Laird Superfood, Inc. (AMEX:LSF) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Laird Superfood, Inc. (AMEX:LSF) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript March 26, 2026

Laird Superfood, Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-0.16 EPS, expectations were $-0.06.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us and welcome to Laird Superfood, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results. After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Trevor Rousseau, Head of Investor Relations. Trevor, please go ahead.

Trevor Rousseau: Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to Laird Superfood, Inc.’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. On today’s call are Jason Vieth, Laird Superfood, Inc.’s President and Chief Executive Officer, and Anya Hamill, our Chief Financial Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the company’s earnings release, which was filed today after market close. It is available on the Investor Relations section of Laird Superfood, Inc.’s website at investors.lairdsuperfood.com. Before we begin, please note that during this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the context of federal securities laws. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described.

Please refer to today’s press release and other filings with the SEC for a detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties. I will now turn the call over to Jason Vieth.

Jason Vieth: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I am Jason Vieth, CEO of Laird Superfood, Inc. And I am joined by our CFO, Anya Hamill. We appreciate you taking the time as we review our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results, which we released earlier today. Fiscal 2025 was a pivotal and transformative year for Laird Superfood, Inc. We delivered record net sales of $49.9 million, up 15% versus the prior year and in line with our revised guidance. In the fourth quarter alone, net sales rose 15% to $13.3 million. This growth was broad-based and especially strong in our wholesale channel, which surged more than 40% in both Q4 and for the full year. That momentum came from meaningful distribution expansion paired with continued strong velocities in grocery and club outlets.

Retail consumption data for the latest quad week ending 02/22/2026 confirms the health of that wholesale acceleration. Across measured natural and MULO channels, coffee posted the strongest full-year performance of any Laird Superfood, Inc. product group, +45% dollar growth on +18% unit growth over the last 52 weeks. Shelf-stable creamers delivered +15% dollar growth for the year, maintaining the largest share of our portfolio at 28%. I am also excited to report a very successful relaunch of our refrigerated creamers during late Q4 into early Q1, which included reformulation to what we believe is the cleanest, best-tasting liquid creamer product in the market. In addition, we repositioned our creamer to an extended shelf life refrigerated product packed in a post-consumer recycled plastic bottle.

We believe that these changes to a cleaner formula and an already recycled bottle improve our positioning with both our retailers and our consumers. And after a challenging 2025 for this product, we are already seeing strong momentum in the latest four weeks, up 7% in the natural channel versus the same period last year. I want to be clear that these results are no accident. They are direct proof that our strategy to win in coffee solutions, which includes coffee, creamers, and lattes, is working. Consumers are responding to our complete ecosystem of functional, better-for-you coffee and coffee companions. And that is translating into outsized velocity and distribution gains in our core categories. E-commerce remained resilient at roughly half of total sales, and softness in our direct-to-consumer platform was partially offset by strong continued growth on Amazon.com, further reinforcing the power of our coffee solutions portfolio with the everyday convenience shopper.

While we appreciate the core set of consumers that come to our DTC site to explore and purchase our Laird Superfood, Inc. products, we harbor no illusion that Amazon will not continue to win online volume in the future. For this reason, we will continue to leverage Amazon as the growth engine for our e-commerce sales. I also want to give a heartfelt acknowledgment to the entire Laird Superfood, Inc. team for the outstanding job they did of managing through the chaos of sharp commodity inflation, new tariff pressures, and ongoing supply chain volatility. Throughout 2025, they proactively secured strategic inventory ahead of tariff increases, built safety stock to protect service levels and avoid out-of-stocks, and maintained tight operational discipline across procurement, logistics, and cost control.

