Greetings, and welcome to Zevia PBC Q4 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Reed Anderson, Managing Director of ICR. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you, and welcome to Zevia's Q4 and full year 2022 earnings conference call and webcast. On today's call are Amy Taylor, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Denise Beckles, Chief Financial Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the company's Q4 and full year 2022 earnings press release and earn investor presentation filed this morning. This information is available on the investor relations section of Zevia's website at investors.zevia.com. Before we begin, please note that all the financial information presented on today's call is unaudited. Certain comments made on this call include forward-looking statements which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs concerning future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to today's press release and other filings with the SEC for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. During the call, we will use some non-GAAP financial measures as we describe business performance.
The SEC filings as well as the earnings press release, presentation slides that accompany today's comments, and reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are also available on our website at investors.zevia.com. Now I would like to turn the call over to Amy Taylor.
Thanks, Reed, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Q4 and full year 2022 earnings call for Zevia PBC. Zevia continues to expand our user base and demonstrates strong brand momentum across channels, adding 1.4 million new households in 2022 on a 12-month rolling basis with equivalent momentum in Q4, and yet continues to increase average household spend. We are realizing price in the market and materially reducing costs in our business, resulting in continued recovery of our gross margin. Q4 saw the highest gross margin of the year. Critically, we continue to manage cash effectively and drive improvement on the adjusted EBITDA line, indicating a more rapid path to profitability.
The strategic shifts we made at the halfway mark in 2022 are paying off. The evolved, more efficient team is executing with excellence. The brand continues to demonstrate exciting momentum. We continue to advance the Zevia mission with a focus on global health for people and planet, removing another 2,600 metric tons of sugar from the diets of the communities we serve and replacing 39 million plastic bottles in our markets in the quarter. Zevia remains more affordable than 63% of non-alcoholic beverages in America, even as we realize price in keeping with the market. We continue to focus on taking better for you beverages mainstream, making them available and affordable for consumers across income levels.
In Q4, we delivered net sales of just over $35 million ahead of guidance, resulting in 3.5% revenue growth over prior year and an 8.7% decline in volume as we cycled the one-time pipeline sale to the warehouse club channel from Q4 of 2021. Looking at growth through syndicated data as a measure of sell-through, volume grew 13.5% for the Q4 according to IRI. Scan sales remained strong through the ups and downs of retailer and e-commerce operator inventory management fluctuations. Zevia posted double-digit growth year-over-year for all months in 2022. Gross margins are returning to historical mid-40s levels. We are paving the path to profitability with a very strong run rate of improvement on the adjusted EBITDA line.
Cost controls, disciplined adaptations of our promotional strategies, strong price increase implementation, and a demonstrated ability to improve cost containment show new precedents set for Zevia with a focus on quality growth. I'll go into more detail now with a focus on our consumer base evolution and our learnings from syndicated and panel data. Zevia's household penetration for 2022 was 6.4% for the full year, adding 1.4 million more households to the brand versus last year. Zevia households increased their brand spend annually 12% in 2022 versus 2021, driven by increases in spend per trip with consistent purchase frequency rates across the larger brand buying base. It's noteworthy that we're maintaining purchase frequency and increasing average spend per household even as we add new consumers to the brand.
Following the material price increase, these are very strong indicators of the health of our brand and of our user base across heavy, medium, or even new and light users. As mentioned, total Zevia grew 13.5% in measured scan dollar sales for the quarter and grew equivalized case volume in the same period while non-alcoholic and carbonated soft drinks declined at 2%. Same-store sales remain robust, driven by a healthy mix of volume and price. The Zevia shopper is a highly desirable shopper, less price sensitive at all income levels, who demonstrates resilience in a fluctuating economy. We remain a home-stocking brand, which continues to fare well from a consumer and brand health perspective.
