Welcome to the GURU Organic Energy Q1 2026 Results Conference Call and Webcast, being recorded today, March 12, 2026, at 10:00 A.M. Eastern Time. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following management's presentation, there will be a question and answer session with financial analysts. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star followed by zero for operator assistance at any time. GURU's press release, MD&A, and financial statements are available in the investor sections of its website and on SEDAR+. During the call, the company may refer to certain non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations are available in its MD&A. Also note that all financial figures are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. I would also like to remind you that today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements about GURU's current and future plans, expectations and intentions, results, level of activity, performance goals or achievements, or other future events or developments. Please take a moment to read the disclaimer on forward-looking statements on slide two of the presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Carl Goyette, GURU's Chief Executive Officer. Thank you, operator. Bonjour a tous. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to GURU's Fiscal 2026 Q1 R esults Conference Call. Joining me this morning is our CFO, Ingy Sarraf. Let's turn to slide five. Q1 2026 marks the third consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA and the strongest Q1 in GURU's history. We delivered record Q1 net revenue of CAD 8.8 million, up 14.7% year-over-year. Gross margin expansion to 63%, up 345 basis points. Our first EBITDA positive Q1 since going public, achieved during our seasonally softer quarter. Over the last several quarters, we have clearly demonstrated our ability to execute and deliver profitable growth. Our trailing twelve-month net revenue rose 17% alongside positive adjusted EBITDA of CAD 0.8 million, a defining achievement that underscores the strength of our business model and marks our first sustained period of growth with profitability as a public company. Let's turn to slide six for more details. In Canada, revenue increased 27.9% to CAD 7.2 million. This was driven by rigorous retail execution under the direct distribution model, continued zero sugar innovation momentum, improved promotional discipline, and pricing execution. The transition back to direct distribution is now fully embedded operationally, and we are seeing the benefits flow through both revenue growth and gross margin expansion. We now operate with greater agility, deeper retail engagement, and improved visibility across key banners. Turning to slide seven. In the U.S., Q1 performance was impacted by elevated distributor inventory levels entering the quarter, as well as strong prior year comparison driven by wholesale club timing. Despite these dynamics, underlying consumer demand remained strong. Consumer scan across our listed U.S. natural retail accounts, including Whole Foods, increased approximately 15% over the last 12 weeks. In addition, early Q2 shipments have shown encouraging signs of recovery, with February shipments up over 50% versus the prior year as distributor inventory levels normalize. Consumer scan data continues to support underlying demand strength. Beyond the near-term recovery, we're also actively in discussions with targeted distributors, partners, and retailers to expand our presence in the U.S. market. Over the past year, we have proven our ability to compete across our listed U.S. retail partners, reaching top-performing brand at Whole Foods, ranking among the top three natural brands in the natural channel, and delivering rapid growth on Amazon. These achievements underscore our confidence in GURU's significant long-term growth potential in the US. Turning to slide eight. We are very pleased with the evolution of Zero Sugar lineup. Since launching our Zero line in the spring of 2024, we have rapidly expanded to six Zero Sugar offerings, including two new sorbet-inspired innovations launched in Q1 and in Q2. Our Zero line is uniquely positioned as 100% organic, zero sugar, no sucralose, no aspartame. Within two years, we have built one of the most differentiated clean label zero sugar portfolio in the category. Our new sorbet-inspired series reflects our ability to innovate quickly while staying aligned with consumer demand for clean ingredients and modern flavor profiles, and it has already outperformed previous innovation launches. Innovation complements our core portfolio and remains a primary growth driver in Canada and a key velocity builder in the U.S. Given current momentum, we plan to launch more new products before year-end. I will now turn the call over to Ingy for a deeper look at our financial performance. Thank you, Carl, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide 10. Let me walk you through the key financial and balance sheet highlights for Q1 2026. Net revenue increased 14.7% to CAD 8.8 million, the highest Q1 in GURU's history, driven by strong Canadian performance, up 27.9%. Gross profit reached CAD 5.6 million, with gross margin expanding 345 basis points to 63.0% from 59.5% in Q1 2025. This improvement reflects the structural benefits of our direct distribution model in Canada, pricing discipline, trade optimization, and continued operational efficiencies. SG&A expenses were flat year-over-year at CAD 6.1 million, but improved significantly as a percentage of revenue, declining to 68.7% from 78.8%. Sales and marketing expenses decreased 7.6% to CAD 3.0 million, reflecting improved marketing efficiency and disciplined investment allocation. Net loss improved to CAD 0.3 million compared to CAD 1.3 million in Q1 2025, a 77.4% improvement driven by revenue growth, margin expansion, and disciplined expense management. Adjusted EBITDA reached CAD 0.01 million compared to a loss of CAD 1.1 million in Q1 2025. This marks our third consecutive EBITDA positive quarter and our first EBITDA positive Q1 since going public, achieved during our historically softer seasonal quarter, which further demonstrates structural operational leverage. