Greetings, and welcome to the Black Rifle Coffee Company First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Matthew McGinley, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Black Rifle Coffee Company's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. We released our results yesterday, and the press release and related materials are available on our Investor Relations website at ir.blackriflecoffee.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements. During today's call, management may make forward-looking statements, including guidance and the underlying assumptions. These statements are based on expectations that involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. For a further discussion of these risks, please refer to our previous filings with the SEC. Additionally, this call will include non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA. Whenever we refer to EBITDA, we mean adjusted EBITDA, unless otherwise noted. Reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release, which was furnished to the SEC and is available on our Investor Relations website. Now please refer to the presentation on our Investor Relations website and turn to Slide 4. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Mondzelewski, CEO of Black Rifle Coffee Company. Monz?

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are Evan Hafer, our Executive Chairman; Matt Amigh, our Chief Financial Officer; and Matt McGinley, our Head of Investor Relations. 2026 is off to a strong start with first quarter performance reflecting meaningful progress against our core growth priorities. In coffee, we are seeing the benefits of disciplined execution come through clearly in our results. Distribution gains across key retail partners are translating into higher volume, better shelf productivity and improved SKU level performance. Importantly, this is not just about expanding doors. It is about expanding our shelf presence and making the space we earn more productive, which improves retailer velocity and supports stronger growth and profitability for both our partners and Black Rifle. We remain focused on disciplined resource allocation, prioritizing the channels, customers and products where we see the highest return. Operationally, the business is becoming more efficient. Productivity initiatives and process discipline are contributing to improved margins and more effective conversion of revenue into earnings. While the external environment remains dynamic, we are operating with greater control and visibility, maintaining a clear focus on translating commercial progress into improved business results. Overall, first quarter performance reinforces our confidence in the business and our ability to deliver profitable growth through 2026. Moving to Slide 6. In packaged coffee, first quarter growth reflected broad-based strength across customers and formats, including strong dollar and unit performance at mass merchants, sales that nearly doubled in grocery and pack size innovation that supported new bagged coffee distribution in the dollar channel. According to Nielsen, Black Rifle Coffee grew 34.6% in the quarter or more than 2.5x the category growth rate, driving meaningful share gains. Bagged coffee dollar share increased 55 basis points to 3.3% and pods increased 45 basis points to 2.2% at the end of the quarter. Importantly, these gains were supported by continued improvements in shelf productivity. In grocery, bagged coffee unit velocity increased despite higher pricing and expanded shelf presence, underscoring strong consumer demand and our competitive position at retail. Turn to Slide 7, please. Execution against our land and expand strategy continues to translate into gains in retail breadth and shelf presence. In the first quarter, we expanded distribution by approximately 7 points of ACV year-over-year, reflecting continued success in adding new retail doors and broadening our in-store visibility. At the same time, we are increasing our presence within these doors. The average grocer is now carrying nearly two more Black Rifle items than a year ago as we continue to build on initial placements and expand shelf sets. Taken together, these results demonstrate that both elements of the strategy are working. We are adding new points of distribution while also deepening our assortment across existing accounts. These gains are strengthening relationships with new and existing retailers while reinforcing our ability to earn additional shelf space over time. Slide 8. Across the broader category, much of the dollar growth remains price driven, particularly among legacy brands. Our performance continues to be driven by both unit gains and pricing. We remain among the strongest performers in unit growth, reflecting continued consumer demand at the shelf. In a category where much of the reported growth is price led, that performance is translating into share gains and stronger shelf productivity. That matters to retailers because they understand that healthy category growth comes from increasing consumer demand on a unit basis, not from pricing alone. Packaged coffee remains a core driver of the business, and these trends reinforce the quality and sustainability of our growth in the category. Turning to Slide 9. Our direct-to-consumer business continues to show improvement, delivering its second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth as our channel strategy evolves. Marketplaces are playing a larger role in scaling the model. These platforms expand our reach by meeting customers where they already shop and provide a low friction entry point for customer acquisition. Importantly, they add incremental consumer reach and demand while complementing rather than replacing our retail presence and owned channels. At the same time, blackriflecoffee.com serves a distinct strategic role. It remains the core platform for subscriptions and our most loyal customers, supporting deeper engagement, exclusive offerings and stronger pricing discipline. We are seeing early traction from this refined approach. Marketplaces are driving customer acquisition and top-of-funnel growth, while our owned channel is focused on retention, repeat purchases and long-term customer value. As a result, direct-to-consumer is contributing more consistently, reflecting clearer roles for the marketplaces and blackriflecoffee.com within the broader business. Slide 10. In ready-to-drink coffee, category trends remained challenging in the first quarter with convenience channel softness weighing in on both our performance and the broader category. Despite that, we expanded distribution with ACV up nearly 8 points year-over-year, reflecting continued success in adding new doors and broadening our presence across retail. We are concentrating on the areas we can control. We are prioritizing channels and partners where we are seeing stronger demand while continuing to deepen our presence in grocery, mass merchants and other retail environments that support more consistent takeaway. At the same time, we are using product and innovation as a disciplined growth lever, ensuring new items and platforms are aligned with the channels and occasions where they can perform most effectively. This approach supports a more focused RTD strategy, prioritizing retail environments where takeaway is most consistent and the economics are most compelling. Slide 11. In energy, we continue to move from our initial launch to a more deliberate phase of expansion, reaching 21% ACV across more than 22,000 doors in the first quarter. Our focus this year in energy remains on selectively expanding in markets and channels where we are seeing early traction. This approach allows us to concentrate investment behind the strongest opportunities while scaling energy at a measured pace. Before I turn it over to Matt, I want to briefly highlight how we're continuing to support the communities at the core of our mission. During the first quarter, we remained active across a range of initiatives that brought together partners, veterans, military families and local communities through events, direct support and collaborations. We partnered with Operation Homefront and the Dallas Cowboys to host a baby shower for new and expecting military families. We also partnered with Team Red, White & Blue in support of a nationwide effort to honor those who served in the global war on terror, while raising funds to support veteran health and wellness. We worked with Beyond the Call to launch a limited time roast honoring the legacy of World War II veterans and helping fund efforts to preserve their stories. Across these efforts, we continue to support members of our community, serving in the Middle East and around the world, helping ensure they and their families have the resources, connection and recognition they deserve. That same commitment will carry forward as we move through the year, including through initiatives tied to America's 250th anniversary that celebrate service and expand our support for veterans and their families. Supporting this community is not a stand-alone initiative for us. It is core to who we are and how we operate.

