Hi, everybody. My name is Jim Salera. I run the packaged food and beverage practice here at Stephens. With us today from Zevia is Amy Taylor, Chief Executive Officer. Thank you for joining us, Amy. Yeah, good afternoon. Excited to dive into our conversation today. Thank you for bringing product to the event. Of course. I have, you know, I was telling you before we started, you know, I love the citrus flavor profiles, so I have Orange, and then you said you're more of a Cola girl. Yeah. At a growth company like Zevia, you know, change is constantly occurring, but, but I think this year you made one of the biggest changes the company has seen, which is your brand refresh, which we'll both, you know, have the new cans here. I think to kick off our discussion, can you just give us an overview of the thought process behind the brand refresh, and how it affects kind of the different components of your portfolio, tea, soda, and energy? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the idea behind our brand refresh was to ensure that our cans and the logo and visual assets that represent our brand were as premium, crisp, and aspirational as the product is delicious. And so we're really excited about what's happening in the world right now. I mean, people are moving away from sugar, and we think that that will have a profound impact on global health. And our hope is that we, that Zevia can be a major influence on that trend. If families switch from, let's say, traditional full- sugar soda to Zevia, they can literally cut their sugar consumption in half. In order to take that idea to more households, we wanted to create a aspirational and accessible look and feel, the look and feel of a more mainstream soda, less maybe niche and natural as the prior look and feel may have signaled. We started looking at cues for sort of delicious, flavorful swaths in this sort of motion-indicative design that you see in the flow of the can. You can see a little bit of subtle leafiness in our design of the logo, in the language that says Zevia, and that's sort of indicative of our clean ingredients, which are all plant-based ingredients that are grown in the ground and not in a lab. Then when you think about communication hierarchy, you see natural, flavored upper left, zero sugar soda, sort of at the center point, and then you can see the Non-GMO Project Verified logo as well, which is another symbol of quality. As society moves away from sugar, and as zero sugar and, and let's call it diet beverages, continue to drive growth within carbonated soft drinks in particular, our point of differentiation is that we have clean ingredients. As a premium but accessible brand that stands for clean ingredients, our hope is that the brand refresh now visually sends that message and communicates what it is that Zevia stands for. That's great. If we think about what the consumer sees on shelf- Mm-hmm. You know, how does the packaging and the positioning compare to kind of the old packaging and the old brand identity? Sure. So I think, Zevia has always been an amazing product portfolio that addressed a need for the consumer, which is a zero sugar product with clean ingredients. Like, that, that has always been the case. But what it has been is sort of a rational choice, right? We're known as a product and less a brand, and now with a more dynamic, modern, and aspirational look and feel on the can, not only do we get, like, much stronger on-shelf visibility, which helps obviously with driving awareness and trial in store, but it also just stands for a higher price premium and a more aspirational brand. And what it does for us is continue to win consumers that either had walked away from soda in the past and now will give it another shot because they realize they can get a clean ingredient option with zero sugar, or it can attract a first-time ever soda buyer. And so the new packaging is far more powerful to drive our number one objective right now, which is to win new users. That's helpful. The initial launch of the brand refresh, I think, was hampered by some near-term supply chain challenges. Can you just give us some details on what happened there, what steps you guys took to address the issues- Sure ... and, where we stand now? Yeah, I would say, first, let's talk about the impact of it from a brand perspective. I would say the only pivot that we had to make from a marketing and brand refresh perspective, in light of our supply chain challenges, was that we are starting to market out of store and spend a little bit more and invest in what we call top of funnel out of the store next year instead of the latter half of this year. That was the primary impact. But to go back and really address your question on what happened over the last year, we've taken on a lot of change. We've talked about the brand refresh that we put in place. We've really professionalized our sales team, kind of moving away from a field sales model into a professional key account model. We've taken a number of price increases, all of which performed as well as or better than we expected from a consumer acceptance perspective. So that's really tremendously supported our unit economics. We continue to drive year-over-year gross margin improvement with the way we're looking at unit economics, but also with the way we're running the company from a cost-conscious perspective. All of those things went