BRC - Q3 2023
November 9, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings, and welcome to the Black Rifle Coffee Company Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tanner Doss, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Tanner. You may begin.
Tanner Doss (VP of Investor Relations)
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining Black Rifle Coffee Company's conference call to discuss our third quarter 2023 financial results, which we released today and can be found on our website at ir.blackriflecoffee.com. With me on today's call is Evan Hafer, founder and CEO, Tom Davin, co-CEO, Chris Mondzelewski, President, and Steve Kadenacy, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you of the company's safe harbor language, which I'm sure you are all familiar with. On today's call, management may make forward-looking statements, including guidance and underlying assumptions. Forward-looking statements are based on expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.
For a further discussion of risks related to our business, please see our previous filings with the SEC. This call will also contain non-GAAP financial measures, such as Adjusted EBITDA. Whenever we refer to EBITDA in our comments, we are referring to adjusted EBITDA, unless otherwise noted. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release furnished to the SEC, and they are also available on our investor website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Evan Hafer, founder and CEO of Black Rifle Coffee Company. Evan?
Evan Hafer (Founder and CEO)
Thank you, Tanner, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'm thrilled to discuss our business this quarter as it marks a significant milestone for our company that I founded in my garage with some green beans and a little two pound roaster less than a decade ago. But first, before I go into that, I'd like to remind everyone that this weekend is Veterans Day. Veterans Day is a time for us to honor and remember the brave men and women that have served in the armed forces, showing our deep appreciation for their sacrifices and dedication to our country. On behalf of Black Rifle Coffee Company, I want to thank all the veterans for their service to this great nation. First, we're on track for accelerated profitability and an accelerated path to establishing a self-sustaining, cash-generating business that aligns with our mission of serving those who serve.
Steve will take you through some of the details on these financial milestones in his section, but for now, suffice to say, our business has never been stronger financially. Second, the evolution of our core leadership team at Black Rifle Coffee has resulted in the most robust team I've ever assembled. It takes a distinct kind of leadership team to build a business from 0 to $100 million, and it takes another team to scale from $100 million to $1 billion. Of course, every leader, no matter what their tenure, must embrace the critical mission of Black Rifle Coffee. I can confidently say that our efforts to attract the leaders we need to build a thriving billion-dollar revenue business are paying off, as evidenced by both brand performance and the efficient operation of the company that is driving our financial results.
I have never been more confident in our future. We've added several key team members in the past year, including our president, Chris Mondzelewski, our Chief Financial Officer, Steve Kadenacy, our Chief Technology and Operations Officer, Chris Clark, and our Chief Revenue Officer, Danya Kennedy. This team is delivering at a world-class level. While much of our focus has gone into streamlining our prior inefficiencies in our operations, our brand continues to be of paramount importance. Delivery of our ongoing mission requires us to continue to build new relationships with partners and consumers, but must always be done through the lens of value creation. In particular, I'd like to highlight Chris Mondzelewski, or as he's known around here, Monz. He brings over 23 years of experience in CPG, having worked with iconic brands at both Kraft Foods and Mars Petcare.
Moreover, he's a fellow veteran who shares a deep connection to our mission and an integral part of our DNA. I can confidently say that he is one of the finest executives and one of the finest men I've had the privilege of working with. His performance to date has been nothing short of exceptional. I'm delighted to announce that effectively January first, Mondzelewski will assume the role as the sole CEO of the company, as Tom will step away from day-to-day operations and transition to the board of directors. I'm looking forward to remaining deeply involved and working side by side with Mondzelewski as the founder and executive chairman of the company. Tom is equally as excited to continue his involvement at the board level. This transition is a natural progression.
It has been carefully considered and planned and will allow me to spend the vast majority of my time on marketing, brand building, and where I can provide the most value for our customers, employees, partners, and shareholders. Monz is supported by a world-class team with a strong execution mindset and extensive collective experience in running public companies. It has been my ambition from day one in my garage to take Black Rifle to its highest levels. The mission is one embraced by nearly every American, so it's incumbent upon us to ensure that every American has access to the mission. I look forward to being there on the front lines with Monz and his team as we develop the roadmap to a billion-dollar business. So with that, I'd like to hand over the call to the president and future CEO. Monz, take it away.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Thank you, Evan. Before we dive into the Q3 results, I want to express my gratitude to Evan and the board for their trust in me. Given my family and my personal affiliation to the military and police communities. Joining the Black Rifle team has truly been a dream come true. It is not lost on me, the heavy responsibility of continuing to bring our mission to life with consumers, customers, investors, but most importantly, the veterans and first responders to whom we serve. Today, I'll walk you through some of the key highlights from each of our business units for Q3, providing context and insights into our focus areas.