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with CAD 28.2 million in cash equivalents and short-term investments, no debt, and CAD 10 million in unused credit facilities. Our strong liquidity position gives us the flexibility to continue investing in high return innovation, support distribution expansion, and maintain financial discipline. With that, I'll turn the call back to you, Carl, for closing remarks. Thank you, Ingy. Let's turn to slide 12. Q1 confirms three important structural shifts. First, we now operate with structurally improved gross margin profile. Second, we have demonstrated sustained operating leverage, delivering three consecutive EBITDA positive quarters. Third, our innovation engine, led by Zero Sugar, continues to strengthen our competitive positioning. Looking ahead, our priorities remain very clear. Expand distribution in high return channels. Continue scaling Zero Sugar line. Maintain pricing discipline and trade efficiency. Protect gross margin while selectively investing in growth. We are proud of the progress achieved over the last 12 months. We are energized by the momentum entering Q2, and we remain committed to disciplined execution as we continue our path forward our path towards sustained profitability. Merci. Thank you. Operator will now open the call to questions. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. At any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Our first question comes from Martin Landry with Stifel. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, Carl and Ingy. Good morning, Martin. Good morning, Martin. I was wondering if it would be possible, in order to get a better appreciation of your performance at retail, if we could get your scan data in Canada at retail during the quarter and any comment on your performance at retail that at retail channels that are not tracked, that would be super helpful. Yeah, of course, Martin. For consistency, I'll give you the combination of tracked and untracked, which is the more reliable measure for us. That number is at +15% versus last year. If we look at the last 12 weeks versus the 12 weeks, the same 12 weeks last year, we're up 15%. That's really driven by untracked. Within untracked you see club, the club channel driving a lot, Dollar Channel and Ecom. That's really where the growth is coming from the U.S. a s I said in my remarks, the U.S. is the same. It's around 15% as well. One other thing that I think might be worth mentioning is we conduct a brand tracker a couple times a year. We survey consumers to track our brand performance, and it looks at all sorts of brand metrics like awareness and consideration. One important metric that I wanted to share with you, Martin, was what we call past six months purchases. It somewhat measures household penetration and how many people try our brand. On that we've seen a significant increase over the last quarter. Last year we had a number around 25% of consumers who had purchased GURU in the last six months, and this year it went up to 29%. That's usually a really good indicator of trial, which is a good leading indicator to market share growth. When this indicator has grown in the past, we saw a share growth grow further along after that. We thought that was a positive one that we could share with you, Martin, this morning. The short answer to your answer is 15% growth. Yeah. Thank you. Super. Thanks for the color on the brand tracker. That's interesting. Just going back on the scan data performance in Canada, up 15%. How does that compare to the industry? It's a little bit ahead. Obviously what we see from the industry is on track, so it's a little bit ahead of what we see on track. We don't have visibility on other brands and on track, obviously. So yeah, the industry has grown both in Canada and the U.S. The industry has been growing very healthy. The last number I saw was around 10%, but it varies week to week and month to month. But it's been really around the range of 10%-15%. Our goal is always to grow faster than the industry, and because we believe our brand has so much potential. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for that. Any comments you can share, Carl, on how Q2 is tracking so far? Yes. Especially in Canada, Carl, you gave a lot of information on the U.S. that was helpful, but maybe a bit more on Canada. Yeah. It's still very early, only six weeks in. Sometimes we speak, and we're a little bit deeper in the quarter, so it's a little bit harder to say. As I said in my remarks, the U.S., like we thought was really important, like gives you that visibility, especially that the February was really strong at 50%. What I can say about Canada is that, so far, you know, it's aligned to our plans, so there is no surprise in the last month. It's aligned to our plans. It's aligned to what we wanna achieve. Usually, Q2 is for us, like Q1 is always a little bit of a slower seasonal quarter, like we've seen in pretty much every single year in the past. Q2 is hopefully the spring, and the sun is gonna show up in Canada. That's usually always helpful. Our brand tends to be somehow a little bit more seasonal than in the industry. Somehow our consumers are a little bit, I guess they purchase a little bit less as a habit. When the sun starts shining and the weather is