We're traded on the New York Stock Exchange, ticker ZVIA. Presenting for the company is CFO and Principal Accounting Officer, Girish Satya.
I hope this clicker is the one that works. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I look forward to speaking with you about Zevia and our plans for the future as we embark on this next phase of growth within the emerging better-for-you soda category. Oh, that did work. Before we kick off, I'll quickly flash our safe harbor statement, which obviously we've made very easy for all of you to read in the audience. As a reminder, this will be available on the Zevia Investor Relations website as a follow-up. What is Zevia? Zevia was actually founded in 2008, so we've been around for a little while. It was founded by a husband and wife who were avid soda drinkers but were worried about the harmful additives and harmful chemicals that they were reading about.
They were in search of how do we sort of scratch our soda itch while doing so in a healthier way. What they were able to do was utilize the stevia plant, as well as a mix of natural flavors, to really create a better-tasting, better-for-you product and really sort of solve this tension between taste and health. Thus, Zevia was born. Rooted in that innovation is really our mission to bring healthier, better-tasting, and more planet-friendly beverage solutions to the market and to the consumer. I'm excited to talk to you a little bit about how we're translating that mission into our business today. Why invest in Zevia? As we fast forward to 2025, we're well positioned to capitalize on this massive market within the fast-growing better-for-you soda category. We have a distinctive market position that stands at the intersection of health and taste.
We have strong consumer loyalty and repeat purchase rates. We have multiple brand levers at our disposal to accelerate growth. We've built a scalable asset-light model to do just that. Let's talk a little bit about the company. I think this is a great snapshot of where we are today and the opportunity in front of us. I think what you see here is a history of growth, widely distributed with 37,000 distribution points. We're more affordable than 65% of non-alcoholic beverages, and our consumers spend 35% more on beverage and 31% more when they travel to the grocery store, really highlighting a very strong, loyal consumer base with which to build on top of. Separately, you also see that our household penetration is only at 5.1%, which suggests a significant amount of runway in order to drive top-line growth.
It also highlights our commitment to doing no harm to the planet with zero plastic bottles sold and 93 tons of metric sugar removed from diets. One of the things that we're most convinced by is that brand will be the moat for this business. We believe that building a distinct brand is super important, not only in the beverage category, but for the ultimate success of Zevia. Our brand positioning is rooted in three unique elements. First is our distinct product. We really are soda made better. We're the only zero sugar, zero calorie, no artificial ingredients, and we're really leaning into that product differentiation. You hear realness or authenticity tossed around a lot.
In a world of AI, fake filters, and alternative facts, we really believe in delivering a more authentic experience to our consumer and poking a little bit of fun at the sort of highly curated online content you tend to see in the market. Lastly, accessibility. We define accessibility a little bit differently in that, one, we want to ensure that consumers can enjoy our product on a limitless basis under any usage occasion. Therefore, there's no additional additives. Two, being priced appropriately, so again, that it is an approachable price point and thus not just available to those who are very affluent or to the coastal elite.
As we think about how do we best sort of encapsulate all of these three pillars, we think the national advertising campaign, which was the first of its kind or the first for Zevia that we ran earlier in the year, which the crossover artist Jelly Roll, is really the greatest encapsulation of how this brand is coming to life. I'm actually just going to play that clip for you now.
Jelly Roll and the Zevia commercial, this is huge. By choosing them as the spokesperson for their zero sugar soda with zero artificial ingredients, Zevia is dismantling the notion that "real men cannot be conscious of what goes into their bodies." Mr. Roll is now quite literally the poster child for sweet authenticity. What?
Zero sugar, no artificial nothing. Zevia, get the fake out of here.
Why is he just standing there?
We think that's a great sort of encapsulation not only of the tone and tenor of the brand, but also this idea of poking a little bit of fun at the highly curated online content that you see, whether it's on Instagram or TikTok. Really, at the heart of this brand is also a really distinct soda portfolio and an emerging energy drink line. Today, our product portfolio is really focused on, or historically has leaned into nostalgic flavors, which I'll dig into a little bit later in the presentation. We also have a very nascent energy drink line, better-for-you energy drink line as well, which has incredibly high margins and a loyal consumer base. Although our focus is soda today, we do believe in the future that this represents an untapped significant growth opportunity for the business and for the brand.
As we think about our product, we really do believe we deliver soda made better. As you can see, our beverages are unique in that we have no sugar, no calories, and no dyes. We're really the only true clean alternative in the category. As an aside, as consumer adoption of GLP-1s continues, we do believe we're also well positioned favorably given the calorie-restricted nature of those on GLP-1s that Zevia can be a very unique solution for those who want to continue to enjoy their soda habit but may need to do so on a calorie-restricted basis. Said differently, we think we have a very differentiated product that tastes great and will allow us to drive continued growth and differentiation. From a distribution standpoint, we have a broad and diverse distribution footprint. We're well represented by some of the biggest names in grocery, mass, and club.