Zevia consumers prove valuable to retail partners, with 65% higher overall basket spend versus non-alcoholic beverage consumers, and Zevia consumers spend 29% more and make 26% more trips to stores to purchase total beverages in 2022 versus the average beverage shopper. In the quarter, consumer retail spending was driven by a mix of organic velocity growth and continued increases in new store and new item distribution growth, paired with the accelerating consumer household base expansion.
Velocity was the primary driver in the quarter. Retail sales growth was split between 63% from velocity and 37% from new distribution and new items. Speaking of distribution growth in the quarter was rooted in new packages. Our 12-ounce sleek single soda can, our eight-packs in mass, and our 12-packs in food. The sleek can is delivering impressive units per store per week, doubled when merchandise cold.
Cold singles will be a key strategic driver going forward as they are now 16% of our business in a major national chain, in the natural channel as an example. New stores also bolster distribution growth as we closed distribution gaps in food and gained new store selling in warehouse club. With a full year of sales in the channel, 75% of buyers of Zevia in club in 2022 were new to the Zevia brand. It proved to be a major driver of step change household penetration growth and scan data sales in its first year of selling the Zevia brand. Moving on to velocity, the consumer shift to larger packages continues. Stock-up options are driving growth category-wide and also for Zevia as eight-packs and larger now account for more than 50% of our business in measured channels.
Velocity growth is driven in part by consumer trade-outs from 6-pack to 8-packs and as retailers switch from 10-pack to the more profitable 12-pack, but also by the broader trend of home stocking consumption at home and now out beverages, a competitive strength for the Zevia brand through food, warehouse club, and in e-commerce, which is of course, outside of measured channels and where we remain the number 1 carbonated soft drink brand. I'll wrap with the big picture and then turn it over to Denise. Zevia has a very healthy business and continues to experience strong consumer demand, growing the consumer base in every period and simultaneously increasing spend per household on the brand. We are realizing price in the market, and we are materially reducing costs in our business.
We delivered the highest gross margin of the year in the Q4 , reflective of sequential improvement in each quarter in 2022. Critically, we continue to manage our cash position and drive improvement on the adjusted EBITDA line. The team is operating well under new leadership and continues to set expectations we aim to beat. Zevia demonstrated brand strength and executional excellence in the back half of 2022 as our new leadership team shifted to an evolved strategy focused on quality growth and a speedier path to profitability. We have our sights set on these same things going into 2023, bolstered by an exciting brand refresh, which brings a sharp new logo, new brand identity, brand-new modernized and differentiated pack designs, and radically improved on-shelf visibility.
We look forward to sharing this at trade shows in the coming weeks and with the consumer in peak beverage season in store this summer. Thank you, and I'll hand it over to Denise.
Thank you, Amy. Good morning, everyone. I will begin with an overview of our Q4 financial results and then speak to full year performance. We will open the call for your questions. In the Q4 of 2022, we delivered net sales of $35.4 million, growing 3.5% versus same time prior year. Volume was down 8.7% on an equivalized case basis to 2.7 million in the period. However, we benefited from higher price realization and mix. Our gross margin continued to show sequential improvements in the year with our strongest margins yet at 44.3% for the Q4 of 2022, 1 point above same quarter a year ago, primarily due to the impact of pricing, offset by slightly higher manufacturing costs.
Gross margin also improved sequentially by 1 point versus Q3 2022. Gross profit delivered in the period was $15.7 million, up $0.9 million or 5.8% versus year ago, reflecting growth in net sales and a small improvement in cost of goods sold in the quarter. Selling and marketing expenses decreased 15.7% to $10 million, reflecting lower freight and warehousing costs of $0.9 million, driven by improved freight pricing and efficiencies and a reduction of non-working marketing costs of $1 million. G&A expense was $8.5 million or 24.1% of net sales in the Q4 of 2022 compared to $8.2 million or 23.9% of net sales in the Q4 of 2021.
