Hi, everybody. My name's Jim Salera. I'm the packaged food and beverage analyst here at Stephens. With us today from Utz Brands are Howard Friedman, CEO, and Kevin Powers, SVP of Investor Relations. Thank you both for joining us. Hey, good morning, Jim. Hey, good morning. Howard, I wanted to start off with a high-level question. It's been a challenging year, not just for salty snacks, but I think for snacking categories more broadly. Can you just offer some thoughts around what you think is driving this consumer pullback from what's historically been a very resilient category? Yeah. I think, first of all, if you think about sort of the growth that we've seen over the last couple of years in the category, obviously it has historically been, call it a 4%-5% category. And over the last couple, you've seen significant double-digit growth. So I think there's a little bit of a natural pause that comes from that growth. You kind of eventually, you'll see consumers settle into their new normal and the buying continues. But I think that there is a little bit of a, there can be a little bit of a pause. I think secondly, without getting into the overall basket that the consumer is competing with, where their budgets are, I think you see consumers making choices. We're fortunate that we're an affordable indulgence, right? It's not a significant outlet expenditure for consumers to be able to buy. But I think that there has been a broader challenge as consumers are kind of thinking about where they're spending their dollars as they go, but look, I think we're a great category. We continue to be. You look at consumer engagement in the category, household penetration, buy rate are all very strong, and we continue to be bullish on salty in general and snacking as we go forward. Great. Back in your Investor Day in December of last year, you laid out the components of your organic net sales growth target, which part of that was salty snacks category growth of 2%-3%. Is that still the right way to think about the category? And if so, what do you think it takes to get the category back on pace from this year into next year? Yeah. I mean, I think if you went back to, if you went back to Investor Day, the one thing that we did was to say two things. One, we took, I think, relatively what we believed to be a conservative view at the time. We were talking about, call it a 0%-1% volume and a 2% price. Obviously, now as we're getting into November, that assumption turned out not to be conservative, but probably more aggressive than we would have expected. It's really been a lot more on that price line, which has been a little bit softer, and as you've certainly seen more promotional activity and pricing in general in the category being more of a challenge, but I think if you think about this category and what makes it so compelling, it is a brand-led innovation and communication category first, pricing second. And I think that as consumers adjust and as we continue to see that the external environment normalize some, we will continue to be an innovation and marketing-led category first and then pricing second. And so I think as those muscles kind of re-engage the shopper, I think you'll see the category continue to improve. You touched on a couple of interesting things there that I think Utz has done particularly well in the last couple of years, innovation and kind of distinct product offerings. Against the backdrop of this more challenged environment for salty snacks, your brand portfolio has, for the most part, outperformed the category. What do you think has been driving that outperformance this year? And are there any brands in your portfolio that you are particularly encouraged by, whether it's strong innovation or strong consumer engagement with the core product line? I think first, one of the things we said at Investor Day, and I think remains true, is part of what's compelling about our business is that we are not only dependent on the category. We have a pretty significant distribution white space opportunity still. And as you think about kind of where, as we are continuing to advance our portfolio westward, we've obviously had some success with Publix in the south, that we believe that we have an opportunity to be a portfolio that's coast to coast with meaningful representation. And I think you see that playing out quite a bit. Our expansion markets where we're introducing our brands is working reasonably well. And we're seeing good both consumer and customer acceptance of the items. We are continuing to see incrementality for both for our business as well as for our retailers as consumers opt into the portfolio. I think as you look specifically about the brands, I think everybody who runs brands would say, "We love all of our brands," which I think is true. But we do love all of our brands because they all play unique and different roles. If you look at our Power Four brands, Utz, Zapp's, Boulder Canyon, and On The Border, those brands are all growing well. They're a great product, I think, at a fair price that allows the consumer to opt in at whatever place on the price ladder that they wish to compete in. But it also allows retailers to differentiate themselves. So they're not competing exclusively on the most dominant SKUs in the most dominant brands. If you are an affluent retailer, we have a portfolio for you. If you're targeting more mainstream consumers, we have a portfolio for you. If you're looking for the value consumer, we have a portfolio for you. And it allows the retailer to curate their assortment beyond our power four to actually have something that allows them