Our current total points of distribution number 37,000+ with significant room to grow. Recently, we reentered the club channel in the second quarter, and we'll touch on some of the distribution white space later in the presentation. We've made great strides over the past year in consolidating and optimizing our supply chain. While we continue to work to further streamline our supply chain, our current footprint is both flexible and scalable, which will enable significant growth with limited incremental investment. We built an experienced management team with a mix of beverage and CPG experience that is setting the stage for the next phase of growth and profitability. Our CEO, Amy Taylor, spent 20 years at Red Bull, most recently as its North American President and CMO. I myself have helped build a number of high-growth consumer companies as a serial CFO, PE investor, and board member.
We're complemented by a team of experienced beverage and CPG executives from companies such as Procter & Gamble, Taco Bell, Red Bull, and Monster. We're making significant progress against our twin goals of reinvigorating top-line growth and achieving profitability, achieving adjusted EBITDA positivity headed into 2026. Our playbook from cutting from the back to invest in the front has started to bear fruit. Although there is still work to be done, we believe the moves we've made over the past year have really set us up for the future. In our most recent quarter, we delivered 10% top-line growth as compared to Q2 last year, and reached positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time as a public company.
While we see the impact of tariffs hit our P&L in the back half of 2025, we believe the second quarter was a key milestone for us as it shows the confidence we have not only in reinvigorating top-line growth but in being able to achieve profitability as well. What gets us so excited about the category? I think there's a couple of things that we wanted to highlight. We're seeing a rapid shift in consumer preferences, and two trends in particular stick out. One, of course, are consumers' desire to reduce their sugar intake in order to improve their health outcomes. A focus on natural, high-quality ingredients and, relatedly, eliminating artificial or heavily processed ingredients. We're uniquely positioned to thrive amid the growing shift toward better-for-you sodas and better-for-you alternatives. This has really created an outsized growth opportunity for the better-for-you soda segment.
The total carbonated soft drink market is $57 billion and continues to grow at a healthy clip. However, within this large category, better-for-you soda is growing at five times the rate of conventional soda and is on pace to continue to drive the growth of the overall category. Better-for-you soda is a unique opportunity to not only grow the overall category but also gain share while doing so. I think the better-for-you soda shopper is also a very attractive demographic. They tend to skew Gen Z and Millennial, tend to be a little bit more affluent, are very health-involved or concerned about their health, and are willing to pay a premium for products that they deem to be healthier, better-for-you, natural, and organic. This high willingness to pay also creates a lot of opportunity for us from a pricing standpoint as we think about the future.
How are we capitalizing on all this momentum in the category? We're focused on four key initiatives. First, amplifying marketing. Two, driving product innovation. Three, expanding distribution. Four, delivering profitability. I want to touch on marketing. We've sharpened our marketing positioning to drive brand awareness and deepen engagement. With just 5% household penetration, we have tremendous white space in front of us. We're delivering more compelling brand messaging, brand campaigns to drive reach and relevance, and to attract a broader audience while staying top of mind amongst our loyal base. To support our refined marketing approach, we've increased our marketing spend while at the same time shifting investment to growing the user base with national campaigns and influencer strategies. As noted, our sharper marketing is best exemplified by our recent national ad campaign earlier this year featuring the crossover artist Jelly Roll, which I aired earlier in the presentation.
The ad generated 2.4 billion positive media impressions and the highest engagement ever on Zevia's social channels. To complement this, we've also refined our approach to product innovation, which has seen some very positive initial success, which we'll touch on shortly. Lastly, we continue to invest in media and event activations in the balance of the year, and we'll continue to look for opportunities to further invest behind our marketing. A lot of the early success has really been driven by sort of the nimble and scalable marketing ecosystem that we've built. We continuously fine-tune our spend by channel, scaling investments up and down across social media, influencers, retail activation, in real-life activations like events at Coachella and Stagecoach, and digital advertising as well. We're able to scale those up and down based on performance in a very methodical fashion.