really well, and we're really proud of them. Then we had one that didn't go so well, and so that was our supply chain. So we, we don't have true supply issues. We, we have the aluminum cans we need, and we always have, and we have all of our raw materials that we need. What we did was we endeavored a supply chain transformation to take sort of an entrepreneurial bolt-on supply chain that had existed from previous management into a modernized supply chain. It, it's not that complex per se, it just models sort of best practice from the beverage industry, and when complete, will yield tremendous benefits, such as continued excellent customer service, reduced cost, efficiencies, and most of all, scalability in our supply chain. But here's the challenge: we did it too fast. So with all that, the rest of the change that I mentioned before, at the same time, we endeavored moving, for example, from 27 warehouses down to 7.... we've now settled at 9. In making that transition, we failed to create inventory redundancy in legacy warehouses, such that when we were onboarding new warehouse operators, we didn't have enough product in the old ones. We presumed that all the transition would go perfectly. Of course, it didn't go perfectly, and we didn't have the inventory levels necessary to sustain us through that transition. So with those missteps, what we had to do to fix it, we made some people leadership changes. We have put people and process changes in place, both internally in how we work with our third-party operators. We slowed the transition in warehouses, so we continued working with some legacy partners that have done a great job to help us stabilize our service levels. And we increased inventory levels to get us over the hump, and you can see that reflected in our Adjusted EBITDA numbers in Q3 and in elevated inventory levels. But all of that normalizes going into next year as we return to a stable supply chain, as well as regular purchase and production patterns. That's all helpful, color. In the past, you've talked about, you know, the importance of building a differentiated brand identity. You have a lot of experience, you know, working with different brands and building different brands. How much does the brand refresh help you with that? And maybe if you go... offer us some thoughts on kinda the next steps to further cultivate Zevia's brand image. Sure. So, I mean, you know, a brand makes a promise to a consumer, and if the product can't deliver on that promise, then you kinda don't have anything. So we start with the hardest part already humming, which is a great product that delivers on the promise. So now we need to make sure that our communication assets, so our brand identification and the way we speak to the consumer in the marketplace, whether it's in-store or out-of-store, really is compelling to a broader consumer set. And we're excited about starting to enhance our marketing mix to do exactly that. So it's pretty cool because across the board, zero sugar soda is what's driving growth within soda. Generally speaking, and I'm going to stereotype, but this is based on data. Generally speaking, sort of traditional soda players, so in the diet and zero sector, are growing with purchase coming from Boomers and Gen X. Generally speaking, Millennials and Gen Z are looking for clean ingredients, and they're looking for new alternative options. With our brand positioning, the new visual assets that we have in store, the great-tasting product, the clean ingredients, and then forthcoming marketing support, we are really excited about accelerating what is today a 6% household penetration into a much more significant one on the back of consumers like Millennial parents that are busy and just trying to do a little bit better within their diet and their habit, or with Gen Z, or with college students, or with young working folks. Either those that have left soda and we can come back to it now, or that have never tried soda before and may enter the category through Zevia. So the brand refresh is a big part of that, but really, the broader positioning around zero sugar with clean ingredients and our opportunity to activate that with marketing dollars outside of store, especially in 2024 going forward, is what we're excited about. When we think about the different components of the portfolio, you know, soda, tea, energy, should we think of each of them as having kind of an independent brand image or independent brand messaging? You know, I would say no, because Zevia stands for better-for-you flavor, right? Like, great taste with clean ingredients and a brand you can trust. And it's that trusted brand mark we can now take into tea for consumers that drink tea or energy drinks, bringing actually a new consumer into energy drinks. You know, it used to be the overlap between consumers that cared about ingredients and what they put in their body and consumers that are energy drink consumers was, like, zero. And that's changed. The energy drink space is changing. And so now, as we build a reputation as a trusted brand in soda, we have the opportunity to bring new consumers, which is an exciting proposition for the retailer as well, into the energy drink space. Think of it as one mother brand that we're investing in, that's famous for soda, that has opportunity in adjacent categories. If we talk about or look at the competitive landscape, and maybe