Westrock Coffee (WEST) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Record EBITDA and Conway Ramp

Westrock Coffee Company (NASDAQ: WEST) reported record adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2026 despite lower reported revenue. Management attributed the improvement to growth in extracts and ready-to-drink beverages, higher Conway utilization, operating leverage and lower capital spending.

Key Takeaways

• Q3 consolidated adjusted EBITDA reached a record $26.4 million, up approximately 14% year over year. Nine-month adjusted EBITDA rose 58% to $73.7 million.
• Net sales declined 15.4% to approximately $300 million, primarily reflecting $26 million of tariff refunds, lower pass-through green coffee prices and a previously discussed single-serve customer loss. Excluding tariff refunds, net sales would have been approximately $326 million.
• Conway is operating at about 40% of current capacity. Management said committed programs should lift utilization to roughly 85% over the next 18 months.
• Westrock Coffee maintained its 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $90 million to $100 million, with its current estimate near the $95 million midpoint. Initial 2027 guidance is approximately $130 million.
• The company completed a $600 million refinancing that extends bank maturities to October 2031 and is expected to reduce required debt service by approximately $17 million in the first year.
• Q3 free cash flow was positive for a second consecutive quarter. Capital expenditures fell to $8.8 million, less than half the year-earlier level.

Key Financial Data

For the first nine months of 2026, consolidated net sales increased 8% to $915 million, while gross profit rose approximately 11% to $125 million. Operating profit was $5 million, compared with an operating loss of $36.7 million in the prior-year period.

Business and Operating Performance

Double-digit growth in Westrock Coffee’s extracts and ready-to-drink platform led the underlying performance. Management said beverage demand continued to grow even as U.S. quick-service restaurant and convenience-store traffic remained under pressure.

Conway is central to the company’s growth strategy. The facility is currently at approximately 40% utilization, with committed customer programs expected to take it to around 85% over the next 18 months. Management said that at this utilization level, Conway alone would generate more adjusted EBITDA than the $70 million produced by the entire company in 2025.

The company also said it has secured new business representing an estimated $60 million of annualized EBITDA, with a pipeline exceeding $100 million. In single serve, contracted new business has replaced approximately one-third of the business lost in the prior year.

Conway is also supporting cross-selling. More than 70% of new customers have purchased multiple product categories, according to management. Demand for ultra-filtered, high-protein milk products has also produced a record number of items under development.

Operating leverage continued to improve. Operating expenses were essentially flat year over year despite Conway’s growth, and management expects a significant portion of incremental gross profit from new programs to flow through to EBITDA. Q3 was also the first quarter without Conway-related cost add-backs, making the quarter a more relevant baseline for SG&A.

Management Guidance

Management expects several contracted programs to launch in the middle and later portions of 2027. As a result, the company anticipates exiting 2027 at a substantially higher annualized EBITDA run rate than the amount recognized during the year.

Longer term, management believes further production and packaging investments could double Conway’s EBITDA contribution again over the next three to five years. It also indicated that 2028 adjusted EBITDA could grow by approximately 30%-40% from the expected 2027 level, while emphasizing that customer timing and allocations remain uncertain.

Refinancing and Balance Sheet

Westrock Coffee completed new $600 million senior secured first-lien credit facilities, comprising $300 million of term loans and $300 million of revolving commitments. The facilities mature in October 2031. Lender commitments totaled approximately $737 million, enabling the company to increase the transaction from its initial $500 million target.

As part of the refinancing, Westrock Coffee repurchased $40 million of its $72 million convertible notes due in 2029, using approximately $21 million in cash and issuing approximately 2.4 million shares. The remaining $32 million was extended to January 20, 2032.

After closing, unrestricted cash and undrawn revolver availability totaled approximately $270 million, compared with approximately $95 million at September 30. Management said its near-term priorities are retaining cash and reducing debt rather than pursuing share repurchases.

Risks and Watch Items

• Management described consumer demand as choppy heading into Q4, particularly where fuel costs pressure customer traffic.
• Food and fuel prices remain short-term variables that management is monitoring.
• The 2026 EBITDA outcome depends partly on final customer mix decisions, while the 2027 outlook remains subject to customer volume allocations and program-launch timing.
• Management expects secured net leverage to increase temporarily by approximately 0.5 turn in Q4, followed by another 0.25-0.5 turn in Q1 2027, due to annual employee incentive payments and tariff refunds passed through to customers.
• Some recent free cash flow benefited from working-capital timing that management expects to reverse. Meaningful deleveraging is expected to resume beginning in Q2 2027.
• Conway’s expanding development pipeline creates execution demands around commercialization, production and customer service.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

Capital allocation: Management plans to prioritize cash retention and debt reduction. It may consider internal or external opportunities that do not increase net leverage, but indicated that share repurchases are unlikely in the near term.

