J&J Snack Foods reports Q4 sales decline, but Project Apollo aims for $20 million annual savings and growth in fiscal 2026.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the J&J Snack Foods fourth quarter 2025 conference call. @ this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised to withdraw your question. Please press Star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Reid Anderson with ICR. Please go ahead.

Thank you operator and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining the J&J Snack Foods fiscal 2025 fourth quarter conference call. Before getting started, let me take a minute to read the safe harbor language. This call contains forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform act of 1995. All statements made on this call that do not relate to matters of historical facts should be considered forward looking statements, including statements regarding management's plans, strategies, goals, expectations and objectives as well as our anticipated financial performance. This includes without limitation our expectations with respect to the success of our cost savings initiatives and customer demand improvements in the sales channels in which we operate. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward looking statements, risk factors and other items discussed in our Annual report on Form 10K and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward looking statements made on the call today. Any such forward looking statements represent management's estimates as of the date of this call today November 17, 2025,. While we may elect to update forward looking statements at some point in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so even if subsequent events cause expectations to change. In addition, we may also reference certain non GAAP measures on the call today, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted operating Income or adjusted earnings per share, all of which are reconciled to the nearest GAAP measure on the company’s earnings press release which can be found on our Investor Relations website. Joining me on the call today is Dan Fashner, our Chief Executive Officer, along with Shawn Munsell, our Chief Financial Officer. Following Management's prepared remarks, we will open the call for a question and answer session. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Fashner please go ahead.

Good morning, I am pleased with our fourth quarter results despite a challenging backdrop. During the summer, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $57.4 million on sales of $410.2 million, down 3.9 percent on sales versus the prior year. As anticipated, over half of the sales decline was associated with our frozen beverage business as we lapped strong volumes from. The Inside Out 2 movie last year. Pretzel sales in both retail and foodservice rose in the quarter, reflecting progress on key initiatives to drive growth through innovation. Pretzel growth helped to offset some declines in frozen novelties that we are addressing through marketing, trade spend and innovation. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $180.9 million while net sales increased 0.5 percent to $1.58 billion. Although 2025 was a more challenging year, I'm encouraged by our operational execution in the second half, which puts us in a strong position moving forward. Some bright spots for fiscal 2025 include we achieved record sales and adjusted ebitda. In fiscal Q3, we modernized our flagship super pretzel product with a recipe enhancement and fresh packaging. The effort to reinvigorate our pretzel business led to a 2.7 percent pretzel sales increase in 2025, driven by a strong second half performance. With sales up 8 percent compared to the prior year. The rollout of Dippin Dots to theaters was substantially completed, with a presence now in almost 1600 theaters. Dippin dots Sundays were launched at retail with great success, adding approximately $5 million to the top line. We optimized our frozen beverage distribution and service network, which reduced expenses by 2 percent in the fourth quarter. Now I'll talk through some initiatives underpinning our optimism for fiscal 2026 to start. We have initiated a business transformation program, which we are calling Project Apollo, that will generate sustainable efficiencies and cost savings across the enterprise. Some key elements are already underway and we expect the program to deliver at least $20 million of annualized operating income once all the initiatives are implemented in 2026. The initial focus of Project Apollo is consolidation of our manufacturing Network. During the fourth quarter and early in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, we announced the closure of three facilities Holly Ridge, North Carolina Atlanta, Georgia and Colton, California. Production from these facilities will either be consolidated into other facilities or discontinued as part of our ongoing portfolio optimization. The closures reflect the next logical step in the evolution of our manufacturing footprint and are enabled by the investments we have made in our plants to modernize and expand capacity for core products and to build out our regional distribution centers. We expect annualized savings associated with the plant closures of approximately 1$5 million, which should be materially complete in Q2 of fiscal 2026. We are also undertaking various initiatives within our distribution system that will generate approximately $$3 million of annualized savings. The remaining net savings from Project Apollo are associated with various administrative initiatives. We expect to realize most of the annualized freight and administrative related savings by the third quarter of fiscal 2026. The initiatives I have just outlined represent the first phase of Apollo. We are working on a second phase that is focused on generating further efficiencies within the plants following the completion of the consolidation work. We are also developing a robust roadmap for modernizing our system and tech infrastructures to streamline additional corporate processes and sharpen the quality of our data analytics. We will be sharing more as the next phase of the project work is finalized. I am energized that the projects we have identified will generate durable structural savings and will do so relatively quickly in fiscal 2026. I'm encouraged by the impact that these actions are having on our early performance so far in Q1. Our operating teams are focused on the closures and seamless redeployment of production within our network to prevent any disruption to customer orders. I'm also excited about several commercial and innovation initiatives that are being rolled out for our fiscal 2026 starting with the commercial activities, we will commence shipping churros to a major quick-service restaurant later in fiscal Q1 as part of a limited time offer program. We expect the program to be successful given it is such a great fit with this customer and believe there is potential to be converted to a permanent volume. We are completing the rollout of ice machines for a large and growing convenience store operator in the Southwest. The frozen beverage test with a major West Coast quick-service restaurant operator is nearly complete and we are encouraged by the results and the handheld capacity outage should be remedied by the start of our second quarter. With respect to innovation, we have several exciting launches around the corner for fiscal 2026, with most of these products available to consumers beginning the fiscal second quarter. These innovation items underscore the quality and breadth of our iconic brands. Our new protein pretzel for retail will be available for consumers as a four pack of large pretzels with 10 grams of protein or a smaller mini pretzel with 7 grams of protein per serving. We are rolling out Super Pretzel pizza sticks and queso sticks which are smaller pretzel bites with tasty fillings. On the frozen novelty front, we are introducing Luigi's Mini Pops which feature exciting flavor profiles and better for you attributes such as hydration and immunity support. We are extending our popular pet treat brand Dogsters to include a new mini ice cream sandwich. Regarding Dippin Dots innovation, I am pleased to announce that we will be launching Dippin Dots in its original form for retail. This represents another major growth milestone for the brand. Additionally, we are introducing two new flavors to the Dippin Dots Retail Sunday lineup, taking the flavor total to four. The outlook for theater also is encouraging as the industry continues closing the gap to the pre Covid environment. Box office sales for the period that aligns to our fiscal 2025 were up 10% versus the prior year. Industry sources are projecting North America box office sales that aligns with our fiscal 2026 to increase by 9 percent, supported by a great lineup of movies that includes wicked for good, Zootopia 2 and a brand New Day. The lineup for our fiscal first half looks particularly promising as compared to last year's slate. With $$106 million in cash and no debt, our financial position remains strong and we continue to take a balanced approach to capital allocation across three areas investing in our business to drive growth and operational efficiency, strategic acquisitions and returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Given the current trends of our business and outlook for fiscal 2026, including the benefits we expect to realize from Project Apollo, we expect to increase our focus on share repurchase activity as we see compelling value in our shares. Share repurchases totaled $$3 million in the quarter and we intend to accelerate our pace significantly during the current quarter. I'll now turn the call over to Sean to discuss the quarter and full year results in a little more detail.