A slight increase of 20 basis points as a percent of net sales. The year-on-year dollar increase was attributable to higher employee costs to support growth. Stock-based compensation and non-cash expense was $3.1 million in the Q4 of 2022 as compared to $31.9 million in the same quarter last year. Net loss was $6.2 million compared to a net loss of $37.4 million in the Q4 of 2021, an improvement of $31.3 million or 83.6% as compared to the Q4 of last year. Loss per share was $0.10 per diluted share of Zevia Class A common stockholders compared to a loss per share of $0.59 in the Q4 of 2021.
Loss per share has improved sequentially each quarter in 2022 from a loss of $0.30 to a loss of $0.10. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $2.9 million compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $5.3 million in the Q4 of 2021. A year-over-year improvement of $2.4 million or 44.7%, showing continued progress managing towards profitability and generating cash flows from operations. Our balance sheet remains strong with $47.4 million in cash and cash equivalents and no outstanding debt as of the end of 2022, as well as an unused credit line of $20 million. We effectively manage our cash in the period, though facing top line headwinds, maintaining a healthy working capital for the period of $71.5 million.
Our cash flow from operating activities for the 12 months ended December 31, 2022 was a use of $20.8 million, compared to $17.8 million same time last year. During the Q4 of 2022, net cash used in operating activities was $1.4 million, compared to cash used in operating activities of $4.7 million same time last year. For full year 2022, Zevia achieved net sales of $163.2 million, an increase of 18.1% versus 2021. Gross margin was 42.9% versus 46.3% in 2021, and net losses of $47.6 million as compared to net losses of $87.7 million in 2021.
Adjusted EBITDA loss was $19.6 million for the year, of which $14.7 million was in the H1 of the year, as compared to adjusted EBITDA loss of $8.7 million for the full year of 2021. Turning to guidance. We anticipate that the brand refresh, velocity driving initiatives, and new distribution will support our growth ambition this year. Our 2023 annual net sales are expected to be in the range of $180 million-$190 million, an increase of 10.3%-16.4% over 2022. Our net sales expected for Q1 2023 are expected to be in the range of $40 million-$43 million.
While we will not be providing guidance on profitability over the course of 2023, we expect to continue improvements in gross margin and adjusted EBITDA as we focus on driving and delivering profitable growth. We are truly excited for the year ahead. This concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the call for your questions. Operator?
Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your headset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that's star one at this time. One moment while we poll for our first question. Our first question comes from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.
Hi, good morning. This is Ethan Huntley on for Bonnie Herzog. Maybe just a question here on your long-term growth algorithm. , it currently sits at about 30% sales growth. , obviously your 2022 guidance calls for 10%-16%, and that's versus an 18% that we saw in 2022. I'm just trying to gain a better understanding of what the right number, in terms of sales growth might be moving forward particularly as you emphasize profitable growth. Any color you had there would be helpful. Thank you.
Right. Of course. Hi, it's Amy. Good morning. I appreciate the question. I think it's astute to the message that we're sending, which is obviously our guidance shows confidence and continued double-digit growth for the brand, and we have a lot of energy behind that. Our recent trajectory shows our commitment to a faster path to profitability. I think it's important to acknowledge that we have had a strategic shift over this past year, and specifically at the midpoint of 2022 with new leadership coming into play to get to a faster path to profitability. We're a premium but accessible brand, and we're really proud of this notion going forward of double-digit annual growth, but a faster path to profitability. That's reflected in our strategy. Does that answer your question or any sort of more specific follow-up there?
No, I think that answers it, and that's helpful. Thank you very much.
All right. Thanks for the question.
Our next question comes from Bryan Spillane with Bank of America. Please proceed.
Thanks, operator. Morning, guys.
Hey, Brian. Good morning.
Good morning, Bryan.
A couple of questions, I guess. First, brand refresh, is the timing changed at all? Also, just kind of the approach you're gonna take in terms of, if I remember correctly, we'd have both the new and the existing packaging sort of in the market at the same time? Just wanna get an update on how we should be thinking about the brand refresh and how you're gonna lay it into the market.