2027 earnings cadence: The approximately $130 million adjusted EBITDA outlook includes customer programs launching during the middle and later parts of 2027. Management therefore expects the year-end annualized run rate to exceed the full-year result.

Capital spending: The company expects 2027 capital expenditures of $30 million to $35 million. Management does not anticipate returning to annual spending of $50 million to $60 million under the current operating plan.

Margins: Management expects gross margin to increase as Conway becomes a larger part of the business mix. Conway programs carry higher margins than much of the company’s established business, while limited incremental operating expenses should support EBITDA conversion.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker, Joanne Arnold, VP of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead.

Operator

Thank you and welcome to Westrock Coffee Company's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. With us are Mr. Scott Ford, co-founder and chief executive officer, and Mr. Chris Pledger, chief financial officer. By now, everyone should have access to the company's third quarter earnings release issued earlier today. This information is available on the investor relations section of Westrock Coffee Company's website at investors. Certain comments made on this call include forward-looking statements which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs concerning future events and are subject to several risks and uncertainties that could actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements.

Please refer to today's press release and other filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. Also, discussions during the call use certain non-GAAP financial measures as we describe business performance. The SEC filings, as well as the earnings press release, provide reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. And with that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Scott Ford, our co-founder and chief executive officer.

Scott Ford

Thank you, Juwan. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I want to focus on three things today, our growth and the operating model behind it. strength of the beverage category and what it says about the investments we've made and the refinancing we've just completed. growth the third quarter was a record quarter for Westrock consolidated adjusted EBITDA reached a record twenty six point four million up about 14% from a year ago and through the nine months it's up about 58% it was our sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year EBITDA growth and our second straight quarter of positive free cash flow. That is the operating model doing what we built it to do and the credit belongs to our people and the customers who trust us with their brands. Second, the category. Quick service restaurant and convenience store traffic in the U.S. is down this year, yet beverage keeps growing. Operators are building out energy, refreshers, cold coffee, and craft formats because those programs draw traffic and carry some of the best margins on their menus. That is the demand Conway was built to serve, and it is why our extract and ready-to-drink programs kept growing in a soft consumer quarter. Today Conway is running at about 40% of its current capacity and committed programs take it to roughly 85% over the next 18 months.

At that level, Conway alone will generate more than the 70 million in consolidated adjusted EBITDA this entire company produced in 2025. As we continue to add production capabilities and packaging equipment over the next three to five years, we believe we can double the EBITDA contribution from Conway yet again. Customers who come for Conway are putting programs in place across the rest of our platform, too. So far this year, we've won new business worth an estimated $60 million of annualized EBITDA, with a pipeline of more than 100 million behind that. And in single serve, we've already contracted enough new business to replace one-third of the business we lost last year. This begins in early 2017. That said, the consumer remains choppy heading into the fourth quarter, especially where fuel costs weigh on traffic. But most of our growth comes from contracted programs coming online, not simply from a rising consumer tide.

Third, the refinancing. Even in a tight financing market, our lenders committed 737 million to a 500 million deal ask, and we were pleased to close our new 600 million upsized facility late last month. It matures in October of 2031, and we are grateful for the confidence and the leadership of Rabobank and several other large institutions that have made this refinancing possible. With construction behind us and capital spending a fraction of what it has been, this was the last ingredient we needed to build a large, profitable business. platform, the people, the customers, and now a balance sheet built for the long term. This brings me to our outlook. For 2026, we continue to expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA between 90 and 100 million, largely dependent on final customer mix decision. Our current estimate is squarely in the middle of this range. At a 95 million year-end level, this critical growth metric would be up 36% over 2025, after being up 48% the prior year.

And building on this, our initial 2027 outlook is for about 130 million in consolidated adjusted EBITDA, nearly double what we earned in 2025, and up another 35% over the midpoint this year. Regardless of exactly where our 27 number lands, we fully anticipate ending 2027 at a much higher annualized run rate due to the customer programs scheduled to launch later in the year. Beyond that, the growth built into our customer agreements together with our pipeline gives us room to do even better over time. though we are watching fuel and food prices closely in the short term. Sitting here today, balance, we are more optimistic about where we'll land than we are concerned. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris Pledger, our CFO. Chris?.

