Reed's (REED) Q2 2026 Earnings Call: Marge verbessert, Finanzierung geprüft

Wichtigste Erkenntnisse

• Der Nettoumsatz lag im 2. Quartal 2026 bei 7,5 Millionen US-Dollar und fiel damit vor allem aufgrund geringerer Volumina bei wiederkehrenden nationalen Kunden gegenüber 9,5 Millionen US-Dollar im Vorjahreszeitraum. Im Vergleich zum 1. Quartal 2026 stieg der Umsatz sequenziell um 5 %.
• Die Bruttomarge verbesserte sich im Jahresvergleich von 8 % auf 24 %. Die Lagerwertberichtigungen sanken von 1,6 Millionen US-Dollar auf 0,1 Millionen US-Dollar.
• Der Nettoverlust verringerte sich um 29 % auf 4,3 Millionen US-Dollar bzw. 0,36 US-Dollar je Aktie, während sich der EBITDA-Verlust um 30 % auf 4,0 Millionen US-Dollar reduzierte.
• Der operative Mittelabfluss ging von 5,0 Millionen US-Dollar auf 2,2 Millionen US-Dollar zurück. Reed’s beendete das Quartal mit 2,4 Millionen US-Dollar an Liquiden Mitteln und einer Gesamtverschuldung von 9,2 Millionen US-Dollar abzüglich abgegrenzter Finanzierungskosten.
• Das Management strebt im Laufe der Zeit eine Ausweitung der Bruttomarge auf den mittleren 30-%-Bereich an. Dies soll durch Preisgestaltung, effizientere Vertriebsförderung, Logistikverbesserungen und ein strikteres Bestandsmanagement erreicht werden.
• Reed’s prüft Finanzierungsalternativen, um das Geschäft und künftiges Wachstum zu unterstützen.

Wichtigste Finanzdaten

Geschäfts- und operative Entwicklung

Reed’s hat seine Portfoliorationalisierung im Wesentlichen abgeschlossen und unrentable sowie nicht strategische SKUs abverkauft. Die Vorräte gingen auf 7 Millionen US-Dollar zurück, was eine Verbesserung der Geldumschlagsdauer unterstützte.

Das Unternehmen konsolidierte sein Netz von Auftragsfertigern und trennte sich von zwei Lohnfertigern, deren Produktions- und Auslieferungslogistikkosten über den Benchmarks anderer Partner im Netzwerk lagen. Eine neue Betriebssoftware sowie ein intern entwickeltes Vertriebs- und Bedarfsplanungstool sollen Prognosen, den Rohstoffeinkauf und die Working-Capital-Effizienz verbessern.

Die vertrieblichen Aktivitäten konzentrierten sich auf den Wiederaufbau von Beziehungen zum Einzelhandel, die Rückgewinnung von Regalflächen und die Wiedereinführung der traditionellen Glasflaschenverpackung. Der nationale Broker-Partner von Reed’s verfügt nun über mehr als 75 Vertriebsexperten, die die Abdeckung des Einzelhandels und die Umsetzung im Markt unterstützen.

Zu den Produktinitiativen in der zweiten Jahreshälfte gehören Viererpacks von 7,5-Unzen-Minidosen für Tonic-, Club- und Grapefruit-Mixer, jeweils mit einer Note Ingwer. Reed’s plant zudem, sein Ginger Ale aus der Dose in Glasflaschen einzuführen, und entwickelt Premium-Ingwerbier in verschiedenen exotischen Geschmacksrichtungen.

Ausblick des Managements

Das Management erwartet, dass sich die Bruttomarge im Laufe der Zeit auf den mittleren 30-%-Bereich ausweiten wird. Geplante Treiber hierfür sind selektive Preiserhöhungen auf SKU-Ebene, eine Reduzierung ineffizienter Vertriebsförderungsausgaben, die Fertigungsoptimierung sowie geringere Lagerwertberichtigungen.

Das Unternehmen rechnet im dritten Quartal zudem mit einem weiteren Abbau der Vorräte, da es seine Planungs- und Bestandsmanagementkapazitäten erweitert. Laut Management dürften sich die durch die verstärkte Kundeneinbindung gesicherten Einzelhandelszusagen ab Ende des dritten Quartals bis ins erste Quartal 2027 hinein niederschlagen.

Reed’s prüft Finanzierungsalternativen, um das Geschäft und seine Wachstumspläne zu unterstützen.

