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Wednesday, November 5, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. ET
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Zevia PBC (NYSE:ZVIA) signaled raised confidence in its growth trajectory through updates to full-year financial guidance. Management directly attributed Q3 2025 revenue growth to expanded distribution and product innovation, rather than to any temporary or one-off factors. Management explicitly acknowledged that aluminum tariffs and packaging refresh charges negatively impacted gross margin in Q3 2025.
Adjusted EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, adjusted for non-recurring or non-core items, used to evaluate core operational performance.
Velocity: In beverage retail, the rate at which product units sell through a distribution channel, commonly measured per point of distribution over a set time frame.
Club Channel: Retail outlets like Costco or Sam's Club that offer products in bulk at discounted prices, representing a key growth channel for beverage producers.
Household Penetration: Proportion of total households making at least one purchase of the brand during a measured period.
Amy Taylor: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Our third quarter results reflect strong progress and provide clear signs that our strategy is taking effect. Our initiatives are positioning us for durable growth and profitability over time. Our third quarter results exceeded our expectations with net sales growth of 12% to $40.8 million and adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.7 million. Based on our better-than-expected performance and the continued progress across our, we are raising our full-year net sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance, which Girish should speak to shortly. I'll share the progress we've made across our three strategic growth pillars of high-impact brand marketing, accelerated product innovation, and expanded distribution.
Beginning with marketing, our brand-building initiatives are resonating with consumers and gaining traction against our key priority of expanding our user base. Strong third quarter results reflect in part the success of our summer campaign, the launch of driving engagement. From brands that they trust. We are Soda Made Better. And our new brand messaging design, and tone of voice are resonating across media channels and in-store. Based on proprietary survey data, while early, brand consideration and purchase intent have made double-digit gains this year, and social media engagement rates continue to build to levels well above channel benchmarks.
As the broad cultural conversation continues to focus on health, and ingredients, major food and beverage companies scramble to remove artificial ingredients and colors. Zevia, as and will continue to be, of this movement, with a clean label clear soda with natural flavors and sweeteners. And is telling its story through cross-channel brand campaigns and high-reach influencer activations. Our humorous engaging campaign supporting Amazon exclusive Peaches and Cream is a great example giving the flavor a hot start and the brand a strong halo via virality on Instagram and TikTok.
In addition, ZVF competitions featuring UGC or user-generated content have been fruitful in driving awareness and trial especially when activated with a focus on specific customers ranging from Albertsons, Kroger, and Walmart to Costco. On the ground, we continue in-market activations, at events like gaming's one hundred Thieves block party in July, Diplo's Run Club across August, September, and October, and periodic joint efforts with well-aligned partners such as Lifetime Fitness, at running, cycling, and mountain biking events. These events are equal parts brand building and sampling opportunities focused on winning new users, which remains our top priority. Turning to innovation. The performance of our recent product launches offer strong proof points. Our portfolio evolution is driving brand momentum.
New flavor profiles and a more sugar-like taste experience, along with delicious looking new packaging, and dynamic marketing, continue to support Velocity and drive trial. Our portfolio evolution this year is working. Exciting new flavors launched nationwide received strong consumer acceptance and retailer exclusive or limited time offer flavors brought brand heat. The debut of Strawberry Lemon Burst nationwide, orange creamsicle in the natural channel, and fruity variety pack initially at Walmart demonstrate that we are on point in flavor trends. Each are showing promising results and have been drivers of increased CVS space at retail and of accelerating velocities.
Peaches and Cream and Salted Caramel provided new news this quarter as exclusives or limited time offers, respectively, and Strawberries and Cream is doing the same in selected retailers here in Q4. Each is off to a good start and will inform the portfolio evolution for 2026, and beyond. Peaches and Cream has been the fastest selling new Zevia item ever on Amazon. While strawberries and cream was immediately a top three velocity driver at Kroger. Our fruity variety pack has quickly become the number one ZVS skew at Walmart. We remain the only better for you brand offering multipacks and variety packs at accessible price points. And finally, we're very pleased with the positive response to our refreshed packaging.