Shawn thanks Dan and good morning everyone. Before I discuss our results, I'd like to share a change in our presentation of financial results. Starting with the fourth quarter, we no longer allocate all corporate expenses to segment results, with some expenses now captured as unallocated corporate expenses. This methodology change has been applied to our historical results. As Dan indicated, we are pleased with our Q4 performance and believe we are well positioned. Early in fiscal 2026 food service segment net sales declined 1.1 percent to 259.3 million as volume softness more than offset price increases. Soft pretzel sales increased 3.6% marking consecutive quarters of year over year sales growth. Bavarian pretzel sales continue to lead the growth. Pretzel dollar share increased 1 percent in the quarter, frozen novelties declined 5.1 percent, driven primarily by a transition between Luigi's and IC branded products. We expect volumes to normalize over time. Churro volume declines primarily reflect the wind down of last year's LTO with a major QSR customer retail segment. Net sales declined 8.1 percent, primarily driven by lower frozen novelty volumes, partly offset by higher pretzel volume. We are taking action to support our frozen novelty business with shopper marketing and trade spend and we see improving trends in the recent four week data. Dogsters continues to stand out in the portfolio with sales and units up in the quarter and we anticipate additional distribution in 2026. Handheld sales declines reflect the temporary capacity constraints from the fire at our North Carolina facility last year. Soft pretzel sales increased 9%, continuing the momentum from the third quarter. Frozen beverage segment sales declined 8.3% attributed to lower beverage volume in the quarter. Foreign exchange translation did not have a significant impact on Segment results in Q4. Beverage volume declined primarily due to lower theater sales as we lapped the success of the Inside Out 2 movie last year. Box office sales for our fiscal fourth quarter are estimated to have declined approximately 11 percent. As I mentioned earlier, we expect the theater industry to continue its rebound in 2026 and we're encouraged by the solid lineup of movies that we expect will be popular with consumers. Consolidated gross profit was 130.2 million compared to 135.5 million last year, while gross margin was 31.7% compared to 31.8% last year. Gross margin in frozen beverage declined given the lower mix of beverage revenue in the quarter. Tariff costs added approximately 35 basis points to cost of goods. These unfavorable impacts were partly offset by insurance proceeds for business interruption costs related to our hand capacity constraints and early plant consolidation savings in the quarter. Operating expenses increased 24 percent to $118.8 million or 29 percent of sales, which included $24.8 million of non recurring charges primarily related to Project Apollo plant closures. Plant closure charges predominantly reflect non cash asset write downs and write offs totaling approximately $21 million. We expect additional plant closure and other non recurring costs associated with our business transformation project of $3 to $5 million in fiscal 2026. Marketing expenses were $$32.6 million or 4.8 percent higher than in the prior year, driven by increased spending on new sponsorships and other promotional activities. Distribution expenses for the quarter declined 8.3% on lower volume and steady efficiency gains. The efficiency gains were driven by fewer internal transfers and better truck utilization distribution as a percentage of sales declined to 10.3 percent compared to 10.8 percent in the prior year. Administrative expenses were $19.1 million, an increase of 5.1 percent from the prior year, primarily associated with higher compensation expenses. Adjusted operating income was $37.7 million as compared to $42 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $57.4 million versus $59.7 million last year. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 4.8 percent compared to 26.8 percent in the prior year. Adjusted earnings per diluted share were $1.58 versus $1.60 last year. The significantly lower effective tax rate in the quarter primarily reflects a change in estimate on our blended state tax rate and the corresponding impact on the valuation of our net deferred tax liabilities. Our balance sheet and liquidity position remain Strong with approximately $106 million in cash and no long term debt. As of quarter end, we had approximately $210 million of borrowing capacity under our revolving credit agreement. Let me briefly touch on full year results. Sales increased half a percent to $$1.58 billion as price increases helped offset lower volume. Growth in food service, which was up 1.6 percent, was partially offset by declines in retail, including from lower handheld sales related to the capacity constraints. While frozen beverage was essentially flat. Unfavorable foreign exchange rates for fiscal 2025 reduced the top line by approximately 0.4 percent. Adjusted operating income was $108.2 million as compared to $130.4 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the fiscal year was $180.9 million versus $200.1 million last year. Adjusted earnings per diluted share were $$4.27 versus $$4.93 last year. That concludes our prepared remarks and we are now ready to take your questions.

