Vital Farms, Inc. (NASDAQ:VITL) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jacob Henry: Great. Thank you. I’ll leave it there.

Russell Diez-Canseco: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Dickerson with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Robert Dickerson: Great. Thanks so much. Good morning.

Russell Diez-Canseco: Good morning Rob.

Robert Dickerson: Hey, how is it going? I guess two questions, just one on long-term sales growth and other on kind of go-forward CapEx. For the first one, when we think about kind of that long-term goal of reaching the $1 billion in net revenue, I mean, it does seem like kind of given what revenues could be at least in 2024 that there is maybe an implied tick-up in the growth rate. I mean it’s not monumental, but it’s not as if like as you grow and you get bigger that you’re implying that your sales growth would kind of naturally decelerate, still be high, but decelerate that happens in companies that sometimes just get a little bit bigger. But you’re not really saying that, right? You’re saying that basically over the next, call it, four years, we could still grow at least 20% a year kind of once we get past this fiscal 2024 that have some puts and takes?

So, I’m just curious, Russell, like what are those kind of core drivers that give you kind of the conviction that the growth rate we’re seeing now will be consistent. And I’m not sure if a piece of that just is essentially like Westford market expansion? Because I know through your Investor Day, you spoke to kind of — it’s really about increased distribution and SKUs in store. But just kind of curious as the update post Investor Day where we sit now, how you feel about that strategy if we looked out three years?

Russell Diez-Canseco: Thanks Rob. I feel certainly at least as strongly convicted today as I did last September about the trajectory of our sales growth and the potential for our brand to have a right to win in more and more households. So, the — I think our confidence in our ability to maintain, as you said, that 20% plus growth, give or take, given the puts and takes of any given year is rooted in our continued ability to do the right analysis, to identify the right households, and develop meaningful strategies for reaching them, ability to continue to expand our capacity, our supply chain and get well out in front of our growth needs, so that’s never a bottleneck. And to continue to invest in the resources needed to tell a very compelling fact-based sales story to our retail partners.

We create value for consumers and retailers. And I think that’s always going to be in fashion in a sense. The good news is Kathryn McKeon is here, and so she can bring even more detail to that conversation. Kathryn?

Kathryn McKeon: Hey good morning. Look, we have grown health tools year-over-year and continue to do that. We’re growing loyalty at the same time, which is certainly an accomplishment. As we look at the long-term growth of the brand, we’re thinking about how to bring in the right household and how to grow the household penetration and that will be a key driver to the long-term growth you’re asking about. So, there’s three drivers of that, and they go hand-in-hand, the right marketing, the right messaging, as Russell alluded to, it’s strong distribution, and the right promotions. This year, we are firing on all cylinders there and bringing those all three together. They were very much in harmony and you need not look further than our path to see that we know how to accomplish those things individually and make them work together to grow our households.

So, I’m feeling really confident in our ability to grow households, grow sales with both new households and deepen loyalty to hit those numbers.

Robert Dickerson: All right. Great. And then just a question on kind of go-forward CapEx and the commentary around ERP. Just quick clarification first is just I thought I heard, does that program start to kick off in 2025? Or is that kind of a process you’re working on as you get through 2024 and part of 2025 such that that ERP implementation program would be finished in 2025? I just didn’t hear that.

Russell Diez-Canseco: Yes, I know — so Thilo can answer more substantially about the timing of the cash flows. But you mentioned timing and when it starts, and I wanted to just share a little bit of background. The proposal to do a digital transformation came across my desk almost two years ago. And we’ve invested a lot of time as we do with everything we do and very intentionally putting together the right team internally, the right outside support and having the right plan to make sure that we execute excellently because this is so critical to the management of our business and to enabling expansion beyond eggs. I’ll let Thilo speak about the investment process and timeline.

Thilo Wrede: Yes. On the timing, Rob, we have kicked off the digital transformation. The timing of the go-live is summer next year. So, we’re giving ourselves 18 months to do it. Majority of the CapEx spend is happening this year, it’s pretty much correlated with just ongoing work there and any peaks or valleys there. And so majority of the CapEx spend for the digital transformation is this year were some additional spend next year. And then summer next year, we’re going live. We’re throwing the switch. And while we’re doing that, we’re improving our processes, we’re improving our data availability. So, there are a lot of benefits that we anticipate to get out of this.

Robert Dickerson: All right, super. And then there — I mean it doesn’t sound as if you’re calling out any P&L impact from that spend. It’s all CapEx. And I just asked because normally, we do see some SG&A impact as you get through the process.