Featuring soda made better our strong brand block will highlight zero sugar, no artificial colors, and no artificial sweeteners. Our proprietary research indicates a meaningful increase in purchase intent versus the prior design and versus competition. We are on track to roll new packaging out to legacy flavors as well in early 2026. taste experience across legacy and new flavors alike. Moving on to distribution, a key component of our strategic growth plan. We're also pleased to share that following a successful pilot at the start of this year, we'll be expanding into more than half of Walmart's Canadian stores going forward. Distribution gains at grocery were also a key driver of our growth year to date.
With innovation in flavor and in packs supporting increased space gains. In the club channel, increasing sales velocity drove additional regional rotations has exceeded our expectations. And then in convenience, we're seeing some encouraging early indicators even as the rollout in the channel for brand and for category Performance is tracking in line with broader natural soda category trends, providing a good selling story as we continue to thoughtfully expand our regional footprint in 2026. In closing, with our strategy firmly in place and with strong execution, we are reshaping the business. And paving the way to capitalize on a changing consumer landscape and category tailwinds. We see evidence that we are growing market relevance.
And are on track to thoughtfully scale the business quarter by quarter and year over year. And so with that, I'll turn the call over to Girish.
Girish Satya: Thank you, Amy. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our call today. Our third quarter results reflect strong execution of our strategic plan. With both revenue and adjusted EBITDA exceeding expectations. Over the past eighteen months, savings from our productivity initiatives have enabled us to invest meaningfully while strengthening ZVS market position within the better for you soda category. Importantly, the work we have done has created a solid foundation for sustained growth and profitability. In light of our strong third quarter performance, we are raising our full year 2025 net sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance, which I'll address shortly. Turning to our results. Net sales in the third quarter increased 12% to $40.8 million.
The increase versus the prior year was primarily due to expanded distribution at Walmart and incremental regional rotations at the club channel. Gross margin reached 45.6%, a 350 basis point decline from 49.1% in the third quarter of last year, reflecting the $800,000 in inventory obsolescence associated with the packaging refresh and the full realization of aluminum tariffs, which we discussed previously. We mentioned earlier, we invested in a package redesign that brought to life our new flavor profile and better communicated the benefits of the Zevia value proposition. Selling and marketing expenses were $12.7 million or 31% of net sales in the third quarter 2025, compared to $12 million or 33% of net sales in 2024.
Breaking it down, selling expense was $7.7 million or 18.9% of net sales in 2025. The improvement was largely a result of lower warehousing and freight transfer costs. As we continue to benefit from our productivity initiative. Marketing expense was $4.9 million or 12.1% compared to $3.5 million or 9.7% of net sales in 2024. The increase was primarily due to increased investments in brand marketing. General and administrative expenses were $7.7 million or 18.8% of net sales in 2025. Compared to $7.4 million or 20.3% of net sales in 2024. The increase was primarily driven by higher accrued variable compensation expense. As a result of the aforementioned factors, net loss was $2.8 million, unchanged from the prior year.
Adjusted EBITDA loss was $1.7 million compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.5 million in the prior year period. The decrease was due to costs associated with inventory losses related to packaging refresh and higher brand marketing spend, partially offset by strong sales growth and operating efficiencies. Turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $26 million in cash and cash equivalents and have an undrawn revolving credit line of $20 million. Now turning to our outlook. Based on our strong third quarter results, we are raising our full year net sales guidance to the range of $162 million to $164 million versus prior guidance of $158 million to $163 million.
We now expect our adjusted EBITDA loss for the full year to range from $5 million to $5.5 million versus prior guidance of $7 million to $9 million. 2025 adjusted EBITDA outlook represents a $9 million improvement versus prior year, despite tariffs, ongoing marketing investments and a packaging refresh. Turning to the fourth quarter, we expect net sales of between $39 million to $41 million and adjusted EBITDA loss to be between $250,000 and $750,000. As a reminder, the 350 basis points impact from inventory losses associated with the packaging redesign was largely captured in the third quarter.
