Laird Superfood (AMEX:LSF) released first-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Thursday. Read the complete transcript below.
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View the webcast at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/774442144
Summary
LSF reported a 20% year-over-year increase in Q1 2026 net sales to $13.9 million, driven by acquisitions and strong performance in the wholesale channel.
The company completed acquisitions of Navitas Organics and Terasol Superfoods, funded by $110 million from Nexus Capital, which now holds a controlling interest.
LSF aims to integrate these acquisitions, leveraging shared capabilities to improve supply chain and broaden distribution across multiple channels.
Despite gross margin contraction due to higher commodity costs and tariffs, LSF expects margin improvement through synergies and commodity cost reductions.
The company provided a FY 2026 outlook with expected net sales of $138 to $148 million and adjusted EBITDA of $8 to $12 million, excluding one-time costs.
Management emphasized the strategic focus on building a comprehensive superfood platform, with plans for additional acquisitions to grow the portfolio.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Laird Superfood Inc. First quarter 2026 financial results. After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press Star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Trevor Russo, Head of Investor Relations. Trevor, please go ahead.
Trevor Russo (Head of Investor Relations)
Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to Laird Superfood’s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and webcast. On today’s call are Jason Vieth, Laird Superfood’s President and Chief Executive Officer and Anya Hamill, our Chief Financial Officer. By now everyone should have access to our earnings release which was filed today after market close. It’s available on the Investor Relations section of our website, lairdsuperfood.com before we begin, please note that during this call management may make forward looking statements within the context of federal securities laws. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described. Please refer to today’s press release and other filings with the SEC for a detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties. With that, I’ll turn the call over
Jason Vieth (President and Chief Executive Officer)
to Jason Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us on today’s call to Discuss Laird Superfood’s first quarter 2026 financial results. I’m Jason Vieth, President and Chief Executive Officer. With me today is Anya Hamill, our Chief Financial Officer. We issued our earnings press release and filed our Form 10Q after market close today and both are available on our investor relations website. The first quarter of 2026 marked a transformative milestone for Laird Superfood. On March 12, we completed the acquisition of Novitis Organics, one of the most trusted and established names in the premium organic superfood category. Founded in 2003, Navitas brings high quality organic superfoods with strong presence across natural and conventional grocery club and e commerce channels. We acquired Navitas to expand our product portfolio, broaden our distribution reach and accelerate our strategy of building a scale positive nutrition platform. Just weeks after quarter end on April 21, we closed the acquisition of Terrasol Superfoods. Terrasol is a vertically integrated branded superfoods platform offering nuts, seeds, dried fruits, powders, baking ingredients and functional beverage mix ins. IT sources globally, processes and packages in house and distributes through e commerce, food service and retail channels. This acquisition further expands our product assortment so strengthens our supply chain capabilities and broadens our footprint across multiple channels Both transactions were funded through our partnership with Nexus Capital management. The initial $50 million Series A preferred stock issuance in March funded the Navitas acquisition and the subsequent $60 million issuance in April funded the Terasal acquisition. These investments not only provided the capital to execute, but also brought strategic expertise as we build a larger, more diversified superfood company. Following these transactions, Nexus now holds approximately 73.8% of our common stock on a fully diluted as converted basis and we are operating as a controlled company under NYSE American rules. Strategically, these moves are about creating a comprehensive superfood platform and that can compete more effectively in a rapidly evolving category. Consumers continue to shift toward clean, minimally processed, functional foods with recognizable ingredients. By combining Laird’s functional coffee solutions and performance focus, Navitas Premium Organic Superfood leadership and Terrasol’s vertically integrated ingredient expertise, we are building a differentiated portfolio that spans daily use products, functional beverages and broad superfood ingredients. As we have stated previously, these two acquisitions represent just the beginning of our roll up strategy in the Superfoods and positive nutrition space and we expect to make additional acquisitions in the years to come as we continue to scale the platform. Through these transactions, we have created a much stronger enterprise that is positioned to generate positive EBITDA and cash flow in the future. Given these improvements, we expect to use our balance sheet to attain some combination of debt and equity financing to support those future acquisitions. We are already executing our integration playbook across the three businesses. For Navitas, which was with us for the final 19 days of the quarter, we are laser focused on aligning supply chain finance and commercial operations while also preserving the brand’s authentic identity and strong consumer relationships. The early contribution from Navitas in both E commerce and wholesale channels validates the strategic fit. We have already integrated the Navitas organization into Laird Superfood and I’m pleased to report that we are attaining the expected synergies across the combined organization. Our team is now focused on delivering the cogs and distribution and brokerage savings that we had planned for the second half of this year and beyond. And with Terrasol now part of the family, we are applying the same disciplined approach, leveraging shared capabilities in sourcing, co manufacturing optimization and omnichannel distribution to drive efficiencies and accelerate growth. The addition of Terrasol is particularly