Bryan, thank you. , I'm passionate about this and really excited to see this roll out this year. It is indeed a rolling launch, and we have an eye on the P&L as well as the planet. We think about avoiding write-offs and destroying products. We would rather see the product roll out into the market versus hard cutovers. There will be some overlap of old look-and-feel Zevia with new look-and-feel Zevia, but the timing for that is the peak beverage season of spring and summer. We'll be fully to bright by the summer, the vast majority of our distribution. You'll see that start to roll out in May.
There's really only one or two big national customers where you'll see more of a hard cutover and see the full brand look and feel on shelf by June. Again, with an eye on profitability and minimizing write-offs as well as an eye on sustainability, minimizing having to pull or destroy any product, we are executing a rolling launch, just as you described.
Okay. Then will the refresh include some different product formulations? Is there any update on either flavors or taste? Is it just packaging or are there also reformulations as a part of the refresh?
Yeah. The packaging overhaul is pretty radical, and I would call this somewhere between a refresh and a relaunch from a look and feel perspective. The impact from visual identity and from an on-shelf visibility is pretty radical. We'll need to continue to drive communication to our core consumer with whom early testing would indicate purchase intent increases materially just from the new design. We're really confident about the on-shelf as well as consumer impact. To answer your question, we will be rolling out a new product, Vanilla Cola. We also have two new energy drink flavors rolling out later in the summer and a new tea flavor, and we continue to iterate improvement on taste profile for the product. That's sort of an ongoing process. There's not a new and improved announcement across the full portfolio.
To recap, Vanilla Cola, two new energy drink flavors, and a new tea flavor, and then continued improvements on just baseline taste for our baseline sweetener, which is always our mandate.
Okay. In terms of household penetration, right? I think , it was up again nicely in 2022. Where is Zevia sourcing new consumers from, right, currently? With the refresh, would you expect that to change in terms of kind of where you'll be sourcing consumption from?
Yeah, great question. I would say one of the strongest storylines from 2022 is gaining 1.4 million more households. As those households go up, those households are spending more on average. We saw a 12% lift in spend per household, and they're spending more per trip. We saw a dollar increase from about $9 to about $10 per trip spent from every shopper. That's pretty unusual to see household growth and have on average them spending more. Normally, as you gain medium and light users, you of course would see your average go down. This we're really proud of, and this comes largely, if I can simplify who our user base is today, it's millennial families with money.
At or a little bit above average household income, millennial shoppers, and oftentimes millennial shoppers with kids. As we continue to expand distribution, I would expect that's who will continue to come on board. One really interesting dynamic from the year, which we expect to accelerate, is our fastest growing pack is the singles. I think this speaks to the power of packaging. All we did in singles soda was move out of the traditional squatty can in 12 ounce into a sleek can and put that on the shelf cold with better merchandising. In one particular national customer, we saw a 72% higher take rate year to date on that product at a 63% higher price point in one particular customer where we had proper merchandising of our cold can.
I think that what that tells you is while most of our household penetration growth comes from the young millennial shopper with families who are buying trade-ups, right? They're buying multi-packs and stocking at home. We have tremendous opportunity with our single can to break into new sort of psychographic and demographic shoppers by driving cold availability for singles for impulse purchases.
Okay. Thank you for all that. look forward to tracking the... and watching the progress on the refresh this year.
Yeah, looking forward to it. We look forward to sharing, by the way, the design in literally the coming days and weeks at forthcoming trade shows which are really relevant for the industry and with the consumer in the next couple of months. Thanks a lot, Bryan.
Yep. You're welcome. Thanks.
The next question comes from Ben Bienvenu with Stephens. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Jim Salera on for Ben.
Hi, Jim. Morning.
I wanted to ask on the selling and marketing costs, can you guys break out since it sounds like some of the logistics costs came down. Did you guys increase marketing spend? Or if you could actually provide us the dollar for marketing spend in the quarter, that would be great.