nicer, we see it go up significantly. We will dial this up with a lot of activities. We just announced a launch of the new Zero Orange Raspberry Sorbet. Not only are we launching this, but there's a marketing campaign that's gonna come and support this. We have some spring activations in Costco, so stay tuned for that. We have some exciting stuff that's coming on the way. Obviously purely from a field activation, especially in the convenience stores, but also in the grocery stores, spring is usually a season where we see a lot more activity than in Q1. Like November, December, January is not a big activity month for energy drinks versus the spring. A lot of exciting things coming in Canada. Too early to give you any sort of guidance on where we're gonna finish, but lots of positive things going in the quarter. Okay. Thank you. My last question, you know, you have talked a little bit about the U.S. It looks like it's a growth engine for you guys. Last year, you've added two new board members that are American. I was wondering, you know, how helpful have they been to unlock some opportunities for you guys in the U.S.? If you can, just give us a little bit of color as to how that's played out for you guys. Yeah, of course. First, it's been great to bring people who have the experience, the knowledge of the U.S. market and people who have done it before, who understand how big of a challenge this is for us, right? Who are really deeply committed to making it work and believe in the potential of this brand. That's been very refreshing for me and the management team to be surrounded by board members like this. That's the first thing. Obviously, like, board members are not there to do our job. They're there to support us, and that's exactly what they've been doing. Like, I would say the biggest benefit would be around clarity and alignment around the strategy. You know, we've been able to bounce this back, go back to who our consumer is, where they shop, where we should market, what should be the right strategy. Having U.S. board members really helped us bring clarity and alignment. That clarity and alignment really helps us from a speed of execution point of view. I would say this is at a higher level, and I understand your question might be a little bit more tactical around what do they do for you, and there are a few examples of this, right? First and foremost, their role is on strategy, but they have been able to help us, like opening new doors, opening doors with retailers, distributors, contacts on from a support, from a marketing support, point of view, bringing new people that can help us either on a fractional point of view or also on a permanent basis. It's been really helpful and really thankful that they're there with us. Super. Thanks for all the color, guys, and best of luck. Thank you, Martin. The next question comes from Sean McGowan with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Sean. Good morning, Ingy. I have a couple of modeling questions, but first, I wanted to ask something, kind of bigger picture call. The category both in the U.S. and in Canada, I think it's been performing better than anybody since like a year ago. I think we're kind of afraid that we'll be facing a lot of difficult comparisons in 2026. So far, you know, the category is outperforming my expectations anyway. Are you as a company doing anything different because of that category growth? You know, are you more aggressive? Or are you pouncing on more opportunities? Or is it affecting your strategy in any other way? Well, it on our side, it really confirms our strategy. We're on the right path, right? We're still a very small player in this huge industry that keeps growing beyond, I would say, most people's wildest expectations. It just makes the category a lot more attractive. For us, even if the category wasn't growing, there's still so much room for us to grow as a better for you option in this massive industry that we're happy to see the industry growing, but there's still a lot of room to grow for us, even if the industry wasn't growing. Obviously we're happy that there's new consumers coming into this category every week, every day. It just reaffirms that we're on the right path. Because if you look at what's driving, if you dive a little bit deeper and you dive into what's driving the category growth, right, it's there are a few things. First, it's zero sugar. Zero sugar is really driving the growth. There's also a notion of cleaner ingredients. Sometimes it's perceived, like many brands are growing and are perceived as being cleaner, even though they're not necessarily cleaner. We offer a real clean, organic, better for you option, and we think long term this is gonna pay off. The other thing that's really driving growth is anything around flavors, right? A lot of flavor innovations, nostalgic flavors, playing on nostalgia and stuff, and so we are playing in that as well. On those three fronts that are driving the growth, we are there. As I mentioned in my remarks, we launched six zero sugar SKUs in the last two years. I think this is remarkable. I think the team should get some credit for that. It's been a lot of work, and we're very proud of the performance of this. In a nutshell, I would say this is it. Obviously, with so much potential, the work is in our camp. There's a lot of competition because the industry is so attractive, so we need to do the work to put more eyeballs on our brand. We need to put more liquid on lips. We need to get more people to try GURU, because once they try GURU, we know how well and how much they repeat. That's always been the strongest part of our brand is once people try it, they repeat so much. Need to get more people into GURU. Yeah, that's a good segue then to the