Freshpet Inc (FRPT) 2023 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Greetings. Welcome to Freshpet's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call and Webcast. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll now turn the conference over to Jeff Sonnek. Mr. Sonnek, you may now begin.

問候。歡迎來到 Freshpet 的 2023 年第一季度收益電話會議和網絡直播。 （操作員說明）請注意，正在錄製此會議。現在，我將把會議轉交給 Jeff Sonnek。 Sonnek 先生，您現在可以開始了。

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Freshpet's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call and Webcast. On today's call are Billy Cyr, Chief Executive Officer, and Todd Cunfer, Chief Financial Officer. Scott Morris, Chief Operating Officer, will also be available for Q&A.

謝謝。早上好，歡迎來到 Freshpet 的 2023 年第一季度收益電話會議和網絡直播。出席今天電話會議的有首席執行官 Billy Cyr 和首席財務官 Todd Cunfer。首席運營官 Scott Morris 也將出席問答環節。

Before we begin, please remember that during the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and the company's press release issued today for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today.

在我們開始之前，請記住，在本次電話會議期間，管理層可能會做出聯邦證券法意義上的前瞻性陳述。這些陳述基於管理層當前的預期和信念，涉及可能導致實際結果與這些前瞻性陳述中描述的結果存在重大差異的風險和不確定性。請參閱公司向美國證券交易委員會提交的 10-K 表格年度報告和公司今天發布的新聞稿，詳細討論可能導致實際結果與任何前瞻性陳述中明示或暗示的結果存在重大差異的風險今天。

Please note that on today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as EBITDA or adjusted EBITDA, among others. While the company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to today's press release for how management defines such non-GAAP measures, a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with GAAP and limitations associated with such non-GAAP measures.

請注意，在今天的電話會議上，管理層將參考某些非 GAAP 財務指標，例如 EBITDA 或調整後的 EBITDA 等。雖然公司認為這些非 GAAP 財務措施為投資者提供了有用的信息，但不應孤立地考慮或替代根據 GAAP 提供的財務信息。請參閱今天的新聞稿，了解管理層如何定義此類非 GAAP 措施、非 GAAP 財務措施與根據 GAAP 編制的最具可比性措施的調節以及與此類非 GAAP 措施相關的限制。

Finally, the company has produced a presentation that contains many of the key metrics that will be discussed on this call. That presentation can be found on the company's investor website. Management's commentary will not specifically walk through the presentation on the call, but rather it's a summary of the results and guidance we will discuss today. Additionally, we'd ask that your questions remain focused on the performance of the business and the results in the quarter. Management will not discuss or speculate on other topics beyond what is being reported here today. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Billy Cyr, Chief Executive Officer. Billy?

最後，該公司製作了一份演示文稿，其中包含將在本次電話會議上討論的許多關鍵指標。該演示文稿可以在公司的投資者網站上找到。管理層的評論不會具體介紹電話會議的內容，而是對我們今天將討論的結果和指導的總結。此外，我們希望您的問題仍然集中在業務績效和本季度的結果上。管理層將不會討論或推測除今天在此報告的內容之外的其他主題。有了這個，我現在想把電話轉給首席執行官 Billy Cyr。比利？

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. The message I would like you to take away from today's call is that we are making the steady progress on the key drivers of cost and margins that we committed to deliver this year in the fresh future plan while still delivering strong growth that is in line with our long-term growth plan.

謝謝你，傑夫，大家早上好。我希望您從今天的電話會議中傳達的信息是，我們正在穩步推進成本和利潤率的關鍵驅動因素，我們承諾今年在新的未來計劃中實現，同時仍實現強勁增長，符合我們的長期發展計劃。

This is due to strong operating performance by our teams in Bethlehem and NS and another indication that the investment that we made in the Freshpet Academy is paying dividends throughout the P&L. I will share a few highlights of our performance and a few thoughts on the outlook for the balance of the year, and then Todd will provide more detail on the quarter.

這是由於我們在伯利恆和 NS 的團隊的強勁運營表現，以及另一個跡象表明我們對 Freshpet 學院的投資正在整個損益表中產生紅利。我將分享我們業績的一些亮點以及對今年剩餘時間前景的一些想法，然後托德將提供有關該季度的更多細節。

The highlights are: first, strong net sales growth. We delivered 27% net sales growth in the first quarter. This was in line with the guidance we shared for the quarter and puts us on track to deliver our 2023 plan. Nielsen measured consumption was up 29% in the quarter, but the year ago quarter included some trade inventory refill. So our net sales growth was less than the consumption growth.

亮點是：一是強勁的淨銷售額增長。我們在第一季度實現了 27% 的淨銷售額增長。這符合我們在本季度分享的指導方針，並使我們走上了實現 2023 年計劃的軌道。尼爾森測量的消費量在本季度增長了 29%，但去年同期包括一些貿易庫存補充。所以我們的淨銷售額增長低於消費增長。

The consumption growth was comprised of 14% volume growth and 15% price/mix growth. We will be lapping significant trade inventory refill in the year ago through much of this year and won't get nearly as much benefit from pricing this year as we did last year. But our growth appears to be strong, particularly with our heaviest users.

消費增長包括 14% 的銷量增長和 15% 的價格/組合增長。在今年的大部分時間裡，我們將在一年前進行大量的貿易庫存補充，並且今年從定價中獲得的收益不會像去年那樣多。但我們的增長似乎很強勁，尤其是我們最重的用戶。

Second, adjusted EBITDA ahead of guidance. As we discussed on our last call, first quarter adjusted EBITDA was expected to be weighed down by the heavy start-up costs in Ennis and the start-up of our Dallas DC. I'm very happy to say that both of those initiatives were completed successfully and on budget. But perhaps more importantly, our performance on quality and logistics were much better than we had planned as strong performance on quality yielded improved gross margin and enabled higher fill rates that reduced logistics costs.

其次，調整後的 EBITDA 領先於指導。正如我們在上次電話會議上討論的那樣，預計第一季度調整後的 EBITDA 將受到恩尼斯沉重的啟動成本和達拉斯 DC 啟動的拖累。我很高興地說，這兩項舉措都已在預算內成功完成。但也許更重要的是，我們在質量和物流方面的表現比我們計劃的要好得多，因為在質量方面的強勁表現提高了毛利率，並實現了更高的供貨率，從而降低了物流成本。

Quality costs came in at 5.3% of net sales, down from 6.1% in the year ago quarter. And logistics costs came in at 9.3% of sales, down from 9.9% in the year ago despite the start-up costs associated with the Dallas D.C. These are both key operational areas that our team has been focused on, and we are very encouraged by this progress. As well as the opportunities it provides for continued upside as we execute our margin improvement strategy.

質量成本占淨銷售額的 5.3%，低於去年同期的 6.1%。物流成本佔銷售額的 9.3%，低於一年前的 9.9%，儘管與達拉斯 D.C. 相關的啟動成本。這些都是我們團隊一直關注的關鍵運營領域，我們非常鼓舞這個進步。以及它在我們執行利潤率改善戰略時提供的持續上漲機會。

Third, more effective balance between commodities and pricing. Input costs as a percent of net sales came in at 34.1%, which only reflects a partial impact from the February price increase. Looking ahead to Q2, we expect to reduce our input costs as a percent of net sales further.

第三，更有效地平衡商品和定價。投入成本占淨銷售額的百分比為 34.1%，這僅反映了 2 月份價格上漲的部分影響。展望第二季度，我們預計將進一步降低投入成本占淨銷售額的百分比。

For perspective, our Q1 performance is 180 basis points better than the 35.9% we experienced for the full year of 2022 and 200 basis points better than the 36.1% in the Q1 of 2022. Many retailers did not reflect the higher pricing on shelf until late in the quarter, but so far, it appears that consumers are accepting the pricing well.

從長遠來看，我們第一季度的業績比我們 2022 年全年的 35.9% 高 180 個基點，比 2022 年第一季度的 36.1% 高 200 個基點。許多零售商直到很晚才反映貨架上的價格更高在本季度，但到目前為止，消費者似乎對定價的接受度很好。

Fourth, Ennis start-up, the Ennis Kitchen is off to a good start due in large part to the training and preparation to the incredible team that is supporting its build-out and commercialization. We are now shipping product off both the bag line and roll line and are capable of producing a wide range of sku's on those lines.

第四，Ennis 初創公司，Ennis Kitchen 開局良好，這在很大程度上要歸功於支持其擴建和商業化的令人難以置信的團隊的培訓和準備。我們現在正在通過袋裝線和卷裝線運送產品，並且能夠在這些生產線上生產各種 sku。

We are still ramping up production on the bag line. But once that is completed, it will be yet another critical achievement that will unlock significant logistics savings. We will be able to ship the vast majority of our product assortment out of the Dallas D.C. using locally produced products.

我們仍在提高袋子生產線的產量。但一旦完成，這將是另一項關鍵成就，將節省大量物流費用。我們將能夠使用當地生產的產品將絕大多數產品分類運出達拉斯特區。

Further, our assessment of the quality of the product produced in Ennis is that it is every bit as good as the product we produce in Bethlehem, and we are doing it with fewer people due to the significant automation that we have integrated into the facilities design.

此外，我們對恩尼斯生產的產品質量的評估是，它與我們在伯利恆生產的產品一樣好，而且由於我們在設施設計中集成了重要的自動化，我們用更少的人來做這件事.

Fifth, strong customer support. Now that we have restored customer service to a high 90s fill rate, our customers have begun to invest heavily in incremental fridge placements. In Q1, we added 369 net new stores, upgraded 241 stores to larger fridges and placed second or third chillers in 685 stores, and there are many more of those coming later this year.

第五，強大的客戶支持。現在我們已經將客戶服務恢復到 90 年代的高填充率，我們的客戶已經開始大量投資於增量冰箱放置。第一季度，我們淨增了 369 家新店，將 241 家店升級為更大的冰箱，並在 685 家店中安裝了第二或第三台冷水機，今年晚些時候還會有更多這樣的店面出現。

We are well on track towards our goal of having 1.7 million cubic feet of space at retail by the end of this year. And sixth, household penetration growth. Household penetration growth was 7% in the past 52 weeks, and buying rate growth was 28% based on numerator data. What is most encouraging is that our number of heavy and super heavy users grew 18% over that time period despite the 20-plus percent increase in pricing.

我們正在朝著我們的目標邁進，即到今年年底擁有 170 萬立方英尺的零售空間。第六，家庭普及率增長。根據分子數據，家庭滲透率在過去 52 週內增長了 7%，購買率增長了 28%。最令人鼓舞的是，儘管價格上漲了 20% 以上，但我們的重度和超重度用戶數量在此期間增長了 18%。

We believe this reflects solid loyalty amongst our heaviest users or IPOs, a high-profit pet-owning households and the impact of our flip the ball effort that is designed to increase the number of people who use Freshpet as the main meal. We now have 3.3 million IPOs in our franchise.

我們認為，這反映了我們最重度用戶或 IPO、高利潤寵物擁有家庭的堅定忠誠度，以及我們旨在增加使用 Freshpet 作為主餐的人數的翻轉球努力的影響。我們的特許經營權現在有 330 萬個 IPO。

Looking forward, I expect to see continued improvement in our operations as the year progresses. We have momentum, and while the intangible benefits of a more experienced and better trained team are increasingly clear to us. We are excited to see them turn into tangible benefits and show up in our financial performance.

展望未來，我希望隨著時間的推移，我們的運營會持續改善。我們有動力，而我們越來越清楚經驗豐富、訓練有素的團隊帶來的無形好處。我們很高興看到它們轉化為切實的利益並體現在我們的財務業績中。

We have sizable opportunities to recover the efficiencies we lost over the last 3 years and our reinvigorated operations team is relentlessly focused on the biggest of those, quality, input costs and logistics. Although each of these categories has its own timetable for realizing the benefits, we have the critical talent in place, and the progress is increasingly obvious to our team with every passing day.