Yes. Actually, we did spend a bit more in marketing, but we focused primarily on working dollars. You'll see that we actually explained that we had synergies in marketing with a focus really on dollars that really impact the consumer. We actually did see savings from a selling perspective on some of our selling costs.
As , get closer to the brand refresh, and obviously I share the sentiment, excited to see what the cans look like, and I'll be looking for them in my area, so you have to tell me when they hit Ohio. Do you guys plan to ramp marketing spend to kind of support that as it rolls out? Or is there kind of a thought process to wait until you don't have the mixed packaging and it's all the new brand refresh packaging?
Actually, yes, we will invest in marketing. We plan to invest to draw the consumer at shelf. We will invest more this year in marketing to really attract consumers to the brand and to make sure we protect our consumer base. This is something that's core to our strategy with the brand refresh coming this year.
Do you guys have any idea?
I think just to add to that briefly, sorry. You'll see a little bit of a timing variance in our investments this year versus prior years. Zevia has historically come out of the gates at the start of the year with a program called New Year New You. It's a little bit more spending, let's say, at shelf and in-store activation in the start of the year. This year with the brand refresh, fresh forthcoming, you'll see that focus more on the peak beverage month.
We'll see a timing shift in our investments in that area. I think noteworthy is that the number one driver of awareness for Zevia, and we know this through our brand tracker, which is survey data, is by far in store twice that of any other driver. In-store visibility remains our number one driver of all marketing.
We make incremental investments ramped up in the way that Denise describes for pull tactics in the marketplace where consumers live, work, and play.
Okay, great. Is it possible for you guys to give us maybe like a guide rail around how much marketing spending might increase dollar % wise, just kinda as the brand refresh rolls out?
I don't think you're gonna see a spike in the P&L from the standpoint of just net marketing spend. This isn't the year for us to do that. We're really focused on efficient and profitable growth. What you will see, and I've talked about this for several months now, and it's a continued shift, is we continue to invest less in push and more in pull. I don't think, as you're thinking about modeling, we're not seeing any spikes in marketing spend. It's really an evolution of focusing on consumer pull and establishing the right price points for this premium, but accessible brand. We know that there's continued upside on price as we continue to kind of earn the right to do that with the consumer and follow the trend of the broader category.
Okay, great. Maybe if I could ask, one other question on sales side of things. Amy, you mentioned switching to the slim can and just kind of seeing an immediate improvement in velocity from that. Can you maybe give us an update on the end cap coolers that you guys have been working with some of your retail customers and how that's progressing? Have you seen that expand or kind of where that's at?
Sure. Very early days. I'll give you two anecdotal examples. We have one major natural national player and one regional conventional grocer who chose to merchandise single Zevia soda, energy drink, and tea at the register in dedicated brand coolers. For us, this is a massive step forward, and as we look to gather scan data, reflective of the results of that type of step forward in those two chains, we'll leverage that in the selling story with other customers. Early days, those stores were reset here in the last four to six weeks and are still a few more still forthcoming. These are hundreds, not thousands of stores, so hundreds of stores, but from that case study, if you will, yield a great selling story across the retail footprint.
I experienced the same kind of breakthrough in my previous job. As we say in sales, when it's cold, it's sold, and certainly closer to the register for immediate consumption is really critical. We'll keep you posted as we learn from those results.
Awesome. Great. Thanks, guys. I'll pass them on.
Thanks. The next question comes from Andrew Strelzik with BMO. Please proceed.
Hey, good morning, everyone. My first question is on the sales guidance. I'm curious how you kind of built up to that number for the year. Can you talk about the growth buckets that you've talked about in the past and contribution there? How much are you assuming from either inventory management that you mentioned previously or abnormal type things that are meeting the growth? I'm just trying to get a sense for kind of a more normal sales growth run rate and what that might look like.
