KRT - NASDAQ

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Karat Packaging Inc. fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Roger Pondel, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Karat Packaging Inc.'s fourth quarter and full year 2025 conference call. I am Roger Pondel with Pondel Wilkinson, Karat Packaging Inc.'s investor relations firm. It will be my pleasure momentarily to introduce the company's Chief Executive Officer, Alan Yu, and its Chief Financial Officer, Jian Guo. Before I turn the call over to Alan, I want to remind our listeners that today's call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the company's control, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the company's most recent Form 10-Ks as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available on the SEC's website, https://www.sec.gov, along with other company filings made with the SEC from time to time. We will be discussing adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted diluted earnings per share, and free cash flow, which are non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. A reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP measures to the non-GAAP financial measures is included in today's press release, which is now posted on the company's website. I will now turn the call over to CEO, Alan Yu.

Thank you, Roger. Good afternoon, everyone. Despite ongoing trade volatility, Karat Packaging Inc. continues to deliver profitable growth, demonstrating the strength and resilience of our business model. We closed 2025 with an increase of 13.7% in net sales in the fourth quarter, fueled by strong, double-digit volume growth across all major markets. Notably, pricing also turned positive for the first time since early 2023, adding further momentum to our performance. Our ongoing efforts to diversify sourcing continue to deliver positive results. We have adjusted our import volume across sourcing countries following tariff and foreign currency developments. During the fourth quarter, our import mix consisted of 46% from Taiwan, 14% from China, 13% from the United States, and 11% each from Vietnam and Malaysia. Our resilient global supply chain enabled us to maintain a solid 34% gross margin despite significantly higher tariff and duty costs during the quarter. Following the recent favorable global tariff developments and the stabilization of favorable U.S. dollar and New Taiwan dollar exchange rates, we expect tailwinds on the margin to be realized beginning in the second quarter of this year. Our new paper bag business product category continues to gain strong momentum, expanding steadily and driving meaningful revenue growth. In addition to supplying one of our largest national chain accounts, we are actively pursuing additional opportunities, some of which are at the final confirmation stage. We are also strengthening this category by supplying generic paper bags to smaller customer accounts in addition to custom paper bags, and we expect to continue gaining market share in this category in the years ahead. Our eco-friendly product sales, boosted in part by paper bags, grew to 37.3% of total revenue in 2025, up from 34.5% in the same quarter of 2024. As our paper bag category business continues to expand, we are further strengthening our position as a leading provider of sustainable, eco-friendly, disposable foodservice products. In today's consistently shifting trade environment, we believe that Karat Packaging Inc.'s global sourcing flexibility and efficient logistics capabilities position us well to support continued growth and margin improvement. We are also maintaining our focus on operating efficiency, reflected in the improvement of our operating cost leverage to 26.7% in 2025 from 32% in the prior-year quarter. Together, these efforts provide a solid foundation as we look forward to another strong year. I will now turn the call to Jian Guo, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss the company's financial results in greater detail.