In closing, our third quarter results reflect the traction we are gaining towards building a solid foundation from which to deliver sustainable growth and profitability. These efforts not only reinforce our operational momentum, but also lay a strong foundation for sustained profitability as we move forward. We I will now turn it over to the operator to begin Q and A. Operator?
Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. The first question is from Jim Salera from Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.
Jim Salera: Hey, Amy. Hi, Girish. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking our question. Wanted to start off with obviously, the positive news around expanding distribution with Walmart in Canada. Can you just maybe help size that up for us? Is that the primary contributor of the raised sales outlook or should we expect that to be more of kind of a 2026 event and if you could just kind of size up how many stores that would be and any other color you could provide on how we should think about that uplift?
Amy Taylor: Sure, Jim. Yeah. That's we are excited about expanding Walmart in Canada. Just because of the indicator of future opportunity for continued distribution expansion in Canada overall. It's also just a good, I think, reflection of the velocities out of the customer in the initial pilot. So it was fairly small out of the gates. We were less than a 100 stores. And we're now in just over half of, Canada's Walmart stores, is just over 400 stores in total. So to answer your question directly, that is not the major driver of lift in growth. There are many other things driving growth through the quarter. But it is a good indicator of the health of the brand in Canada.
And opportunity to follow.
Jim Salera: Great. And then I was looking through the deck you guys put out. I really like the new packaging. Can you just give us some color around how distributed is that and maybe what type of timing we should think about between switching over from the old packaging to the new packaging until we kind of see that across all of the all of your distribution points in The U. S?
Amy Taylor: Sure. So we're excited about the new packaging too. We're we did some as I said in the prepared remarks, we did some initial, proprietary research that indicated they significant increase in purchase intent. With the new packaging relative to our previous packaging and relative to competition. And we believe that is because of the insights based changes that we made to the messaging, which very clearly state ZVN's value proposition. They're talking zero sugar, zero fake colors, zero fake sweeteners, and looking delicious carrying the line, soda made better. So we're really bullish on the packaging.
We do have some early indicators of how it supports the business, both from the standpoint of driving trial to new to brand users. And driving velocity. And that's because one of our, Q4 limited time offer flavors in strawberries and cream is already in the market in the new package. The rest of the portfolio will reflect the new packaging in early 2026, so mid Q1 or late Q1. 2026, and then we'll do a rolling rollout from there, not a hot hard over, but a rolling launch of the new packaging from there into the second quarter. Okay. Great.
Jim Salera: I appreciate the comments. I'll hop back in the.
Amy Taylor: Thanks, Jim.
Operator: The next question is from Sarang Vora from Telsey Advisory Group. Please go ahead.
Sarang Vora: Congratulations on a great quarter. And good to see the healthy momentum in the business. My question is about when you look at the underlying matrix that drive growth, which is household penetration, dollars per household, increase in frequency, Can you remind us who are some of the new customers that are coming to the brand that, you know, you were you weren't there before. And just from a broader like, you know, how is the penetration for Better For You products in general and versus your, like, you know, little north of 5%.
So how big is the runway for you to catch up from a household penetration standpoint just so that we can size the total addressable market as you keep moving on this path of expansion.
Amy Taylor: Yeah. Thanks, Sarang. That's a very good, way to frame the opportunity and sort of the runway ahead. So we're really pleased see movement and household penetration over the last twelve months. This last read being improved over the prior, and we are now back over that 5 million household points 5% points of household penetration. Excuse me. And so they're the major drivers of that are new consumers coming to the brand, yes, in part through marketing. So we're winning new consumers. It continues to be oftentimes a slightly higher income millennial often with kids in the household, bringing Zevia soda home as a trusted brand stock in the fridge for all use educations and all family members. Right?
So it continues to be relevant across generations, but our sweet spot is the millennial and oftentimes the millennial household. With children. Part of what's driving our gains in household penetration though is increased distribution. We get support there from the Walmart expansion where especially with the introduction of new flavors, we're seeing very high percentage of new to brand users buying Ziggya for the first time at Walmart. And there are other examples of that. Expanded same store sales and other major grocery, outlets. You know, expansion into the drug channel, etcetera. All of those are supported council penetration growth.