Yes, we look forward to normal. You nailed it with your question. Let me speak to that, just see if Denise would like to add anything. Generally speaking, as we look at scan data, 63% of our growth is coming from velocity and 37% from new distribution. Over the past six months or so, that's been pretty steady. We expect that that would continue, meaning a narrow majority of our growth would come from velocity, and the rest from new distribution. We think that that's very healthy because we're not seeking leaps and bounds of new distribution growth.
We're looking for healthy same store growth, which then begets strong growth, profitable growth in new channels, rather than pushing distribution and over-investing to get there. As we look forward velocity continues to account for more of our growth and new distribution with same store sales growing in legacy and new channels, and trade up price and consumer-based growth all support that continued momentum. Speaking briefly to the inventory issues, customers are managing inventories more conservatively now than they did, let's say, in the historical aggregate, but the stark impact that we saw from inventory management in the back half of last year, largely has course corrected. Does that answer your question?
Yes, it does. Thank you for that, for that color. That's helpful. The other question is just on the gross margin improvement that you spoke to, recognizing you don't wanna commit to a, to a number or a guidance. I'm just curious on the drivers there and in particular how you think about the productivity agenda for 2023. You talked about the pivot kind of middle of the year. You're talking a lot about profitable growth. Are there more opportunities incrementally within your control there that you're looking at? How would that contribute to, uh, either general margin improvement, gross margin improvement in, uh, in 2023? Thanks.
Hi, Andrew. Just really quickly to answer that question. We expect it to come from a combination of price and optimization initiatives in the supply chain. That will happen throughout the year. We expect if you think about when we took the price increase last year, we took it in August. That price increase will actually cycle through the H1 of the year versus not having a price increase fully in market for the H1 of the year of last year. On top of that, we have a bunch of initiatives we're running in the supply chain, where we expect to capture significant optimization.
Those productivity savings and price are going to be two of the big drivers of helping us recover some of the margin that we had lost in the previous year. Does that answer your question?
Thank you. Yes, it does. It absolutely does. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thanks, Andrew.
Our next question comes from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.
Hey, good morning.
Hey, Chris.
Hey, Amy. just on the inventory normalizing comment that you just made, when would you expect the scanner data to maybe better approximate what you're actually going to be reporting? What would you expect this inventory disconnect to last? I appreciate there's always going to be disconnects, but certainly it's very wide right now and I'm just wondering when you see the relationship between consumption and shipments normalizing.
Sure. I think there's a number of things that explain a gap between shipments and scan, and inventory is one, but not the only one. I would say that was the most stark input for the back half of last year because as we saw the economy changing at a pretty rapid rate, we saw some of our key customers maybe oversteer. As a brand who has 10% or more of its business in e-commerce, with a much less predictable sort of order rate, if you will, I think we, as well as being a brand that's not DSD, sort of had outsized impact on that dynamic. Going forward, I would expect scan and shipments to normalize a little bit.
The caveat that I would add to that is that the timing variances that I spoke about earlier as it relates to promotions will impact the way that scan data shows up for the year. We are cycling a heavy Q1 investment for 2022. In 2023, we are focused more on the brand refresh and the summer selling months. While our shipments will be fairly steady, we expect, and in keeping with or hopefully above the guidance that we provide today, scan will be a little bit of up and down as we cycle the launch of club and as we have a little bit of timing variances within our retail promotions. Does that answer the question, Chris, or can I detail that gap any further for you?
No, I think that's right. , expect some volatility between the relationship, but a bit more. Maybe just confirming that, did you see more of the the inventory lightening in online versus in store? Just any comments there then I have one more question.
Sure. The dynamics that we saw at the end of last year were limited to just a single digit number of customers, and it was at play both at retail and e-commerce. I would say that at retail it's largely steadied out, whereas in e-commerce, ordering patterns are just less predictable. We still have a very robust e-commerce business. We're growing quickly in e-commerce. It's just a little bit more difficult to forecast. I think in the review year, we'll be able to talk about that in Q1 a little bit more. Yes, steadying retail inventories and less erratic ordering, therefore, hopefully a less of a gap between scan and shipments. I'm sorry, what was the second part of your question?