Risiken und wichtige Beobachtungspunkte

• Der Umsatz blieb im Jahresvergleich unter Druck, was auf geringere Volumina bei wiederkehrenden nationalen Kunden zurückzuführen ist.
• Reed’s verzeichnete weiterhin operative und EBITDA-Verluste, obwohl eine deutliche Verbesserung gegenüber dem Vorjahr erzielt wurde.
• Die Liquiden Mittel sanken zum 30. Juni 2026 auf 2,4 Millionen US-Dollar, während die Gesamtverschuldung bei 9,2 Millionen US-Dollar verblieb, was die Bedeutung der geprüften Finanzierungsalternativen unterstreicht.
• Wachstum hängt davon ab, die Lieferfähigkeit aufrechtzuerhalten, Regalflächen im Einzelhandel zurückzugewinnen und Kundenzusagen in Umsätze umzusetzen.
• Neue Produkteinführungen erfordern ein sorgfältiges Bestandsmanagement, um eine Bindung von Liquiden Mitteln in Produktionsläufen mit hohen Mindestbestellmengen zu vermeiden.

Höhepunkte der Fragerunde mit Analysten

Das Management erklärte, dass die Beziehungen zu großen Einzelhändlern intakt bleiben, und verwies auf die Zusammenarbeit mit Food Lion, Publix, Sprouts, Kroger, Wegmans, Ingles, Harris Teeter und Albertsons. Zudem rechnet Reed’s im Oktober mit Treffen mit Whole Foods, wobei die wiedereingeführte Glasflaschenverpackung Teil der Bemühungen zur Erholung im Einzelhandel ist.

Um den Working-Capital-Bedarf bei neuen Produkten zu begrenzen, arbeitet Reed’s mit Produktionspartnern zusammen, die geringere Mindestbestellmengen ermöglichen. Laut Management sollte dies dem Unternehmen erlauben, die Nachfrage zu testen, ohne 20.000 bis 30.000 Kisten pro neuer SKU produzieren zu müssen.

Zur Margenverbesserung setzt Reed’s bei seinen größten Kunden, die laut Management 85 % bis 90 % des Geschäfts ausmachen, KI-gestützte Kunden- und Produktanalysen ein. Zudem zieht das Unternehmen selektive Preiserhöhungen für SKUs in Betracht, die eine zusätzliche Margenunterstützung benötigen.

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz

Ausführungen des Managements

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Reed's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call for the three months ended June 30, 2026.

My name is Mark, and I will be your conference call operator for today. Today's call will include prepared remarks from Neal Cohane, Reed's Interim Chief Executive Officer; and Douglas McCurdy, Reed's Chief Financial Officer.

Following the remarks, we will open the call for questions.

Before we begin, please take note of the company's cautionary statement. Today's call will include forward-looking statements, including statements about Reed's business strategy, growth initiatives, financial projections, operational improvements, the impact of corrective efforts, financing plans, and liquidity. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties and only reflect management's view as of today, August 12, 2026.

Reed's assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law. For more information, please refer to the Risk Factors section of the company's annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 25, 2026, and in other filings that the company makes from time to time with the SEC.

When discussing results, the presenters may refer to non-GAAP measures which exclude certain items from reported results. Please refer to Reed's second quarter 2026 earnings release on Reed's investor website at investor.reedsinc.com, and the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, expected to be available on the website soon, for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures and additional information regarding results, including a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from forward-looking statements.

While we believe the non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP.

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Cohane. Please, go ahead.

Neal Cohane

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. We're now halfway through 2026, and I want to speak very plainly about where we stand. The second quarter results reflect early progress from corrective actions initiated earlier this year.

Net sales increased 5% compared to the first quarter. Gross margin expanded as well, and we expect continued expansion in the mid-30% area over time. Selling, general, and administrative costs decreased 18% compared to the first quarter, and we will continue to better balance these expenses.

Net loss decreased, and we are focused on achieving profitable growth. While these results represent improvement from the first quarter, the work is not finished, and the results are not where we want them to be. We need to continue improving sales execution, retail placement, and operating efficiency.

Let me give you some context on the key areas of progress during the second quarter. The first area is inventory. In the first quarter, inventory write-offs had a significant impact on our margins. In the second quarter, those write-offs declined materially as we substantially completed the portfolio rationalization work. We have liquidated underperforming and non-strategic SKUs, and we are now operating with a leaner, more focused inventory position. Overall, we reduced inventory to $7 million and improved our cash conversion cycle.