Let's start by emphasizing the strength of the Black Rifle brand, which is nothing short of remarkable. Having worked with numerous fast-growing consumer packaged goods brands throughout my career, I can confidently say that what's happening at Black Rifle is unique. Over the past year, we have seen awareness of the brand grow by over 50%. The unique way that Black Rifle brings brands to life, the culture itself of the veteran and the first responder community, will ensure that this unique character maintains as we take on new levels of scale across the market. This strength is most evident in our wholesale channel, which saw a 23% sequential growth in the quarter versus Q2, and an impressive 91% growth year-over-year. Just a year ago, we announced our entry into the FDM market with bagged coffee and rounds.
We've since grown that channel from zero to over $100 million in revenue. Moving forward, we will drive to new heights with our existing partners and work to find new partners aligned with our mission of service and growth. Our brand is now on shelves in 14 FDM partners, up from only one a year ago. We are very early in most of these rollouts, but early indicators show that our newest partner rollouts are on track for strong results. In our largest retail partner, we are now the eighth-largest coffee brand overall and fourth in bagged coffee. In our second-largest partner, having launched only a few months ago, we have already risen to the number 10 brand.
This is a promising sign, given the relatively limited number of outlets we currently serve. The potential is enormous. Moving to our ready-to-drink business, we continue to enjoy success, with our growth outpacing the overall category. Specifically, our year-over-year growth stands at over 16%, significantly higher than any other major brand in the category. Our core SKUs consistently rank in the top 20 for RTD coffee, and our ACV, or all commodity volume, which is a more appropriate way to look at our growth versus doors, has grown nearly 500 basis points to almost 42%, reflecting our distribution efforts. We see RTD as a critical strategic category for Black Rifle, and we are committed to dedicating resources to enhance our performance in the market, particularly in demand forecasting and gross margin improvement.
Our past inventory challenges are now being successfully addressed, and we expect to benefit from a cash tailwind in the coming quarters. Steve will speak more about this in his prepared comments. Shifting to our direct-to-consumer business, we are adapting to changing consumer habits in the overall DTC category post-COVID, and are implementing a number of improvements that should stabilize this business over the next year. Firstly, we have technological enhancements planned for our website and mobile app, making it easier to guide our loyal customers towards subscription. Additionally, we are introducing innovations within our subscription options, providing customers with more flexibility and variety in their purchases.
Our targeted marketing efforts to attract new DTC customers will become increasingly sophisticated, and our paid ad optimization efforts are already yielding results. Our Black Rifle subscription will continue to progress as a relationship with the brand itself. As the largest DTC coffee subscription business in the U.S., we are committed to maintaining our leading position, and attracting new DTC customers is vital to our success. Within Outposts, the direct retail component of our business, we achieved a 20% year-over-year increase in revenue. However, we had a 15% decline sequentially, which did not meet our expectations.
As a result, we are taking a measured approach to investments in this space as we refine our model. As we have communicated over the last few quarters, we have shifted resources to our growing high-margin, asset-light FDM business. We believe this focus provides the highest and best return for our shareholders in the short and medium term. That said, Outposts remain a key element of our long-term strategy, and we are determined to improve our approach in the coming months. We'll keep you informed of our progress as we continue to analyze this segment.
In the meantime, we will focus on maximizing the performance of our existing company stores and supporting our franchisees. In conclusion, I want to reiterate the priorities I discussed in the previous quarter's call. Our focus is on driving sustainable, profitable growth through rigorous execution within the business and the marketplace. We are committed to delivering on our promises and ensuring efficient, predictable growth and profitability for the foreseeable future, which in turn supports our mission. With that, I'd like to now introduce you to one of the newest members of our team. Steve Kadenacy formally joined our team about two months ago. Steve has a long history with Black Rifle, however. In fact, his organization, SilverBox Capital, partnered with Black Rifle during the de-SPAC process.
To have a CFO on my team with Steve's experience has been a real pleasure and amazing spark to the organization. Steve has always been one of our key investors, and now he is there with us day-to-day in the trenches, instantaneously multiplying our strategic and executional capabilities. It amazes me the quality of talent drawn to a mission-oriented business such as Black Rifle. I'll hand the call over to Steve for a more detailed dive into our Q3 results.