That level of foresight and agility under pressure is exactly what allowed us to deliver top-line growth while keeping the business running smoothly, and I could not be more proud of how this team showed up every day. Now onto the other big news that we have shared over the last couple of months. Just two weeks ago, on March 12, we closed the acquisition of Navitas Organics, funded by the $50 million investment that we completed with Nexus Capital. This transaction is perfectly on strategy and represents a major step in our vision of building a scaled superfood platform. Navitas brings to Laird Superfood, Inc. a premium, purpose-driven brand with more than 20 years of history, $45.3 million in 2025 net sales, and a 31.8% gross margin. It adds complementary products, stronger reach in conventional grocery and club channels, new customers, and greater geographic diversity.

Together, Laird Superfood, Inc. and Navitas instantly become a larger, more diversified platform with enhanced scale, cross-selling opportunities, and supply chain efficiencies we expect will drive both revenue growth and profit expansion in the years to come. The financing structure itself underscores our confidence in this path. Nexus invested $50 million upfront through the purchase of Series A preferred stock. Importantly, the investment agreement also gives us the option to call an additional $60 million from Nexus anytime within the next 270 days after closing, or up to 360 days if we are actively in discussions on another strategic transaction. These proceeds are earmarked for an acquisition or other growth initiative, with any remainder available for general corporate purposes.

This financial structure gives us tremendous flexibility to move on additional opportunities should they arise. Of course, this investment did result in meaningful dilution to our common equity. On an as-converted basis, Nexus’ stake represents approximately 56.2% of the company today. We are very transparent about that dilution because it is being exchanged for something that we believe is far more valuable: the immediate addition of a profit-accretive business that we expect will strengthen our overall earnings power and cash flow generation going forward. In short, we expect to be trading some ownership percentage today for a much larger, higher-quality earnings stream tomorrow. We are genuinely excited about the potential for additional acquisitions as we build out the leading superfood business in the country.

With the capital access provided by Nexus, and the integration playbook we now have, we see a clear runway to continue consolidating within the superfood and functional food space. Our goal is to keep building scale, broaden our product portfolio, deepen our retailer partnerships, and ultimately create a category leader that delivers sustainable, profitable growth for years to come. Looking ahead, our priorities remain clear: drive continued wholesale momentum, protect and expand gross margins through synergies with Navitas, and execute a seamless integration while staying opportunistic on further M&A. With our strengthened balance sheet, expanded platform, and talented combined team, I have never been more optimistic about Laird Superfood, Inc.’s future.

Before I turn it over to Anya for the detailed financial review, I want to thank every single Laird Superfood, Inc. teammate, our retail partners, our consumers, and now our new Navitas Organics colleagues. 2025 proved we can grow through turbulence, and 2026 is going to be the year that we show what a true scaled superfood platform can achieve. Anya, over to you. I will now turn the call over to Anya Hamill for the financial results.

Anya Hamill: Thank you, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now provide additional detail on our fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2025 financial results. As Jason highlighted, we closed the year with record net sales of $49.9 million, which was up 15% year over year, and Q4 net sales of $13.3 million, also up 15% versus prior year. I will build on those headlines with the underlying financial details. Our wholesale channel was the primary growth driver, increasing 44% year over year to $7.0 million in the fourth quarter, representing 52% of total Q4 net sales. For the full year, wholesale grew 41% to $24.9 million, representing 50% of total net sales. This channel mix shift is a direct reflection of our strategy to transition Laird Superfood, Inc.

to a wholesale-led business, and the numbers confirm we are executing against that plan. E-commerce contributed $6.4 million, or 48% of Q4 net sales, reflecting a 6% decline year over year; softness in our direct-to-consumer platform was partially offset by continued growth on Amazon.com. For the full year, e-commerce contributed $25.0 million, or 50% of net sales, down 3% versus 2024. As Jason noted, we are focused on Amazon as the growth engine within e-commerce, and our DTC channel continues to benefit from a highly loyal repeat customer base. Gross margin in the fourth quarter was 34.1%, compared to 38.6% in the corresponding prior-year period. This contraction was driven primarily by increased product cost from inflationary commodity prices and the residual impact of tariffs that have now largely been canceled for our raw materials, as well as the settlement recoveries recognized in fiscal year 2024 that did not reoccur in 2025.