Turning to product innovation, we're driving growth through a strategic innovation pipeline rooted in consumer megatrends. Further leveraging our capabilities and delivering great tastes through natural flavors and a new stevia blend, we have a robust pipeline of new product innovation. Our innovation is focused on both enhancing the taste of our legacy flavors while also delivering exciting new flavors that closely align with a wide range of consumer preferences. Complementing our legacy classic and nostalgic soda flavors with more on-trend fruity flavors, we're broadening the appeal of the product. These initiatives designed to drive trial and excitement with both new and existing consumers and retailers are garnering very positive response and increased interest among both. Our two most recent launches, Strawberry Lemon Burst and Orange Creamsicle, which is currently an exclusive at Sprouts, have quickly risen to become two of our fastest-selling SKUs.
This is significant as it provides that our innovation can help drive acquisition of new customers and distinct consumer segments. Another tool at our disposal is limited-time offerings that are seasonal in nature and drive engagement. For example, we launched Salted Caramel last year, last fall rather, which has been one of our most successful LTOs to date and one that we can bring back each fall and are planning to in this coming fall. I know our marketing team doesn't like it when I refer to it as such, but it is our take on sort of Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte where we can drive excitement and anticipation of new flavors on a seasonal basis.
Our expanded pace of innovation has really allowed us to offer more LTOs, which is both to drive newness for consumers, but also a vehicle to learn and adapt for permanent adaptations to the portfolio. As I mentioned earlier, we've enhanced our stevia and taste profile to bring out a more distinct and bolder flavor profile while minimizing the stevia aftertaste and in some cases completely eliminating it. We've seen strong response to the new taste profile during our consumer testing and are seeing the results in both new flavors and legacy flavors that have been reformulated to adapt the improved taste profile. We believe this further differentiates Zevia as we strive to broaden the distinction of our zero sugar great tasting soda.
To better highlight our enhanced taste profile, we've introduced our Refresh packaging, which has started its soft rollout with the launch of Peaches and Cream, which is available exclusively on Amazon. We believe this enhanced packaging will better communicate the consumer value proposition and give new consumers more reason to buy Zevia. Our in-store tests have indicated that the Refresh packaging and improved taste profile have increased lifts, and we're excited for them to be fully rolled out in market by Q2 of 2026. Be on the lookout as they will be soft rolling out over the coming quarters. Lastly, we've also introduced new retail variety packs to further drive new consumers to the brand. This is especially helpful in regions where we don't have DSD or direct store delivery and therefore have lower penetration of singles because it offers us an incremental opportunity to drive trial with new consumers.
Operationally, these have been streamlined and automated such that we can scale them up without significant margin impact. The third focus is expanding distribution. Despite our 37,000 total points of distribution, we still see significant untapped opportunity to expand our presence in current and new channels. In particular, in the near to medium term, we are expanding the breadth and depth of our offering at our core grocery channels. At the same time, we are increasing our presence in the high-potential club and mass channels. Longer term, we see additional opportunities across convenience and food service as we successfully build our brand and improve our unit economics. Interestingly, retailers have also begun to expand and invest heavily into the modern soda set. Retailers have now been attuned to customers coming in and making it easier for them to find and shop better-for-you sodas.
This was somewhat accelerated by Walmart's decision to create a modern soda set in Q4 of last year, and many other retailers have followed. For instance, in the second quarter, we announced that we'd expanded our Albertsons set by 30%, and we've begun to see similar rollouts in our existing retailer base. What this really says is that we are uniquely positioned to succeed as the consumer shifts and retailer shifts are creating tailwinds for the Zevia brand. As we discussed, we're just beginning to scratch the surface of the distribution opportunities. We recently entered Walgreens and are back at Costco as of Q2 on a rotational basis, but they still remain a really small part of our mix. Separately, as we establish our brand and portfolio and diversify our product portfolio and continue to prove our unit economics, the convenience and food service channels represent significant upside.
To date, as you can see from the bottom, all of these channels represent less than 1% of our volume today. We have a huge opportunity to drive expanded distribution.
That's less than 1% of your volume or less than 1% of their total stores?
Less than 1% of their total stores, but we have convenience is less than 1% of our volume. Food service is less than 1% of our volume. Drug is around 1% of our volume, and then warehouse is quite low as well. Lastly, on profitability. Over the last 12 months, we've identified $20 million in cost savings, of which $15 million of annualized cost savings will be realized by year-end, which has been partially reinvested into the business with the remainder flowing to the bottom line. This has driven significant improvement in our underlying unit economics, which will serve as a strong foundation for profitable growth. We believe that the work we've done across marketing, product innovation, and distribution puts us on track to deliver accelerated growth and achieve profitability in 2026. Wrapping it up, key takeaways are we're well positioned in this high-growth emerging category.
We have a distinct market position with a clean label, zero sugar, all-natural soda. We have strong consumer loyalty and repeat rates, which serves as a solid foundation for the brand. We have multiple growth levers at our disposal, and we have built a scalable and asset-light business model that's ready to scale for profitable growth. With that, I'll wrap up my prepared remarks and open it up for any questions. Oh, yes.