The second area is commercial execution. We regained shelf space and grew doors by reengaging national and regional retail accounts and restored our heritage glass bottle packaging. We have also invested in our national broker partner, which now has more than 75 sales professionals partnering with us to achieve success across key channels by increasing retail coverage and non-in market execution -- I'm sorry, improving in-market execution.

The third area is cost structure. We have taken action to better align SG&A with the current size of the business and improve trade spend efficiency, which is contributing to higher gross margins. We will continue to review the cost structure and prioritize spending that supports commercial execution.

On the product side, we have several initiatives building for the second half of the year. Our new mixer line is just about ready to hit the streets, and many retailers across the country are clearing space for our new 4-pack, 7.5-ounce mini cans of tonic, club, and grapefruit mixers. All have a hint of ginger. Our top-selling ginger ale in cans will soon be available in glass bottles. We expect this to be one of the most successful SKUs in our portfolio. We're also currently working on the most unique line of premium ginger beer in several unique exotic flavors.

Moving on to the ops side of the business. Damian Warshall, our Chief Operating Officer, has now completed his first full quarter with Reed's. His initial focus was on inventory control, supply chain management, vendor relationships, and production efficiency. During this time, we launched a comprehensive review of our contract manufacturing network, consolidating production to align each item with the optimal facility and region. We believe that work is already producing results. We rationalized 2 co-manufacturers in our legacy network whose combined production and outbound logistics costs were running well above the benchmarks we were achieving elsewhere, tightening our cost structure and reinforcing our foundation as we scale.

We've also deployed new operations software that we believe meaningfully strengthens how we forecast and manage raw material purchasing on a national basis, enabling us to operate leaner, reducing the aggregate inventory we carry ahead of production while preserving our ability to serve demand.

Stepping back, the second quarter demonstrated sequential progress in gross margin, inventory management, and overall operating performance, but we recognize that substantial work remains. As we move through the second half of the year, we are focused on disciplined commercial execution, continued margin improvement, and positioning Reed's for profitable and sustainable growth.

In the third quarter, we see continued opportunity to bring national inventory levels down further as we make efforts to build out our inventory planning and management capabilities. All this work is expected to free up working capital and improve the efficiency of our production footprint. Over the past 2 months, our team has taken the initiative to develop an in-house proprietary sales and demand planning tool purposely built for how this organization plans, tracking the baseline needs of our customers, while dynamically accounting for seasonality and the distribution gains we expect to capture through the annual sales cycle. We believe this positions us for continued working capital gains as we keep optimizing inventory across the network.

Finally, we are also evaluating financing alternatives to support our growth going forward.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Doug, our CFO, who will discuss the second quarter results in greater detail. Doug?

Douglas McCurdy

Thank you, Neal. Turning to our results for the second quarter of 2026. All variance commentary is on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted.

Net sales for the second quarter of 2026 were $7.5 million, compared to $9.5 million in the prior year period. The decrease was primarily driven by lower volumes with recurring national customers. On a sequential basis, net sales increased 5% from the first quarter of 2026, reflecting early progress with our profitable growth initiatives.

Gross profit for the second quarter increased to $1.8 million, compared to $0.8 million in the prior year period. Gross margin increased to 24% compared to 8% in the prior year period. The improvement was primarily driven by lower inventory write-offs, which declined to $0.1 million from $1.6 million in the prior year period.

Delivery and handling costs decreased 30% to $1.1 million during the second quarter of 2026, compared to $1.6 million in the second quarter of 2025, primarily driven by continued improvements in logistics efficiency and freight optimization. Delivery and handling costs were 15% of net sales or $2.54 per case compared to 17% of net sales or $2.95 per case during the same period last year.

Selling, general, and administrative expenses decreased 6% to $4.7 million, compared to $5.0 million in the prior year period. The decrease was primarily driven by lower legal settlements and continuing efforts to optimize selling, general, and administrative expenses, offset by investment in personnel and related services to support our Asia growth initiative.

Net loss during the second quarter of 2026 decreased 29% to $4.3 million, or negative $0.36 per share, compared to a net loss of $6.0 million, or negative $0.78 per share, in the prior year period.

EBITDA loss decreased 30% to $4.0 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $5.7 million in the year-ago period.

Cash used in operations decreased to $2.2 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to cash used in operations of $5.0 million in the year-ago period.

