine. We have a good portfolio. We have the people now in place to be able to really start to drive this business as we go. I personally am motivated to see how far we can take it as we're kind of delivering a little bit more balanced profile over time.
Leverage comes in, cash flow increases, market share, and consumer trends continue to be at our back. I think we're in a great place. I couldn't be more excited by the work that the team has done and the opportunities in front.
Great. Howard, BK, appreciate your thoughts today and all your commentary. Thank you, everybody, for joining us.
Thank you.
Thanks, Jim.