我們有相當大的機會來恢復我們在過去 3 年中失去的效率，我們重新煥發活力的運營團隊不懈地專注於其中最大的問題，即質量、投入成本和物流。儘管這些類別中的每一個都有自己實現收益的時間表，但我們擁有關鍵人才，而且隨著時間的推移，我們團隊的進步越來越明顯。

Additionally, the key elements of our marketing model are being fully deployed for the first time in several years. We have new advertising on the air at heavy media weight that resonates with consumers. Customers are placing new fridges at the strongest rate ever, and we have a large number of new products in distribution are scheduled to ship in the coming months.

此外，我們營銷模式的關鍵要素幾年來首次得到全面部署。我們以能夠引起消費者共鳴的媒體重量投放新廣告。客戶以有史以來最強勁的速度購買新冰箱，我們有大量新產品正在分銷，計劃在未來幾個月內發貨。

We are also updating our packaging graphics for the first time in several years and the premarket testing has shown they elicit an extremely favorable response. Now let me turn it over to Todd for the details on the Q1 results. Todd?

我們還在幾年內首次更新我們的包裝圖形，上市前測試表明它們引起了非常積極的反響。現在讓我把它轉交給托德，了解有關第一季度結果的詳細信息。托德？

Thank you, Billy, and good morning, everyone. As Billy said, we are off to a really good start this year. Let me break it down a bit further. Net sales came in at $167.5 million, up 27% versus a year ago. Our net pricing was up 14% versus a year ago in the quarter. That will drop to 8% in Q2 as we lap the large price increase we took in February of 2022.

謝謝你，比利，大家早上好。正如比利所說，我們今年的開局非常好。讓我進一步分解一下。淨銷售額為 1.675 億美元，同比增長 27%。本季度我們的淨定價比一年前上漲了 14%。隨著我們在 2022 年 2 月大幅提價，這一比例將在第二季度降至 8%。

The growth was broad-based across channels, including our pet specialty business, which saw a consumption growth rebound increasing 19% in the quarter versus prior year. Adjusted gross margin was 38.5% in Q1, slightly above the year ago and above our base expectation. This improved performance was due to a variety of factors, including increased pricing, improvements in the cost of quality and a strong start-up in Ennis, all aspects of our operational improvement plan that our team is focused on.

增長是跨渠道的廣泛增長，包括我們的寵物專業業務，該業務的消費增長在本季度與去年同期相比增長了 19%。第一季度調整後的毛利率為 38.5%，略高於去年同期水平，也高於我們的基本預期。這種改進的性能歸因於多種因素，包括價格上漲、質量成本的改善和 Ennis 的強大啟動，以及我們團隊關注的運營改進計劃的所有方面。

We expect these elements will continue to improve as we move forward and drive continued margin improvement. Now that we are shipping product from the bag line in Ennis, we are no longer capitalizing any start-up costs on that line, so they will flow through the P&L in Q2 as we ramp up production. But that is putting us on a path to sustained growth, increased resilience, and margin expansion.

我們預計，隨著我們向前邁進並推動利潤率持續提高，這些因素將繼續改善。現在我們正在從 Ennis 的袋子生產線運送產品，我們不再將該生產線的任何啟動成本資本化，因此隨著我們提高產量，它們將在第二季度流入損益表。但這使我們走上了持續增長、增強彈性和利潤擴張的道路。

Total adjusted SG&A was 36.7% of net sales, down from 38.7% in the year ago quarter. Consistent with our long-term trend of gaining scale in G&A. Our SG&A costs, excluding media and logistics were 11.9% of net sales versus 12.5% in the year ago period. We also gained 60 basis points of efficiency improvement in logistics costs versus a year ago, largely due to very high fill rates and partially offset by the start-up costs related to our Dallas D.C.

調整後的 SG&A 總額占淨銷售額的 36.7%，低於去年同期的 38.7%。與我們在 G&A 領域擴大規模的長期趨勢一致。我們的 SG&A 成本（不包括媒體和物流）占淨銷售額的 11.9%，而去年同期為 12.5%。與一年前相比，我們的物流成本效率也提高了 60 個基點，這主要是由於非常高的填充率，部分被與達拉斯 D.C. 相關的啟動成本所抵消。

We spent a healthy 15.5% of net sales in media in the quarter, and this was slightly below the 16.3% we spent in the year ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $3 million in Q1. That is considerably better than the cadence we had initially provided and was primarily due to the strong operating performance in COGS and logistics.

本季度我們在媒體上的支出占淨銷售額的 15.5%，略低於去年同期的 16.3%。第一季度調整後的 EBITDA 為 300 萬美元。這比我們最初提供的節奏要好得多，這主要是由於 COGS 和物流方面的強勁運營表現。

Capital spending in the quarter came in slightly below the most recent expectations at $69 million, largely due to sequencing of some sizable expenses in Ennis related to completion of the first production building the chicken processing facility and the early stages of construction of Phase 2. There is no change in our outlook for capital spending this year, which we continue to project at $240 million.

本季度的資本支出略低於最近預期的 6900 萬美元，這主要是由於 Ennis 與完成第一個生產建築雞肉加工廠和第二階段建設的早期階段相關的一些大筆支出的排序。我們今年的資本支出前景沒有變化，我們繼續預計為 2.4 億美元。

Our cash position is very strong. We greatly appreciate the support of our shareholders and other investors who participated in the convertible debt offering we completed in March. After the cost of the capped call option is factored in, we realized net proceeds of $325 million from that offering.

我們的現金狀況非常強勁。我們非常感謝參與我們 3 月份完成的可轉換債券發行的股東和其他投資者的支持。考慮到上限看漲期權的成本後，我們從此次發行中獲得了 3.25 億美元的淨收益。

In conjunction with our existing cash reserves at the end of the quarter, we had $387 million in cash and short-term investments. We have invested the funds in a series of conservative interest-bearing instruments that we yield interest rates well above the 3% coupon cost of debt we issued.

連同本季度末的現有現金儲備，我們擁有 3.87 億美元的現金和短期投資。我們將資金投資於一系列保守的生息工具，我們的利率遠高於我們發行的債務的 3% 息票成本。

These funds are invested across several institutions and in T-bills with a maturity of no greater than 120 days. For the remainder of the year, we expect interest income and interest expense to largely offset each other. We believe that we have adequate cash to fully fund our growth through 2024 and will be cash flow positive in 2026.

這些資金投資於多個機構和期限不超過 120 天的國庫券。在今年剩餘時間裡，我們預計利息收入和利息支出將在很大程度上相互抵消。我們相信，我們有足夠的現金來為 2024 年之前的增長提供充分資金，並將在 2026 年實現正現金流。

We also believe that we will have access to traditional nondilutive forms of capital to bridge a gap in 2025 if it occurs. In terms of the cadence of our business for the balance of 2023, we expect to continue the strong growth we demonstrated in Q1, but the net sales growth will increasingly be driven by volume growth versus pricing growth.

我們還相信，如果 2025 年出現缺口，我們將能夠使用傳統的非稀釋形式的資本來彌補缺口。就我們 2023 年剩餘時間的業務節奏而言，我們預計將繼續保持第一季度的強勁增長，但淨銷售額增長將越來越多地受到銷量增長而非價格增長的推動。

At the beginning of Q1, our Nielsen measured volume growth rate was around 12%. By the end of the quarter, it was up to around 16% and growing. We need that to continue to grow into the high teens and low 20s by the end of the year to continue to support our plans.

第一季度初，我們的尼爾森測得銷量增長率約為 12%。到本季度末，這一比例高達 16% 左右，並且還在增長。我們需要在年底前繼續成長為十幾歲和二十多歲，以繼續支持我們的計劃。

We believe our marketing, distribution and innovation programs will deliver that. Q2 and Q3 net sales should have mid-20s growth rates, while the Q4 growth rate will be relatively lower due to the sizable trade inventory refill in the year ago period.

我們相信我們的營銷、分銷和創新計劃將實現這一目標。第二季度和第三季度的淨銷售額增長率應該在 20 多歲左右，而由於去年同期大量的貿易庫存補充，第四季度的增長率將相對較低。

We expect to see continuing improvement in our operating cost in Q2, particularly in logistics and quality, along with the full benefit of the February price increase. However, we will be absorbing the full operating cost of the Ennis tag line in Q2 and to a lesser extent in the second half until that line achieves full production later this year.

我們預計第二季度的運營成本將持續改善，特別是在物流和質量方面，以及 2 月份價格上漲的全部好處。然而，我們將在第二季度和下半年承擔 Ennis 標籤生產線的全部運營成本，直到該生產線在今年晚些時候實現全面生產。

The net result is year-over-year gross margin headwind due to underutilized capacity which we expect to cause our Q2 adjusted gross margin to come in slightly below that of Q1 2023 performance of 38.5%.

由於產能利用不足，最終結果是毛利率同比逆風，我們預計這將導致我們第二季度調整後的毛利率略低於 2023 年第一季度 38.5% 的表現。

With respect to adjusted EBITDA, our expectation is that Q2 should be similar to that of Q1 on an absolute dollar basis, with the difference being some additional SG&A investments in Q2, offset by the contribution of higher net sales. Looking at the combined quarters of the first half, we expect to be slightly ahead of where we initially projected, we would be at the midpoint of the year and confident in our ability to deliver our commitments for the year based on our strong start and the sustained underlying performance we are seeing.

關於調整後的 EBITDA，我們預計第二季度在絕對美元基礎上應該與第一季度相似，不同之處在於第二季度一些額外的 SG&A 投資被更高的淨銷售額所抵消。看看上半年的合併季度，我們預計會略高於我們最初預測的水平，我們將處於今年的中點，並且有信心基於我們強勁的開端和我們看到的持續的基礎性能。

So we are reaffirming our guidance for the year that calls for net sales of approximately $750 million and adjusted EBITDA of at least $50 million. In closing, we are very encouraged by the start of the year. The capability improvements that we announced back in September are driving solid and steady improvement in our operating performance.

因此，我們重申我們今年的指導方針，要求淨銷售額約為 7.5 億美元，調整後的 EBITDA 至少為 5000 萬美元。最後，我們對今年的開始感到非常鼓舞。我們在 9 月份宣布的能力改進正在推動我們的經營業績穩步提高。

Further, we are seeing significant operational improvement in the investment we made in the Freshpet Academy. And the time and money we invested to train the Ennis team during the year prior to the start-up of that facility. We are even more encouraged by the magnitude of the opportunities that remain ahead of us.

此外，我們在 Freshpet 學院的投資中看到了顯著的運營改進。以及我們在該設施啟動前一年投入的時間和金錢來培訓 Ennis 團隊。擺在我們面前的機會之多讓我們更加鼓舞。

We believe that we are on track to deliver the margin improvements required to deliver the long-term margin targets we announced as part of the fresh future plan. The Ennis Kitchen is operating on both lines, and that provides us with the capacity needed to support our long-term growth as resilience to our business and provides significant opportunities for margin expansion.

我們相信，我們有望實現我們在新的未來計劃中宣布的長期利潤率目標所需的利潤率改善。 Ennis Kitchen 在兩條線上都在運營，這為我們提供了支持我們長期增長所需的能力，作為我們業務的彈性，並為利潤擴張提供了重要機會。

Further, the improvements we designed into that facility provides the opportunity for efficiency upside versus our long-term projection. In total, that leaves us feeling very bullish about our future. That concludes our overview. We will now be glad to take your questions. And as a reminder, please focus your questions on the quarter and the company's operations. Operator?