to differentiate as well, backed by a hybrid distribution model where they can choose DSD or direct to warehouse. Obviously, our IO partners are critical and provide a great service to the retailer. And we're pretty proud of the partnership that we have across. So you mentioned pricing a couple of times, both in Utz value positioning and then as potentially something that the category has struggled to adjust to over the past year or so. Typically, in retail, you'll see when branded players take pricing, private label has an opportunity to gain share and gain households. Salty snack category has typically had a relatively small share, private label. Does the current macro invite either more private label SKUs? We've seen a lot of retailers expand the number of private label brands that they have, or does it just encourage more promotion from the national brand? How should we think about that dynamic? Yeah. Look, I think we are, as a category, much less developed in private label because we have historically been an innovation and marketing and perimeter placement portfolio, our category. Retailers didn't have to compete exclusively on private label in order to make sure that the entire price ladder is healthy and that the category is growing. So I think it's just a tribute to the fact that we are a brand-first category is why private label tends to show up in kind of two different groups. There is the group where the private label brand, the item is a differentiator for that retailer in how they choose to compete. And in those cases, private label will be there because it needs to be. Otherwise, from time to time, it shows up in these cycles. It kind of shows up when a retailer thinks that their shopper's needs are not fully being met, and then it goes away as that sort of normalizes. The environment will continue to be promotional. We are still less promotional than others and still less promotional than you've seen in, call it back to 2019, but I think what you will see us doing, and I think what you see the market doing is competing still on value as a pillar, communication, and innovation are always going to be led first, and that's the best way to keep a healthy category. You mentioned promotion, and I want to drill down on that, but maybe one follow-up question on private label. On the innovation front, again, we've seen a lot of retailers kind of expand the number of private label brands they have in their portfolio. Have you seen in those new brands offerings that are tilted towards salty snacks, or do they tend to be other categories? And it really hasn't been very innovative from the private label front in salty snacks. Well, look, I think that the category in general actually brings innovation. Salty specifically brings innovation. I think that I would never be remiss if I were to say that I don't know that the shopper looks at something like Hot and Spicy and says, "That's a brand choice. It's really a product offering choice that you see across all brands," or, "Some of the better for you oils are showing up." Obviously, our Boulder Canyon has got a non-seed oil that we're very pleased and consumer acceptance has been very strong. But I think the innovation that you'll see will continue across all price tiers and all price ladder levels over time. Okay, so going back to promotions, we've seen an increase in promotions this year. I believe the overall level of volume sold on promotion remains below pre-COVID levels. I guess first, does that viewpoint match with what you're seeing? And if it does, should we expect promotions in the category to be, let's say, more tactical or surgical going forward? Yeah, it does match what we see. And obviously, it depends on the class of trade that you're talking about. But we certainly see that the overall promotional intensity is getting more intense, but still below that 2019 levels. And part of that is because, again, brands matter. And I think that when you look at what the shopper who's shopping on value is looking for, it's not just absolute price. It's the product quality, it's the item, and it's also the class of trade in which they're shopping all come together. And I think that what you find with at least what I see from our competitors and from us is a focused way to make sure that we're getting the shopper what they want, which is value, and making sure that we do that in the most effective way possible. So if we have to do it on price, we'll be disciplined and focused. If we can do it in product quality and investment in the brand and our portfolio, we will do that as well. But it's the whole marketing mix, Jim. The salty snacks category obviously has a very large share leader in the category that I would imagine sets the price on pricing. How should we think about, make a two-part question, pricing for the category going into next year and pricing in your brand portfolio going into next year? And maybe if I can add a third part to that question, how you feel about kind of the relative price gaps or your position on the price ladder? Yeah. So obviously for us, price gaps are always, to your point, kind of indexed based on kind of how you think about the ladder. So where is the branded leader? Where are the value players? And kind of where do we feel like we sit? I think we feel very good about the discipline that we've now applied to our price gaps. And so if they have to evolve, they will. We're committed to maintaining them. But as of right now, we feel good about where they sit and where they reside from where we are. I think that as you think about the category, obviously you saw a lot more promotion