Scott Drake
Analyst · ROTH Capital
Thanks Deverl. While we are not providing a formal forward-looking guidance, I wanted to call out some key metrics and data points that we follow closely, which should give some color on how we're tracking some key metrics internally. Our focus on implementing efficiencies and optimizing our new cost structure remains a top priority for us. As Deverl outlined, we've executed against many of the objectives we laid out at the beginning of the fiscal year. Given the incremental expansion in our gross margin, which we experienced in each of the past four quarters, it's safe to say that these efficiencies are beginning to materialize, despite the reduced volumes associated with the pandemic. At the onset of the pandemic, we set a $6.5 million per month cost savings target, which was relative to our pre-pandemic normalized expense run rate. We exceeded that goal in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2020. Today, we're recording approximately $5 million of cost savings per month relative to our normalized run rate despite the increased SG&A expenses associated with bringing back employees, which speaks to the efficiencies we've built into our cost structure. We expect a portion of these cost structure improvements to continue to materialize in our cost of goods sold and ultimately provide gross margin expansion over the long-term. Given these factors, we're excited to see what the business will look like once volumes fully recover, and feel comfortable with the expectation of higher gross margins, a lower cost to sales ratio, and therefore, a higher EBITDA margin over time. Turning now for fiscal 2021 fourth quarter results. Compared to pre-COVID levels, we achieved notable sequential improvements in DSD sales in each of the four quarters throughout our fiscal 2021 year. As we noted in the past, the most significant DSD sales declines have been in our restaurant, hotel and casino channels, while demand in our healthcare and C-store channels was impacted to a lesser degree. However, as Deverl noted, we recently experienced some minimal deterioration in our DSD performance due to the Delta variant, which we began to see a couple of weeks into August. Nonetheless, our DSD business has been far more resilient recently, compared with the choppiness we saw during the onset and first waves of COVID. As we look to outpace the recovery within each of our DSD end markets, we continue to monitor our DSD performance closely and find ways to optimize our operations, including new investments in technology and personnel. Turning now to our direct ship business. Overall, our direct ship sales in the fiscal fourth quarter improved from last quarter, and were slightly below last year's fourth quarter sales due to some customer wins and other factors I will cover shortly. But our full year direct ship sales declined 12% on a year-over-year basis. As we've mentioned in the past, our direct ship channel has been less affected by the pandemic given the types of customers we serve in the channel, which includes our grocery and third-party e-commerce customers, both of whom experienced rapid expansion throughout the pandemic. Overall, our year-over-year direct ship volumes throughout the current fiscal year were primarily impacted by customer exits in the previous year. These exits are part of our optimization strategy as we’ve continued to refine our customer base to ensure profitability, which did result in lost volumes on a year-over-year basis over the past few quarters, with the previous third quarter being the most heavily impacted. Due to the size of these customers and their orders, we can also experience tiny differences at quarter end, when large orders are fulfilled in the first days of the next quarter. This is also a contributing factor in the year-over-year declines we saw in the previous quarter, although it was reversed in the current quarter. And as Deverl had mentioned, we are not immune to inflationary headwinds. However, we continue to leverage our pricing power to manage our DSD business and remain less concerned about our direct ship channel as the business’ cost plus nature will, for the most part, take care of itself. Nonetheless, the current environment has continued to put inflationary pressures on commodity prices, and coffee is no exception. As such, we remain aggressively hedged on coffee prices throughout our heaviest volume, near-term seasons, and partially hedged through much of the next 12 months. With that said, we remain confident that our hedging strategy will help mitigate any near-term price fluctuations. Our net sales in Q4 '21 were $103 million, an increase of $22 million, or 27% from the prior year period. The increase in net sales was primarily driven by the continued recovery, as restrictions have eased across the country, and vaccines have become increasingly accessible. Our gross profit in Q4 '21 was $28 million, an increase of $13 million from the prior year period, and our gross margin increased to 27.6% from 19.2%. The increase in gross profit was primarily driven by higher net sales, while the increase in gross margin was driven by improved customer mix within our DSD business, and the structural improvements implemented throughout the fiscal year, all of which lead to better