let's start with a more narrow view of just how you stack up against some of the other better-for-you soda peers- Mm-hmm. What do you think differentiates Zevia versus, you know, some of these other peers that have maybe, like, a more gut health-oriented- Sure ... messaging or? Yeah, I think, one of the things that's exciting about Zevia is something we talk about internally, but also with our retail partners. It's just that it's limitless enjoyment. You know, with, with so many other beverages, there's some kind of meter you gotta put on it. "Oh, I can't drink too much of that because it has X or it has Y," or it's a usage occasions-based beverage, right? So Zevia tastes great, has this notion of limitless enjoyment, meaning multiple usage occasions, and is affordable. So one of the principal beliefs that we hold is that better-for-you products should be affordable and accessible, not just for rich people in the natural channel, but for sort of average households. So I think to answer your question, where are we distinctive from some of the, kinda new, hot, gut health, better-for-you sodas? It's about taste, it's about multiple usage occasions, and it's about accessibility. But I'll just add one other thing, Jim. I do really love the fact that there are multiple exciting brands now investing marketing dollars to communicate to the consumer the idea that soda could be better-for-you. Like, that is a tailwind for us. Just that notion would've been completely foreign language less than in my generation or when I was in college or whatever. And so there are other brands investing in breaking those barriers down that really helps us grow this business with the next generation. ... Well, I can say, speaking as a diet soda convert- Mm-hmm ... to Zevia - Yes, welcome. Welcome back over to the good side. What you're talking about, kind of guilt-free consumption, drinking six diet sodas throughout the day versus drinking six Zevias throughout the day definitely puts you in a different mental state. Yeah. So, um- It's something that you can trust, that it's basically like solves the flavor fatigue of water or sparkling water, but with literally none of the guilt or the downside of what you're questioning about something with artificial ingredients or with sugar. Yeah, so maybe keeping on that same train of thought. Mm-hmm ... can you maybe offer us some thoughts around how you are positioned compared to those, you know, traditional soda lines, especially as we've seen, you know, the expansion of zero sugar offerings? Yeah ... kind of among the, you know, traditional sodas? Yeah, I mean, listen, I think we have great taste, so it kind of starts with that. But the real distinction versus traditional soda is clean ingredients. It's the single most important distinction. And just as I hope a rising tide floats all boats with all these better-for-you products, including the new players that we were just mentioning, same thing in traditional CSD. If you walk down the carbonated soft drink aisle in any mainstream grocery store, and you have the option of zero and diet from the traditional players, or if you're someone who cares about clean ingredients, you've got the option of Zevia, for me, that's the full set. So shoppers ought to have all those options, and different households are gonna make different choices. We have only 6% household penetration today, so there's massive upside for us to grow by simply sort of spreading this idea that, hey, you don't have to choose between health and taste. What about we think you're positioning relative to peers in tea and energy? And I know those are a little bit different markets, and obviously a smaller piece of your portfolio. Maybe if we could tackle those one at a time- Sure ... tea, then energy. Yeah. So tea, the tea is amazing. Anyone in the room here on the webcast that hasn't tried our tea, definitely give it a shot. It's an incredible taste, and I think it's literally just proof that stevia as a sweetener is a super viable sugar alternative with no sacrifice for taste. Tea is a great, testimony to that idea. So what is its place in the market? Like, why does the world need another tea? It's really interesting. There are very few flavored teas with no sugar, and I'm not aware of any other flavored teas with no sugar that have 100% clean and plant-based ingredients. So that's what we're really proud of, is that we offer flavor variety within tea with no sugar upon our consistent platform of clean ingredients. So we think there's a market for that. Tea is not as fast a growing category as the other two, so it's not our top priority, but it's a solid business, it's a great opportunity, and it's a wonderful way to win new consumers that maybe don't drink carbonated beverages today. It's a different consumer set. There's opportunities for us there in multipacks and in very targeted distribution. Energy is a massive upside. It's a very exciting, fast-growing category. As you know, I spent 20 years at Red Bull, so I'm quite familiar with the dynamics of that category. There were times that everybody thought it was a two-horse race. That has changed materially over the last five years as, quote, "fitness, energy products" have come into the category and brought a different consumer into the mix that we thought would always reject that category. And we think the next frontier, again, I'll come back to the same