meaningful. Its vertical integration provides greater control over quality and cost, while its broad product line in nuts, seeds and powders complements our existing offerings and opens new doors in food service and ingredient channels at the same time, Terrasol delivers Laird Superfood and enhanced online marketplace capability which we believe will greatly benefit our entire business in the future. Together, these two acquisitions significantly increase our overall scale, which we believe will improve our ability to invest in innovation, expand our consumer awareness and distribution footprint, and deliver better economics over time. Looking forward, we are confident that this platform positions us to capture a larger share of the growing positive nutrition market. We will continue to focus on driving repeat usage, expanding our customer base across both E commerce and wholesale, optimizing our supply chain and delivering innovative new products that align with consumer demand for functional clean label solutions. With regards to Q1, I am pleased to report that all of our brands achieved growth well in excess of the industry. Anya will share more details in a moment, but I can proudly report that our Q1 company growth was 20% versus last year driven by the wholesale channel and our Amazon platform and including more than two weeks of Navitas Organics post acquisition. Even as we integrate two businesses, our supply chain continues to perform remarkably well. And while we hit some margin pressure in Q1 related to inventory that was costed at higher commodity prices and with tariffs, we expect that to mitigate as we move forward through the balance of the year since the commodity prices have already come down and tariffs are now removed from our products. And I would be remiss if I did not mention that we are also leveraging AI in a very aggressive fashion and across our entire business we now have AI supporting our team in forecasting, planning and execution activities across all of our functions including supply chain, finance and marketing. We are already reaping the benefits of this technology in the organization as we transition the Navitas business to the Laird team with very little incremental headcount. I also want to share that we are making important shifts in our commercial engine. I am pleased to announce that Andy Judd has returned to the company to lead our marketing efforts. Andy was most recently at Poppy where he led the marketing activities as the brand rapidly scaled to to more than $500 million in revenue and to an eventual sale to Pepsi. Under Andy’s leadership, we will be pivoting more work in house to drive greater efficiency, creativity and speed to market. This transition will involve some near term ramp up investment, but we are confident that it will deliver both better ROI and stronger brand storytelling and consumer activation across our portfolio. On the sales side, we are bringing in new leadership to accelerate our wholesale momentum, particularly in conventional grocery and club where we see substantial Runway. We’ll be able to share more on that appointment during our next call. While the near term will involve integration, costs and complexity, we are energized by the strategic position that we have built and the long term value creation opportunity ahead for our customers, our team and our shareholders. I’ll now turn the call over to Anja to provide greater detail on the first quarter financial results.
Anya Hamill (Chief Financial Officer)
Anya thank you Jason and good afternoon everyone. I will now provide additional detail on our first quarter 2026 financial results. As Jason highlighted, Q1 was a foundational quarter for our platform. Now I will walk you through what drove our Q1 results and then spend some time on how we’re thinking about the full year picture for the combined three brand business net sales for the first quarter of 2026 were 13.9 million, up 20% compared to 11.7 million in the first quarter of 2025. Navitas Organics contributed 1.6 million of net sales in the quarter, representing its first partial period contribution. Following the March 12 close, Wholesale was again the primary growth engine, growing 37% year over year to 7.5 million and representing 54% of total net sales. This was driven by the addition of Navitas wholesale revenues as well as continued distribution, expansion, product assortment wins in grocery and club and strong velocities at shelf. Our E commerce channel grew 4% to 6.5 million or 46% of total net sales driven by the addition of Navitas E Commerce revenues and continued strength on Amazon.com, partially offset by softness in Laird’s direct to consumer channel. Gross margin in the first quarter was 33.3% compared to 41.9% in the prior year period, a contraction of 8.6 percentage points. I want to give you a clear breakdown of what drove this approximately 3.2 percentage points of the contraction was driven by a timing related inventory cost and benefit in the first quarter of 2025 that did not recur in 26. This was a priority item, not a reflection of current period performance. The remaining approximately 5.4 percentage points reflects a combination of unfavorable channel and product mix, inflationary commodity costs, particularly in coffee, and the impact of import tariffs on certain input costs. These are real pressures that we are actively managing. The total operating expenses were 7.7 million in Q1 of 2026 compared to 5.1 million in the prior year period, an increase of 50%, which I will explain was largely driven by one time acquisition cost. General and administrative expenses increased by 73% to 3.9 million. The increase was driven primarily by 1.3 million of Navitas acquisition and integration related professional fees which are one time in nature as well as planned increases in personnel costs. As we build the team to support a scaled multi brand platform, sales and marketing expenses increased 33% to 3.8 million driven by higher media spend, agency fees and increased selling costs on higher sales volume. GAAP net income for first quarter of 2026 was 1.8 million or $0.12 per basic share compared to a net loss of 0.2 million in the prior year period. I want to be transparent about what drove this the gap Net income figure includes 4.7 million discrete non recurring income tax benefit resulting from the release of a deferred tax valuation allowance acquired in the connection with Navitas transaction. This reflects the recognition of deferred tax liabilities assumed in acquisition, a one time accounting benefit, not a reflection of …
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