此外，我們對該設施設計的改進提供了與我們的長期預測相比提高效率的機會。總的來說，這讓我們對我們的未來感到非常樂觀。我們的概述到此結束。我們現在很樂意回答您的問題。提醒一下，請將您的問題集中在本季度和公司的運營上。操作員？

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Michael Lavery 和 Piper Sandler 的台詞。

Just was wondering if you could unpack the guidance a little bit. You've got a full year top line guide consistent with the first quarter. But you have pricing a pricing benefit that will moderate over the course of the year. Can you just point to some of what you expect on the volume side in terms of driving that acceleration? And what kind of visibility you might have there?

只是想知道您是否可以稍微拆開指南。你有一個與第一季度一致的全年收入指南。但是您的定價將在一年中緩和的定價收益。您能否僅指出一些您在驅動加速方面對音量方面的期望？你在那裡可能有什麼樣的知名度？

Yes, I'll take a shot at it. As we said in the scripted comments that we've seen the increasing shift towards volume growth and less on pricing. So we began quarter at Q1 at 12% volume growth, we ended the quarter at 16%, and we've seen it continue to grow from there. So by the end of the year, we're expecting that volume growth is going to be the driving -- the biggest driver of our net sales growth because pricing by the end of the year will basically end up accounting for something like 5% in the last quarter. So you're going to see an increasing shift towards volume, and we've already seen it.

是的，我會試一試。正如我們在腳本評論中所說，我們已經看到越來越多地轉向銷量增長而不是定價。因此，我們在第一季度開始時以 12% 的銷量增長，在本季度末以 16% 的速度結束，我們已經看到它從那裡繼續增長。因此，到今年年底，我們預計銷量增長將成為推動力——我們淨銷售額增長的最大推動力，因為到年底定價基本上將佔 5% 左右最後一個季度。所以你會看到越來越多的人轉向數量，我們已經看到了。

And is that helped by the step-up in advertising or the distribution gains or just all the above? Or I mean what's the real key factor there in terms of what accelerates the volume side.

這是否得益於廣告或分銷收益的增加或以上所有因素的幫助？或者我的意思是，就加速音量方面而言，真正的關鍵因素是什麼。

Yes. Let me just give you my comments, Scott will probably add some color to it. But as we said, the reality is we're now back in business doing business the way we want to. So we've got full fridges, high fill rates. We've got a broad assortment of products, advertising on the air, heavy weights, new advertising better packaging, a lot more stores, a lot more upgraded stores. So the growth is coming from and will continue to come from our business model, our marketing model working the way we want it to work.

是的。讓我給你我的評論，Scott 可能會添加一些顏色。但正如我們所說，現實是我們現在回到了業務中，以我們想要的方式開展業務。所以我們有滿滿的冰箱，高填充率。我們有各種各樣的產品，空中廣告，重量級，新廣告更好的包裝，更多的商店，更多升級的商店。因此，增長來自並將繼續來自我們的商業模式，我們的營銷模式按照我們希望的方式運作。

Yes. I think Billy hit on most of the points. But the -- I would say the overall model is intact. It's continuing to perform, and we've got penetration growth. The most interesting aspect we talked about it at ICR. We introduced this idea like the super heavy heavies or IPOs that Billy mentioned in the script. We see really strong growth from that group. We really, really like that. Those are our core consumers. Their buy rate is up substantially. The number of fridges that will place this year will be extraordinary. It will be an all-time record for the company, the number of fridges in total that we placed this year, which gives us the platform to continue to expand our portfolio and appeal to a larger group of consumers. So it just feels like every single thing is hitting on all cylinders. And then you couple all that platform with great, great advertising that continues to drive record traffic to our website, which we know converts to the store locator, which we know converts to eventual people coming into the brand. And it really is all working together, and I think we're in a really fortunate position.

是的。我認為比利說中了大部分要點。但是 - 我會說整體模型是完整的。它繼續表現，我們的滲透率有所增長。我們在 ICR 上討論過的最有趣的方面。我們介紹了這個想法，就像比利在劇本中提到的超重重量或首次公開募股。我們看到該群體的增長非常強勁。我們真的，真的很喜歡。這些是我們的核心消費者。他們的購買率大幅上升。今年將放置的冰箱數量將是非凡的。這將是公司的歷史記錄，即我們今年放置的冰箱總數，這為我們提供了繼續擴大產品組合併吸引更多消費者的平台。所以感覺就像每一件事都在撞擊所有的汽缸。然後，您將所有平台與出色、出色的廣告結合起來，繼續為我們的網站帶來創紀錄的流量，我們知道這些流量會轉化為商店定位器，我們知道這會轉化為最終進入該品牌的人。這真的是一起工作，我認為我們處於一個非常幸運的位置。

Okay. That's great. And just a quick follow-up on the ad spend. Is -- and sorry if I missed this. I don't know if you said it, but the -- is the second quarter spending level similar to the first? How does that play out as far as the trajectory over the course of the year?

好的。那太棒了。並且只是對廣告支出的快速跟進。是——抱歉，如果我錯過了這個。我不知道你是否說過，但是 - 第二季度的支出水平與第一季度相似嗎？就這一年的軌跡而言，這如何發揮作用？

Yes. Q2 will be a similar level to Q1 and will be fairly heavily weighted to the front half of the year. I don't know if we've actually split it out that way, but over -- a little bit over 60% of the advertising will be in the first half of year 65% or so.

是的。第二季度將與第一季度處於相似水平，並且將在今年上半年佔據相當大的權重。我不知道我們是否真的按照這種方式進行了拆分，但超過 60% 的廣告將在上半年達到 65% 左右。

Yes. Heavy spend in the first 2 quarters, actually, Q2 is projected to be up slightly over Q1. And then it tails down in the second half of the year. But unlike last year, where we spent very little in Q4, our expectation is we will spend at a reasonable amount in Q4 as well.

是的。前兩個季度的大量支出，實際上，第二季度預計將比第一季度略有增長。然後它在今年下半年下降。但與去年我們在第四季度支出很少的情況不同，我們的預期是我們在第四季度的支出也將保持在合理水平。

Our next question is from the line of Bryan Spillane with Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的 Bryan Spillane。

Just a few quick ones for me. One, just a clarification on the guidance slide. Adjusted EBITDA 2Q, we're talking -- you're expecting it to be similar to 1Q in absolute dollars, not year-on-year growth?

對我來說只是一些快速的。第一，只是對指導幻燈片的澄清。調整後的第 2 季度 EBITDA，我們正在談論——您期望它與第 1 季度的絕對美元相似，而不是同比增長？

Correct.

正確的。

Okay. And then Billy, maybe -- and Scott, maybe if you guys can just maybe zoom out a little bit. I know there's been some concern just about the household spending, consumer spending, being under pressure. And again, you're now kind of getting back up to the curb. So if you can talk a little bit about just as you're back in the market and your fill rates are better just your observations about the consumer? Is it more heavy users using the product more? Is there any barrier to attracting new households? Just kind of how the whole macro environment is playing into your growth expectation as you now are beginning to have more product in the market.

好的。然後是 Billy，也許——還有 Scott，如果你們可以稍微縮小一點。我知道有人擔心家庭支出、消費者支出承受壓力。再一次，你現在有點回到路邊了。所以，如果你能談談你回到市場時的情況，你的填充率會更好，只是你對消費者的觀察？是不是重度用戶使用的產品更多？吸引新家庭有什麼障礙嗎？隨著您現在開始在市場上擁有更多產品，整個宏觀環境如何影響您的增長預期。

Bryan, so I think that -- we talk about this a lot, and we literally look at it like every couple of weeks, very, very closely, and I think we have pretty expensive data that goes fairly deep down and to understand exactly what the dynamics are. And yes, I mean, there's been -- there's a lot of discussion in the market around kind of what's going on from a consumer standpoint, where there have been people that have -- they are concerned about the economy, they're concerned about inflation, et cetera. And I think that we have really been an exception to that case. We have definitely seen some of our kind of weaker non-frequent consumers kind of move out, but we have focused on, and we started focusing literally at the beginning of the year to make sure that those heavy and those IPOs consumers are the ones that are really kind of coming into the brand and continuing to buy us et cetera.

布賴恩，所以我認為——我們經常談論這個問題，而且我們確實每隔幾週就會非常、非常仔細地研究它，而且我認為我們擁有非常昂貴的數據，這些數據相當深入，可以準確理解什麼動態是。是的，我的意思是，市場上有很多關於從消費者的角度來看正在發生的事情的討論，有些人已經 - 他們擔心經濟，他們擔心通貨膨脹等等。我認為我們確實是這種情況的例外。我們確實看到一些較弱的非頻繁消費者搬出，但我們一直專注於，並且我們在年初開始真正關注，以確保那些重度消費者和那些 IPO 消費者是那些真的有點進入品牌並繼續購買我們等等。

So, I think that there has been a lot of discussion around the category level around what's going on. I think that we have been fortunate that we have not really had much impact from that. And we feel like we're on a really terrific course for this year and getting the right types of consumers in, and we continue to see interest in the brand and the proposition that we're bringing to market. And also, we're always really cognizant of trying to make sure that the entire portfolio has as affordable and accessible to as many consumers as possible. And we always are keeping an eye on that, and we continue to do work in that area.

因此，我認為圍繞正在發生的事情在類別級別進行了很多討論。我認為我們很幸運，我們並沒有真正從中產生太大的影響。我們覺得我們今年的課程非常棒，吸引了合適類型的消費者，我們繼續看到人們對品牌和我們推向市場的主張感興趣。而且，我們始終真正意識到要努力確保整個產品組合對盡可能多的消費者來說是負擔得起的和容易獲得的。我們一直在關注這一點，並繼續在該領域開展工作。

The next question is coming from the line of Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer.

下一個問題來自 Rupesh Parikh 與 Oppenheimer 的對話。

So I was just curious, as we look at your gross margins, just -- I think last quarter, you guys indicated that you expect gross margins to be up more than 200 basis points. Curious if you saw the same expectations for the year?

所以我很好奇，當我們查看你們的毛利率時，我認為上個季度，你們表示你們預計毛利率將上升 200 多個基點。想知道您是否對這一年有同樣的期望？

We do at this point. Look, really pleased about Q1. It obviously came in a bit higher than our original projections. A little bit of that was timing. We built a little more inventory in Q1 that got capitalized for the quarter. That probably will come back in the second quarter. Look, it's really early. We're off to a great start. And so it's just too hard to call the remainder of the year. So really no change in the expectations at this point, but we're really pleased. Look, and this is still ramping up. We haven't started chicken processing there that facility yet. So we still got a little bit of wildcard going on, but feeling really good about the start of the year, Rupesh.

我們在這一點上做。看，對第一季度真的很滿意。它顯然比我們最初的預測要高一些。其中一點是時機。我們在第一季度建立了更多的庫存，這些庫存在本季度得到了資本化。這可能會在第二季度回歸。你看，真的很早。我們有了一個良好的開端。因此，很難預測今年剩餘時間。所以在這一點上真的沒有改變期望，但我們真的很高興。看，這還在上升。我們還沒有在那家工廠開始雞肉加工。所以我們仍然有一些通配符，但 Rupesh 對今年的開始感覺非常好。

Great. And then maybe just one follow-up question. I know you've launched a Freshpet food subscription with Petco. Just curious how that launch is going at this one. I know it's early, just curious if it's already in stores and how that's progressing?