calling card, is clean ingredients. So to have an energy drink that you can really trust has clean ingredients is almost an oxymoron today, and so we're really excited about that. We think there's a shopper out there and a whole consumer set, like literally communities, demographics, and psychographics, that probably doesn't touch energy drinks today, but if they had a trusted brand mark that they knew had clean ingredients and the boost that they need- Mm-hmm ... in those critical usage occasions, that we could be the bridge to get them there. That's helpful. You guys have been expanding your cold availability at retail. Mm-hmm ... and I believe you even have some branded fridges in certain markets. Mm-hmm. Can you just tell us how cold availability, in particular, helps support higher visibility, increased trial buys, you know, introducing the brand? Sure ... to kind of a wider swath of consumers? Yeah, it's critical. I mean, you know, often for beverage, the number one driver of awareness is actually in-store. So in-store visibility is really important, and the shopper that has a plan for what they're gonna buy, they go to the warm shelf, they buy what they're gonna buy, and they move along. What's more spontaneous, of course, is a single purchase of a cold product. That's an impulse buy, often. So it's so important for Zevia to be cold at arm's reach to reach new consumers. That is the principle upon which we're driving cold availability as a priority. So you'll find us in the deli section at Whole Foods, and the cold section all around produce in Sprouts, and you'll find us in, increasingly in the cold section in mainstream grocers like Albertsons. Singles, like we're talking about today, contributed to 25% of our... Or, excuse me, it grew 25% in the third quarter, even with our supply chain challenges. And so what's cool is when we're able, in the instances in which we're able to measure trial from a single flavor that leads to the purchase of a full margin, single flavor 12-pack, that's when we can see the flywheel really working. And we see that taking place with the purchase of variety packs in e-commerce or in club, but also just within same store, we see it happening with single purchases in, in store cold. You're right, oftentimes it's in branded Zevia fridges, but the lower barrier to entry is for us to get into, like, deli fridges and, and the perimeter of the store, near produce for those impulse purchases. What's the value proposition when you speak with retailers about adding, whether it's a Zevia fridge or getting into the deli fridge? And maybe you can offer some color on some pushbacks that you get or some of the challenges- Yeah ... in kind of getting that placement. Yeah, that's an important conversation 'cause you could just say it's math: "Hey, we're... You know, we offer a better margin than traditional sodas, so put us in cold, put us in everywhere." But that's not compelling enough, right? I think what's actually far more exciting is that the shopper that chooses Zevia spends 30% more across the board than the average beverage shopper.... and the shopper that chooses Zevia spends 40% more on beverage than the average beverage shopper. And so why that matters, the retailer should be motivated to drive trial and expand the user base of Zevia, because it benefits them on total spend. So today, if we sit at at 6% of household penetration, but maybe 40% of, let's say, a natural grocery retailer consumers have tried Zevia. Imagine if they could move that to 50% or 60% or 70% and start to convert those shoppers to Zevia consumers. All of a sudden, they're increasing their basket ring across the board in that retailer. I'll give one other quick example. In the club channel, it's exciting for us that 65%+ of consumers that purchase Zevia in club have never had Zevia before, but more interesting is for the retailer. Over 60% of consumers that buy Zevia at club have never purchased a soda in that channel before. So I think these facts just give some examples as to why retailers are so motivated to bring this shopper into their store. It benefits them in incrementality, in improved margins, and in total basket spend. That's great. Let me pause and see if there's any questions from the audience. What are the specific plans on the marketing spend for first half? Yeah. So for the webcast crew, the question was: What are those plans for marketing spends for the first half? So historically, Zevia has spent very little out of store. We've really focused on in-store activation in our marketing dollars, so supporting velocity, less about driving trial and expanding the user base. And while we haven't solidified our specific annual operating plan for next year, nor provided guidance, we do imagine investing in marketing outside of the store. When I say that, you might imagine within our P&L, a real spike or like a radical increase in spend, but that's actually not the case. For us, it's more a matter of focus. We've hired a new CMO in Kirsten Suarez, who has experience from P&G, Taco Bell, and recently, a growth company in the better-for-you space. She's a scrappy marketer that knows how to put dollars to work out where consumers live, work, and play, so outside of the retail environment. We'll be in a test-and-learn mode, so we won't have a radical increase in marketing spending, but critically, we'll be able to take dollars out of selling costs through a more efficient supply chain and an optimized portfolio, and into true consumer marketing without much of an impact on the P&L. Is there a focus on the online grocery ordering? 