Thank you, Monz. I'll begin my remarks on Slide 13. In the first quarter, net revenue increased 21% year-over-year, driven primarily by both wholesale and direct-to-consumer. Wholesale revenue increased 31.5% year-over-year, reflecting distribution gains, pricing and continued contribution from Black Rifle Energy. Performance was broad-based across key customers with sales to mass merchants increasing more than 20% and grocery sales more than doubling. We also benefited from pack size innovation, which supported new placements in the dollar channel. Direct-to-consumer revenue increased 7% in the first quarter, driven primarily by increased sales through third-party marketplaces. Actions taken over the past year to stabilize the business are now translating into more consistent performance and a return to growth. As a result, direct-to-consumer is contributing more consistently to consolidated growth and is positioned to support sustained growth. Turning to Slide 14. First quarter gross margin was 33%, down 305 basis points year-over-year, reflecting the impact of nonrecurring items and elevated coffee costs. Importantly, we continue to make progress on controllable levers, including improvements in trade efficiency and supply chain, which helped mitigate these pressures. Elevated green coffee costs and carryover impact of 2025 tariffs embedded in inventory continue to weigh on gross margin. However, pricing actions implemented in 2025 largely offset these impacts with the net effect of inflation and tariffs limited to approximately 20 basis points in the quarter. Gross margin was also impacted by nonrecurring items, including roughly 100 basis points of costs associated with onboarding a new direct-to-consumer fulfillment provider and approximately 210 basis points from a one-time noncash write-down tied to coffee extract resulting from a formulation change. This extract impact was not added back to adjusted EBITDA. These items were mitigated in part by underlying operational improvements, including approximately 50 basis points of benefit from supply chain initiatives and mix. Looking ahead, we have substantially locked our green coffee requirements for 2026, providing improved cost visibility. While commodity costs remain elevated in the near term, we expect gross margins to stabilize relative to 2025 levels, supported by pricing, productivity initiatives and favorable mix. This stabilization sets a stage for margin recovery over time. We remain confident in our ability to achieve our long-term gross margin target of 40%, driven primarily by structural improvements within our control, including mix and efficiency in both trade spend and supply chain. While recent movement in the coffee forward curve is constructive, our path to the target does not rely on incremental pricing actions. Moving down the P&L to Slide 15. Operating expense improvements were driven by efficiency gains from last year's operational improvement plan, improved marketing efficiency and lower spend across consulting, software and legal. These actions reflect a more targeted allocation of resources towards key growth drivers, enabling greater operating leverage while supporting the business as it scales. Total operating expenses declined over 8% year-over-year, driven by a 10% reduction in marketing expense and a 14% decline in general and administrative expense. Despite the year-over-year decline in gross margin rate, revenue growth drove higher gross profit dollars. Combined with operating expense reductions, this resulted in more than an eightfold increase in adjusted EBITDA and a 570 basis point expansion in adjusted EBITDA margin with adjusted EBITDA increasing from under $1 million to over $7 million year-over-year. This performance highlights the operating leverage embedded in the model as revenue growth translates more efficiently into earnings against a more disciplined and structurally improved cost base. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter in a strong financial position with $39 million of debt outstanding or approximately 1x net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA and about 1x based on our 2026 guidance. At quarter end, we had more than $52 million of total liquidity, including cash on hand and available capacity under our credit facility, providing ample flexibility to support the business. Free cash flow improved by approximately $11 million year-over-year, with $6 million generated in the first quarter of 2026 compared to a use of over $5 million in the prior year period, driven by improved operating profitability and more efficient working capital management. As previously disclosed, we received notice from the New York Stock Exchange in February regarding the minimum price requirement. Our shares are currently trading above $1, and we would regain compliance if at the end of the applicable measurement period, both our closing share price and the average closing share price over the prior 30 trading days are at least $1. As we work through the standard cure period, we remain focused on executing our 2026 plan, improving the fundamentals of the business and driving long-term shareholder value. Moving to the outlook on Slide 17. For 2026, we are increasing our revenue outlook to at least 8% growth or approximately $430 million. We're also increasing our adjusted EBITDA guidance to at least 35% growth or approximately $29 million, up from our prior outlook of at least 30% growth. This updated outlook is supported by current visibility into demand, pricing actions already in market and secure distribution gains. Consistent with our approach from last quarter, our guidance reflects a level of performance we believe is supported by visibility we have today. We have strong momentum in the business and no reason based on current trends to believe that changes in the second half. At the same time, we're taking a disciplined approach and not assuming incremental distribution wins, pricing actions or other benefits that have not yet been realized. As we gain additional visibility through the year, we will update the outlook as appropriate. From a cadence standpoint, revenue is expected to build over the course of the year, broadly consistent with the progression we saw in 2025. First quarter performance exceeded our internal expectations, supported in part by normal shipment timing that likely benefited Q1 revenue by a few million dollars. We expect that timing benefit to normalize in the second quarter. As a result, second quarter revenue is expected to be at least 10% year-over-year compared to 21% in the first quarter, reflecting both underlying business momentum and this timing impact. We continue to expect gross margins in the range of 34% to 36% in 2026 compared to 34.6% in 2025. The outlook reflects pricing actions taken in 2025, supply chain productivity and favorable channel and product mix alongside external factors that remain dynamic. Second quarter gross margin is expected to be consistent with the first quarter, reflecting continued pressure from coffee inflation and the more recent impact of higher fuel costs. Gross margin should improve in the back half of the year as higher cost inventory is worked through and productivity and mix benefits continue to build. For the second quarter, we expect adjusted EBITDA of at least $5 million, more than double the prior year period, while absorbing the impact of the first quarter shipment timing benefit and the timing of certain expenses. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to step up further in the second half of the year as revenue builds, gross margin improves and operating leverage increases. While we are not providing formal cash flow guidance, we remain focused on margin expansion and improved working capital efficiency to enhance cash generation. With capital expenditures expected to remain in line with prior year levels, we expect to generate positive cash flow. Looking ahead, the business is benefiting from a more streamlined operating structure, stronger cost discipline and improved earnings conversion. The actions taken in 2025 are flowing through the P&L, supporting more consistent profitability and greater financial flexibility in 2026. We see this most clearly in coffee, where pricing, distribution gains and productivity initiatives are expanding gross profit and improving returns. Our priorities remain focused on operating discipline, cash generation and thoughtful capital allocation. With visibility into demand, pricing and distribution, we are well positioned to improve earnings quality and sustain profitable growth in 2026 and beyond. Operator, we are now ready for the Q&A session.