偉大的。然後可能只是一個後續問題。我知道您已經通過 Petco 推出了 Freshpet 食品訂閱服務。只是好奇這次發射的進展情況。我知道現在還早，只是想知道它是否已經在商店裡，進展如何？

Yes. It's in literally around 300 stores at this point, so it's super early. We've gotten, I think, a really, really high visibility and a really good response from it at this point. It is super early. We're -- I think we remain super enthusiastic about the potential of it. And we will start to support it literally in the next couple of weeks once we kind of have everything kind of flattened out and kind of calm down from a supply chain standpoint with that specific product. So start to support it then I think at that point, we'll start to get a real feel for consumer, like interest, broader consumer interest, and just kind of what type of size of business that will be over time.

是的。目前大約有 300 家商店，所以現在還為時過早。我認為，在這一點上，我們已經獲得了非常非常高的知名度和非常好的回應。現在超級早。我們 - 我認為我們對它的潛力仍然非常熱情。我們將在接下來的幾週內開始支持它，一旦我們從供應鏈的角度對特定產品進行了某種程度的平整和冷靜。所以開始支持它，然後我認為到那時，我們將開始對消費者有一種真實的感覺，比如興趣，更廣泛的消費者興趣，以及隨著時間的推移將會有什麼樣的業務規模。

Our next question is from the line of Will Chappell with Truist Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 Truist Securities 的 Will Chappell。

Just on a pricing standpoint, I understand that you're successfully pushing through this pricing, but maybe you can talk about where you stand in terms of price gaps with competition, what you expect the categories to do in pricing as we -- as costs do come back or pull back in the back half of the year and we get maybe a little more promotional environment. I understand that you have a differentiated product and the kibble but still there is some pricing dynamics between the two.

就定價的角度而言，我知道你成功地推動了這個定價，但也許你可以談談你在與競爭對手的價格差距方面所處的位置，你希望這些類別在定價方面像我們一樣——作為成本確實在下半年回來或撤退，我們可能會獲得更多的促銷環境。我知道你有一個差異化的產品和粗磨，但兩者之間仍然存在一些定價動態。

Yes. Bill, we've been watching this closely, and I -- you could definitely imagine where in certain environments, there would be increased spending and promotional support activity. We really haven't seen any of that pick up yet. It's definitely possible. And I would say it's actually at this point, even been slightly below some traditional levels, historical levels. So I think some of it will come back in the past that hasn't had a tremendous impact on our business as you brought up. I think that it's a pretty rational category, and I think you have pretty rational players in place. I think people recognize that they appreciate the profitability of the category. And that I think it's going to be rational behavior from pretty much everybody, including the retailers, which will really be the ones who either drive it or suppress it. So at this point, I mean, it's hard to exactly speculate what could happen later in the year. But I don't see it getting -- it gets irrational in some categories. I have not seen that in pet over time.

是的。比爾，我們一直在密切關注這一點，我——你絕對可以想像在某些環境中，支出和促銷支持活動會增加。我們真的還沒有看到任何回升。這絕對有可能。我會說實際上就在這一點上，甚至略低於一些傳統水平，歷史水平。所以我認為其中一些會在過去重新出現，而這並沒有像你提到的那樣對我們的業務產生巨大影響。我認為這是一個非常理性的類別，我認為你有相當理性的參與者。我認為人們認識到他們欣賞該類別的盈利能力。而且我認為這將是幾乎所有人的理性行為，包括零售商，他們將真正推動或抑制它。所以在這一點上，我的意思是，很難準確推測今年晚些時候會發生什麼。但我不認為它在某些類別中變得不合理。隨著時間的推移，我還沒有在寵物身上看到過。

But the price gaps with competition are where you want them to be right now?

但是與競爭對手的價格差距是您現在希望他們達到的水平嗎？

Yes. We're -- yes, we like where we are and we're watching that. And I think the biggest thing that we're seeing was called out. No matter which way you look at it, our volumes continue to grow. Whether you look at prior periods, literally from the beginning of the year until now, it's been really, really nice consistent volume growth. So I'm looking at pounds. And in this case, when there's so much going on with dollar, I'm looking at pounds. If you're increasing pounds and units, you're doing great work in this type of environment. And that's what we're doing. We've seen the -- we go back on air. We are completely very low levels of any type of advertising in Q4. We go back on air, and we consistently see our pounds continue to progress through the first quarter, which I don't think anyone could have asked for anything better. So I think what the market is telling us is the price gaps are acceptable like where they are and consumers continue to come into the brand and spend a lot of money with us.

是的。我們 - 是的，我們喜歡我們所處的位置，我們正在關注它。而且我認為我們看到的最重要的事情被召喚出來了。無論您從哪個角度來看，我們的銷量都在持續增長。無論你看之前的時期，從年初到現在，它都是非常非常好的持續的銷量增長。所以我在看英鎊。在這種情況下，當美元發生如此多的變化時，我正在關注英鎊。如果您正在增加磅數和單位數，那麼您在這種環境下做得很好。這就是我們正在做的。我們已經看到 - 我們重新開始播出。我們在第四季度的任何類型的廣告水平都非常低。我們重新開始播出，我們一直看到我們的體重在第一季度繼續增長，我認為沒有人可以要求更好的事情了。所以我認為市場告訴我們的是，價格差距是可以接受的，消費者會繼續購買這個品牌，並在我們這里花很多錢。

Got it. And then Billy, I know household penetration and market share are not interchangeable. But several years ago, the thought was you had kind of low single-digit market share in nationwide, but you had close to 10% in some of the West Coast Albertsons. Now you're talking about household penetration being close to 7%. And I guess, just trying to understand, as capacity comes online, where do you think household penetration and market share for that matter, can go this year and next? Is it -- are we talking double digits? Are there any barriers? Are there keys to unlocking that such as like more fridges per door or stuff like that? Any color would be great.

知道了。然後比利，我知道家庭普及率和市場份額是不可互換的。但幾年前，人們認為你在全國的市場份額較低，個位數，但在西海岸艾伯森的一些地區，你的市場份額接近 10%。現在你說的是家庭普及率接近 7%。我想，只是想了解一下，隨著容量上線，您認為今年和明年的家庭普及率和市場份額會在哪裡？是——我們說的是兩位數嗎？有什麼障礙嗎？是否有解鎖的鑰匙，例如每扇門有更多冰箱之類的東西？任何顏色都會很棒。

Yes. It's one of the issues that we watch very closely. Obviously, with all the rapid price increases that have gone into the market, what you've seen is the occasional user or the person who used us is more of an indulgence or an extra as opposed to the person use this as the main meal has been a little bit less willing to bring on a new habit or continue a habit that might have viewed as discretionary. The flip side of that is 87% of our business, that is the IPOs or the people who view us as a regular main meal have been growing at a very, very healthy rate. I actually did a little exercise to look at it for the -- if all consumers are digesting basically 4 price increases in 18 months, if you have to lean hard on the heaviest users, the people who recognize the benefits whose dogs don't want to change, can you get from here to where you want to get to on the backs of those consumers.

是的。這是我們密切關注的問題之一。顯然，隨著進入市場的所有快速價格上漲，您所看到的是偶爾使用我們的人或使用我們的人更多的是放縱或額外的，而不是將其用作主餐的人不太願意養成新習慣或繼續可能被視為隨意的習慣。另一方面是我們 87% 的業務，即 IPO 或將我們視為常規主餐的人一直在以非常非常健康的速度增長。我實際上做了一些練習來觀察它——如果所有消費者都在 18 個月內基本上消化 4 次價格上漲，如果你必須努力依靠最重度的用戶，那些認識到好處的人，他們的狗不想要要改變，你能否在這些消費者的支持下從這裡到達你想到達的地方。

And the answer is yes. You can get there. But over the longer haul, we do want to get back to where we're bringing in the new users at a much more aggressive rate than the 7%, we reported in the first quarter. we just think it takes longer for them to adapt to the new pricing that's in the market. They just don't go through as many purchase cycles when you're not a heavy user and it takes a couple of purchase cycles for them to adapt. So by the end of this year, I'd like to see that number in the double digits. And frankly, by sometime next year, I'd like to see the number being in the 20% range.

答案是肯定的。你可以到達那裡。但從長遠來看，我們確實希望回到我們以比我們在第一季度報告的 7% 更積極的速度引入新用戶的地方。我們只是認為他們需要更長的時間來適應市場上的新定價。當您不是重度用戶時，他們只是不會經歷那麼多的購買週期，他們需要幾個購買週期才能適應。所以到今年年底，我希望看到這個數字達到兩位數。坦率地說，到明年某個時候，我希望看到這個數字在 20% 的範圍內。

The next question is from the line of Peter Benedict with Baird.

下一個問題來自 Peter Benedict 與 Baird 的對話。

So first question, just on the pet specialty channel, the acceleration you saw there. Was that just kind of better in stocks, you think drove that? Was there anything that any of the players in that channel we're doing to help get the better velocity there?

所以第一個問題，就在寵物專業頻道上，你在那裡看到的加速。你認為這只是股票好一點嗎？我們正在做的那個頻道中的任何玩家有什麼可以幫助那裡獲得更好的速度嗎？

Yes, our in-stocks were particularly bad even through the very end of Q4 in pet specialty. So just the return of full fridges. I think is a really, really big piece of it. Secondarily, we are seeing nice expansion in fridges at pet specialty through the course of this year. That will be a help. It's not really kind of shown in the numbers at this point, but that will be a continued help over the course of the year. Yes, I think those are the 2 aspects, Peter, and making sure that the products and the portfolio is well represented not only being in stock, but also really being as sharp as we can on pricing.

是的，即使在第四季度末，我們的寵物專業庫存也特別糟糕。因此，只需返回滿冰箱。我認為這是一個非常非常大的部分。其次，我們在今年看到寵物專業冰箱的良好擴張。那將是一個幫助。在這一點上，它並沒有真正顯示在數字中，但這將在一年中持續提供幫助。是的，我認為這是兩個方面，彼得，並確保產品和產品組合得到很好的體現，不僅有庫存，而且在定價方面也盡可能準確。

Got it. Understood. And then maybe just 2 quick ones for Todd. Just curious on commodity input costs. Can you get us up to speed on that, chicken beef, just kind of where you stand, what you've got locked in, remind us on that? And then just the D&A line, taking a look at that kind of annualized the first quarter that gets you to high 50s for the year. Is that what we should be expecting from D&A this year? .

知道了。明白了。然後可能只有 2 個快速的托德。只是對商品投入成本感到好奇。你能否讓我們加快速度，雞肉牛肉，就像你所處的位置，你被鎖定的東西，提醒我們這一點？然後就是 D&A 線，看看第一季度的年化率，讓你今年達到 50 多歲。這是我們今年對 D&A 的期望嗎？ .

Yes. So steady as it goes on commodities. So we're locked in around 80%, no big swing. So we're still kind of seeing mid to upper single-digit inflation, so much better than we've seen in the last couple of years. So that's positive. That will allow us with the pricing we have in place to get some margin expansion there. So no big swings in commodities, and I think we're in pretty good shape. From a D&A perspective, yes, in total, around 60%, both up the gross margin and down below and that should be closer to the run rate for the year.

是的。在大宗商品上如此穩定。所以我們鎖定在 80% 左右，沒有太大的波動。所以我們仍然看到中高個位數的通貨膨脹，比我們在過去幾年看到的要好得多。所以這是積極的。這將使我們能夠以現有的定價在那裡獲得一些利潤率擴張。所以大宗商品沒有大幅波動，我認為我們的狀況非常好。從 D&A 的角度來看，是的，總的來說，毛利率在 60% 左右，毛利率高於毛利率，低於毛利率，這應該更接近當年的運行率。

Our next question is from the line of Jason English with Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的 Jason English。

A couple of questions. First, I guess, Billy, coming back to your new user comments. The penetration data you shared 26% last year and rolling 52% through April 3, having now dropped to 7% suggests really sharp deceleration, perhaps even outright declines in the math actually would suggest outright declines year-to-date over the last 3 months. What's driven such a sharp decel there? Why this step back? And how do we put it with the volume, which actually looks fine?