For the full fiscal year, gross margin was 37.9%, compared to 40.9% in 2024. This year-over-year decline was driven by the same dynamics as in Q4: commodity and tariff pressures alongside the non-recurrence of prior-year settlement benefits. Despite these headwinds, we delivered full-year gross margins in the upper 30% range, consistent with our stated expectations. Our supply chain team continues to drive efficiency through direct partnerships with key raw material suppliers and co-packing partners, and we remain confident in our ability to sustain gross margins at levels competitive with best-in-class CPG companies. Total operating expenses for fiscal year 2025 were $22.3 million, compared to $19.9 million in the prior year, reflecting planned investments in sales and marketing to support our top-line growth, partially offset by continued discipline in general and administrative costs.

Net loss for the fourth quarter was $1.8 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, compared to net loss of $0.4 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, in the prior-year period. This year-over-year increase in loss was driven primarily by $0.9 million in professional fees incurred in connection with the Navitas acquisition, as well as higher commodity- and tariff-related procurement costs. For the full fiscal year 2025, net loss was $3.3 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, compared to $1.8 million, or $0.18 per diluted share, in 2024, a year-over-year increase of $1.5 million. Let me be clear about what drove that: the $0.9 million in Navitas acquisition-related fees and $0.7 million in Pikibar’s intangible assets impairment charge. Together, those account for $1.6 million, essentially the entirety of the year-over-year change in net loss.

Excluding these two discrete nonrecurring items, our core business net loss was essentially flat year over year, even as we absorbed significant commodity inflation and tariff headwinds. That is a result we are proud of, and it reflects the underlying earnings progress of our business. I also want to highlight our adjusted EBITDA performance, which I believe is an important measure of our underlying business progress. For the full fiscal year 2025, we delivered positive adjusted EBITDA of $0.3 million, which is a significant improvement from a $0.7 million loss in 2024 and consistent with our commitment to achieve at least a breakeven adjusted EBITDA for the full year. This represents a $1.0 million year-over-year positive swing and reflects the operating leverage that we are beginning to generate as our top line scales.

Now turning to our balance sheet. We ended fiscal year 2025 with $5.3 million in cash and no debt. Accounts receivable increased to $3.9 million from $1.8 million at year-end 2024, reflecting the timing of large wholesale shipments at year-end 2025, which were subsequently collected in 2026. Inventory ended the year at $7.8 million, down from its peak of approximately $11.0 million in 2025, consistent with our strategy to draw down the forward purchases we made earlier in the year in order to mitigate the impact of tariff-related cost increases. Cash used in operating activities was $2.8 million for fiscal year 2025, compared to $0.9 million provided by operations in 2024. The year-over-year change was primarily driven by working capital dynamics, specifically the inventory build in the first half of the year and the timing of year-end wholesale receivables.

As those receivables have since been converted to cash, and inventory levels continue to normalize, we expect operating cash flow to improve throughout 2026. Now on to 2026 outlook. While we are not providing detailed formal guidance for fiscal year 2026 at this time, I do want to share our directional expectations for the combined business. As a starting point and for context, Navitas generated net sales of $45.3 million and gross profit of $14.4 million, reflecting a gross margin of approximately 31.8% for fiscal year 2025, and reported net income of approximately $1.6 million for that period. These results are on a historical stand-alone basis and were not included in Laird Superfood, Inc.’s consolidated 2025 financial statements. Combined with Laird Superfood, Inc.’s $49.9 million in 2025 net sales, we are building from a meaningful combined revenue base.

Looking ahead, we expect net sales for the combined business to grow by at least high single digits in 2026, and we expect adjusted EBITDA to increase, driven by top-line growth and the realization of integration synergies across procurement, supply chain, and operations. We will provide specific full-year 2026 guidance in connection with our first quarter 2026 earnings release, and we look forward to sharing more details at that time. I will now turn the discussion back over to Jason for any closing remarks.