Our first question comes from the line of Mike Baker with D.A. Davidson.

Congratulations on a good quarter. Beating and raising is nice. I did want to ask: you gave a little bit of color on the second quarter guide, but I am trying to square the "at least 8%" with what you described as the progression through the year similar to last year. Last year, the year progressed, and I think the second quarter was $5 million above the first quarter, then $5 million more in the third quarter, then $10 million in the fourth quarter. If you do that, you get something like 18% growth, which is way above 8%. Now I think you just told us that the second quarter will be, if I do the math, down about $5 million. But then does the third quarter and fourth quarter progress from there at that $5 million to $10 million growth rate per quarter? I would appreciate some more color on how to square all those different factors and reconcile them.

Yes, Mike, that's a great question. Let me hit that one straight on. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks and in the last quarter call, we're taking a disciplined approach to guidance. Our outlook reflects only what we have confirmed at this point, namely in-market pricing and distribution gains that have been secured. We're not baking in anything that has not yet been realized. We do have real momentum in the business, and we don't want to get too exuberant. Based on what we see today, we expect some of that momentum to carry through to the second half. However, we're only one quarter in, and we'll update the outlook as things materialize throughout the year. Here are a couple of dynamics worth flagging for the shape of the year. On the top line, our comps are going to get progressively tougher as we enter the back part of the year because we will be lapping four significant tailwinds that all kicked off around mid-2025. The first is pricing; we took two pricing actions in 2025, one midyear and one in early Q4. The second is the 7-point-plus ACV gains, and most of the customer resets occurred around midyear, which will be a headwind and cause a tougher comp in the back half. Our third-party marketplace acceleration initiative kicked in in the middle of last year, so those comps will be tough as well. Finally, we did about $5 million in liquidation in the back half of last year, which we do not plan to replicate in 2026. When you flip to adjusted EBITDA, the Q1 beat of $5 million does flow through to guidance. We raised adjusted EBITDA guidance from at least 30% growth to at least 35% growth, but that increase was partially offset by a couple of items. First, we have about a $1.4 million fuel risk related to fuel surcharges coming through parcel and line haul rates. Second, there was a $2.3 million one-time write-down of the final installment of extract that hit in Q1. Netting all of that together results in roughly a $1 million increase in EBITDA, which is what we're raising guidance by. Hopefully that clarifies the bridge somewhat, and I'm happy to elaborate.