'Cause as I think about my household, we don't even go to the grocery- Yeah. The question was: Is there a focus on online grocery ordering? So there's e-commerce, but then there's also sort of the brick and click and the retailer, right? Yeah. So that's the question, and absolutely. I mean, this is really exciting for us because our shopper, generally speaking, is a little bit younger, less price sensitive at all income levels. They're savvy on ingredients. They kinda do their homework, and inherently therefore, they're online more, right? And so with that, much like your household, they're inclined to order online, be it through e-commerce channel or grocery pickup. So that's a big upside for us. In the world's largest retailer, we just had a big breakthrough in the number of SKUs that they're carrying, so they have real Zevia Soda variety now online for both pickup and direct, and we see this trend with other big grocers as well. We also can drive trial programs through the pickup programs or delivery programs from grocery. So we can take basket data, see who would have the highest proclivity to be a converted Zevia user who's never tried us before, and drive sampling through those outlets. So yes, grocery and e-commerce, and the intersection between the two is an exciting opportunity for us in a targeted fashion. You know, you talked a little about e-commerce... Yeah ... and so I think- Yeah, go for it. Staying on that same thread, what does it take to succeed on a big e-commerce platform like Amazon? You know, given obviously the breadth of product and kind of the endless aisle, how does Zevia stand out, and, you know, gain consumer interest through a platform like that? You know, it takes a couple of different things. It takes a deep understanding of the platform and a willingness to understand what drives and motivates them to feature different products at different times. So it's a complex platform. It's not as simple as make your product available and then put some minimum viable level advertising on it, right? You have to consider how many touches do that organization need to put against your product to get it to the consumer? What's the impact on last mile? How heavy should your case be in what you're selling to them, and does that determine whether it goes through this warehouse or that warehouse? How efficiently can you service the customer? And the more efficiently you can do all of what I just mentioned and more, including packaging and COGS and pack configuration and pricing, the more efficiently you can do all of that, the more motivated both the, the e-retailer and you are to sell your product because your margins improve. So with a basic understanding of their business model and how to partner with them, then it's really about having the right variety packs to trigger trial, and then the right advertising package to make sure that you're covering off on winning new consumers. Because what's exciting is that we know when a consumer buys a Zevia on the world's largest e-commerce retailer, so Amazon, they often go back to grocery, and we can trace that back to grocery to buy a straight pack, full flavor, let's say 12-pack or six-pack. So it's a really important trial, trial vehicle for us. Over time, I don't imagine that e-commerce grows in our mix of business. Today, it's between, like, 10% and 13%, but it'll continue to grow year-over-year in size because it's such a tremendous place for a high-information consumer who's online already to discover our brand. ... How do you capitalize on some of the success that you've seen with soda and use that to help expand kind of a consumer's overall spend with Zevia, especially in a category like energy or tea? Sure. Yeah, it's you're right to assume that there's a lot of crossover from soda to energy, you know, and they share usage occasions. So we're very focused on soda to start out with. We're very, very focused. With 6% household penetration, there's so much upside and one of the most exciting categories in the world that, by the way, has the same household penetration as, like, toilet paper and toothpaste. So there's so much upside for us in soda that it deserves our focus. But there's an opportunity to convert some usage occasions to a higher margin category like energy drink, as well as to win new consumers with a category like tea, for sort of that afternoon chill usage occasion or for a consumer that doesn't drink carbonated beverages. The mother brand can help us to attract consumers in other categories, but what's most important, we're famous for soda. We need to build that reputation as being great tasting and clean ingredients in that category before leveraging it elsewhere. That's helpful. As we think about the different channels, you know, we talked on e-commerce, talked about specialty. We mentioned club a little bit, but wanted to drill down on that a little bit more. When you think about the current offerings that you have in club, what are the opportunities both in terms of kind of the pack offerings that you have there- Mm-hmm ... and the different products, whether it's soda or tea, and then also, you know, kind of expand the shelf? Sure. So, we're excited