Jason Vieth: Thank you, Anya. In closing, fiscal 2025 was a year that tested our resilience and proved our conviction. We delivered record revenue, strengthened our wholesale momentum, successfully relaunched our refrigerated creamers, and, most importantly, took a transformative step forward with the acquisition of Navitas Organics and our partnership with Nexus Capital. We are no longer just a promising coffee and creamer brand. We are now a scaled, diversified superfood platform with greater reach, enhanced capabilities, and a clear runway for accelerated growth and margin expansion. The foundation we have built, combined with the talent and dedication of our combined teams, positions us exceptionally well for what is ahead.

To our shareholders, thank you for your continued belief in our vision. To our retail partners, your support and partnership have been instrumental. To our consumers, your loyalty and enthusiasm for better-for-you functional products inspire us every day. And to every member of the Laird Superfood, Inc. and Navitas teams, thank you for your hard work, creativity, and unwavering commitment through a year of significant change. We enter 2026 with tremendous momentum and optimism. This is just the beginning of what we believe will be a multiyear journey to build the leading superfood company in North America. Thank you again for joining us today. We look forward to updating you on our progress when we report first quarter 2026 results. Operator, we will now open for questions.

Operator: We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Please pick up your handset when asking a question. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Nicholas Sherwood of Maxim Group LLC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Q&A Session

Nicholas Sherwood: My first question is how much crossover in retail locations exists between Laird Superfood, Inc. products and the Navitas products? And has there been a substantial improvement in average items carried?

Jason Vieth: Hey, Nicholas. This is Jason. I thought the first part of your question is—who was the—or what was the last part?

Nicholas Sherwood: The last part was, has there been an improvement in average items carried with the combined portfolio?

Jason Vieth: Got it. I need to mention the portfolio a little bit so it is clear where it is. So, in the case of the biggest—think about this business as a pretty similarly sized business, Laird Superfood, Inc. They have more exposure to the wholesale channel than we do. They especially do not have as much of an online business as we do. There is a significant amount of crossover when you consider retailers similar to Laird Superfood, Inc. They are predominantly natural channel. They grew up through the natural channel, and the largest accounts being Whole Foods. So very similar to the Laird Superfood, Inc. portfolio that is now committed to this transaction. In terms of average assortment, we will be working on both of these brands.

We are dividing both brands, so I want to be really, really clear on that. This is a planned deal forward where we will be managing multiple brands under the ticker symbol, but we will have something that is a house of brands. And Navitas is equally important, equally sized superfood, with a great portfolio of products that they compete in in different categories, but also in very similar temperature state in a shelf-stable bag or pouch products that very, very much like what you see with other superfoods. So there is not really a consolidation of items in these states. It is actually an expansion of items as you consider both brands, but there is quite a lot of overlap, and we are working through that now with the combined sales organization, which will really allow us to go to market in a more impactful way.

All of those retailers that I mentioned, as well as just getting us additional help with—we are going to approach retailers. And then you are going to see where we belong. We indicated that as being the largest go-forward opportunity for us. Now we can go in with two exceptional brands and really play a much more important role to those retailers as well. So we are really excited about the assortment opportunities this creates, being able to leverage one brand for the next brand. Those relationships are super important in being able to utilize those across the two brands. Now we expect to see some really nice distribution years ahead.

Nicholas Sherwood: Okay. Thank you for that detail. And then, switching gears, what have commodity prices looked like in the last month? Are oil prices higher? Are some of your suppliers having to raise their prices due to increased shipping costs and the like?

Jason Vieth: It is a great question. We are not seeing a lot of impact from small cost increases on the margin thus far. We are largely in contracts that we entered the year with, where we have strong pricing buys that we have made. And as we look at those relative to what is going on, we have very little product that is impacted this route or not really impacting our products or anything more fuel- and distribution-related, and that has not shown up in our cost structure at this point. So we are cautiously optimistic that the routes that we run are in place, which are largely Asia and South America. We will be able to—in a bit of a—especially in the West Side of Africa, we will be able to kind of miss most of what is happening with regards to any inflation out of that.