Yes. Okay. No, I appreciate that. If I could ask one more unrelated question: The SKU count, I think the slide shows about an average of five SKUs per door, if I'm understanding that slide right. Can you tell us about the spread? Like what's the high, what's the low? What's the potential as you continue to add SKUs per door?

Hi Mike, this is Chris. Yes. Thanks for that question. So yes, just to reiterate, we've been talking about this pretty consistently. Our land and expand strategy, which we've really been pushing here in the last couple of years as we've been driving this grocery expansion is really playing out well for us. The first aspect of that, of course, is the ACV gains, which we've talked quite a bit about. You see that we continue to pick up on that. We expect to be able to continue to add to our ACV or our overall breadth of reach throughout the country. The third item, I'll come back to what you said last. The third item is velocity. We feel very good about the fact that our velocity has actually increased as we've been doing this. We don't expect that to increase forever, by the way. We think that velocity will start to level out as you put more and more items on shelf; your per-unit velocities will start to level out. But as a premium brand, having our velocity right at the index of the category is a fantastic place to be. And then what you asked about the average items is actually the most important part. So as you saw in the numbers that we shared, we were sitting at only a couple of items on shelf a couple of years ago. And in the last year, we've added two additional items on average across all retailers. You're right. The number that we show as our average is just that. There are obviously some retailers that sit right at that 5.5 mark, but most of them are either under or above that. New retailers, when they come on, will tend to come on with 2 to 4 SKUs depending on what their shelf set looks like and what channel they compete in. And from there, we often see an expansion up to 6 to 8. And then to directly answer your question, we have grocery customers who are as high as 13 or 14. I'd like to believe that that is what ultimately a healthy shelf set for us looks like right now, although as we continue to innovate over time, that number will continue to grow. So as we think about our growth profile and how our model will continue to work, it's going to be off of the back of that ACV increase. We still have plenty of room to push that north. And then most importantly, on those average items, while we sit at 5.5 now, there's no reason that we can't be at 12, 13, 14 items on a grocery shelf.

Our next question comes from the line of Sarang Vora with Telsey Advisory Group.

Great. Congratulations on the quarter as well and positive momentum in second. My question is more on a product level. I know in the prepared remarks, you talked about expansion of a new pack size across dollar stores. It seems like your Walmart business or the mass business is running double digits. Can you talk from a product standpoint, what's driving this strength? Is it the packaged coffee or some of the newer ones like cold brew or just from a product level standpoint, can you help us unpack the strong results? What's helping the trend?

Yes, Sarang, it's Chris. Thanks for the question. From an overall standpoint, very much in coffee, right? So bagged and pod coffee continue to have incredible momentum. In fact, if we go to what is still the core of our business, our #1 customer, Walmart, we are looking at share growth in both segments despite having a well-established brand at Walmart. We have 9.4% share now in the bag category, and we are up 30 basis points to a 5.3% share in the pods category. So that illustrates that even with our most established pieces of business, we continue to drive very strong share gains in what is the core of our business, which is the pods and the bags. RTD coffee continues to be a very important part of our business. We have not had as strong a growth. We've been roughly in line with the category, which has been down low single digits. We expect that to recover. We're playing an important role. We see ourselves as the #3 player in RTD coffee. We see ourselves as playing a key role in turning that category. We had a couple of innovation items this year, like our cold brew. We have a few more innovation items that we're working on in the background. You asked about cold brew. Is that playing a key role? Not yet. Very early. We're just in the initial shipments of that item as we go into the summer season for cold consumption overall in the category. So we're excited about it. We're excited about the potential. And we continue to feel great about the fact that we have the #3 cold coffee business in America. But again, the pods and the bags, based off of the model that I just talked about in Mike's question, the land and expand strategy, driving ACV, driving average items, we believe there's just continued great potential to run that model and generate growth over the next two to three years.