Operator As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press Star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press Star one one. Again, our first question comes from John Anderson with William Blair.

Hey, good morning, Sean, thanks for the question.

Morning John.

Morning John.

Hey, I wanted to start by you mentioned some portfolio optimization work that is going on and that's one of the reasons why the closure of the three facilities. You were able to do that while kind of moving production on production that you're going to keep. Can you talk about the impact of that portfolio optimization on sales both kind of in the quarter but then how to think about that perhaps going forward as we look to kind of 20, 26 and what impact that might have on the top line. I'll start there. Sure.

John, thank you. That's a continuation of the things that we've been talking about for a while, especially as it relates to our bakery group, of optimizing that portfolio. And then as you look at our plants and the consolidation that we've been working on with the plants, it just made sense that during this timing that we'd be able to optimize the portfolio that we have and be able to consolidate some of these plants. The total impact of that, if you think about our business growing in that mid single digit rate year over year, might be a 1 1.5% impact on that overall sales. But, but we're, you know, we're kind of bullish. It's the play that we called a couple years ago as we continue to build efficiencies inside our system and put in some new plants or new lines within our plants and then rebuild the distribution system now allows us to be able to go back and optimize and we're really excited about that work that's being done.

Yeah. And in terms of timing, John, you know, think about that as you know, be kind of near that, that full run rate sometime in Q2, okay, helpful.

And maybe stepping back even a little bit more. But I know you don't haven't provided or don't provide specific guidance, but you know, as we, you know, exit 25 and think about 26 at this point, you know, there are quite a few moving parts, some of which should be tailwinds and some of which might be a bit of a headwind, but headwinds for the right reason. In terms of the portfolio work, can you talk at all about just kind of the macro environment and you know, kind of try and combine that to the extent you can with some of the internal initiatives to give us some sense of how you're thinking about 26, both from a maybe a top line perspective, but also a margin standpoint because, you know, with the transformation work that's happening, I think some of the pricing that you've been able to implement and may implement to offset commodity costs, there's a lot of, there are a lot of different ways that, you know, we could go with this. So just want to get your commentary, you could provide forward looking around that. Thank you.