No, I think that's good. just I appreciate so improving margins and you wanna hold off on giving some margin guidance potentially until you're a bit more comfortable how this is all gonna shake out. , just is there any help that you can give on cadence through the year? You've got some launch activity, will there be certain quarters with more SGA investment or from a gross margin standpoint, do we just expect kind of every quarter to be up year-over-year and full year up year-over-year? Right?
I think high level the question is just I appreciate the concept of improving margins, but I wonder if you could provide any more detail as it pertains to the trajectory through the year, whether on gross or operating or EBITDA margins. Thanks for that.
Hi, it's Denise. Just really quick, I think it's fair to say that, we expect to see margins continue at least in the 40 range through this year. For us, we expect to recapture our margins throughout the year. It would be that we will invest more in the last part, the latter part of the year, especially given the brand refresh. You'll see some additional investment go out during Q2, Q3, and Q4 more so than Q1 . In fact, we expect to see just normalized margin improvements throughout the year is the way I would describe it. Hopefully, that will give you some indication.
Okay.
I think you asked another question.
All right.
I think you asked another question. If you can repeat it please.
Yeah. No.
Yeah
I again, I think that's okay. That's.
Okay.
That's basically what I was looking for. Thanks so much. Good luck.
You're welcome. Thank you.
Thanks, Christopher.
The next question comes from Cristina Fernandez with Telsey Advisory Group. Please proceed.
Yeah. Good morning. I'm filling in for Dana today. We have two questions. The first one is, as you look at new distribution opportunities for 2023, any callouts by channel on what should be our performers for the year?
Sure. E very time we talk about new distribution, I really emphasize that we're focused on quality growth, so that informs the pace at which we expand distribution, whether that's geographically or channel. It's really gonna be the new brand look and feel that will help to drive us into our greatest upside opportunity, which is immediate consumption. In the meantime, we are closing gaps in food distribution. We still have upside in the mass channel. We are chipping away at food service opportunities, which are generally low volume per outlet, but big footprint and an exciting opportunity to sell single-serve beverages cold in an impulse environment or immediate consumption environment. We have upside in the value channel, which we are opening and testing regionally and continue to increase based on short-term performance.
There are a number of regions in one of the two major club channels, that we have yet to tackle, with incremental rotations that we expect to come online within the summer, which is exciting to get in front of those consumers. That is a highly incremental channel. Finally, the obvious, sort of big next step is convenience, which will require an evolution in our route to market. Here, we're focused on doing this right and profitably with the right partners rather than fast. We have great early results in our single can business and existing channels, and that's a strong selling story to take us into that convenience, greenfield.
A second question would be on pricing. Are there any more price increases contemplated for this year following or in conjunction with the brand refresh?
We believe that there is upside in price, so pricing power yet for Zevia to realize, and it would make sense to consider pricing action given the investment we're making in the brand refresh. Not only end-to-end new look and feel on every can and every multi-pack, but we will now be wrapping our 6-packs in a recyclable cardboard overwrap, which will. That's an investment for us, but it also creates a tremendous billboard on shelf. 6-packs are close to 40% of our business. With that, we do continue to take price with the market and in light of increasing costs in the instance in which those exist, and we do see upside in price for the year and would take that strategically if and when it makes sense. Denise, any more comment on price?
No, Amy, nothing to add.
Should we assume that that is in the guidance or that would be sort of in addition to the updated to the guidance as the year goes on if and when you decide to take those price increases?
As we're not providing guidance on profitability, I would say that what you're hearing from us as we guide on top line for the quarter, and for the year takes all of our plans into account, if that answers your question.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. That concludes our call. You may now disconnect your lines. Have a great day.
Thank you. Have a great week.
Thank you. Bye now.