幾個問題。首先，我想，比利，回到你的新用戶評論。你分享的滲透率數據去年為 26%，到 4 月 3 日為 52%，現在下降到 7%，這表明確實急劇減速，甚至可能在數學上完全下降實際上表明過去 3 個月今年迄今的急劇下降.是什麼導致瞭如此急劇的減速？為什麼退一步？我們如何將它與實際上看起來不錯的音量放在一起？

Yes. It's a good question. The -- first of all, you have to remember the number on the household penetration is a net number. So if you end up with some number of consumers who are your sort of discretionary purchasers, not purchasing or purchasing less frequently. You can see that number go down regardless of whether you've added new users. And so I think what my comments were intended to say is that bringing in new users, we're still bringing in new users, but there are some number of people out there for whom this was not a critical purchase. It was more of a discretionary purchase. Those are the folks who are not continuing or not continuing at the same rate that we had seen before. The flip side is the people who have been buying us as the main meal became even more committed than before. The most encouraging part to me was not only did they absorb the price increases, their increase -- they increased the buying rate beyond what the pricing would be.

是的。這是個好問題。 -- 首先，您必須記住家庭滲透率的數字是淨值。所以如果你最終有一些消費者是你那種隨意購買者，而不是購買或購買頻率較低。無論您是否添加了新用戶，您都可以看到該數字下降。因此，我認為我的評論是想說的是，引入新用戶，我們仍在引入新用戶，但對於一些人來說，這不是一項重要的購買。這更像是一種隨意購買。這些人沒有繼續或沒有以我們之前看到的相同速度繼續。另一方面是那些一直在購買我們作為主餐的人變得比以前更加忠誠。對我來說最令人鼓舞的部分不僅是他們吸收了價格上漲，他們的上漲 - 他們將購買率提高到超出定價的水平。

So, in our data, we're showing a 41% increase in the dollars that we're getting from the super-heavy users. And so that's encouraging as the people who've decided that were the main meal are continuing to buy it and buy it at a heavier rate. I think over the long haul, though, we do need to get it to the point where we're bringing people in the front end of the funnel at a more rapid rate. I think for price increases in 18 months shook out some of the people who are more discretionary buyers and now we're focusing on bringing in the new people who are going to move along that purchase curve and become super heavy users in the future.

因此，在我們的數據中，我們從超重度用戶那裡獲得的收入增加了 41%。因此，這是令人鼓舞的，因為那些決定將其作為主餐的人繼續購買並以更高的價格購買。不過，我認為從長遠來看，我們確實需要達到以更快的速度將人們帶到漏斗前端的地步。我認為 18 個月內的價格上漲讓一些更隨意的購買者感到震驚，現在我們專注於引進新的人，他們將沿著購買曲線移動，並在未來成為超級重度用戶。

So Billy, is it right that year-to-date, last few months, you're losing as many consumers as you're bringing in?

所以 Billy，今年到目前為止，過去幾個月，你失去的消費者和你引進的消費者一樣多，對嗎？

I don't think that's right, but I'll have to look at the data on that. I don't think that's...

我認為那是不對的，但我必須查看相關數據。我不認為那是...

No, There's been some moderate growth.

不，有一些溫和的增長。

Yes.

是的。

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And then everything you're talking about in terms of more retail presence more advertising, better on-shelf availability, better packaging, all that sounds great. And clearly, you've been leaning in, why aren't we seeing more acceleration in 2Q? Your guidance would suggest like despite we're no longer lapping that shipping headwind, it's not really going to look a lot better.

好的。好的。這很有幫助。然後你所說的一切，包括更多的零售業務、更多的廣告、更好的貨架可用性、更好的包裝，所有這些聽起來都很棒。很明顯，你一直在傾斜，為什麼我們在第二季度沒有看到更多的加速？你的指導建議，儘管我們不再應對航運逆風，但它看起來並不會好很多。

Why the growth rate in Q2 is not a stronger growth rate than Q1?

為什麼Q2的增速沒有Q1強？

Yes, that's right. Exactly. Just given the investment, given the acceleration in volume given that we no longer have a 2-point drag on cycling the prior year shipments.

恩，那就對了。確切地。考慮到投資，考慮到銷量的加速，我們不再對前一年的出貨量循環產生 2 個點的拖累。

Yes. I mean, we haven't given you a specific number. We said sort of in the mid-20s. We'll see where it ends up shaking out when it's all said and done. We like the trends we're seeing. We feel good about the trends that we're seeing, but we want to see it all play through.

是的。我的意思是，我們還沒有給你一個具體的數字。我們說的是在 20 年代中期。當一切都說完之後，我們會看到它最終會在哪裡搖晃。我們喜歡我們看到的趨勢。我們對所看到的趨勢感覺良好，但我們希望看到這一切都發生。

And there is -- obviously, there is some pricing that kind of wanes off in Q2. And as Billy said earlier, the volumes are coming in really, really nicely. So look, in total, we feel good about the way it's rolling up. But obviously, we've all gotten a bit of a benefit from pricing. The good news is our volumes are still really, really strong.

而且有 - 顯然，第二季度有一些定價有所減弱。正如 Billy 之前所說，銷量真的非常非常好。所以總的來說，我們對它的滾動方式感覺良好。但顯然，我們都從定價中獲得了一些好處。好消息是我們的銷量仍然非常非常強勁。

I meant the other thing to consider with fridges is when a fridge goes in, it takes literally 6 months for it to have significant impact. So even the fridges that we're putting in now that you can kind of start banking on those for the back half of the year. when they really start contributing and adding significant incremental dollars to the business.

我的意思是關於冰箱要考慮的另一件事是當冰箱放進去時，它實際上需要 6 個月才能產生重大影響。因此，即使是我們現在安裝的冰箱，您也可以在今年下半年開始使用這些冰箱。當他們真正開始為業務做出貢獻並增加大量增量資金時。

Our next question is from the line of Mark Astrachan with Stifel.

我們的下一個問題來自 Stifel 的 Mark Astrachan。

I guess just to follow up a little bit on the last line of questioning there. Advertising spend increasing expectations will continue to increase, especially through 4Q. I guess I'm curious how you're thinking about how the return is today versus historical levels? The correlation has always been very strong. Is it as strong as it's been in terms of the advertising spend to sales growth? And if you could elaborate there would be helpful.

我想只是跟進一下那裡的最後一行問題。廣告支出增加的預期將繼續增加，尤其是到第四季度。我想我很好奇你是如何考慮今天的回報率與歷史水平相比的？相關性一直非常強。廣告支出對銷售增長的影響是否像以往一樣強勁？如果你能詳細說明會有幫助。

Yes. So I think Billy touched on this concept, too. And really, what we're seeing is just like when you go through like a change in the economy, there are certain businesses that basically don't come through, right? They just -- they wash out basically. And I think there are a group of consumers that are in the category. There were also some of them were in Freshpet that are kind of moving out. So what it does is that's shown in the total number. And so you're losing some of these people that were occasional low-level buyers. And as you move through those, you've got to get -- start to get to your real core group of consumers and you kind of start to return to the model that we've had for 10 years where we spend dollars and we see that in -- that productivity in the advertising and then the CAC, the way we think about it. So I think we're going through a transition period where we're flushing out some of those weaker less committed consumers that were buying us casually that may have gotten some type of economic stimulus that may have had, enhance savings for a period of time, et cetera.

是的。所以我認為 Billy 也提到了這個概念。真的，我們所看到的就像當你經歷經濟變化時，有些企業基本上沒有經歷過，對吧？他們只是 - 他們基本上被淘汰了。我認為有一群消費者屬於這一類別。也有一些在 Freshpet 中，有點搬出去了。所以它所做的是顯示在總數中。因此，您正在失去其中一些偶爾是低級別買家的人。當你經歷這些時，你必須——開始接觸你真正的核心消費者群體，你開始回到我們已經有 10 年的模式，我們花錢，我們看到那就是——廣告的生產力，然後是 CAC，我們認為它的方式。所以我認為我們正在經歷一個過渡期，我們正在淘汰一些較弱、不太忠誠的消費者，他們隨便購買我們的產品，他們可能已經得到了某種經濟刺激，可能在一段時間內增加了儲蓄等等。

So, I think that's what we're seeing and we're going through. So when you ask about the return, we believe we're getting -- (inaudible). We know we're getting the best response ever to the TV advertising. We know we're getting tons of people going to the store locator. And historically, again, for 10 years, we've been able to see people go through that and come into the brand. What's being kind of masked by some of those less dedicated consumers leaving. So it's hard to calculate exactly the return, but we believe that nothing has changed that we've seen for really, really long historical periods. And that as we kind of move through this in the near term, we'll get right back to similar types of returns on when we spend what we spend in advertising will drive incremental new consumers.

所以，我認為這就是我們所看到的，我們正在經歷的。因此，當您詢問回報時，我們相信我們得到了——（聽不清）。我們知道我們得到了有史以來對電視廣告最好的回應。我們知道我們有大量的人去商店定位器。從歷史上看，10 年來，我們已經能夠看到人們經歷了這些並進入了這個品牌。一些不那麼專注的消費者離開掩蓋了什麼。所以很難準確計算回報，但我們相信，我們在非常、非常長的歷史時期所看到的一切都沒有改變。而且，隨著我們在短期內逐步解決這個問題，我們將立即回到類似類型的回報，即我們花在廣告上的錢會吸引更多的新消費者。

Got it. And from a consumer standpoint and those that have left, can you get them back? Or is it about going after new kind of non-fresh pet household today. And I suppose you're not going in after the lost households that have come in and out, does that then reduce the longer-term opportunity?

知道了。從消費者和那些離開的人的角度來看，你能讓他們回來嗎？或者是關於今天追求新型非新鮮寵物家庭。而且我想你不會在進進出出的失去的家庭之後進入，這是否會減少長期機會？

Yes. I think that -- I think globally, we -- 2 things we presented at ICR that I think are important to that. One of them is we can seem to see -- and this is like been a 5- or a 6-year trend that we demonstrated where the total addressable market for Freshpet food has really continued to expand. And I don't think there's anything that's changed the direction of that. I think there's some short-term disruption in that, which is the commentary I was just referring to. So I don't think there's really been any change in that, and it will continue to grow -- continue to grow over time. So I think that's where I am, Mark.

是的。我認為 - 我認為在全球範圍內，我們 - 我們在 ICR 上提出的兩件事我認為對此很重要。其中之一是我們似乎可以看到——這就像我們展示的 5 年或 6 年趨勢，Freshpet 食品的總目標市場確實在繼續擴大。而且我認為沒有任何事情改變了它的方向。我認為這會造成一些短期的干擾，這就是我剛才提到的評論。所以我不認為這真的有任何變化，而且它會繼續增長——隨著時間的推移繼續增長。所以我認為這就是我所在的位置，馬克。

Mark, I would just add to that is I think that what we're seeing is as people are increasingly recognizing Freshpet as their main meal item, we are seeing the buying rate become an increasing driver of the growth. It's not what we model. That's not what we built out. But at some point, that will be a critical driver of growth of the business as people recognize it. We're just happy to see it in an environment where those who are committed to the brand have become -- are very, very committed. And those people for whom it was a more discretionary purchase, they're less committed.