I've just got a few series of questions right here. If you were to lean further into advertising or building partnerships and relationships with other vendors, would you be more likely to raise funds through debt or through?
Yeah, this year we've effectively doubled marketing as a percentage of revenue. We went from 6% to 12% this year, and we continue to see opportunity to further invest in marketing. We've been continuing to do that vis-à-vis pulling out costs from the back of the house, really in supply chain and selling warehousing and reinvesting that into marketing. I think at this point we're closer than we've ever been to sort of a normalized marketing spend, and I think we'll be able to sufficiently self-fund that. Where we would need to potentially raise incremental capital would be for something maybe outside the normal course of business, say a joint venture or some sort of special partnership.
At this point, based on the cash on hand, our untapped revolver, and the continued room we have to pull costs out of the business and reinvest it, I don't know that we'll need to do that specifically to support marketing spend.
I will say the marketing spend, at least from my perception, seems to have been very successful. I, in my personal life, have had many friends come to have this be one of their main drinks. I really, really like the idea that you said earlier how anybody in any situation should be able to afford it.
Yeah.
It's something for everybody. Later on in this presentation, I get it, right? We're talking about how the demographic of people who are interested in healthy sodas have more cash. They're willing to spend more. Do you think that you should maybe keep the original soda, maybe that affordable thing for everyone? Those other things, like the energy drinks, could be the things to really have high profit margins, whereas the regular sodas that like lost me or something to that?
Yeah, so I think from a pricing perspective, you know, we're priced at a slight premium to, say, the traditional mainstream sodas, Cokes and Pepsis of the world. We're actually a significant discount to the other entrants in the better-for-you soda category, in some instances we're 50% less already. I think in many respects we continue to hold a very accessible and approachable price point, and I think we'll continue to maintain that. We will continue to sort of manage price to maintain that. In the short to medium term, I don't see the need to really adjust it all that much because I think we're already priced at a very accessible place. I think it just, again, reinforces this idea that we're sort of the soda for everybody, right? Which is, I think, what we're really leaning into.
Hop here, some of those other ones for sure.
Right.
Somebody that was involved.
Yeah, Amy Taylor, our CEO, was.
Yeah. The CEO has been involved with Red Bull. There's been something which recently I graduated college a couple of years ago. When I was in college, the entire student populace was all about Red Bull because they had student ambassadors there. I feel like that would totally fit into the demographic of the healthy, health-conscious consumers that want to have these modern smartphones. Is that something that you guys do or which you would consider doing?
Yeah, we don't currently have an ambassador program as you've described it. However, it is something that we're exploring. I think we continue to look for and find new and unique ways to get people into the brand. To your earlier point, I think the limited marketing that we have been doing this year has been highly impactful and relatively successful. I think, again, we continue to sort of optimize our mix and look for new opportunities to bring new people into the brand.
I think the last thing that I would touch upon, I really see this big overlap with younger consumers, especially like men or even very health-minded women who have been consuming a lot of pre-workout products over the past couple of years, and that's a growing trend. Is that something that you would like to do at some point?
Can you ask me that question one more time?
You have the sodas. You have the energy drinks, but pre-workouts are very.
Oh, I see what you're saying. At this time, it's not on the product roadmap. I think we do believe that energy can be the next sort of leg of the stool from a growth perspective. Clean energy is sort of also having its moment, but we're really focused on building the soda brand, building the soda franchise, building a distinct brand, and then I think it'll be a lot easier to get the consumer's permission to expand into other categories. We have a pretty loyal consumer base already of the energy drinks, and I think as we look to build upon that, that'll be sort of the next growth lever. To your point, that isn't necessarily on the product roadmap right now. Yeah, go ahead.
Don't get in. What's the typical reason you guys aren't getting in?
Yeah, you know, I think it really comes down to shelf sets and is the retailer ready to sort of dedicate the shelf space to a sort of modern soda or better-for-you soda? I think generally speaking, as we were talking about earlier, that may have been a harder sell three, four, or five years ago, but today it's becoming increasingly more common that retailers are executing these types of sets. We're seeing a lot more adoption of that. Sometimes it's just a little bit slower than others. Some retailers are slower than others, but we've seen a lot of receptivity to it. I think on the flip side, what we're seeing now is a flood of entrants into the market, right? I think that's really where retailers are trying to balance more established players such as ourselves with some of the newer up-and-coming brands as well.
There's no other one. I think there's a mentor that's gone through or not that like Cokes are currently SNAP or EBT eligible. Are you guys trying to use, you know, EBT or SNAP?