But to help you to size this, you know, we see the category right now operating around 20 points percentage points of household penetration. So there's a lot of ground to be gained for Zevia. And as we talk about very frequently, we see all of these category tailwinds as a net positive to Zevia. So there's tremendous opportunity ahead as the world continues to move away sugar and toward label products. And we are the great tasting truly zero sugar and also affordable better for you products. So we see a lot of household penetration opportunities ahead.
Sarang Vora: That's awesome. I You know, I have a second question. You know, soda business is clearly gaining momentum as we see in all these numbers. But one thing we don't talk much about is the energy business. Energy drinks business. And, you know, my understanding that my how should we think actually about energy drinks as you look at '26 and '27? Is there a thought to revive that category as well?
Amy Taylor: We agree. There's really tremendous opportunity ahead in energy. Right now, we have a really small energy drink business relative to the rest of the category. It is healthy and growing in a natural channel, in ecommerce where people know that and trust the Zevia brand and continue to stock energy drink options in addition to soda, But right now, our focus is really on soda. We just talk household penetration. Right? And it just outlines how much work there is still to do to realize our full opportunity in soda.
So once I believe we are famous for, being soda made better, And under that kind of halo of brand trust, we think there's a significant opportunity to turn our attention to the energy drinks category. Is still growing and will be for a long time. And we believe there's a consumer that wants a clean label energy drink, and that our brand has permission to bring that to the market. So we'll continue to focus on the healthy, growth that we see at energy drinks in natural, and in ecommerce. And at the right time, we'll think about channel and thus marketing and consumer expansion. On a strong foundation of a healthy soda business.
Sarang Vora: That's great. Good luck ahead.
Amy Taylor: Thank you, Sarang.
Operator: The next question is from Andrew Strelzik from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Andrew Strelzik: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. With all the marketing that you've been doing and of the momentum that you cited from that, the brand block, etcetera. Do you have any kind of awareness stats, brand level awareness statistics, anything like that you can share to support beyond what you've what you've talked about from a purchase intent perspective?
Amy Taylor: You know, Andrew, we haven't reported on awareness levels, but what I can share that kinda doubles down on the prepared remarks was that with our proprietary research, we saw double digit increases not only in purchase intent, but also consideration. So we still have a way to go to grow brand awareness and distribution strong packaging design, and marketing are all parts of that equation. But what I was really pleased to see this year is, again, double digit growth in consideration. So now on that foundation, we know our messaging is working. Right? Marketing and is inviting trial. And then the product is satisfying the consumer, so we're getting strong repeat.
A great formula, upon or foundation upon which to now invest in expanding awareness. We still got a ways to go, and I think that's reflected in our small household penetration. And our number one objective is to expand that base, which is going to be a combination of awareness trial and then building on that strong consideration metric.
Andrew Strelzik: Okay. That's helpful. And my other question, if I remember correctly, just seasonally, you would normally see you know, a bigger step down from 3Q to 4Q than the guidance suggests, pretty marginal step down from what you did in 3Q from a revenue perspective to the midpoint of the guidance. And so I guess I'm curious, do you think you're seeing less seasonality in your business? Or should we read that maybe as a higher baseline from 4Q into next year? How what's driving that? Or how should we interpret that kind of as we think about next Thanks.
Girish Satya: Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Andrew. So as a reminder, you know, we were comping, the Walmart load from last year this Q4. So that, you know, that was a substantial amount of revenue, which was gonna, you know, always be a challenging comp for the quarter. I think largely what you're seeing is reflection of the distribution gains that we've made throughout the year as well as incremental regional, rotations on the club channel. Is really what's driving a lot of the, positivity in Q4. And so I think it's a little bit of both, in improved baseline as well as some incremental opportunistic club rotations.
Andrew Strelzik: Okay. Great. Thank you.
Operator: The next question is from Eric Serotta from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Eric Serotta: Great. Can you start by reflecting a bit in terms of shelf space expectations for next year. I guess, know, with Walmart, we're just about a year in or almost exactly a year into the rollout of their soda set. What are you guys seeing in terms of what they're doing as the largest retailer? You know, largest brick and mortar retailer as we look to next year. And then you know, sort of outside of Walmart, what are your expectations in terms of shelf space?