in the summer months, certainly from, call it June through August, you saw a lot greater intensity across a whole lot of market participants. And I think that what we would say is that that was really a reflection on the fact that in some cases, we didn't go as far because we had not taken pricing earlier in the year. So we were not catching up per se on where we wanted to, how we want to think about and compete on value. But what we also said was that we would be focused and targeted in making investments into the category where we need to be able to compete, which we have done. I think that you're going to see the category continue to do that. There will be a disciplined approach to how we invest in price and how we invest in value and making sure that as you think about next year, I think pricing will be more in line with what you're seeing right now than you might have seen earlier in the year. Okay. Thinking about the dynamics that some of the consumer softness has created this year, again, for the category as a whole, does it actually create potential for opportunity for Utz to gain better on-shelf presence, particularly in expansion geographies where you might have retail partners that are looking to kind of inject some fresh blood into the category to maybe bring new consumers or appeal to new households? Yeah. I think regardless of the consumer pressure, that is always our selling proposition, right? That we offer a range of products that consumers are interested in buying. You can see it in our household metrics. Our household penetration is growing. Our buy rate is strong. And then normally when you see households grow, you normally will see that the incrementality will drop a little bit, right? Because if the three of us bought the product, one of us may not stick. And we actually see something different. We see people who are buying the product that we're seeing similar levels of loyalty after the fact, which is actually we're very proud of. But the reason a retailer comes to us is, first of all, we believe that we are exclusively focused on salty. So we pay attention to the portfolio. Second, they can differentiate their portfolio with us. Third, our IO partners do a great job. And then fourth, we invest into the category and drive shopper enthusiasm, which leads to an overall increased sales in the category. So keeping on that same trend and retailers really trying to have salty as a key category across the store, we've seen some mass retailers in particular expand better for you offerings in other legacy category sets like carbonated soft drinks. I think as consumer preferences shift, obviously the retailers want to have on-shelf composition that reflects that. Do you think that the composition of the products on shelf in the salty aisle will change and we'll see more better for you brands kind of mixed in with mainstream brands, whereas traditionally they've been in other parts of the store? Yeah. Look, I think what retailers do best is curate their assortment and make sure that they get the placement right for how their shopper wants to shop. And I think what you see is as brands sort of move out of a different set and into the mainstream of any aisle, I think that is part of what good category management is. I think if you look at our portfolio, obviously our non-seed oil with Boulder Canyon, we have a no-salt item on Utz. And our offerings will continue to address those consumer needs. And I think what you're seeing right now is some of the distribution gains that we're seeing is a retailer response to what the shopper wants. And whether it's in non-seed or other things, I think we'll see. But obviously better for you snacking is an area where I think there's a fair bit of interest from the shopper and from consumers right now. Howard, you took my bait because my next question is on Boulder Canyon. Since you brought it up, it's one of my favorite brands in your portfolio. At Investor Day, you said you were targeting, I believe, $100 million in retail sales by 2026. I think we're on pace to do that very soon. Is it possible to achieve that by the end of this year? If not, how should we think about what's driven the consumer engagement with that brand clearly ahead of what your expectations were just a year ago? Yeah. So we will be at $100 million or so this year. So we're very proud of the brand. It's obviously grown very quickly. I think a couple of things are true. Its proposition is really around this non-seed oil area. And so when consumers are shopping, if that is your preference, it's a great product. The chip is very good. And then the innovation that we're seeing is consistently turning out to be incremental for us and for the retailer. The second is we have great retailer partnerships specifically on that brand and others as well. But when you go in and retailers want to talk about how we can grow the brand together, how we can innovate together, what else we can do to experiment with this product, it really obviously puts a wind in that sail. And we've seen both of those things true happening this year. Good distribution gains, good customer partnerships, and a great product is a pretty good recipe for success. So if we think about tying that all together, the value proposition is unique. It's still primarily, correct me if I'm wrong, but primarily a natural channel. How should we think about the upside to increase Boulder's distribution into mass, into traditional FDM? And do you think that the brand can really compete for a mainstream consumer that would otherwise be eating one of your large competitors' products? Yeah. Look, I think