Thank you, Alan. I will begin with a summary of our fourth quarter performance followed by an update on our guidance. Net sales for the 2025 fourth quarter increased to $115.6 million, up 13.7% from $101.6 million in the prior-year quarter. The increase primarily reflected $8.2 million in volume and a $6.3 million favorable impact from pricing and product mix. Sales to chain accounts and distributors, our biggest sales channel, were up by 17.5% in the 2025 fourth quarter. Online sales rose 1.9% over the prior-year quarter, and sales to the retail channel declined 4.8% from the 2024 fourth quarter. As part of our initiatives to optimize margin, we continued to shift away from online sales fulfilled by Amazon and focused more on driving traffic through our own LolliCup store, fulfilling our own orders on third-party platforms. We achieved significantly higher contribution margins in our online sales with reduced online platform fees and marketing costs. Cost of goods sold for the 2025 fourth quarter increased 23.4% to $76.3 million from $61.8 million in the prior-year quarter. Product costs increased $6.1 million due to sales growth, partially offset by more favorable vendor pricing and product mix. Within the import cost, duty and tariff costs increased $8.4 million due to higher tariff rates and a $0.4 million adjustment to the duty reserve previously recorded on certain imports. Gross profit for the 2025 fourth quarter was $39.3 million compared with $39.8 million in the prior-year quarter. Gross margin for the 2025 fourth quarter was 34% compared with 39.2% in the prior-year quarter. Gross margin was impacted by higher import costs, which included ocean freight and import duty and tariffs. As a percentage of net sales, import costs increased to 14.5% from 8.3% in the prior-year quarter. However, we were able to partially offset the headwind on margin by reducing product costs as a percentage of net sales due to more favorable vendor pricing and product mix, as well as lower logistics expenses as a percentage of net sales. Operating expenses in the 2025 fourth quarter decreased to $30.9 million from $32.5 million in the prior-year quarter. As Alan mentioned, our focus on cost containment yielded significant results here. Compared to the prior-year quarter, we reduced online platform fees by $1.6 million while maintaining our sales growth trajectory, lowered marketing expense by $0.5 million, and reduced professional services expense by $0.4 million. At the same time, our rent expense increased $0.5 million, primarily due to the opening of a new Chino distribution center in 2025. Operating income in the 2025 fourth quarter increased 16% to $8.5 million from $7.3 million in the prior-year quarter. Total other income, net, increased 17.7% to $1.2 million for the 2025 fourth quarter from $1.0 million in the prior-year quarter. Net income for the 2025 fourth quarter increased 22.8% to $7.2 million from $5.9 million for the prior-year quarter. Net income margin rose to 6.2% in the 2025 fourth quarter from 5.8% in the prior-year quarter. Net income attributable to Karat Packaging Inc. for the 2025 fourth quarter increased 21.3% to $6.8 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, from $5.6 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, in the prior-year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the 2025 fourth quarter rose to $12.5 million from $11.3 million for the prior-year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.8% compared with 11.1% for the prior-year quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings per common share increased to $0.34 per share for the 2025 fourth quarter from $0.29 per share in the prior-year quarter. We executed strong working capital management during the fourth quarter, generating operating cash flow of $15.4 million and free cash flow of $14.6 million despite continued heavy duty and tariff payments. During the fourth quarter, we also made an early loan repayment of $8.0 million for our consolidated variable interest entity’s term loan. In addition to our regular quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share, paid to shareholders on 11/28/2025, we further utilized our newly approved share repurchase program and repurchased 137,374 shares of our common stock at an average share price of $21.74 per share, for a total amount of $3.0 million. As of 03/11/2026, approximately $12.0 million remained available for repurchase under the authorized repurchase program. We ended 2025 with $91.0 million in working capital and maintained financial liquidity of $45.6 million. On 02/05/2026, our Board of Directors approved a regular quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share, payable 02/27/2026 to shareholders of record as of 02/20/2026. Looking ahead to the 2026 first quarter, we expect net sales to increase by approximately 8% to 10% from the prior-year quarter. Sales for the first quarter are typically subject to weather conditions; although we experienced facility shutdowns due to inclement weather this January and February, we are seeing strong sales growth momentum. We expect gross margin for the 2026 first quarter to be within 34% to 36% and adjusted EBITDA margin to be within 9% to 11%. For the full year 2026, we expect net sales to grow in the low double-digit range over the prior year, and we anticipate continued improvements in both gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin compared with the prior year under the current global tariff import environment. As Alan mentioned earlier, we are seeing accelerated growth in our pipeline supported by the continued expansion of our paper bags category and addition of several key customer accounts. We remain committed to accelerating top-line growth while continuing to improve operational efficiency and cost management. Alan and I will now be happy to answer your questions, and I will turn the call back to the operator.

We will now open for questions. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question today comes from Ryan Merkel with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, and thanks for the question. I wanted to start with the outlook for 2026, the up double digits. Alan, what are you assuming for the market in that outlook? I was thinking something like flat and that most of your sales growth is going to be market share gains, but tell me how you are thinking about that.

Well, I do see the environment for our competitive, it is a very competitive environment right now. And I see numbers coming out from our competitors are negative growth to maybe low single-digit growth. While we are foreseeing our company have a low double-digit growth, I think that is being conservative. The way that I see that is, yes, market share gain, mainly on the new categories that we are offering. On the paper bag, the SOS bag. We are adding, for example, we have about maybe perhaps 40 SKUs on the paper bag; we are going to add an additional 50 or more SKUs just on the paper bag category. Maybe we did not have a complete line of SOS bag; we are adding all of it. It is paper shopping bag; we are adding more of that, and we are adding more custom printing. We are doing a lot of things to add addition to our line of offering to increase our revenue.

Got it. Okay. That is great. And then I wanted to ask on 1Q, kind of up nine year over year for revenue. That is a bit of a slowdown from the up 14% this quarter. Jian, you mentioned weather. So I guess my question is, is it just weather that is causing the slowdown in 1Q? And now that the weather has cleared a bit, have you seen the trends pick back up?

Yes. Texas, one of our major hubs, we had it shut down over a week. We could not work in, it was like a snowstorm. And also East Coast had several weather issues, New Jersey and South Carolina. But mainly, it was Texas that we had with January and some part of February. But we do see that weather is getting better now in March, so we are seeing a strong momentum coming back from March and onward.

Okay. Thanks. Pass it on.

Thank you, Ryan.

Again, if you have a question, please press one. The next question is from Ryan Meyers with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Yep. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on the solid fourth quarter. First question for me, just thinking about the full-year revenue guidance, do you guys factor in any of these business opportunities that you commented on that are in the final confirmation stages? Or is this full-year revenue guidance just based on the business that you guys have already signed and visibility to already?

