Hydrofarm Holdings Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HYFM) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Bill Chappell: Just on your outlook as we move to the back half in light of kind of what Scott or Hawthorne had said in terms of – I know they are mainly talking about lawn and garden, but they are going to step up promotions, step up, basically trying to clean up inventory now that they have gotten a little bit of a waiver on their debt covenants. Does that lead to greater downward pricing, especially on the durable side over the next four months to five months, where the growth actually is a little bit worse, or is that not really any different from what you have already been seeing year-to-date?

Bill Toler: Yes. The overlap we have with Hawthorn is actually very small, right. They are a very big lighting business. We have a small lighting business. We have gotten our inventory now into a place where it’s about the same percentage of sales as it is a percentage of our inventory, which is helpful. So, we have also taken a number of inventory reserves on lighting, which has positioned a little differently in the portfolio. So, we think we have gotten our lighting position to be able to sell through, that’s a position where we are now, right. We are not relying a lot on that durable side of the business, they are much more so than we are. And so we don’t really go head-to-head like that, like you might think except for those few products I mentioned. John, any thoughts on that you want to add?

John Lindeman: No, I think you covered it well.

Bill Chappell: Great. Thanks. And I guess within the industry, do you feel like the industry where you do compete, inventory levels are getting to the point where they match kind of sales in terms of shipments to sales, or is there still some destock, if you will, throughout the industry in this back half?

Bill Toler: I think most industry players have gone through similar efforts like we have, which is to get inventory is much more in line with current sales levels. It’s been a year plus, 1.5 years that people have been getting readjusted to the new volume levels. Remember all this – the heyday started in late mid-’20 and went through ‘21, and we have kind of all had now 18 months to get it back to adjustment. So, I think the industry is much more in balance now than probably it has been in a good while. There is certainly going to be pockets of things that might need to be moved here and there. But I think we are much more in balance than we have been in quite a while.

Bill Chappell: Got it. And then just one other, when you talk about, we believe that the industry will return to growth, like where are you seeing that? Where do you expect that to come? Is that a California stabilizing at some point? Is that New York or new states now finally coming on, what – as we move into ‘24, where do you expect that growth to what the drivers are?

Bill Toler: I think it’s a lot of what you just said. I mean you look at what a note John made, which was plus 34%, I think it was from Q4 to Q2 in just California. That’s some pretty good sequential show of strength. Oregon and Washington, which have been very, very weak for a long time are now getting more stable. Even Michigan is starting to show some resilience. And then you couple in with places like Missouri, which have come back nicely. And New York, New Jersey, you have still been a huge disappointment, very slow, not a lot of legislative all that stuff that we all know about. But there is little pockets of things that are going on. And we see things in our – even in our durable pipeline that are coming up for later in the year in New Jersey.