You know, the macro environment, if I started there first, we still think that there's a consumer sentiment that is cautious. Right. And so we're going to continue to watch that, especially as it relates to our retail side of our business. But we're really feeling some good momentum as we exit 25 and enter into 26 with some of the great things that we have going on. The plant closure benefits that we already talked about, some tremendous innovation. The teams are doing a really, really good job with that. And we feel positive as we move into 2026 and some even early results in Q1. And we think the theater industry is bouncing back some. So we feel good about the overall business as we move into it. We think back at 25 and we think of some of the challenges that we face there. And you can kind of tally it.

Up to just a few primary factors. We had that big churro lto that we're not facing anymore. We had some unfavorable foreign exchange impact. We had the chocolate cost inflation. Most of that hit us in the first half of the year. But when you really look at the second half of the year, the second half, EBITDA was just shy of what we delivered in 2H24. So for all those reads, as in the Apollo that we're doing, we're really, we're a little bullish on 2026 as we turn that page.

Yeah, that's helpful.

You'll see those closure benefits relatively quickly in the P and L. We just announced the closure of that third facility. So consider, by the time you get to the second quarter, we should be, you know, at or very near that full run rate.

And Sean, on that, you mentioned the full run rate. Do you mean on the plant closures or on the kind of the.

Yeah, that's right. So on the plant closure component, the 15 million, we should be, you know, very near that full annualized run rate come the second quarter and then the rest of those savings. You know, think about that sort of layering in, in the third and the fourth quarter for the balance of the year.

Excellent. Super helpful. Just one more question. You talked about maybe a little bit of a near term or short midterm adjustment to your capital allocation approach with a greater focus on share repurchase. You talk about, you know, just kind of ongoing how you, how you kind of evaluate that and, and what kind of acceleration or step up we might anticipate there to the extent that you can comment on it. Thank you.

Yeah, so, yeah, for sure. And you know, we said in the prepared remarks that, you know, we intend to accelerate our stock buybacks. You know, here in the quarter when the window opens you know, just for context, and I'm not, you know, I'm not implying that this is the amount by which we're going to execute, but, you know, we've got about $42 million remaining on the authorization that we implemented earlier this year. We did buy back about $3 million worth of stock in the quarter, but notably we pulled back a little bit on that. There was some MA in the pipeline and we thought that it would be a prudent thing for us to do, but we'll be buying back some stock this quarter.

Oh, maybe I have to follow up on that one. You just mentioned MA and the pipeline. Can you comment at all on that? Should we be thinking about some near term actions there?

I wouldn't go that far, John. We were looking at a couple different things that just caught our attention. And so at the period of time where we had the window open to be able to buy some stock back, we were just trying to take a conservative approach there. But I would not go as far as to see anything imminent on the MA front.

Okay, thanks. And looking forward to a strong 26 behind these initiatives. Thanks. Great.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Scott Marks with Jefferies.

Morning, Scott.

Hey, morning, guys. Thanks so much for taking questions. Wanted to ask first about this efficiency initiative. You mentioned Project Apollo and then you mentioned kind of a second phase where you're looking at some more automation and efficiencies within the existing or remaining facilities. Just wondering if you can share some more color on that and how we should be thinking about a timeline for that, maybe expected benefits. Thanks.

Yeah, sure. So the way I think about that is probably going to be later 26, but more likely 2027. And I'd say that that's going to be a combination of just automation and process improvement. Once we get the consolidation work behind us, you think about it as just making those plants more efficient. You've got some plants that are going to be taking on new production. So for 2027, it's. For 26, it's optimized the network. And then 2027 kind of optimized further within the four walls of each of those plants.

That's helpful. Appreciate that. And then next question from me. You touched on some challenges in the frozen novelty business within retail. Wondering if you can kind of share any color on what's been happening there and how we should be thinking about the stabilization of some of those.

Yeah, you know, we touched on that at the end of last quarter. That's just a segment where the consumer probably has hit the hardest and really saw those most of that impact in July of this quarter. The teams have been working really hard at greater marketing and trade spend within that category and we're starting to see it come back and we think that will continue to come back over this next year. We're actually feel like we've corrected the things that we needed to correct and and I'm really pleased. I met with that retail team this last week and they're doing a nice job and I think we'll see that come back over this next year. But it is a area where I think just a consumer sentiment where you'll see the biggest challenges. So don't forget that. You know, it's frozen novelties, it's summertime so if you miss July, it's hard to make those back up in the back half of the quarter. But the teams are working hard at at getting the right trade spend as it relates to those.