As of June 30, 2026, Reed's had $2.4 million of cash and $9.2 million of total debt, net of deferred financing fees. This compares to $10.4 million of cash and $9.2 million of total debt, net of deferred financing fees at December 31, 2025.

As Neal noted, we are evaluating financing alternatives to support the business going forward.

This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, you may open the line for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Aaron Grey from Alliance Global Partners.

Fragen und Antworten

Aaron Grey

I guess, first one from me. Regarding some of the vendor relationships that you referred to, maybe talk about where those stand? I know there's been some changes, probably some disruption. So how do some of those key relationships stand today in terms of retaining or maybe gaining back some shelf space for some of those key partners?

Neal Cohane

Yes, Aaron, this is Neal. That's a great question. And I have to tell you, we reduced the size of our sales team because we now have a broker partner. I can tell you I've got the 4 best salespeople in the country today. I would match them up to any other small beverage company like ourselves. We've touched almost every one of our big customers, not completed yet, some are still ready to go, but we've touched and spoken with, and myself personally involved: Food Lion, Publix, Sprouts, Kroger, Wegmans, Ingles, Harris Teeter, Albertsons. Across the country, we've talked to everybody.

Everybody loves the brand. Everybody wanted to make sure we were, A, staying in stock and we could handle their business. Two, some want the glass bottle back, so we're bringing glass bottles back into some locations, which will be extremely helpful.

I think it was very, very tough. This brand was born on glass bottles back in 1986, '87. It was our legacy, was the glass bottle, and it was eliminated overnight, which hurt us and impacted our business significantly at places like Whole Foods, just one of our largest volume per outlet customers, completely hurt us there. We have a meeting coming up with Whole Foods in October, personally with the buyer. And I can tell you, I believe that's going to be a very, very effective meeting. We have a lot to talk about.

So, long answer to a short question. Yes, our relationships are very much intact, and our business is only going to get better. And we're seeing the results right now. While we're getting commitments now, we'll start seeing those commitments come to fruition sometime around the end of this third, mid-third to going into first quarter of next year.

Aaron Grey

Okay, great. Really appreciate that color and glad to hear in terms of some of that progress there. I guess, assuming that we get some of these accounts back and get some shelf space, how should we think about then ensuring that you're properly inventoried and capitalized on those growth opportunities, particularly as we think about where the balance sheet stands today and there might be some constraints?

Neal Cohane

Yes, the one thing that, you know, bringing Damian on. Damian knew our system very, very well. Damian also knows our bottling network very, very well. We have also met with the bottlers. We've met with our production houses. And we also are using Chris Reed, the founder of the company, and his production facility out on the West Coast. It's allowing us to reduce our minimum order quantities. So as we start bringing on new SKUs, we're not going to have to have and produce 20,000 and 30,000 cases per new SKU.

We're going to be able to get it to a very, very reasonable amount, which will preserve cash, and it'll allow us kind of to see the market, test the market, see where we need to make improvement. We're much smarter about how we do things in terms of creating -- rather than creating tons of inventory which will tie up cash. We're going to be very strategic how we do it. We're probably one of the best things we have going right now is our relationships with these guys.

Aaron Grey

Okay, that's great to hear. Maybe last question from me, just on the gross margin, right? Nice to see some of the sequential improvement during the quarter. Given all the puts and takes of what you're just talking about, being able to be more nimble and efficient in terms of the new SKU launches, and obviously having a big prioritization in terms of profitable sales as you now go forward and look for growth, how should we think about the evolution of the gross margin profile over the next 12 months?

Neal Cohane

Aaron, we have implemented and installed a system right now that is best-in-class. I would hold it up against any major beverage company in the country. We're using AI in a very strategic way to help us look and evaluate how our business is in every single one of our -- and I'll just say start with our top 25 customers because those customers drive a big part of our business, 85% to 90% of our business. We now can look and perform an ROI in minutes when it used to take a little while longer than that and not be as accurate. So we can see what our mix looks like, we can see what's driving the business quickly, we'll know it, we have it at our fingertips.

But we're also working on some strategic price increases. It's not across the board, but across SKUs that we know need to have a slight more bit of a little push so we can get our margins into the, as Doug said, into the 30s and mid-30s and above range.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Cohane for closing remarks. Please continue.

Neal Cohane

Thanks, Mark. Thanks for joining the call today. We believe the actions we are taking will position Reed's for continued improvement going forward and long-term sustainable growth. We appreciate your continued interest in Reed's, and we look forward to updating you on progress during the next call. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines. Have a good day.