margins within the DSD and direct ship channels. However, the improvements in both metrics were partially offset by higher coffee brewing equipment costs, including higher servicing and parts prices, in addition to unfavorable production variances, resulting from costs associated with the closing of our Houston facility, and the production ramp up at our DFW and Portland facility. We posted a net loss of $4 million in Q4 '21 compared to a net loss of $9.7 million in the prior year period. We produced adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of $3.4 million compared to adjusted EBITDA of $0.7 million in the prior year period. Our adjusted EBITDA margin improved from 0.9% in Q4 of '20 to 3.3% in Q4 of '21 due to the structural improvements implemented throughout the business, and continued cost controls. Turning now to expenses, our operating expenses in Q4 '21 were $35 million, compared to $29 million in the prior year period, and decreased as a percentage of net sales to roughly 34% compared to 36% of net sales in the corresponding period of the prior year. On a dollar basis, the increase in operating expenses was primarily due to a $3.2 million increase in selling expenses, as we continue to bring back workers and routes to support our sales growth, and a nearly $1 million increase in G&A expenses, which was primarily associated with our supply chain optimization initiatives. Additionally, SG&A expenses as a whole were negatively impacted by an accrued employee incentive bonus that was paid out this year. This was needed to ensure proper talent retention and reward the employees who performed at such a high level throughout such a challenging year. Of note, we did not pay employee incentive bonuses in the prior year due to the pandemic’s impact on our business. Looking ahead, it's worth quickly noting that as volumes continue to recover, we can also expect some expenses, such as costs associated with routes and employees as they return. Additionally, we will have the costs related to our newly leased facilities in future periods. Our total CapEx in the fiscal 2021 year was roughly $15 million, compared to approximately $18 million in the prior fiscal period. The decrease was partially due to lower equipment demand given to the pandemic and more significantly due to the continued momentum in our CBE business as we're increasingly refurbishing more equipment than buying new. This initiative, alongside other cost savings initiatives put in place due to the pandemic drove our maintenance CapEx down to roughly $8 million in the fiscal 2021 year, compared to about $12 million in the fiscal 2020 year. This was partially offset by higher initiative capital spending of $7.4 million compared to $5.7 million in the fiscal 2020 year, which was due to several investments made in our new facilities and other optimization initiatives throughout the fiscal 2021 year. As we look forward, we anticipate maintenance CapEx to be between $11 million to $14 million in the fiscal 2022 year, which we expect to be driven by higher coffee and tea equipment placements, and our ability to refurbish equipment versus buying new. Deverl touched on our CBE business briefly, but I'd also like to say a few words on the initiative as well. In terms of our refurbished versus new equipment mix, we will likely settle into a regular blend of about 70% refurbished and 30% new in the longer term. Please note that this is for our wholly-owned CBE business. This is not to be confused with our third-party CBE offering, which we began pilot testing in some of our key markets during the fiscal fourth quarter. Once fully operational, this initiative will largely turn a cost line item into service revenue line item, as our CBE team will begin servicing customers outside of our current network. This initiative remains in its infancy, but we look forward to updating you on future progress. Now turning to the balance sheet. At the end of the fiscal 2021 year, our total outstanding borrowings were $91 million, including $43.5 million under our revolver and $47.5 million under our term loan. We ended the fiscal year with $10.4 million of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents and $25.7 million of liquidity available to us under our credit facilities. Our net debt, which we define as the gross amount borrowed on the revolver and term loan balances, less cash and cash equivalents was $80.7 million at fiscal year-end, compared to $79.5 million at the end of the previous quarter. To provide a more real time update, our net debt was $79.6 million at the end of August. Lastly, before turning the call over to the operator, I want to call out one more notable line item on our balance sheet. On a year-over-year basis, we significantly reduced our accrued pension liabilities and accrued post-retirement benefit line items. Cumulatively, the line items declined from roughly $69 million at the end of the fiscal 2020 year to around $40 million at the end of the current fiscal year. This reduction in liabilities is primarily due to pension investment performance, and the annual revaluation in addition to the cancellation of specific retiree life insurance programs. Thank you. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to the operator to answer any questions. Operator?