馬克，我只想補充一點，我認為我們看到的是，隨著人們越來越認識到 Freshpet 是他們的主要食品，我們看到購買率成為增長的日益增長的驅動力。這不是我們模仿的。那不是我們建造的。但在某些時候，正如人們所認識到的那樣，這將成為業務增長的關鍵驅動力。我們很高興看到它出現在那些致力於品牌的人變得非常、非常投入的環境中。而那些購買時更隨意的人，他們的承諾更少。

Yes. And the other thing -- I'm sorry, I meant to -- we touched on an ICR where -- we mentioned this idea of the IPOs. We've talked about it a couple of times on the call about targeting that group -- that's really where we're seeing the increase in not only households but also the buy rate. So it's really -- the strategy that we put in place in the beginning of the year seems to be playing through well.

是的。另一件事 - 對不起，我的意思是 - 我們談到了 ICR - 我們提到了 IPO 的想法。我們已經在電話會議上多次討論過針對該群體的問題——這確實是我們不僅看到家庭增加而且購買率增加的地方。所以它真的 - 我們在今年年初制定的戰略似乎正在發揮作用。

The next question is from the line of Cody Ross with UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀的 Cody Ross。

I just want to dig in a little bit on the EBITDA because it came in about $5 million to $6 million better than your guidance here. I think you mentioned that gross margin is supposed to sequentially decel a little bit here. Can you just unpack that for us and just explain to us what those drivers are? And then how you expect the cadence through the back half of the trend? And then I have a follow-up.

我只想深入了解一下 EBITDA，因為它比你在這裡的指導高出 500 萬到 600 萬美元。我想你提到毛利率應該在這裡連續下降一點。您能否為我們打開包裝並向我們解釋這些驅動程序是什麼？然後你如何預期趨勢後半部分的節奏？然後我有一個後續行動。

Yes. So I mean, let me break down Q1 first. So just like kind of direct input cost, pricing versus commodities actually improved by about 200 basis points. So we've talked about how we've fallen behind the last couple of years with inflation, we're starting to get a nice chunk of that back. So that's great news. Quality costs were favorable about 80 basis points. We're seeing continued progress there. And then as we gave everybody a heads up on, hey, look, we are bringing on some new lines in Ennis. There is going to be an absorption issue through the first half of the year, particularly and we saw that by about 250 to 260 basis points in Q1. That will actually get a little bit higher in Q2 as we bring full cost of that second tenant line in place. Everything else, we feel good about.

是的。所以我的意思是，讓我先分解一下 Q1。因此，就像直接投入成本一樣，定價與商品相比實際上提高了大約 200 個基點。所以我們已經討論了過去幾年我們是如何在通貨膨脹方面落後的，我們開始收回其中的很大一部分。所以這是個好消息。質量成本有利約 80 個基點。我們在那裡看到了持續的進步。然後當我們提醒大家時，嘿，看，我們在 Ennis 引入了一些新的台詞。今年上半年將出現吸收問題，特別是我們在第一季度看到了大約 250 至 260 個基點。隨著我們將第二條租戶線的全部成本到位，第二季度實際上會更高一些。其他一切，我們感覺良好。

It's really that incremental absorption that's going to kind of hurt us in Q2. As we build into as we grow into the volumes of Ennis in the second half of the year, as we've been saying our volume has been trending up nicely. As we build into that volume in the second half of the year, we'll start to leverage that facility a little bit more, and we'll be lapping all those costs of last year. So again, a slight headwind in -- versus Q1 for Q2, and then we expect it to be much stronger in the second half.

確實是這種增量吸收會在第二季度傷害我們。隨著我們在今年下半年增加 Ennis 的銷量，正如我們一直在說的那樣，我們的銷量一直呈上升趨勢。當我們在今年下半年增加這一數量時，我們將開始更多地利用該設施，我們將承擔去年的所有成本。因此，與第二季度的第一季度相比，再次出現輕微的逆風，然後我們預計下半年它會更加強勁。

That's helpful. And then I just have a follow-up here. You've had some new entrants in the category, and you took 2 rounds of price over the last year. Can you just discuss the trial trends and if you're seeing any change in repeat purchase behavior?

這很有幫助。然後我在這裡進行跟進。您在該類別中有一些新進入者，並且在去年進行了 2 輪定價。您能否僅討論試用趨勢以及您是否發現重複購買行為有任何變化？

Yes, there have been a tremendous amount of people that have entered, and we track that very, very closely. And maybe I'll touch on that first. So a year and a few months ago, we talked about us having 96.4% of what was out there in fresh and frozen pet food. And today, we're at 96%. So basically, if you think about it over the course of a year in a few months, we lost (inaudible). So I think that, that's probably the most illustrative (inaudible) way to think about. There have been a ton of entrants. They haven't really grown in size. And we have maintained basically our share of the offering. So -- and I think the performance of almost all of them has been really, I would say -- I mean, it's early, early, but I think they're very kind of subpar what would make retailers very excited about it, at least from what I can tell. So I think that's probably the most important aspect of it. So when we look at trial and we look at repeat, and I think it's illustrated in some of the stuff that we just were talking about with the IPOs where we're getting -- I mean, our buy rate is the thing that's like been extraordinary and really driving the business.

是的，已經有大量的人進入，我們非常非常密切地跟踪。也許我會先談談這個。所以一年零幾個月前，我們談到我們擁有 96.4% 的新鮮和冷凍寵物食品。而今天，我們達到了 96%。所以基本上，如果你在幾個月內考慮一年的時間，我們就輸了（聽不清）。所以我認為，這可能是最具說明性（聽不清）的思考方式。有很多參賽者。他們的規模並沒有真正增長。我們基本上保持了我們的產品份額。所以——我認為幾乎所有人的表現都是真的，我想說——我的意思是，它還早，早，但我認為它們非常低劣，這會讓零售商對此感到非常興奮，在至少據我所知。所以我認為這可能是它最重要的方面。因此，當我們研究試驗並研究重複時，我認為這在我們剛剛談論的 IPO 的一些內容中得到了說明——我的意思是，我們的買入率就像是非凡並真正推動業務發展。

It's driving it more than almost ever before. And I think that, that naturally demonstrates the dedication that consumers have to the products once they try it. And we have not made it particularly easy for people over the past. More recently, it's been much better. But up until literally the past like 60, 90 days, we have not made it particularly easy for people to get the products they want and the (inaudible) they want all the time. We still have plenty of work to do in that area. There are still some pockets across the U.S. where we definitely have opportunities to make sure fridges are fuller and are better represent our full offering.

它比以往任何時候都更能推動它。而且我認為，這自然表明消費者在嘗試產品後對產品的奉獻精神。過去我們並沒有讓人們特別容易。最近，情況好多了。但直到 60 天、90 天這樣的過去，我們一直都沒有讓人們特別容易地獲得他們想要的產品和他們想要的（聽不清）。我們在這方面還有很多工作要做。在美國仍有一些地方，我們肯定有機會確保冰箱更滿，更好地代表我們的全部產品。

Our next question is from the line of Jon Andersen with William Blair.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jon Andersen 和 William Blair。

Two quick ones. I was wondering if you could talk about the cadence of the new -- the fridge placements that you expect during the year. I think your number of net new stores was up 7% in the first quarter. But again, help on the cadence there. And then also on media for the year, what are your expectations for media spend as a percent of sales on a full year basis?

兩個快的。我想知道你是否可以談談你在這一年中期望的新冰箱佈置的節奏。我認為你們第一季度的淨新店數量增長了 7%。但同樣，幫助那裡的節奏。然後在今年的媒體方面，您對媒體支出佔全年銷售額的百分比有何期望？

I'll touch on the fridges real quick and then Todd can hit on the media percent of sales. So really the way the year is laying out is Q2 and Q3 will be our biggest ads for fridges. And it's not just new placements. We'll actually end up with almost double the number of second and third fridges this year, then we actually have in new placements. And I think the important thing to note is a second and third fridge, a second or a third fridge in a high-velocity outlet is worth the same as a new fridge for the most part. So it's -- I think that helps, hopefully, dimensionalizes like the impact that new fridges can have. And again, the second and third fridges are a critical component to us continuing to build out like what we're building out for Freshpet food.

我很快就會談到冰箱，然後托德就可以了解媒體的銷售額百分比。所以今年真正的佈局方式是第二季度，第三季度將是我們最大的冰箱廣告。這不僅僅是新的展示位置。實際上，我們今年第二台和第三台冰箱的數量幾乎翻了一番，然後我們實際上有了新的位置。而且我認為需要注意的重要一點是第二個和第三個冰箱，高速出口中的第二個或第三個冰箱在大多數情況下與新冰箱的價值相同。所以它 - 我認為這有助於，希望，像新冰箱可以產生的影響那樣維度化。再說一遍，第二台和第三台冰箱是我們繼續建設 Freshpet 食品的關鍵組成部分。

And from a media perspective, we'll spend close to 11% of net sales this year. And first half, second half -- first half, somewhere in the 60% to 65% of that spend will occur. And as I mentioned earlier on the call, the big change in the back half is we will spend a lot more in Q4 than we did this past year.

從媒體的角度來看，我們今年將花費近 11% 的淨銷售額。上半年，下半年——上半年，60% 到 65% 的支出將會發生。正如我之前在電話會議上提到的，後半部分的重大變化是我們在第四季度的支出將比去年多得多。

Next question is from the line of Kenneth Goldman with JP Morgan.

下一個問題來自 JP Morgan 的 Kenneth Goldman。

Obviously, the -- and we talked -- you guys talked about this a little bit. There's some great numbers in terms of buy rates and overall shipment trends. I did want to come back a little bit to the questions on household penetration, though, especially for the non-IPO users only because I just wasn't quite sure what the plan of attack was from your perspective? And again, you're focused on the IPOs this year. I get it. You can't be everywhere all at once. But is the plan just to sort of for now kind of advertise and hope that the shock, I guess, of higher pricing phase. Are there other things you can do? Can you introduce smaller packages? Can you do more targeting -- targeted ads, I guess? I mean just trying to get an idea of sort of what the strategy is and kind of what the path ahead is for what we should expect for household numbers over the rest of the year.

顯然，我們談過——你們談過一點。在購買率和整體出貨趨勢方面有一些很大的數字。不過，我確實想稍微回到有關家庭滲透率的問題，特別是對於非 IPO 用戶，只是因為我不太確定從您的角度來看攻擊計劃是什麼？再一次，你專注於今年的首次公開募股。我得到它。你不可能一下子無處不在。但是，該計劃是否只是暫時的某種廣告，並希望我猜想更高定價階段的衝擊。你還有其他事情可以做嗎？你能介紹更小的包裹嗎？你能做更多的定位——有針對性的廣告嗎？我的意思是只是想了解一下戰略是什麼，以及我們在今年剩餘時間裡對家庭數量的預期是什麼。

Yes. So Kenneth, I mean, I'll touch on a couple of things that we probably hit on, but I will expand a few different comments. So look, we -- at ICR, we did mention this idea of like we want to focus on IPOs. And one of the things that we've done in that area is when we think about the advertising that we're putting on air. We're now at a point where we're comfortable and we're willing to basically be more aggressive and I think more direct and what we're trying to communicate. And that will that has been demonstrated to attract and bring in the IPOs into the brand. We kind of set that out at ICR.

是的。肯尼斯，我的意思是，我將談及一些我們可能會想到的事情，但我會擴展一些不同的意見。所以看，我們 - 在 ICR，我們確實提到了我們想要專注於 IPO 的想法。我們在該領域所做的其中一件事就是考慮我們正在播放的廣告。我們現在處於一個我們感到舒服的地步，我們基本上願意變得更加積極，我認為更直接以及我們正在嘗試溝通的內容。這種意願已被證明可以吸引 IPO 並將其引入品牌。我們有點在 ICR 上提出了這一點。

We knew that the advertising was going to change. And you're seeing our advertising kind of take a course, whether -- you've seen some of the things we had on earlier in the year, the skies where we're talking about dry pet food, you're seeing what we're doing now. We're picking consumers that are really, really dedicated to their pet. And we think that's really a core piece of not only this year, but long-term strategy to focus on these IPOs. I do think that when the category gets -- when all this pricing and it's not even pet food pricing, it's pricing of my grocery bill. When people finally get more comfortable and digest the overall pricing with their grocery bill, and they will. I mean it's been shown over the past 50 years that when these things go through eventually, people get more comfortable where the pricing is and they return to more normalized behavior. I think we're going to get a lot more of those consumers that are a little concerned about where the economy is.