Nicholas Sherwood: Okay. And then my last question is, what sort of efficiencies can we see with the consolidation of Laird Superfood, Inc. and Navitas’ logistics? Is there going to be warehouse consolidation, more freight cost savings? Can you talk about that?

Jason Vieth: It is a great question, and one that we obviously spent time on in diligence, so we will have a lot more to say as we go forward. We essentially have a structure here within both of the businesses that has the right model: using co-packers with third-party distributors for nearly all of our manufacturing and logistics. So there will be opportunities, certainly, to combine those. We are working our way through the supply chain to identify not only cost but capability opportunities. You have to optimize cost across the broad portfolio, leveraging the scale that we have. We become a $100 million business and, you know, doubling that obviously grows the opportunity for the various suppliers to our business as well. And so we have some great partners, and because we have some great partners, we are working our way through both sides of that ledger to try to do business in the future. And certainly, we expect to see some opportunity there for a program.

Nicholas Sherwood: Awesome. Thank you for all that detail. I will return to the queue.

Jason Vieth: My pleasure. Thank you.

Operator: If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Your next question comes from the line of George Kelly of Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

George Kelly: Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe to start, I was hoping you could break down a little bit your gross—just the directional guidance you provided of high single-digit growth. I was hoping you could give us a little more just on expectations around each business, if possible. And are there certain product categories at each business that maybe you are going to deprioritize, and that is also factored into your guide? Just any context around that would be helpful. Did that go through?

Operator: Please hold while we correct for technical difficulties. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding. The call will begin again shortly.

Jason Vieth: Hey, George. Are you still there?

George Kelly: I am. Yeah. Jason, I can repeat the question if that would be helpful.

Jason Vieth: Yeah, thanks, George. We had a technical issue over on our side. If you do not mind repeating that, that would be great.

George Kelly: Not at all. Happy to. So I guess the question was if you could give a little more detail on your revenue guide for the year, the high single-digit growth. And I guess what I am trying to understand is does that account for the partial—it just looks like a decel from what both businesses have been doing, and so just trying to understand the dynamics. Maybe if you could give a business-level growth expectation, or does it not account for the kind of partial-year contribution of Navitas, or maybe there is a deprioritization of certain product categories at each business. Just any more context would be great around the high single-digit growth guide.

Jason Vieth: That is right. Thanks, George, for asking on that. It is certainly something that we want to make sure we hit. So, look, you hit it on the head with the portfolio evaluation that needs to take place here to make sure that we are in all the right products. We certainly, across the business, have some opportunity as we put the two businesses together to put focus from a profitability perspective against the right SKUs and make those the SKUs and categories, frankly, that we look to grow as we go forward. So we are in the midst of that right now. I believe that there could be a little bit of deceleration for that reason as we go through this year. But the target list is still being identified. We still have some work to do as we consolidate the two portfolios, and so, as a result, we are calling out that high single-digit growth as a number that we feel confident that we should be able to do as we push the two businesses forward together as one portfolio.

George Kelly: Okay. And then I guess a follow-up to that. Through that process, do you imagine that gross margin—gross margin was kind of fluid, I guess, with a lot of tariff complications in 2025 with the core business. What are kind of your gross margin expectations with tariffs going away and then the deprioritization? I would imagine those are lower-margin categories. Can you get the core business back in the high thirties? And should there be an uplift at Navitas as well, or how should we think about gross margin in 2026?

Jason Vieth: I will kick that off, George, and then I will let Anya jump in as well. You are exactly right. The margins on the Navitas business are not as strong—have not historically been as strong—as they have been on Laird Superfood, Inc. over the last number of years. We see opportunity by virtue of combining these businesses and working our way through the portfolio to really highlight and grow those businesses and those SKUs that have higher margins. We see other opportunities as well to improve gross margin as we combine the two businesses, as I just mentioned: putting the footprints together, and on the sourcing side there is some opportunity as well. So our expectation is indeed to get back into the upper-30 percent range as we go forward.