Thomas Pledger

Thank you, Scott, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me take you through the quarter in more detail, starting with the P&L, moving to cash flow and the balance sheet, and then ending with the refinancing we just completed on October 21st. Consolidated net sales were approximately 300 million in the third quarter, down 15.4% compared to the third quarter of 2025. Most of that decline reflects factors that are important to separate from the underlying operating performance of the business. The largest driver is approximately 26 million in tariff refunds that we pass through or expect to pass through to our customers, which we record as a reduction of net sales rather than as cost. The corresponding refunds we collected from our vendors reduced cost of goods sold, so there's no gross profit impact. Excluding this item, net sales would have been approximately 326 million.

The balance of the decline reflects lower green coffee prices, which pass through to our customers at cost, and the previously discussed single-serve customer loss. These factors should not mask our strong underlying business performance during the quarter, led by double-digit growth in our ready-to-drink extracts platform. Importantly, although consolidated net sales were lower in the third quarter versus the prior year, through the first nine months of this year, consolidated net sales were 915 million, up 8% compared to the first nine months of 2025. Consolidated gross profit was 41.5 million in the third quarter, flat compared to the prior year. And year-to-date gross profit was 125 million, up approximately 11% from the prior year period. Both periods include incremental depreciation associated with our investment in Conway, 3.1 million in the quarter and 11.4 million year to date. We continue to see significant improvement in our operating profitability.

In the third quarter, we generated operating profit of 3.2 million compared to an operating loss of 8.6 million a year ago. Through the first nine months of the year, operating profit was 5 million, compared with an operating loss of 36.7 million in the prior year period, a swing of 41.7 million over the past year, and our net loss narrowed by almost 50% in the quarter to 10 million from 19.1 million. Another important proof point that our model is working is that despite significant growth at Conway, our operating expense base was essentially flat year over year. This is the operating leverage that we've been building towards. The platform was sized for substantially more volume than it carries today, and the overhead required to run it does not scale with that volume. As Conway continues to bring contracted programs online, we expect a significant portion of that incremental gross profit to flow through to EBITDA. All of this translated into record quarterly consolidated adjusted EBITDA of 26.4 million, up approximately 14% year-over-year.

And through the first nine months of 2026, consolidated adjusted EBITDA was 73.7 million, up 58% over the same period last year. Beginning in the third quarter, we no longer add back Conway's subscale operating costs in calculating beverage solutions segment adjusted EBITDA. Conway has reached a scale at which those costs are properly treated as ordinary operating costs. So this quarter's segment result absorbs costs that were excluded from the prior year comparison. Despite this, we still delivered beverage solutions segment adjusted EBITDA of 23.3 million, an increase of approximately 14% compared to the third quarter of 2025. The performance reflects strength across our underlying flavors, extracts, and ingredients capabilities driven by the continued commercialization of Conway and the benefits of our business optimization and expense management efforts. We've also crossed the utilization level where new business flows largely through to EBITDA.

From here, each new program, whether an existing customer ramping or a new customer onboarding, comes in at a higher incremental margin. Our sustainable sourcing and traceability segment generated segment adjusted EBITDA 3.2 million in the third quarter, compared to 5.8 million in the prior year period. The third quarter comparison reflects sales timing within the year. Year-to-date, segment adjusted EBITDA of 11.6 million is up more than 5% year-over-year and consistent with our expectations for the full year. We generated cash flows from operations of 9.9 million and positive free cash flow, which we define as cash from operations less additions to property, plant, and equipment of 1.1 million during the quarter. This marks our second consecutive quarter of positive free cash flow, bringing cumulative free cash flow over the second and third quarters to approximately 21 million. Part of that resulted from working capital timing we expect to reverse, but improved profitability and lower capital expenditures are fundamentally changing our cash flow profile.

To that point, capital expenditures were approximately 8.8 million during the quarter, less than half of the 18.1 million invested in the third quarter of 2025. Year-to-date, our capital expenditures were 22.4 million compared to 79.9 million in the comparable prior year period. We continue to project approximately 30M of capital expenditures for the full year compared to 89M in 2025 and 160M in 2024. This is the structural inflection point. We've discussed for several quarters as Conway has moved from construction into operation. We also continued to deleverage during the quarter, with secured net leverage at September 30th declining to approximately 3.1 times from 3.4 times at the end of the second quarter and 4.6 times a year ago. Put differently, over the last 12 months, we've reduced secured net leverage by approximately one and a half turns. or roughly one-third, driven by a combination of debt reductions and earnings growth.