what Boulder offers, yes, I do believe that over time it can continue to migrate. I think it's really important that we continue to make sure that we're innovating across all of the classes of trade because right now what makes Boulder different and unique is not only the product and the consumer, but also those retailer partnerships, and they're important for us. So you will continue to see us expand the distribution and continue to grow it. I think Boulder will continue to grow above a lot of our portfolio over the next year or two as we continue to innovate and drive further distribution. I think the other thing that for us and for the retailer what Boulder does is it actually gives us a premium tier of the price ladder, so we feel we're talking a lot about Boulder. We love our Utz brand. We love our Zapp's brand. We love On The Border as well, all of which have unique and distinct propositions. What Boulder does is it actually allows for yet another territory for us to appeal across the category, and I think that that will continue to be true, and we certainly see people who are willing to spend a little bit more money for a product that everybody enjoys eating and that there is a great return on taste that they'll continue to reach for it. You mentioned one other brand I wanted to touch on, On the Border. That's another subcategory within salty where I think your brand has outperformed the broader category and much larger players. Again, Utz gets a lot of play and Boulder gets a lot of play, at least for me. Which we appreciate. What do you think for On The Border is that value proposition that has been driving the consumer engagement we've seen there, again, relative to some of the larger competitors in that subcategory? Yeah. Look, I think one of the things obviously On The Border actually is rooted in its restaurant origins, right? It's a great product. Actually, if you were to eat it versus some others, it does have a distinct taste profile, which I think appeals to our consumers. And I think from a pricing perspective and from where it sits on the price ladder, I think it's at an accessible price point. So you have a great product at an accessible price point that allows the quality to come through. And I think it competes pretty well. So I want to dig in on your productivity savings in a minute. But while we're talking about the different brand value propositions and how that drives consumer engagement, I want to talk about the benefit you've seen from what's been a significant step up in marketing spend, which is one of the benefits of the productivity savings. Is there any way that you can quantify the impact of the marketing spend? Or if not, can you talk about areas where you've seen heavier marketing, how that changes consumer engagement? Yeah. So the running joke in my office is something has to pay for all this, right? And certainly the productivity, I know we'll talk about it in a minute. But one of our philosophies is that we make money before we spend money. And this year we committed to a 40% marketing increase. We're actually going to be north of 60% this year. As the productivity came through, it gave us the resources to be able to invest. And the first two brands out of the gates were Zapp's and Utz. And if you've watched any of the connected TV that you can see out there, if anybody's been watching football, you actually see some of our marketing showing up versus in a traditional linear TV, which we're not doing. It is actually showing up on TV sets and connected devices, which is great. I think what you're seeing early is, and you can see this in both the consumer loyalty metrics as well as the household penetration, that our marketing is, while still not the largest number I've ever seen, I think will be circling around 1% plus a little bit this year. So still a little bit not the primary driver. But what you're seeing is in the markets where we are entering and in the ads that we're doing on Utz and Zapp's, you actually are seeing consumer engagement increasing and the returns are pretty good so far. You brought up something that I think is important to follow up on, which is the connected TV and kind of the advertising channels. So maybe a two-part question. When you're looking about or looking at getting the highest efficiency, the highest return on your advertising, are those, whether it's connected TV, social media, I'll say kind of new age marketing channels, do you find that you get either better visibility with the engagement or you know who you're targeting more accurately? Or just any thoughts around the benefit from that? Yeah. Actually, I think it's three things. One is you do have, if you think about our distribution gains in our portfolio, it is most effective for us to be able to try and target our consumer where they are, right? And where we know that we have sufficient availability that they can then act on the awareness that we're generating and actually convert. And so a lot of that media allows us to target in a much more effective way. Second is you can actually see the returns. And so you can tailor your spend. If something is working really well, a piece of creative, an offer is working remarkably well, you can increase that. And if something else is not working, that's fine. So the data and availability of consumer response is much faster. And so that suits us. And then the third is really, if you think about how we're coming to market right now, as we are introducing our items, the opportunity to sit across from a retailer and talk about these are the things that we are specifically doing in your markets