Amy Taylor: Sure. Let me start with Walmart, and then I can go to the Outlook as it relates to distribution. So Walmart is developing nice bolstered by the introduction of a number of new items. Some of those are swap outs. And some are purely incremental new items that helping us in the back half of this year and going into next year. We are one of the primary brands in that very sort of influential modern soda set. Walmart, and that continues to be the case. Strategically, Walmart works hard for us because as I mentioned before, it drives a lot of new to brand users. And so I think it's a great story to say, hey.
When we have ample blocks, strong visibility, right price, right flavor mix, it's working hard. The brand. And that's a story that we can take elsewhere. We've had other expansions, as I've mentioned on prior calls, such as a step change in shelf presence at big retailers in grocery like Albertsons in 2025. And, again, that contributed to some of our growth in the back half of the year. So when we look ahead, you know, we this year, we surpassed our historical peak levels at retail. And so we're not relying on new distribution for growth looking ahead.
We're really focused on driving velocity, and that's why you hear us talk about the brand marketing and innovation priorities that we have. But we do see opportunity. For new distribution. In terms of new stores, that would be in club, it would be in mass, and it would be in the value and dollar channel, and then long term in convenience and food service. And then in existing stores, there is still more opportunity to expand same store distribution and to improve shelf. So there are major operators in the grocery channel, for example, where we still have, let's say, a lesser presence on the bottom shelf.
And an opportunity to build up to eye level to gain space through innovation and to leverage all the strong data of 2025 to make those changes. So we're bullish both on accelerating velocity as well as continuing to increase distribution next year, be it in same store or through new channel. Walmart should continue to perform for us next year. Costco offers for incremental rotations than there are other green shoots in the club channel outside of Costco. As I mentioned, grocery offers opportunity in same store distribution as well as new items. And set improvements, and then the long, long term sort of slow but steady and strategic need to drive singles through convenience.
So, hopefully, that paints the picture a little bit about where we see our growth coming from, our bullishness on same store distribution increases, and then our greatest, opportunities for next year.
Eric Serotta: Great. And then, one question in terms of profitability. You know, any realize you're not gonna give 2026 guidance yet, but any color as to how you're thinking about achievability of EBITDA profitability next year, puts and takes seems like, well, certainly, your top line is scaling. You're seeing some nice operating leverage there. You know, some of the costs with the with the new packaging shouldn't and inventory obsolescence shouldn't repeat, but then you know, things like aluminum and Midwest premium keep moving higher. So Mhmm. Any color into how you're thinking about profitability for next year would be helpful.
Girish Satya: Yeah. Of course. So I think we continue to point towards being positive adjusted EBITDA. In 2026. As noted, we're gonna bias towards in the business. So, you know, don't expect that a ton of flow through because we do believe that, right now, the time that sort of invest in customer acquisition. From a puts and takes standpoint, obviously, there's a huge headwind, which is, aluminum as you've articulated earlier, and we've begun we began to see that In Q3.
As you also mentioned, you know, we will largely see 15 of the 20 million of previously announced productivity initiative, savings in this year, i.e., 2025, there's an incremental 5 million that we will begin to realize, starting in sort of 2026. And so as we look towards flipping from you know, negative adjusted EBITDA to positive. and some pricing opportunities will allow us to flip that script into positive adjusted EBITDA while continuing to create opportunities for us to invest, to grow the top line.
Eric Serotta: Great. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.
Girish Satya: Thanks, Eric.
Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Amy Taylor for closing comments.
Amy Taylor: Alright. Thanks so much for joining us. You know, I am pleased with the progress this quarter, and I'm really proud of the team for the broader progress that we made across our three strategic growth pillars. So high impact remarketing, accelerated product innovation, and expanded distribution. Our soda portfolio is uniquely anchored by great taste, truly zero sugar, and accessible price points. So the brand is starting to resonate with consumers and all of this positions us well to capture the continued tailwinds this better for you category. It's an exciting time to be at Zevia. So thanks again for your engagement, we will see you next quarter.
Operator: This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
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