我們知道廣告將會改變。你看到我們的廣告有點像課程，你是否看到了我們今年早些時候做的一些事情，我們談論幹寵物食品的天空，你看到的是我們現在正在做。我們正在挑選真正非常專注於他們的寵物的消費者。我們認為這不僅是今年的核心部分，而且是專注於這些 IPO 的長期戰略。我確實認為，當類別得到 - 當所有這些定價甚至不是寵物食品定價時，它就是我的雜貨賬單的定價。當人們最終變得更加自在並用他們的雜貨賬單消化整體定價時，他們就會這樣做。我的意思是，過去 50 年的事實表明，當這些事情最終發生時，人們會更加適應定價，並恢復到更正常的行為。我認為我們將吸引更多對經濟狀況有些擔憂的消費者。

I think we'll start to see some of them flow back into the brand. And again, they're not as valuable. They're just not as valuable. But what we're doing in the meantime, and I do think this could be 12 to 18 months before we get to this normalization is we're getting as sharp as we possibly can on every aspect of the base model, which is the advertising, the products that we offer, the price points that we have on especially key entry sizes. And we're also launching a couple of products that are kind of more -- a little bit more value oriented and a little bit.

我想我們會開始看到其中一些重新回到品牌中。再一次，它們沒有那麼有價值。它們只是不那麼有價值。但與此同時我們正在做的事情，我確實認為在我們達到這種正常化之前可能需要 12 到 18 個月的時間，我們在基本模型的每個方面都變得盡可能敏銳，這就是廣告，我們提供的產品，我們在特別是關鍵入門尺寸上的價格點。我們還推出了一些更多的產品——更多的以價值為導向。

We're calling them limited ingredient products. we are starting to offer those products up and including one of the things that we'll start offering up in the next kind of 6 to 12 months is basically bulk packs. And in those bulk packs, we think it will dramatically change buying behavior. If you look at the top 13 items in wet pet food, they are not single items, they are bulk packs. And we think it's time for Freshpet to start introducing our product portfolio, expanding out where we give someone the ability to buy not 1 or 2 at a time, but now buying 4, 6 or 8 at a time. We've been able to test this. We were able to demonstrate that there's been success in doing that and we will start offering those on a broader basis across the country over the next year. So that's definitely a piece of what we're doing over time. But look, the other thing is just get back to the fundamentals on what we're doing, which is the advertising works, the portfolio works, the new products that we've always brought, the innovation we brought works. And if we're doing that well with these other pieces, we feel really great about the business plan.

我們稱它們為成分有限的產品。我們開始提供這些產品，其中包括我們將在接下來的 6 到 12 個月內開始提供的一種基本上是散裝的產品。在這些散裝包裝中，我們認為它將極大地改變購買行為。如果您查看濕寵物食品中排名前 13 位的商品，它們不是單件商品，而是散裝商品。我們認為 Freshpet 是時候開始介紹我們的產品組合了，擴大我們讓人們一次購買 1 或 2 件的能力，但現在一次購買 4、6 或 8 件。我們已經能夠對此進行測試。我們能夠證明這樣做是成功的，我們將在明年開始在全國范圍內提供更廣泛的服務。所以這絕對是我們隨著時間的推移所做的一部分。但是看，另一件事就是回到我們正在做的事情的基礎上，這是廣告作品，產品組合作品，我們一直帶來的新產品，我們帶來的創新作品。如果我們在其他方面做得很好，我們就會對商業計劃感到非常滿意。

Great. That's helpful. And then a quick follow-up, if I can. You mentioned that again, the first quarter was ahead of your expectations. I think most of it was organic. But you mentioned there was a little bit of a benefit from timing some inventory capitalization. Is there any way to quantify that and think about how much of that reverses in 2Q?

偉大的。這很有幫助。然後快速跟進，如果可以的話。您再次提到，第一季度超出了您的預期。我認為其中大部分是有機的。但是你提到，對一些庫存資本化進行計時有一點好處。有什麼方法可以量化它並考慮在第二季度有多少逆轉？

Yes. We had about $1 million benefit approximately from that. We also had about $1 million benefit from some miscellaneous sales and marketing spending, non-media expenses that we believe will happen in Q2. So those are the biggest pieces.

是的。我們從中獲得了大約 100 萬美元的收益。我們還從一些雜項銷售和營銷支出以及我們認為將在第二季度發生的非媒體支出中獲得約 100 萬美元的收益。所以那些是最大的部分。

Our next question is from the line of Corey Grady with Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Corey Grady 與 Jefferies 的合作。

I wanted to follow up on your comments on fridge placements for the year. Can you just remind us of your decision process to add a second or third fridge. And what the volume step-up benefit you see from the new fridge? And if you can, what portion of your stores are current, second or third fridge candidates?

我想跟進你對今年冰箱擺放位置的評論。您能否提醒我們您決定添加第二個或第三個冰箱的過程。您從新冰箱中看到了音量提升的好處是什麼？如果可以的話，您商店中的哪一部分是當前、第二或第三個冰箱候選者？

Okay. (inaudible) is a -- probably a multipart question and answer. I'm going to try and address it at a fairly high level, and then we can definitely talk in more detail like when we get to the one-on-one calls. So when we look at a retailer, there is definitely a threshold for different stores that we would put a second or a third fridge in. And typically, what we do is we'll start off with a top 20% of -- and every retailer, there are different -- like retailers that have different volumes. But what we'll take is the highest volume retailers with the highest percent of velocity. So we'll take the top 20% of stores and those are typically the first candidates for a second fridge.

好的。 （聽不清）可能是一個多部分問答。我將嘗試在相當高的級別上解決它，然後我們肯定可以更詳細地討論，比如當我們進行一對一通話時。因此，當我們審視一家零售商時，對於不同的商店肯定有一個門檻，我們會在其中放置第二個或第三個冰箱。通常，我們所做的是從前 20% 開始——並且每個零售商，有不同的——就像零售商有不同的數量。但我們要選擇的是速度百分比最高的銷量最大的零售商。因此，我們將選擇排名前 20% 的商店，這些商店通常是第二台冰箱的第一批候選者。

And then what we've seen over time is as those progress, retailers are interested in taking the next 20% or 30% of their fridges and putting second and sometimes even a 1/3 in the first 20%. So we're starting to continue to see that progression. And really what is the most important aspect to it is, we -- if we look at dollars per store per week, and we've, consistently see increases in dollars per store per week over time, that is the core aspect.

隨著時間的推移，隨著這些進步，我們看到的是，零售商有興趣拿走接下來的 20% 或 30% 的冰箱，並將其放在第二位，有時甚至是前 20% 的 1/3。所以我們開始繼續看到這種進展。真正最重要的方面是，我們 - 如果我們每週查看每家商店的美元，並且我們一直看到每家商店每週的美元隨著時間的推移而增加，這是核心方面。

So if we're seeing those consistent dollars per store that's going to open up the entire network to more and more second and third fridges. Hopefully, that's giving you a little bit of a feel for it. And I would say today, we have the opportunity for about half of our network to have either a second or a third fridge it's applicable. And then what we tend to end up having to wait on is when there's these reset cycles where retailers are willing to touch the eye on a pretty big way because the takeout 4 feet of something and put in a second fridge is a second or third bridge can be pretty significant. So I think that's probably a very broad way to think about it. And year after year, we can continue to see same-store sales increases and that's the dollars per store per week. And that really continues to open up more and more of the network. So the more we can do from an advertising standpoint, grow penetration, buy rate, et cetera. I think the more opportunity we'll have over time for second and third fridges.

因此，如果我們看到每家商店的收入一致，那麼整個網絡就會向越來越多的第二和第三冰箱開放。希望這能讓您對它有所了解。我今天要說的是，我們有機會讓大約一半的網絡擁有適用的第二個或第三個冰箱。然後我們往往最終不得不等待的是，當有這些重置週期時，零售商願意以相當大的方式觸及眼睛，因為外賣 4 英尺的東西並放入第二個冰箱是第二或第三座橋可能非常重要。所以我認為這可能是一種非常廣泛的思考方式。年復一年，我們可以繼續看到同店銷售額的增長，這就是每週每家商店的美元。這確實繼續開放越來越多的網絡。因此，從廣告的角度來看，我們可以做的越多，提高滲透率、購買率等。我認為隨著時間的推移，我們將有更多機會購買第二台和第三台冰箱。

That's really helpful. And then I know this has been asked a few different ways, but just to follow up on household penetration. Just from the 7% growth you saw this quarter, I mean, is that in line with your expectations to get up to 20% plus by year-end? And then, I mean, do you expect household penetration to be more back half weighted? And should we think about that as kind of making up for pricing benefits rolling off?

這真的很有幫助。然後我知道有人通過幾種不同的方式詢問過這個問題，但只是為了跟進家庭滲透率。僅從您本季度看到的 7% 的增長來看，我的意思是，這是否符合您在年底前達到 20% 以上的預期？然後，我的意思是，您是否預計家庭滲透率會向後一半加權？我們是否應該將其視為對定價優勢的補償？

Yes. I think the way we had planned it was we thought we would see a little bit higher overall penetration. Like again, like when we talk at ICR in January, we started focusing. We want to focus on these IPOs, these higher-value consumers. And we started to deliver on that. I think that we anticipated slightly higher overall penetration. And I think what's over delivered is the IPOs and also the buy rate has really like, honestly, over delivered from what we kind of had really budgeted and planned. But I think what's happened is we've seen and it's amazing. And we're -- like if you look at where the category is, it's just amazing what the category is doing and what we're doing.

是的。我認為我們計劃的方式是我們認為我們會看到更高的整體滲透率。再次，就像我們在 1 月份在 ICR 上談話時一樣，我們開始關注。我們希望專注於這些 IPO，這些更高價值的消費者。我們開始兌現這一點。我認為我們預計整體滲透率會略高。而且我認為超額交付的是首次公開募股，老實說，購買率真的比我們真正的預算和計劃超額交付。但我認為發生的事情是我們已經看到的，這太棒了。而且我們 - 如果你看看這個類別在哪裡，這個類別正在做什麼以及我們正在做什麼真是太棒了。

The category looks like kind of -- it's a little like some brands, I think, would be very upset with where they are. And I think what's happened is you have people that deload pantries a little bit, and that stretches a little bit. You have some consumers that aren't getting some economic stimulus and that changes the dynamics of when they're buying a number of consumers. So I think once we kind of go through this cycle, we're going to return to kind of a much more normalized growth and penetration. I think it would be towards the back of the year that we'd see kind of more normalized overall penetration. And if we could hang on and make progress on the IPOs like we're doing, it could be something that expands our overall revenues.

這個類別看起來有點——我認為有點像一些品牌會對它們的位置感到非常不滿。而且我認為發生的事情是你有一些人會稍微減少食品儲藏室的負擔，而且會延長一點。你有一些消費者沒有得到一些經濟刺激，這改變了他們購買大量消費者的動力。所以我認為一旦我們經歷了這個週期，我們就會回到一種更加正常化的增長和滲透。我認為到今年年底，我們會看到更加正常化的整體滲透率。如果我們能像現在這樣堅持並在 IPO 上取得進展，這可能會擴大我們的整體收入。

Our next question comes from the line of Jim Salera with Stephens.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jim Salera 和 Stephens 的對話。

Just wanted to ask as you're looking at the retailers that are adding these second and third fridges, is that incremental buyer? Just a high-frequency user, that now that there's more availability, they're increasing their buy rate? Or does the second or third fridge bring in a new incremental buyer that may be the fridge is busy and they usually don't go there there's more opportunity you see incremental buyers?