toward your shopper. And this is why you should partner with us beyond all of the loyalty metrics, beyond the incrementality. Here are the things we're investing to put shoppers into your box. That also is something that we can then point to directly with them and plan it together. What type of messaging should we think about as being the most impactful? Or do you think it's the most important to communicate to your consumer or potential consumers? And does that messaging change depending on if it's in your core geographies or expansion geographies? Yeah. Well, it definitely changes if it's in our core versus our expansion geographies just because of the amount of equity that we have, right? You can't really do an ad when nobody's ever heard of you and kind of do it at a pure equity play. So what you're seeing right now on something like Utz, it's a lot about our taste and crunch and how the eating experience exists, as well as a nod to the heritage of over 100 years of making this product having started in Hanover, Pennsylvania. As we get further away from our core, we tend to be a little bit more benefit-driven or awareness-driven of this is who we are and this is what you should be thinking about when you think to opt in when you experience us for the first time on the perimeter. So it will vary depending. But over time, we would aspire to and we would expect to continue to move up and make it more about the equity and more balanced in the product. Maybe one more final question on sales. How should we think about the sales funnel in the expansion geographies? And you mentioned kind of educating the consumer on what makes Utz unique. Is that marketing spend really the key driver to get the consumer to engage with the brand and then you can kind of toss them between brands? Or is it really they find one brand, they come in in that brand, and you got to bring people individually to each brand in the portfolio? Yeah. I think it really kind of depends on what the consumer is consuming, right? And so really generally what you find is in each of the major subcategories, it tends to be a brand-led, right? I think the one difference for us is Utz is actually significant in a couple of different subcategories. But if you're going to advertise On the Border, you're going to be advertising tortilla chips, right? If you're going to be advertising Utz, you're bringing them in either on potato chips or on pretzels. And I think so what we typically do is we drive impulse first. So think about perimeter placement through our independent operators and end cap in a new geography as supported by some product in the aisle as well. And then a lot of consumers will interact with the product for the first time, kind of walking the perimeter of a store. Then our goal is to make sure that we are then driving awareness in that geography as we enter, and we will introduce you to the rest of the portfolio. If you look at Utz taste and crunch over everything, that applies just as effectively to potato chips as it does to pretzels as it does to the rest of our mixes. So it's a nice core promise that if you buy an Utz brand, this is what you're going to get, whether it is in a Pub Mix or it is in a potato chip or pretzel. And so you're going to see impulse first, customer-specific retailer.com support, as well as some awareness driving as kind of our marketing mix as we enter. Okay. I'm going to stop there and see if there's any questions from the audience before we go into the productivity savings. Great. Howard, if we go back and look at your EBITDA margin breakdown from 3Q, I think you saw a 400 basis point lift from productivity savings and then obviously partially offset by some other expenses. But can you give us a sense for what types of changes you're making to unlock that much value in your supply chain? Yeah. Look, I think a couple of things. First of all, I think we said at investor day, we were still on the earlier stages of our productivity journey, right? And we are committed to $135 million over three years. And it's really being driven by a few things. One is a benefit of scale. As we've gotten bigger and started to focus on these things, you find cost that really shouldn't necessarily be there. There's efficiencies that you can gain talking to your vendors and suppliers about the cost that they give you and the complexity you create for them. So we built out a procurement function that has done a great job of being able to drive meaningful savings in just how and what we buy and in the format we do it to make sure that both sides of the partnership are being as efficient as possible. I think second, within our manufacturing facilities, we've been investing some of the margin that we've been saving. We've been building into capability building. And that's Integrated Work Systems. It's starting to invest in automation. We still have a lot of hand packing and hand palletizing work that over time, what it does is it takes our hourly associates who could be doing other things and actually creating greater value and doing things that are critically important to the enterprise right now, but we can solve that through the use of and investing in capital. And then the third thing we've been doing is we're trying to become a lot more simple, right? So over the last year or so, if you look actually at the beginning of this past year, you saw us transact. We sold a couple of brands. We also sold a couple of manufacturing facilities. We went from 15 when I started to 8 now. We have not yet started insourcing that volume per se, but we're working to ready ourselves to do that as we go into