that we have a unique variety pack for each major retailer in the club space, and the growth has been supportive of continuing to expand that business into new regions. So we're an insights-based sales company, and we take insights that we can glean from the channel and from outside the channel to continue to grow that business, and so far, we've been able to do that successfully. We're also excited to see that tea, which has never been sold in a multipack other than the variety pack online, is making its debut in some club retailers as well, and that's also exceeded expectations, so minimum hurdle rates that will allow us to expand that distribution. And then in the future, as we grow our focus on energy drink, that would likely be the next entry into club. So there's a lot of upside in club, and club historically has been looked at as a volume channel, just in an area that's maybe volume compressed, and you move a lot of boxes, but that's actually not true anymore. And especially post-COVID, it's sort of a treasure hunt environment. And if you set up the right packages and get really surgical and strategic about limited time seasonal offers in a club environment, that those retailers are as excited about exciting their shopper and their member as traditional retail, and that can be very effective for us in winning new households, as I outlined earlier about its incrementality. You know, we touched on a lot of the different channel opportunities. If we zoom out a little bit and look at, you know, where traditional retailers are at for their kind of better-for-you assortment- Mm-hmm ... better-for-you products, better-for-you beverage in particular, have obviously been a point of growth for them. Can you just give us your thoughts on how you think those better-for-you products as a percentage of kind of the total assortment are positioned to grow moving forward, whether 2024 comes or not? Sure. I mean, I think, and I'm certainly not alone, so I'm not, you know, a standalone expert on this at all, but that this continues to grow and continues to change. When I first started working in the convenience environment, if I were to work a route alongside a salesperson, I'd have to eat lunch on the road, and it would be a Slim Jim and, like, you know, salt and vinegar potato chips, and a sugar-free energy drink, right? And now, in convenience, you can get carrots and a hard-boiled egg. I mean, so, like, if that's not change, I don't know what it is. So the better-for-you option is being put cold, closer to the register, and more prolific. You go into a CVS now, and they have a better-for-you snack section, front and center, close up, where kind of all the candy and potato chips used to be. So it is changing. Now, you know, so indulgent snacks and indulgent sodas will never go away, and probably in our lifetime, we'll always actually have a bigger share of the pie than better-for-you. But better-for-you can double and triple and quadruple and 10x and still just continue to have upside. And I think this change back to the basics of clean products that are made from things that come from the ground and not in a lab, both in food and beverage, is really here to stay. And I think it's a sea change. I think it's a macro trend and not a fad, like some diet trends that you see. And so we hope to be a part of that. I'm excited about it from the lens of just as a society. You know, if we think about our mission as being to impact global health by reducing sugar consumption, if that comes along with a rising tide of better-for-you options, the only kicker will be if we decide as an industry that we're gonna make them affordable because you don't step change global health by selling better-for-you food and beverage to rich people. You do it by selling it in the value channel and in mass and in club and at arm's reach in convenience and in the food deserts. So we want Zevia to be affordable and available for consumers of all income levels. And that, for me, will be the determinant of whether or not we really change food and beverages if we can make them affordable. Yeah, I think that's a great point to drill down on and say, you know, if we look at Zevia's price relative to maybe two parts- Mm-hmm ... the other better-for-you- Mm-hmm -peers- Yes, this is an important question. ... and then kind of traditional soda- Mm-hmm ... how do you feel your price, you know, your price points are positioned? And do you think about maintaining kind of a relative price gap? We do and we watch this very closely. So we look at things on a per-ounce basis, and we look at an index. So we are more affordable than 64% of non-alcoholic beverages in North America today. So we're at the sort of that 36-37 index from a price point perspective. And that means that, again, there's almost 65% of products that are more expensive than Zevia, and yet we're better and made from plant-based ingredients, better-for-you. Excuse me. So the other way that we look at it is price per ounce, and this is where I think it gets a little more literal 'cause an index can be a little difficult to picture. So if you compare us to traditional carbonated soft drinks, which is like almost at commoditized price points these days, we're $0.02-0.03 per ounce more, and if you compare us to, like, functional beverages, we were talking gut health, we're $0.06, $0.07, $0.08 per ounce less. So we're materially