Steve Kadenacy (CFO)
Thank you, Monz. First, I'd like to express my excitement at officially becoming a part of the Black Rifle team, having been involved with the company for over two years. Our team at SilverBox was thrilled to join forces with Black Rifle, and many of our partners and investors remain shareholders to this day, including myself. We invested and continue to invest in this company because we wholeheartedly believe in the mission and are deeply passionate about the exceptional brand. We see a clear path to exponential, profitable growth for the company in the years to come. My decision to join as the CFO stems from the belief that I can make a difference by leveraging my public company experience and my commitment to drive operational excellence across all areas of the business.
My key objectives are centered around improving execution against our business plan, driving data-driven decision making, enhancing our focus on investor returns, and building a world-class finance team. I'm pleased to report that we are well on track to achieving these objectives, and my optimism about the company's future has only gotten stronger since I joined the management team. Our Q3 results further bolster this optimism. During the third quarter, our total revenue increased 33% to $100.5 million, with the wholesale channel leading the way with a remarkable 91% growth. Additionally, our RTD business continued to expand its reach up 16%, delivering well over market growth. Our gross margin improved by 220 basis points from a year ago, reaching 33.9%. However, we acknowledge there's room for improvement here.
We've been candid about our suboptimal execution in this area, and we are focused on rectifying this moving forward. Our growing pains in the ready-to-drink business are mostly behind us, though we have incurred non-cash losses, which are reflected in our third quarter earnings and will continue to impact earnings through the middle of Q1. However, once these nonrecurring losses have run their course before the end of the first quarter of 2024, our RTD inventory will be right-sized, and we will be well positioned to further execute our plans to grow our RTD business. Meanwhile, we are confident that our cash flow before debt service in 2024 will surpass EBITDA. We also anticipate a substantial improvement in gross margin in 2024 as we work towards enhancing RTD margins across the supply chain and expand our presence in the broader FDM market.
We look forward to providing more details on our 2024 outlook in next quarter's call. As I mentioned earlier, operational excellence is a core passion, and we are committed to executing relentlessly to capture the profitability gains that come with growth and scale. This is reflected in our SG&A costs, which are starting to show the results of our cost reduction efforts and resource reallocation. Our hard work over the past few quarters is paying off, as our top-line revenue of 33% has significantly outpaced the modest 4% rise in operating expenses. Our adjusted EBITDA is now at record levels, and we anticipate further acceleration in Q4. It's worth noting additionally, that in Q4, we will implement actions that will lead to significant further improvement in 2024 SG&A.
The combined impact of the work we have done year to date, coupled with further optimization in 2023, will yield cost savings of upwards of $30 million. While these actions may seem dramatic, we believe our resources are now effectively aligned against our opportunities. Further, these cost-saving opportunities will not impair in any way our ability to continue our market-leading growth, providing flexibility to lean harder into investments in both brand building and additional capabilities that support growth in the wholesale business. Once again, we will provide more insight into our 2024 expectations next quarter. Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $6.7 million in cash and $77.3 million in long-term debt. The increase in our year-over-year debt is due to our recent refinancing, which has given us increased liquidity.
We forecast continued and significant improvement in cash through 2024, as discussed earlier in these remarks. Furthermore, we are pleased to report that our inventory levels have been reduced in the last quarter to $91.4 million, an over $18 million reduction from Q2, and we expect them to continue to come down over the next three quarters. This is driven by healthy demand and strong execution in the business. Turning to guidance, as we head into our final quarter, our visibility is clearer in our expected annual results. We continue to expect to be at the low end of our revenue forecast of $400 million-$440 million, and well within the range of our Adjusted EBITDA guidance.
Our gross margin guidance of 36%-37.5% will not be achieved due to the reasons we have discussed, but we are pleased to have more than made up for the shortfall with better execution below the gross margin line. As I mentioned earlier, we expect material improvements in gross margin in 2024. To summarize, I see a clear improving trend in Black Rifle's financial condition. Given the continued strength of the brand and the tight execution of the business, we are clearly trending towards profitability and positive cash flow.
This acceleration in profitability and cash flow will enable us to invest in new opportunities and fulfill our mission of serving the veteran and first responder communities. I've been involved with Black Rifle for over two years. Now, after having my boots on the ground for the last couple of months, I have increased conviction at the opportunity in front of us. The incredible senior leadership team and the explosive momentum in the business is further proof that Black Rifle can become a billion-dollar business over time. With that, I'll hand the call over to the operator for the Q&A session.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Michael Baker with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.