other modeling question, because one of the things we're hearing from the Monster and Celsius is you know, new users coming in, but also more occasions, you know, kind of increased frequency or times that people will drink energy drinks that are not just, you know, I'm about to work out or I'm feeling pooped, you know, or I'm playing video games. There's a lot more occasions. Given that, does that lead to any changes in your plans for distribution, you know, outside of kind of the traditional cadre that is so important to the category? Does it open up potential for expanding distribution even further? The short answer is yes, but I would say it's all anchored in the consumer, as I've mentioned before. We start with who is the GURU consumer? Where do they shop? What are the main occasions that we can go after? What are they looking for? Like, once you have clarity on that, which we do, it becomes much easier to say, okay, which occasions are we going after, which retailers are going after? Our plans in the last few years, we've been quite transparent, are aligned to that, right? We've been very clear that e-commerce, Amazon was a big portion of our plan. We've put a lot more efforts on the club channel. Because the category is becoming more mainstream, and as the category is becoming more mainstream, it's, you know, some people are saying energy is the new soda. It's replacing some coffee occasions, right? We try to capture this. As category is becoming more mainstream or it's a household staple, people are buying a little bit more in bulk, right? Especially the health-conscious white collar consumer that we're targeting, which is less, a little bit less of a convenience channel, especially outside of Quebec. In Quebec, our consumer is mainstream, so they do shop in convenience. Outside of Quebec, we have a consumer that tends to stock up, right, on GURU. They want to have GURU in their pantry. This is where, you know, take home format, for example, is something that we wanna look at. Variety packs is something that we are increasingly putting emphasis on, right? It's really part of a how do we align with a category that's really becoming mainstream, and that's part of really multiple day parts. Energy drinks are no longer something that you consume once in a while because you're falling asleep. It's really becoming something that people have as a daily habit, and that's really what's driving the growth, right? I think another growth driver for some of the other companies has been identifying maybe where they were weak with the female consumer. I don't think that's the weakness that GURU has had traditionally, but even Celsius, which was pretty well balanced, has picked up a lot, you know, more penetration into the female user. Is this something that, you know, you would consider, or do you feel like you're already pretty well balanced? Yeah, we're very well-balanced. Obviously, we're more balanced than the industry. The industry has been historically a lot more masculine, and that's changing gradually, especially with some new brands that are coming that are really female specific. We have always kept this brand very balanced from that point of view, and that's our intention, like, to remain like this. Okay. If I can shift over to some modeling questions for Ingy. Can you talk a little bit about the phasing of revenue this year? Is there anything kind of unusual that we should expect? You know, you did call out the U.S. being down in the Q1 but up a lot in February. What other issues year- over- year should we be looking at in terms of phasing of revenue? From a Q2 standpoint, even the club experience that we had in the U.S. last year in Q1 had a bit also in Q2. Other than that, no, but in Q2 we're good on that front. In Q3, remember it was the Q1 post PepsiCo, so there was a one-time adjustment there, so that's something to look out for. After that, it should be fine in Q4. We have good things planned like we did last year. I don't see any other top of mind kind of things. Can you talk a little bit about what drove the, you know, the gross margin expansion? Was there anything unusual? Is there anything that's gonna reverse itself? You know, what should we expect there at the gross margin level? The gross margin expansion was really a structural change, right? That came with the direct distribution and continued promotional and trade spend kind of rigor and discipline. Same thing from a cost standpoint. It's really structural change and not one-time items that we're seeing at the gross margin level. Okay, helpful. How about the marketing expenses? They were lower than I thought they would be. Is that a timing issue or you're just getting a lot more bang for the buck? Well, there's two things in there. There is, of course, the fact like we've been saying, right, Sean, and you know, we're working hard to make sure we invest in high return initiatives, very targeted. There's that mindset and that discipline that's really something that we're embracing and making sure we continue. Of course, there's some timing, like Carl mentioned, much lower seasonality period in Q1. You'll see much more activity in Q2, Q3 with our innovations and with consumers coming out to play, right? Especially in Quebec, you know how it is. We just passed a severe ice storm, and we can't wait for the nice weather. That's what comes with activation. Tell me about it. I'm looking at my phone, it's telling me how warm it is where I used to live. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Sean. Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Carl Goyette for any closing remarks. I just wanna thank everybody for joining us and, sharing good energy. Have a great day. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.