more affordable than the, the sort of newfangled, better-for-you u products at, you know, Whole Foods, et cetera. And we're just a touch more expensive than Coke and Pepsi, and that's what you're paying for in that $0.02-$0.03 per fluid ounce, is clean ingredients. And we think it's worth it, and we think more and more consumers are discovering it is. When you talk with retailers about price positioning, especially, you know, with the wave of inflation- Mm-hmm ... CPG companies have seen over the last year, do they have any thoughts around kinda where they want pricing for the category to be? Maybe do they want more promotional kind of dollars in the channel? A- Always. Yeah. Always. Always, the retailer wants more promotional dollars. There is a sweet spot. You know, we were a little slow to the game on price increases, and in the rearview mirror, we could pretend like we were brilliant 'cause we were just moving. We're a second mover, and we're gonna watch and learn, but honestly, we were just a little slow. But, what's interesting is, if you, again, track that indices, we remain in that sixty... You know, cheap, more affordable than 64% of non-alcoholic beverages out there. So our price decisions landed us with the market. We think there's more room for Zevia pricing, but we think we'll get there through net price. So may or may not need price increases in the future based on what happens in the world, these things beyond my control. But as we continue to improve promo effectiveness, so better lift for fewer dollars spent, we think we can bring the retailer unit volume growth and growth through price in an efficient manner, in a good strategic partnership that includes conversations about price and promo effectiveness. So I think there are some macroeconomic headwinds forthcoming, but I think we're in the right place from a price perspective, and I think there's actually room for us to go further as well. That's helpful color. If we look at where some of the improvements that you made on gross margin- Mm-hmm. Can you just kind of break down some of the levers you bought? I know that's been an area where you guys have made a lot of improvements this year. So just kind of thoughts on gross margin. What should we think about- Sure ... as a sustainable gross margin rate for your business moving forward? Sure, I'm happy to address both of those things. So generally speaking, we talk about gross margins in the mid-40s%. We are improving those year-over-year, and we'll continue to do so. That will not always be the case sequentially, such that every quarter won't improve on the prior. But year-over-year, we see material opportunity in gross margin to continue that trend over the next several years. So we're not at our gross margin target by any stretch. We're proud of the progress we've made in the mid-40s%, but there's more work to be done there. Where is it coming from? It's coming from sort of the top and the bottom, so price as well as cost from a unit economics perspective. So we've been able to improve net price, both through price increases and optimized discounts and allowances spend, as we were just discussing, and we've been able to contain COGS. I say contain, just because as input costs have fluctuated, we've been able to contain and maybe even slightly improve upon COGS if you look at the third quarter versus prior year. But there's more room there, because as we talked earlier about the supply chain, and while we're very challenged with supply chain execution this year, the upside of getting it right is tremendous efficiency, including reduced cost goods. So there's room in gross margin, and I think that's reflected in just the strength of our business model and reflective of the strength of our business model. I'm gonna pause one more time, see if there's any questions from the audience. Is the supply chain issue all behind us? Yeah, so the question... I'm repeating it just for the webcast, but the question was whether or not the supply chain challenges are behind us. What we talked about, when we discussed this at the end of the second quarter and then in our third quarter earnings call, was that the plan is working, so we're executing exactly what we communicated we would at the end of the second quarter, which is to stairstep improvement week over week over week in our, what we call our fill rate, our customer fulfillment rates. And that we anticipate that it would be complete by the end of the year, but not by the end of the third quarter. So here we are, smack dab in the middle of the fourth quarter, and we're on track. We slightly over-delivered net sales in Q3 versus our very modest restated expectations, and that over-delivery was a function of faster recovery than we anticipated. So if we continue that clip, you know, we're days to weeks away from saying that's all in the rearview mirror now. You will see cost implications in Q4 for the investments necessary to get back on track. You saw that in Adjusted EBITDA in Q3. In Q4, it will not be as significant as what you saw in Q3. So some of the cost implications of the fixes remain, as well as elevated inventory, but we sell that inventory down, we get back to normal ordering and production levels, and we're back on track. That's a long-winded way of saying, really, as of today, we're back on track, but we'll be fully clear by the end of the year, and then in the