It just takes a couple of quarters to shake that out and also to get through some of the procurement contracts that we have been in as singular businesses so that we can start to get to better volumes and better pricing as a result on the combined business. So we will head back towards the upper thirties; it just needs a little bit of time to let the digestion process take place here.

George Kelly: Okay. And that is on a consolidated basis, you think you can get back there?

Anya Hamill: George, this is Anya. I think I would just add to what Jason said. I think once we complete and internalize the acquisition fully, then on a run-rate basis, by the end of 2026, with the help from synergies—which will partially come from supply chain—we can get back to the high thirties on the gross margins where Laird Superfood, Inc.’s core business has been.

George Kelly: Okay. That is great. And then last one for me is just on some of Laird Superfood, Inc.’s innovation items. You mentioned the liquid creamer—you are pleased with the launch—and I know there was the coffee product, the instant coffee product. Curious if you could just talk high level about the performance of each and maybe the distribution plan or medium-term expectations. The liquid product—do you think you have the right product now to take it more broadly? That is all I had. Thank you.

Jason Vieth: Of course. We are really excited about the liquid relaunch. As you know, you have been following us for quite some time, and we have been through a few stops and starts on that liquid product. We are now in, I would tell you, the best package that we have ever been in, and I would say most preferred by consumers and retailers. It is a beautiful plastic bottle, but it is post-recycled content. So it is a bottle that has already lived one life, which is really important not only with consumers but especially in the natural channel with the buyers there. So we are really excited about that packaging. And inside of that, we have now the cleanest formula we have ever had. In fact, I think it is safe to say it is the cleanest on the market.

We have moved away from the long shelf-life processing, the aseptic processing, and gotten to a formula that really is incredibly clean with no more stabilizers in there and no fiber impact to hold it together. Every ingredient is one that you know. So this is a great product, George, that we have now, and we are putting it in front of retailers. We expect to see some significant distribution gains over the next years, and we have held on to that product. As you know, it is not a sizable part of the portfolio, but it is such an incredible addressable market, full of products that really are not very healthy. And so we see that this is an opportunity for us that we have to continue to grind against until we get it right, and I think we just did.

So we are really excited about that. Beyond that, we did launch the protein coffee product that you were alluding to as well. That had a nice launch with one of the natural channel resellers that we gave exclusivity to. We are still working through the data on that and now starting to take that out to additional retailers, so you should see some expansion coming against that product over the next quarters as well. It is a great product, obviously hitting on the big protein trend with 10 grams per serving, and I think it tastes like nothing else in the market. So we see a lot of opportunity for that product, and that is just on the Laird Superfood, Inc. side. Over on the Navitas side, we have had some really great success recently with the Trail Mix product that went into club, and now we are starting to see some further expansion on that online, and we will look to take that more broad, as well as the Bites products, which is just a wonderful, great-tasting superfood bite across now a number of SKUs and a growing portfolio.

It is starting to see nice uplift with retailers, and we see opportunity there and, frankly, across a lot of the Navitas portfolio. There is just so much white space for both of these brands, especially in that MULO world of conventional grocery. And so as we go forward, with now a sales team that is twice as large as it was previously, we think that there is just incredible opportunity for us to expand distribution on all those products.

George Kelly: Thank you.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Jason Vieth for closing remarks.

Jason Vieth: Thank you, Operator. Sorry we are having some technical difficulties over on our side today. Thanks for staying with us, and thanks to all of you for joining us again today. We are extremely proud of everything that our team has achieved in 2025. We delivered strong results through focused execution and through relentless innovation. And as we look ahead, we are genuinely excited about the transformative opportunities that lie in the combined future with Navitas. We appreciate your continued support and your interest in the journey, and we look forward to updating you all on the progress throughout the year ahead. Thank you, and wishing you all a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.