Over that period, secured net debt declined approximately 59 million, while credit agreement-adjusted EBITDA increased by approximately 17 million. As previously announced on October 21st, we took another important step in strengthening our financial position with the completion of our new 600 million senior secured first lien credit facilities, consisting of 300 million of term loans and 300 million of revolving commitments, and extending our bank maturities to October 2031. The transaction received approximately 737 million of lender commitments, allowing us to upsize the facility from the targeted 500 million at launch to 600 million at close. We're grateful for the support we received from all of our lending partners. When compared to our prior credit agreement, the new facilities meaningfully reduced our required debt service by approximately 17 million in the first year, further supporting free cash flow generation. As part of the refinancing, we repurchased 40 million of the 72 million convertible notes due 2029, paying approximately 21 million in cash and issuing approximately 2.4 million shares. In addition, we extended the maturity of the remaining 32 million of the convertible notes due 2029 to January 20th. 2032, eliminating their February 2029 maturity.

As a consequence of the refinancing and the repurchase of the convertible notes, we do expect that our leverage will temporarily increase by about half a turn in the fourth quarter and another quarter to half turn in the first quarter of next year as we pay out our annual incentive compensation to employees and pass tariff refunds through to our customers. So beginning in the second quarter of next year, we expect will once again see meaningful de-levering. Following the close of the refinancing, we had approximately 270 million of unrestricted cash and undrawn revolver commitments under our new beverage solutions credit facilities. compared with approximately 95 million at September 30. This substantially increased liquidity provides us with greater flexibility to operate the business and manage the balance sheet over time. To conclude, we believe our improved earnings, lower capital intensity, and improved balance sheet as a result of the refinancing materially strengthens our financial flexibility as we enter the next phase of Westrock Coffee's growth.

Operator

that we'd be happy to open the line for questions. Thank you. At this time we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Eric Des Lauriers of Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now open.

Question-and-Answer Session

Eric Des Lauriers

Great. Thank you for taking my questions, and congrats on the strong quarter and capital raise here. My first question, just kind of focusing on potential use of proceeds with this greater liquidity that you have now. Can you just kind of give us a sense of your strategic priorities here? How should we think about, you know, potential share buybacks, organic investment, M&A, maybe some more paydowns on the balance sheet? Just kind of help us level set how you're thinking about use of proceeds going forward.

Scott Ford

Sure, I think Chris's remarks addressed the short term, you know, over the next two or three quarters, what we've got going out the door. And frankly, beyond that, at this juncture, we are very focused on retaining cash, paying debt down. We want to de-lever the business. We think we have an absolute unbelievable path towards growing an industry-leading business in this space over the next two to three years. And the best way to do that is from a rock-solid balance sheet and not the sketchy one, maybe, that we have been accused of running in times past as we were building from nothing out of our own back pocket. And so I think you would see us be very conservative with the balance sheet deleveraging. Obviously, as I've said on calls before, No business should leave its balance sheet in a position where it can't defend a reasonable stock price for the business.

And this business has not had that capacity in times past. It does now, but frankly, I'd be very surprised if we were so incented as to come out of pocket with money for that this juncture I think we've got a lot of things we can do internally and perhaps externally that don't add to our net leverage position that increase our industry structure position and we think the best way to get to those cards is to continue to delever between now and then.

Eric Des Lauriers

all right that's helpful thank you um and then um two questions as it relates to uh the um EBITDA cadence for 27. One, I think you mentioned, you know, the EBITDA growth will largely be back half, potentially even Q4 weighted. I think you mentioned some contracts that will be ramping towards the end of the year. So just wanted to kind of confirm that. And then also just touch on SG&A. So from a reported basis, looks like that's come down pretty meaningfully for about five or six straight quarters now. I'm just wondering how to think about that going forward and sort of what's been the main driver of that.

Scott Ford

Yes, well, two things on that front. First of all, in the guidance to 27, I believe is what your first question was about, So where we say, rather than be precisely wrong, we're just trying to be generally correct. Plus or minus 130, most of our customers won't finish their allocations until deep in the first quarter for the actual volumes. We have a lot of conversations, but that's a lot of guesswork, because our fiscal year doesn't fall with the same calendar planning year as most of our customers. So that's what most of the back and forth is through this time of year. So we think 130 is plus or minus a good guess right now. And then the point I was trying to make is a number of customers that we have sold in that $60 million pipeline I referenced, they are slated to come on board towards the middle and latter part of next year.

So when we get into late 27, we'll be at a very different annualized run rate than the 130 that we are guessing right now will fall in the fiscal, which our fiscal calendar year. So that's what I was trying to distinguish. What would that be? We're not really sure. think we'll grow something like another 30 to 40% in 28 after 27's number. And I'm trying to get you some understanding of how that falls in 27 so you can understand those numbers.