Yeah, you can today, and you know, there has been some discussion about products not qualifying for SNAP or EBT benefits. As of right now, we believe we still would qualify because we actually don't have any, we are all-natural, no sugar, and so we believe that we would still qualify. Yes, go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry.
I don't know if this is a kind of a marketing question, but I watched, you know, the Jelly Roll commercial and see you at things and use the word fake a lot.
Yeah.
I'm telling you, just my own little family, I have one data point. It's not fake. It's dangerous. I think some of the chemicals that sweeten these other alternatives are fairly dangerous. Have you thought about a different word than fake? Fake doesn't, in my opinion, connote some of the reasons why unknown people are drinking your product.
Yeah. I don't know that we have. I do think, and I don't want to speak for the, I'm certainly not the marketer, but I think this messaging does, I think, resonate with the consumer and the consumer testing that we've done. This messaging does resonate. I think it's a bit of a, I don't want to say backlash, but it is a bit of a response to a lot of the sort of fake, highly curated content that you see online. I think that's really what we're sort of embracing as we think about this idea of sort of getting the fake out of.
How do you decide, you know, what this flavor is not good enough, like we need to revise it? Like you said, you're top-quality and full-blown.
Yeah.
You thinking about bringing it?
Yeah, I think we have a pretty robust product innovation pipeline. We have our in-house R&D team that is constantly working on improving the taste and launch and sort of ideating around new flavors. We tend to ground it in both consumer research and what the R&D team is seeing in terms of trends. We marry those two up, and that informs what we're going to launch. Typically, we will launch things in a micro format, whether it's an LTO, online only, etc., and test and learn, and then determine what are the appropriate adaptations to the portfolio. I think as we talked about earlier, the fruitier flavors are really a big area of growth and one that truly diversifies our product portfolio. We're leaning in there because that's really where we see the consumer going.
We're making sure that we have the types of flavors and profiles that they're looking for. Go ahead. We do not. We do not. Again, really leaning into this idea of truly clean label, zero sugar, zero, you know, zero, zero, zero across the label.
Calories?
Zero calories as well.
Got it. Okay, so you're competing almost with sodas and then flavored water as well, kind of in the middle.
That's correct. We source a lot of our demand, if you will, from people who are switching from conventional soda, as well as people who are switching from sparkling water who may want a stronger flavor profile, bolder taste. I think generally speaking, that's a good way to think about it.
Do you private label at all for others?
We do not private label at all for others. I don't know that we've looked into it and evaluated it, but I think from a value creation standpoint, building the brand and really focusing our time on delivering great tasting, innovative products and building a distinct brand are really going to be what drives long-term shareholder value.
Have you looked at other sweeteners as well? I mean, your name kind of makes you?
We have actually looked at other sweeteners, and I think it's an ongoing evaluation. That being said, we're really proud of the work the team has done on dialing in the flavor profile and the improvements that they made, unlocking some incremental ways to use Stevia. As I said earlier with the consumer testing that we've done, the response has been really strong to the new flavors. I think that's where we feel like we've really, in some ways, kind of unlocked, and I don't want to say perfected, but I think we're close to perfecting this idea of Stevia as a great sweetening system with incremental natural flavors to deliver that bold taste and eliminate that Stevia aftertaste. Yeah, go ahead.
For the Walmart and Albertsons, when about?
Yeah, so Walmart, we shipped in Q4 of last year. We went from 800 stores to 4,300 stores in Q4. You saw that on shelf kind of Q1 of this year. Albertsons' expansion was effectively through their portfolio banners by the end of Q2, basically, maybe a little bit earlier, but in Q2.
The client at Albertsons is a veteran.
I'm sorry, but.
I was just trying to figure out.
The shelf set expansion at Albertsons? It's done at this point. Yeah.
What do you mean about the rotational? Is it a Costco or on rotation?
Yeah, so rotation means we're not an everyday item, right? Costco is sort of a regional, has sort of a regional structure where you can sort of pulse product into regions on an in-and-out basis. That's, we're sort of on an in-and-out basis with select Costco regions right now. The opportunity, right, is to get back to being an everyday item at Costco.
Is that like a test that they do?
I think they have it. Club is historically, and Costco in particular, is a highly in-and-out channel. That is part of, it's a feature and not a bug. It is how they merchandise. Eventually you can sort of transition into an everyday item, which is the bigger opportunity. Great. Are there, oh, go ahead.
What is the sample?
Yeah, it is an oversight on our part, but next time we'll definitely make sure to have samples available. With that, I thank you all for your attention and engagement. I appreciate it and look forward to speaking with you more about Zevia in the future. Thanks.