next year. And so a lot of this is just early returns on being more focused on it, being much more thoughtful about where we incur cost and building capabilities in our associates to be able to save money. So you mentioned a lot of good things there. And Howard, I believe you're Yankees fan, so I don't mean to reopen a fresh wound by making you put something in baseball terms. We can always fall back on the junk, well, we can't do that either. I'm from Pittsburgh. I'm a Pirates fan, so it could always be worse. But if we want to put the remaining opportunity for your productivity programs in baseball terms, what inning would you say that we're in? Yeah. So if you were to talk to Mitch Arends, who is the Chief Integrated Supply Chain Officer, he would tell you he thinks of it more as cricket. But I don't really know cricket well enough yet to use his terms. Look, I would tell you we're maybe in the top of the third. And what I would tell you is I think in the early innings, it's really about just doing what you do smarter and better. The middle innings tend to be about wearing in those capabilities and making the investments that we need to. And then the late innings are going to be about continuing to deliver world-class levels of productivity every year because the opportunity to manage your costs and to cover them is an ongoing effort that anybody who's in consumer goods should be able to do 3%. And obviously, we're going to be significantly ahead of that in the near term, but we should at maturity be just like everybody else in terms of being able to manage it and control our costs. Do you find that as you're still kind of going through the initial process of unlocking some of these productivity savings that once you finish one project that you find, "Hey, there's another opportunity here that we weren't even thinking about," or that's kind of uncovered incremental savings that requires you to do some of the first processes, get them finished with before you have visibility into that? Yeah. Look, I think people always talk about low-hanging fruit, right? And I think what you find in the early phases of this type of work is in some cases, there's fruit on the ground that just frankly has to be absorbed and it plants new trees. And so there's certainly a case where we are seeing good levels of productivity. As you finish a project, new projects naturally spawn for us to continue to manage the cost. I think the thing that we're most excited about is the opportunity that the savings affords us for our associates, for the consumer, for us to be better at what we do and continuing to drive our growth as we go forward because the savings is great. Being able to continue to drive our top line is critically important to us long-term to make sure that the flywheel continues to fly. So at your investor day, you laid out a target for 16% adjusted EBITDA margin by 2026. Sitting here today, how do you feel you are on pace to deliver that? And then obviously, if I can add, potentially exceed that as you start to uncover these productivity savings opportunities? Yeah. Look, I mean, I actually naturally start with the gross margin because everything after the gross margin is always somewhat discretionary, right? I think we feel very good about 16. And it was, when I got here, the two questions that I traditionally got was, "What are you doing about your leverage and when are you going to get to 16?" And so we showed our math at investor day to say, "Here is what we're doing about our leverage and here's how we get to 16." And I think we're on schedule to do that. I think more really I would tell you first, "Let me get to 16." But I think more is rooted in as we are seeing higher levels of productivity, what do you do with that money? And the one thing we're committed to is being excellent stewards of shareholders' money. And if we think that there are opportunities in investing in growth and investing in our assets and reinvesting back in the business, we'll do that. If the right answer is to let it fall through or something else, then we'll do that as well. But right now, let us get to 16. That's fair. Thinking about the commodity basket since you brought up gross margins being a key driver, how should we think about commodity costs going forward, both if you can offer any color for 2025, but just kind of at a higher level, given that it seems like there's still pockets where there's pretty inflationary commodities, but in general, it seems to kind of normalize? How do you think about managing that going forward? And like I said, if you can offer any thoughts for 2025? Yeah. Look, I mean, one of the things that as you build out a procurement organization is to make sure that you have people who not only know the commodities, but understand what the market looks like and what the environment is. And I feel great about the procurement organization that we've built and the partnerships that they're building with our suppliers to contain our cost up and down the value chain. So I think that will be something we'll continue to focus on. And part of that is also just long-term relationships with our suppliers to say, "Again, where are there areas where we cause them to have inefficiency and can we do things differently?" I think we're not even in that discussion quite yet with them. So I think that that, I think, continues to help us. In terms of next year, I would tell you, yeah, there are pockets of inflation. There are pockets of deflation. I think we think on average, we're going to be flattish for next year and not too concerned at this point about what the inflation basket