Thomas Pledger

And then to your SG&A question, if you recall that as the build out of Conway that there were expenses that were, or operating expenses that were added back, a lot of those were captured quarter by quarter in SG&A. As those have rolled off through the add backs and into operating expense, our SG&A comes down. This is the first quarter though, where we don't have any Conway related add-backs. So if you're looking for kind of a level line for SG&A going forward, this quarter would be it. Overall operating expense is flat, which I think is a great proof point to the business that we've built and as we continue to grow, as Scott talked about in 2027, there's not a lot of incremental opex that we need to put on the business in order to be able to produce those volumes, and you should see most of that drop to the bottom line. Awesome. Very helpful answers. I appreciate you taking my question, and congrats again. Hey, thanks a bunch.

Operator

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Chirag Vora of TAG. Your line is now open.

Sarang Vora

Great, thank you guys for taking the question and great profitability. Great to see the Conway making progress. I know you guys gave guidance for next year, so just thinking in terms of free cash flow, the question before, how should we think about CapEx for next year? I know there are some new production lines that you were thinking of starting given the demand from customers, but you have done a great job. this year in bringing down CapEx. So I'm just curious if you can share a little bit color on how we should think about CapEx for next year. in terms of free cash flow generation. Thank you. Absolutely. Thanks, Sarong.

Thomas Pledger

From a CapEx perspective, I think as we talked about, we've reached an inflection point with Conway. The construction part of Conway is complete and now we're into just operating it. Obviously there are going to be opportunities to deploy capital or deploy CapEx for customers. that want to grow with us, and we firmly expect to do that. We've done that this year within the 30 million of CapEx that we forecast. Next year's going to be 30 to 35 million of CapEx as well. And so we can deliver around the customer commitments that we've made and the opportunities that we have to continue to grow the business and deliver the next year's guidance based on the installed capacity that we have, plus some incremental growth capex in order to be able to meet customer needs. But you're not going to see us go back to a time where, you know, CapEx.

CapEx is $50, $60 million. That's not the business we're in right now. So we're going to execute within those parameters.

Sarang Vora

That's great. I had a second question on the margin profile. I know you talked about SG&A being very muted. So fair to assume that majority of this, we will see a massive gross margin expansion over the next year as Conway goes up, right? Because the mix shifts towards higher higher margin than the ground coffee and single service. Is that the right way to think about the growth trajectory on profitability?.

Thomas Pledger

You definitely should see gross margin go up because there's a mix shift. Conway, as we continue to load on volume, Conway continues to be a larger, contributor to the overall EBITDA business, and that is higher margin business than what we have in most of the base business.

Sarang Vora

That's cool. And just a broader question on Conway, you were ramping up from 40 to 80. What has surprised you the most from a customer request standpoint? Anything that surprised you as you ramped up from a production standpoint? Just curious. you can share feedback from customers or something. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time today.

Scott Ford

to hop on. The greatest surprise from Conway has been twofold. Number one, when they come to Conway, they want to go see everything else we do, and we have had a 70 plus percent multiple product sale to our new customers that are coming in. I mean that's ridiculous. We couldn't have imagined we would have seen a reaction like that to Conway. So one of the reasons that our growth this year has been so strong and frankly our growth over the next two years is likely to be as strong again is because of that multi product portfolio that when people come to Conway they see how easy it is to do business with us and then they say well do you also do cups do you also do roast and ground can you do whole bean then you expand your geographic footprint to cover more of our restaurants in a different part of the country etc etc that's been the biggest surprise this The second one is frankly the ultra-filtered milk, high protein, craze that Conway is built and capable of making and the demand for that and the number of brands coming into that space, the number of products that we have under development right now is the greatest number of individual items by a long shot than we've ever had in the house and that includes when we're were building Conway and first turning it on and so we just continue to get and what about and what about this and can you do this and would you take that and prioritizing that and getting the teams lined up to make sure that our customers have a great product development and commercialization and and then an operational delivery and daily customer follow-up. That's the key to executing a low price, high service, quality product formula, but the appetite for it from new and old customers, frankly, has just been far in excess of what we would have hoped for on our best day. And so the challenge is actually delivering against that and that's where we spend all of our time every day. That's great. Good luck. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Thanks, y'all. This concludes the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Scott Ford, CEO, for closing remarks.

Scott Ford

Well, thank you very much. I'd like to thank all of you for hopping on the call today. Obviously, we were thrilled with the quarter. We're head down trying to close the year and get ready for the new year. We are thrilled with the credit agreement being behind us. It gives us unbelievable flexibility over the next several years, and we will be very, very good stewards of the liquidity that it gives us. And we appreciate your interest in this business and following us today on this call. So y'all have a great afternoon.

Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You can now disconnect.

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