And again it was in the prepared remarks but we've got a great pipeline of frozen novelty innovation plan for 26 that's right just around the corner. So we're excited about that. And you know, going back to your prior question, Scott, I failed to mention that I didn't want to imply that, you know, sort of like all the additional automation is going to be in 27. If you look at the closure of the Colton plant and the consolidation into a nearby plant in California that was taking what was basically production through manual process and converting it to almost fully automated process at the plant that it's being shifted to.

Got it. Appreciate the follow up there. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Yep, thanks. Thank you, Scott.

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star11 on your touchtone phone. Our next question comes from the line of Todd Brooks with the benchmark company.

Morning, Todd.

Good to talk to talk to you about few questions kind of feeding off some of the things that we've heard earlier. Sean, can we talk about I think we were talking about the consolidation or the rationalization of some of the bakery products and dinging a revenue algorithm by maybe 100 to 150 basis points in fiscal 26. So can you walk us through like where does the algorithm stand now for a baseline level? Does it still start in that mid single digit place and we back off to.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's exactly right, Todd.

Okay, great. And then the rationalization in bakery when like how does that fall during the year? When should we see kind of the Biggest drag from the 100 to 150 basis points.

You'll start seeing it in the second quarter.

Okay, great. Thank you. Secondly, Dan, you ripped through a list of exciting commercial opportunities for fiscal 26. Can you maybe drill down a little bit on the two or three that you think are the biggest needle movers and maybe status and timing?

Yeah, we're really pleased just in total with the pipeline that we have going through, through the system and have some, some really nice opportunities. You know, we have the, the LTO with a, with the churros with a big customer that ran an LTO last year. And it's a perfect fit with this customer that we know is going to, is going to do well. And we have anticipations that, you know, it does so well that maybe it sticks also. So really excited about that particular one. On the frozen beverage side, we're in the midst of rolling out a large C store in the Southwest that has the potential to continue to grow as their, you know, that they're striving to be the third largest C store in the country. Also have talked a few times about a test that we have with the QSR in the frozen beverage in the west coast that just continues to do really, really well. We're in the third phase of testing now, kind of bringing that to an end and having live conversations about how we might roll that out in this year. So really encouraged by the things that we have going on. You know, the last thing I touched on was just that handheld that we were up against with the fire last year in August and now or just about as we hit the second quarter, should have that capacity caught up and see the benefits from that in 2026 as well. Teams are doing a great job, a lot of really good opportunities, and pipeline is as strong as I've seen in a while.

Okay, great. Thanks. And the final one for me, Sean, is there a way to kind of frame up and I ask about kind of gross margin potential for the business, but obviously you've identified savings from Apollo 1. You've identified a framework for what Apollo 2 will consist of for maybe a plant efficiency and automation standpoint kind of post Apollo, maybe. Can you talk to what you think the gross margin potential for the businesses? Thanks.

Yeah, I'd say that, you know, we're still, you know, we're still committed to improving the gross margin getting up and, you know, up above 30% on an annualized basis toward, you know, the mid-30s, let's call it. And you know, you can, you can do the math and see that, you know, that, you know, just that $15 million of plant consolidation savings, you know, all that's going to roll through your gross margin. Obviously there's some OPEX savings associated with this leg of Apollo, but you know, that's not going to get you all the way there, obviously, but it's going to help to close the gap. And I would think that we're just going to keep kind of chunking away at that over the next few years through Project Apollo and frankly growing the business. The one thing we didn't talk about is the extent to which we can continue to grow the top line as we have historically and start seeing some leveraging impacts as we, you know, both at the plant level and with respect to opex.

Okay. And just to follow up on that, thoughts on CapEx in 26, based on the work that you're doing, I would.

Say about in line with fiscal 25, but we're working to trim that.

Okay, perfect. Thank you both.

Yep. Thank you, Todd.

That concludes today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back to Dan Fashner for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. In closing, I want to emphasize that while fiscal 2025 presented its challenges, we. Built significant momentum in early fiscal 2026 through our strategic initiatives and operational improvements. Our innovation pipeline is robust and should. Drive sustainable growth in key categories, while. Project Apollo enables meaningful efficiency improvements with a strong balance sheet, including $106 million in cash and no debt. We're well positioned to invest in growth. Opportunities while returning capital to shareholders through share repurchases. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to updating you on. Our progress throughout fiscal 2026. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.