looks or the cost basket looks like next year. Great. You mentioned a couple of different options for deploying some of the incremental savings from these productivity programs. Understand the debt pay down and that whole piece. If you look at your brand portfolio, are there any categories you feel you're either missing out on or underpenetrated in? And do you think that your existing brands have enough, I don't know if credibility is the right word, but have enough ability to flex into new categories? Or would you potentially consider doing a tuck-in acquisition to bring a brand that maybe gives you exposure to a category you don't have exposure to now? Yeah. Look, I mean, obviously, the two places where we have talked publicly before about if you look at our portfolio, popcorn is a subcategory where we are underrepresented. And obviously, meat snacks is another area where we have-we understand where that market is and we think that there could be something interesting there over time. I think that to buy or to build is always the question. And I would never say that we can't continue to-we can build things on our own. You see it with Boulder Canyon launching and Canyon Poppers. You saw it in Zapp's a year ago entering into the pretzel category. You'll continue to see us in the categories that we really understand, continuing to see where our brands have consumer acceptance in those subcategories. But as the thing is, you go further afield, you almost have to look at tuck-in acquisition over time. And our history would say when we do those sorts of things, we're very good at it. We integrate well. We buy at a fair price, and we're good stewards of the shareholders' money when we make those choices. But right now, we have so much organic opportunity that we'll continue to focus on driving our organic growth story. And if things come up, we'll obviously always take a look. Great. Are there any innovations or LTOs in the pipeline you could tease for the upcoming year? Yeah. Well, look, I think we're very happy with the innovation that we've had this year. We actually have launched a wavy item under Boulder Canyon. We've also brought out some flavored, I think it's cheddar sour cream also in Boulder Canyon. If you haven't tried it yet, you should. We launched our Big Cheezy potato chip this year with Zapp's. And so you'll continue to see us having a nod to our city of origin in New Orleans and continuing to innovate there as well. And you'll also continue to see some LTO work and some innovation really in hot and spicy under the Utz brand. So we like our innovation strategy. We're getting good consumer acceptance and customer acceptance as we're launching things. We're launching fewer of them, but they're having more impact. And you'll continue to see more of that from us. Great. I think I want to finish on maybe two high-level questions. One, maybe going back to our starting point, which is consumer softness in the category. What would you see from the consumer that would make you feel more confident about 2025, just relative to kind of baseline expectations? I mean, is it a consumer sentiment thing? Is it unemployment numbers? I mean, what should we be looking for that should make us feel incrementally positive about the consumer position going into next year? Look, I'm not sure I have a great consumer metric that I would look at. What I typically pay attention to is how is the consumer interacting with our category. And so is household penetration growing or not? Is buy rate, are they buying more, less, or the same as they bought last year? And how often are they sticking, right? And I think in that context, the category is holding up quite well, right? I think these are short-term issues that will normalize over the course of the year. If I could give you a, if it's all about one blank metric, I'm not sure that that's where I would look. I would look at the underlying metric of is the consumer coming in at the same level that they were and spending on average about the same? If they are, then we're doing something right. If they are not, we need to continue to work harder to drive consumer interest with marketing support and driving our innovation. Maybe final question to wrap up on. Still a lot of moving pieces, but it appears the new administration could be more strict regarding artificial ingredients, coloring, things like that in food. Do you have any thoughts on how that could impact, I guess, both your brand portfolio specifically and then the industry more broadly? Yeah. Look, I mean, I think the first thing I would tell you is if you look at our portfolio, I would just ask you to look at our ingredient line and what you find on average is a very simple ingredient line. It's potatoes, salt, oil. It's wheat, salt, that sort of thing. So on average, our ingredient lines are pretty good. And our products are pretty simple to understand. And where there are labeling laws that require you have to describe how the seasoning and the flavoring shows up, that tends to be what you see more of on our deck. So we have a pretty simple product to understand. And we have a pretty good portfolio across the board that will appeal to whatever administration's there. As far as what does it do to the rest of the industry, I think what you're going to hear from all of us is our job is to comply with the law, and our job is to comply with what consumers want. And as long as we're doing those two things, the business is pretty straightforward. Great. Howard, Kevin, appreciate your guys' time today. Appreciate all the thoughts and thank you, everybody, for joining us. Thanks, Jim.