只是想問一下，當您查看正在添加這些第二和第三台冰箱的零售商時，是增量買家嗎？只是一個高頻用戶，現在有更多的可用性，他們正在提高他們的購買率？或者第二個或第三個冰箱是否帶來了新的增量買家，可能是冰箱很忙，他們通常不去那裡，你有更多機會看到增量買家？

Yes. So there's probably 2 major aspects of the second fridges. In some retailers, it literally gives us enough holding power where we can actually get through a weekend. So literally, on like some of our highest volume items like our 6-pound roll, for example, which are some of our most loyal users buy, they'll come in on Saturday afternoon, and it's sold out. And unfortunately, fridges don't get stocked as well as we would like. So it gives them some additional holding power in some cases. So you get a buy rate pickup from that aspect.

是的。所以第二個冰箱可能有兩個主要方面。在一些零售商中，它實際上給了我們足夠的支撐力，我們可以真正度過一個週末。所以從字面上看，就像我們一些最大量的商品，例如我們的 6 磅卷，這是我們最忠實的用戶購買的一些商品，它們將在星期六下午進來，並且已經售罄。不幸的是，冰箱並沒有像我們希望的那樣備貨。所以在某些情況下，它給了他們一些額外的控制力。所以你從那個方面得到了買入率。

The second thing that we've been able to do and really demonstrate over time is as we add a second fridge, it allows us to add certain items in. And we think about items very differently than, I think, certain CPG companies. It's our fridge. We want to make sure the space is as productive as possible. We're not trying to just kind of get a few inches from somebody else. So what we've been able to do is as we expand the portfolio of products and offerings, we find products that appeal to a slightly different consumer group or a broader consumer group. So it does help to expand penetration within that individual store. And I think all of those details which many retailers have extraordinary shopper card data on. And when they see some of those aspects, that's what's encouraging them. In addition to the overall kind of high-level holistic data, when they look at some of those details around the individual impact in the aisle, the buy rate driving new consumers in the frequency that it drives for the category, et cetera, that is some of the final deciding factor for them to put in the second and third fridges.

隨著時間的推移，我們能夠做並真正證明的第二件事是，當我們添加第二個冰箱時，它允許我們添加某些物品。我們對物品的看法與我認為的某些 CPG 公司截然不同。這是我們的冰箱。我們希望確保空間盡可能高效。我們不只是想與其他人保持幾英寸的距離。因此，我們能夠做的是，隨著我們擴大產品和供應組合，我們發現產品可以吸引略有不同的消費者群體或更廣泛的消費者群體。因此，它確實有助於擴大該個別商店的滲透率。而且我認為許多零售商都擁有非凡的購物卡數據的所有這些細節。當他們看到其中的某些方面時，這就是鼓勵他們的原因。除了總體類型的高級整體數據外，當他們查看過道中個人影響的一些細節時，購買率以其為該類別驅動的頻率等驅動新消費者，即他們放入第二個和第三個冰箱的一些最終決定因素。

I would just add to that, in addition to the holding power benefit, and the extended assortment that the second and third fridges provide, there's an amplification value of our advertising. Think of it as virtually every CPG manufacturer would kill to have a very large off-shelf display or whatnot. We have lighted 4-foot wide, 7-foot tall fridges, sitting in aisles. And when they put a second one in or a third one, forming an island or on end caps. It has an amplification value of the advertising that is very sizable. And if a reasonably good-sized retailer does it in a meaningful number of stores, we can actually see it in the Nielsen data. And so there is that benefit. And we frankly think that is a significant added value to the advertising.

我只想補充一點，除了保持力的好處，以及第二個和第三個冰箱提供的擴展分類外，我們的廣告還有放大價值。可以把它想像成幾乎每個 CPG 製造商都想擁有一個非常大的現成顯示器或諸如此類的東西。我們點亮了坐在過道上的 4 英尺寬、7 英尺高的冰箱。當他們將第二個或第三個放入時，形成一個島或端蓋。它具有非常可觀的廣告放大價值。如果一家規模相當大的零售商在相當數量的商店中這樣做，我們實際上可以在尼爾森數據中看到它。所以有這個好處。坦率地說，我們認為這是廣告的重要附加值。

Okay. Great. And if I can maybe sneak in one last follow-up on that, as you add in a retailer that has a second or third bridge, does that provide kind of the shield around the pet aisle that makes it harder for a competitor to get products in there? We talk about the competitive landscape. I mean if you have a third fridge, does that mean that there's no availability for them or we're significantly less availability? Or does the pet aisle as a whole just expand?

好的。偉大的。如果我可以偷偷做最後一次跟進，當你添加一個有第二個或第三個橋的零售商時，這是否在寵物過道周圍提供了某種防護，使競爭對手更難獲得產品在那裡？我們談論競爭格局。我的意思是，如果您有第三台冰箱，這是否意味著它們無法使用，或者我們的可用性要低得多？還是整個寵物通道只是擴大了？

Look, I think that it helps expand the competitive advantage, but by no means does it limit anyone else from coming in and putting either their own fridge or the retailer put a fridge in. It's -- Billy mentioned it periodically. But 5 years ago, we came up with a strategy, and part of that core strategy was we want to change the way consumers think about pet food we want them to think about fresh first or flipping the bowl sometimes is referred to. And we want retailers to think as fresh first as they're building out their aisle. And I think what's starting to happen is they recognize that fresh food has all the benefits of -- that they see in other areas of the store in pet food now and it's a really meaningful piece of their category. And I think they're building out. And there have been a few retailers that have added some of their own fridges out there. So I think it's great for us, and I think it's encouraged some retailers to see what else they want to do to build up the segment.

看，我認為它有助於擴大競爭優勢，但絕不限制其他任何人進入並放入他們自己的冰箱或零售商放入冰箱。這是 - 比利定期提到它。但 5 年前，我們提出了一項戰略，該戰略的一部分是我們希望改變消費者對寵物食品的看法，我們希望他們首先考慮新鮮或有時會提到翻轉碗。我們希望零售商在打造貨架時首先考慮新鮮事物。而且我認為開始發生的事情是他們認識到新鮮食品具有所有好處 - 他們現在在商店的其他區域看到寵物食品，這是他們類別中真正有意義的一部分。我認為他們正在建設。並且有一些零售商在那裡添加了一些他們自己的冰箱。所以我認為這對我們來說很好，我認為這鼓勵了一些零售商看看他們還想做些什麼來建立這個細分市場。

Our next question is from the line of John Lawrence from The Benchmark Company.

我們的下一個問題來自 The Benchmark Company 的 John Lawrence。

Billy, you've mentioned for a long time that as you got better fill rates up, that these retailers would come back. I know you've talked a lot about these retail partners. But when you look at -- are there new people that are coming to discuss this category with you that you've been after for a period of time? They went through the lower fill rates and now they're coming back and you've mentioned some of those decision matrix and what they're looking at. Can you expand on that just a little bit and what's happened since you've really restored these field rates? And what are these retailers, what are those discussions like maybe for the first time and in the second and third fridge?

比利，你已經提到很長時間了，當你的填充率提高時，這些零售商會回來。我知道你已經談了很多關於這些零售合作夥伴的事情。但是當你看到——是否有新的人來和你討論這個類別，而你已經追了一段時間了？他們經歷了較低的填充率，現在他們又回來了，你已經提到了其中一些決策矩陣以及他們正在研究的內容。你能稍微擴展一下嗎？自從你真正恢復了這些現場率後發生了什麼？這些零售商是什麼，這些討論可能是第一次以及在第二個和第三個冰箱中進行的討論是什麼？

Yes, I'll let Scott take that one. He's closer to that.

是的，我會讓斯科特拿那個。他更接近那個。

Yes, it's actually been, I think, pretty exciting to see that once we were able to make sure that we had enough supply that retailers, current retailers, we're willing to expand and have discussions around second and third and to be really excited about it. I mean there were times where they were almost coming to us, and they were expanding the store list even more sometimes than what we had maybe broader mentioned to them. But I think the other dynamic is there are some retailers -- there are a few retailers, not many that have said no for a very, very long period of time. And I think in the last -- literally in the last 90 to 120 days, we've had a few of those actually be receptive to having conversations.

是的，我認為，一旦我們能夠確保我們有足夠的供應給零售商，我們現在的零售商，我們願意擴大規模並圍繞第二和第三進行討論，這真的很令人興奮關於它。我的意思是，有時候他們幾乎要來找我們了，而且他們有時甚至比我們向他們提到的更廣泛地擴大了商店清單。但我認為另一個動態是有一些零售商 - 有一些零售商，在非常非常長的一段時間內拒絕了。我認為在過去的 90 到 120 天裡，我們實際上已經接受了其中一些對話。

And I think it's going to open up a few additional retailers for us, which we like to see. We want to -- we believe that we should be able to be in 90% of all the stores kind of typical grocery mass club stores out there, we should be in almost all of them with some type of offering. It may not be 8 feet of fridges in all those stores, but there's some type of offering in the majority of stores out there, and we started to see that open up. And boy, I mean, when we didn't have supply, not only were we not encouraging it. But it was -- they weren't interested either. Why would you want to add anything in where you can't have product to offer a consumer and you're taking up space for something that you can sell. So I think we're starting to see past that. So anyway, we're kind of excited to kind of see that develop.

而且我認為它會為我們開闢一些額外的零售商，這是我們希望看到的。我們希望 - 我們相信我們應該能夠在 90% 的商店中出現典型的雜貨大眾俱樂部商店，我們應該在幾乎所有商店中提供某種類型的產品。可能不是所有這些商店都有 8 英尺的冰箱，但大多數商店都有某種類型的產品，我們開始看到它開放。天哪，我的意思是，當我們沒有供應時，我們不僅不鼓勵它。但它是——他們也不感興趣。你為什麼要在你不能為消費者提供產品的地方添加任何東西，而你正在為你可以銷售的東西佔用空間。所以我認為我們開始看到過去。所以無論如何，我們很高興看到這種發展。

At this time, we've end of our question-and-answer session. Now I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Cyr for closing remarks.

至此，我們的問答環節已經結束。現在我將把發言權轉回 Cyr 先生的閉幕詞。

Great. Thank you very much, everyone. I always like to end with a quote. The source of this quote is unknown, but it is very apt. The quote is, it's no coincidence that man's best friend cannot talk. To which I reply, reward them for their silence and feed them Freshpet.

偉大的。非常感謝大家。我總是喜歡用一句話結束。這段話出處不明，但非常貼切。引言是，人類最好的朋友不會說話並非巧合。我回答說，獎勵他們的沉默並餵他們 Freshpet。

And I'll actually build on that. There's 4 pets in the dogs and the Freshpet family that I want to recognize: Rocky, which was one of the dogs in our advertising; Angus; Macy Gray; and Pinocchio, who was one of the dogs that -- of our Head of R&D, and it helped us develop many products along the way.

我實際上會以此為基礎。我想認識狗和 Freshpet 家族中的 4 隻寵物：Rocky，它是我們廣告中的一隻狗；安格斯；梅西格雷;還有 Pinocchio，他是我們研發主管的狗之一，它幫助我們一路開發了許多產品。

Great. Thank you very much, everyone.

偉大的。非常感謝大家。

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

謝謝。今天的會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路。感謝您的參與。