That's great. And I had a follow-up on marketing spend. The marketing spend dollar continues to be down year-over-year past few quarters. Can you help us understand how we should think about marketing going forward?

Yes, Sarang, that's a great question. The marketing spend has been down over the last couple of quarters, and it's primarily due to us reallocating more spending upper funnel and taking away some of the lower ROAS bottom funnel activity. Now you're going to see that ramp up considerably as we go into late Q2 and into Q3 and Q4 as we hit America's 250th and a lot of our promotional windows that happen through the summer. So you will see an uptick. And again, year-over-year, we're looking at relatively the same level of spending on a percentage-of-sales basis. So we will spend more year-over-year on marketing in total.

I think it's important to reinforce, Sarang, which we've talked about before, that our marketing is, we believe, a substantial competitive advantage for us as a business. And the reality is it's a very efficient model for us. So we don't have to spend the same kind of percentages as some of our competitors in order to be able to get equal or even better results. Behind the scenes, we obviously track our brand awareness and attributes of our brand, and we feel great about how all of those things are progressing. The result of that, of course, is ultimately what we see as far as takeaway on the shelf. So dollars only tell a piece of the story for us. It's really impressions and quality impressions that become most important to us being able to build the brand over the long term.

Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Biolsi with Hedgeye.

How did your wholesale growth break down between price and volume in the quarter? Is it similar to the 22% unit to 9% price for the year?

Yes. Dan, overall, we had 21% growth in the quarter. About 6% of that came from pricing. The vast majority of the growth was unit growth for the quarter. For the year, pricing will begin to fade a bit as we get into the back half. Overall, unit growth will be the dominant driver of our top line this year, and that's driven by what Monz was talking about: velocity increases year-over-year, being in more doors, and an increase in average items carried. So it's really a volume-driven gain here. Pricing has helped, but it's not the primary driver of our upside.

And then did you see any change in the consumer behavior from higher fuel costs? And could you note any difference between like the C-stores or RTDs compared to your packaged coffee sales?

We're watching fuel costs and the potential impact on store traffic, but we are not seeing a clear effect yet. When fuel costs go up, there can be less store traffic generally, which could impact convenience, grocery and mass. As of right now, we are seeing pretty consistent unit and price growth across the grocery categories. Units as a category have been declining due to higher pricing, but our unit growth has been exceptionally strong despite that. In the case of convenience stores, categories that have been growing such as energy continue to grow. The declines in RTD coffee are starting to stabilize; they were worse a year ago and are now coming down into the low single digits. So while fuel costs are a watch item, we're not seeing a meaningful impact on our results yet.

Yes. We specifically looked at that quite a bit with regard to the convenience channel beginning in March and through April. We looked at it extensively, and we just couldn't see any impact yet with higher fuel cost impacting the category or the channel at all. Not that that couldn't happen, but we haven't seen those impacts yet.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to management for any final comments.

Yes. So thank you. As we close, I want to highlight a couple of key points for us. First, fundamentals of our business continue to strengthen. We're delivering growth that is increasingly driven by distribution gains, improved shelf productivity, and unit velocity. It's not just pricing. These gains are healthy and more durable and are going to carry us over the next two to three years. That is driven by our operating model and the actions that we've been taking over the last couple of years to simplify the business, improve cost discipline, and focus our resources, which are now really starting to translate into results. We are converting revenue into earnings more effectively than we have before, and we are generating positive cash flow. With all of that, we're maintaining flexibility on the balance sheet, and we'll continue to do that strategically in the business. Third, we're operating with greater control and visibility. Our 2026 outlook is grounded in confirmed drivers, as Matt talked about. These are not things we're still working on. We have secured them distribution-wise, pricing-wise, and productivity-wise. As we execute, we expect to build on the foundation throughout the year, and we'll continue to update you as that happens. Overall, we remain focused on disciplined execution, improving our earnings quality, and driving long-term shareholder value. I appreciate everybody's continued support. Look forward to updating you next quarter.

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