P&L, it normalizes next year. Can you maybe offer us some insights into what you're seeing in the commodity basket, and what that looks like right now, and any thoughts on inflation moving- Sure ... forward? Yeah, I mean, I think it would be irresponsible to pooh-pooh inflation, so we know that inflation will have an impact on something like, you know, consumer discretionary spending. But as far as input costs for us, we obviously keep an eye on aluminum, and we expect aluminum to be about flat next year. And we haven't provided guidance on 2024, nor are we finished with our annual operating plan for next year. We're close, but our assumptions are that we're operating in a pretty stable environment on input costs across the board. And our product's quite simple. You know, we have sort of the five simple ingredients, and so we're pretty close to being able to project what our costs will be. ... Recently, you sold a company-owned warehouse and talked about the decision to consolidate some of your distribution network. Mm-hmm. Could you just give us some insights into the thought process on the decision there, and then maybe offer any color on the flexibility that gives you moving forward? Sure. So, you know, one of the things that we talk about, I mean, from the time we went public to today, is that we're an asset- light. We have a really kinda clean business model, and we had this one exception floating out there: we owned a warehouse. And the idea originally, and I think it was a good idea, was to test what it would be like to own a building and try to take some repacking in-house and see if we could do things more efficiently from one hub and spoke, and maybe we would then replicate that in a limited way. We ran that test, let's call it, and our conclusion is that asset- light is right for us, and we want a totally... We want a consistent business model across the board. We are third party and not vertically integrated, and that continues that asset-light approach. So we're really pleased with being able to sell that one asset at the end of the third quarter and continue this asset-light model going forward. As we look into what you guys have available to you across the existing portfolio, can you maybe tease some innovation, and some thoughts on the innovation pipeline moving forward? Yeah. I mean, what's really amazing about this year is that the number one and two drivers of growth from the standpoint of flavor, were Creamy Root Beer, which a couple of you are drinking in the audience today, and, and our head of IR, crushes them on a regular basis. He switched to Orange for now. But Creamy Root Beer and Vanilla Cola drove the growth among flavors for us this year. And those were new last year and this year, and yet they still have tremendous upside in ACV, so distribution. So next year, those two will continue to drive growth. We have new energy drink flavors already in the marketplace that have very minimal distribution, so driving those as new to consumer. We have a new Tropical Pineapple Tea that has just started to contribute to growth from the tea portfolio, and we see some opportunities to play with multipack in the tea space. And beyond that, we wanna really get focused. So we can drive excitement and newness in the form of limited time offers, so LTOs, but we don't wanna just continue to expand the size of the portfolio at the sacrifice of focusing on great flavors that make us famous for great taste. And I think that's what you should expect from us going forward. Less... Fewer new products and better performance out of the products we have today, and then exciting, limited time offers when it makes sense strategically. As we wrap things up, maybe a closing question: Can you just offer us your thoughts around, you know, where Zevia's positioned today, the progress you've made, obviously, in 2023, and then kind of what the next opportunity set that you guys see lies ahead in 2024. Sure And beyond that? Yeah. I mean, Zevia is a product platform that has been servicing consumers that have discovered it as such, and supporting them in reducing their sugar consumption for, like, ten years. And now, really, for the first time, with the brand refresh, with a stable supply chain, with a super capable organization, with increasing on-shelf visibility, we have the opportunity to really communicate this brand as a solution for the mainstream consumer. So next year is all about winning new users. It's all about driving trial. It's about conversion. It's about driving purchase intent among those that maybe have heard of Zevia but don't have it top of mind. And to support that, it's also about driving the distribution. So it's like when mental and physical availability come together. That will include targeted efforts to improve improved in-store visibility in existing distribution, so in grocery. But I think the most exciting thing is as we start a foray into immediate consumption with cold singles, which presumes food service and presumes convenience. So that's what we're excited about over the next couple of years, and we'll have good news to share on sort of pilot, and test, and learn initiatives in the convenience space in 2024. Great. I think that's a good place to leave it. Amy, thank you very much- Cool ... for your time today. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you, everyone, for joining us. Thanks, everybody.