Well, a part of it. The one that we were adding in is that we know how we have a lot of pipeline that we are confirming on the final stages. The key part is, in most cases, these chain accounts, even after they confirm, there is a testing phase, and they might just delay and drag for six months to nine months. So we want to be conservative. Of course, we do not just have one or two or three; we have more than a dozen, several dozen potential new accounts that we are adding in. They are either existing customers or new accounts. So we are adding that, and that is why we are forecasting low double-digit growth, but my goal is actually a mid or a higher high double-digit growth. That is our ultimate goal.

Okay. Got it. That is helpful. If we can—if some of those opportunities can mature.

Materialize.

Yep. Okay. Makes sense. And then I just want to make sure I am understanding the gross margin guidance correctly. So Jian, are you expecting an increase from the 36.8% full-year 2025 number in 2026, or are you expecting an increase from what you guys reported in the fourth quarter? Just one clarification there.

We are expecting year-over-year increase under the current tariff environment.

Okay. Got it. Fair enough. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you, Ryan.

Thanks, Ryan.

The next question is from George Staphos with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is Kyle Benvenuto stepping in for George. Quick question for you. You discussed tariffs, FX, and logistics as key margin drivers. And in the past, you have talked about transportation. Can you comment on whether energy costs are baked into your margin outlook, your margin guidance?

Yes, we have. Because this is not the first time we are in the energy crisis, like the oil crisis. We have seen in 2022 the ocean freight liner, the shipping ocean freight skyrocketed from $1,500 to $10,000 per container. But we do not foresee the price will be that incrementally high. We are foreseeing a little bit of increase, and in the past three months basically, the ocean freight carriers, they tried to increase the prices of the ocean freight cost, and for the past three times, they failed. It went up for just merely two or three weeks, and they dropped back down. But mainly, we normally sign the full-year agreement, which normally is signed in the month of April, which is next month we will be able to sign that. And for temp so far, the guidance is just about 10% to 15% increase year over year on the ocean freight shipping cost. And for locally, domestic diesel gas, it has been up and down throughout the year. So these have been accounted for.

Thank you, Alan. And then just one more question. In regard to the online sales, we saw some positive growth this quarter. Back in Q2, I believe you mentioned double-digit growth potentially in the back half of this year. I guess I was just wondering what is the progress on that maybe going forward into 2026 and a little bit more detail about how that is evolving.

Thank you. Yes. No problem. We do foresee 2026 we will have double-digit growth online, because we are adding additional platforms where currently we have our own Shopify store, we have Amazon, we added Cisco.com platform. We will be adding Target.com, and there is ChenneyBrothers.com, and there are other platforms we are adding our product into. That will increase our sales. And also we are driving our sales by increasing bulk sales from our own stores and our Amazon stores. What I mean by bulk sales is we are encouraging customers to buy not just one case, one case, but five cases and ten cases. That increases our volume, not only volume; it increases our revenue and also our profit margin, because we do get a bulk discount from the carrier. If we ship more product to the same location, our shipping cost comes down. We are optimizing that and passing that saving to the customer to increase revenue. So we do foresee that our 2026 online growth will be double digit.

Thank you. Good luck in the quarter.

Thank you.

The next question is from Joshua R. Axel with KTF Investments. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Alan. Jian, I hope you guys are doing well. I have a question for you, or really two questions. Number one, can you expand a little bit on the demand you are seeing for the eco-friendly business, maybe outside of the paper bags? Just curious if you are still seeing high demand with the current environment. And then secondly, can you comment a little bit on what you are seeing in the California market?

Thank you.

Sure. First question. Demand in eco products has never dropped, mainly on the molded fiber product and on the paper bag due to regulation. And we are seeing more and more chains are moving away from Styrofoam into paper products. So we are seeing more of that. On the compostable product, PLA items, we also see growth in that due to the price decrease. They used to be pretty expensive to buy a compostable PLA cup, but now as price has come down, it has become more affordable, and more and more customers are actually looking to that. We are seeing newly opened restaurants are trying out the eco-friendly products because they want to perceive themselves with the consumer as being part of the initiative to save the environment. So I would say that more and more are going to that; that is driving the demand from the consumer perspective. Now in the California market, we are seeing a slowdown in the California market overall. Restaurants are shutting down, and it has become a very competitive environment. But in our aspect, our company, we are seeing—a double—we have seen recently a double-digit growth in our company. We are seeing, due to the tariff containment, some of the importers stopped importing product because they went out of business, and so it is actually driving the business to our company, as well as other larger companies with more inventory on hand. That is what we are seeing in the California market.

Great. Thank you both.

Thank you, Josh. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Alan Yu for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Thank you, everyone. It has been a wonderful quarter, and I look forward to hearing from you all next quarter.

Thank you all. Bye-bye.