Michael Baker (Managing Director)
Hey, great. Thanks, guys. Couple things. One, I'm curious, you said 14 wholesale partners. Can you give some more color there? We know it's Walmart is the big one. You said you're gonna be in a second big partner who I don't know if you've officially announced it, but we think we know who that is. But who are the other 14? I imagine a lot of smaller FDM partners, but any color on that would be helpful. Thank you.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Hey, Michael, this is Chris. I'll address your question. So yeah, yeah, our largest partner is Walmart. We've been thrilled with that partnership. We did talk last quarter about the second largest partner. We've gone into Albertsons, and that launch has thus far gone really well. You know, we're still in early days, you know, a full distribution with them. But as we mentioned on the call, you know, so far the performance looks great. I think, you know, as far as the other 14 customers, it's a collection of, you know, mid and smaller-sized customers. I would say at this point, we're having conversations with really all major customers in the U.S.
So what we're gonna continue to do is, find the biggest ACV opportunities, focus our resources against that, and we're gonna continue to drive, you know, the right partnership for Black Rifle. So we're gonna continue to make sure that we're operating with the customers that give us an opportunity to create great value overall, in the premium coffee category, but then also meet, you know, our mission, which, obviously, is very fundamental to us.
Michael Baker (Managing Director)
Okay. And the other wholesale question, the RTD business, just update us, you know, if you wouldn't mind, with a little bit more color on what's going on there. I guess we get the growth, but it sounds like you're taking an inventory write down. So you're eliminating SKUs, I think, that have underperformed. What a little bit more color on what's going on in the ready-to-drink business, please.
Steve Kadenacy (CFO)
Sure. This is Steve. I'll take that one, just relative to the write-downs and the adjustments that we took. Obviously, during the year, we were a bit over inventoried, and we've been doing everything we can to bring that down. We've struck a few deals to help us in that regard, which all have kind of improved our position going into 2024. There's a little bit to be done in the fourth quarter, but we've taken some non-cash hits that allowed us to offload inventory during the quarter, plus we've had the strong demand as Evan mentioned in his prepared comments for RTD in general, which has brought down our inventory overall. But the non-cash hits really, I think, are mostly done other than the deal that we've done with KBS, which will help us bring down inventory in Q4 and a little bit in Q1 as well.
Michael Baker (Managing Director)
Got it. Okay. If I could ask one more, and I hope you'll answer it. I imagine you will, but, you know, you keep talking about a clear path to $1 billion. You know, can you help, can you help us see that clear path, you know, in terms of which channels and how long? And at one point, you had been talking about a 20% EBITDA margin. A lot has changed since, you know, you guys first went out with a 20% EBITDA margin. I mean, is that still on the table in any way? Thanks.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Yeah. So I'll start off, and then I'll kick it over to Steve. So as far as you know, the route to $1 billion, I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail on that. We'll continue to reveal more as we, you know, write our strategic plan here over the next year. But, you know, suffice to say, we're only in the beginning stages of, you know, penetrating the wholesale channel as a starting point, right? If you look at our ACV, we're at about 32% on packaged coffee. We're at 41% within RTD. So, you know, given our strong results, we expect that we should continue to be able to push those ACV numbers significantly higher. Within the doors themselves that we are in currently, again, there's strong room for expansion.
And the customers that we've already been in for a year, we had a lot of success in getting innovation in year two, continuing to push our distribution and our share numbers higher. So again, that ability to really work within the doors is a secondary factor. And then the third is really, you know, what are all the other areas that, you know, a super premium coffee company can operate? And again, you know, we've talked about our Outpost business in the past.
You know, we have 30 stores now. You know, we have taken a bit of a tactical pause on Outpost as we have been investing in, you know, the areas of the growth that we think are most accretive to building our brand and building the momentum that we've had. But, you know, in the background, we are, of course, working a strategy there as well. So all of these pieces will play a factor in our route to a billion.
Steve Kadenacy (CFO)
Yeah, just to add to that, in terms of our longer-term goals for profitability, we're gonna come back to you in Q4 and talk in much more detail, obviously, about 2024. And ideally, we hope to be able to give you some insight into kind of high-level goals for 2025 and 2026 as well. But you're clearly seeing currently an inflection in the business. You've got significant synergies and scale happening, where the growth on the top line is 33%, as I mentioned in my prepared comments, and only 4% growth in total OpEx.
And then we're taking out, as I mentioned, another $15 million of costs in Q4 for a total of $30 year-over-year, and some of that we'll put back into our marketing. But you're clearly seeing an inflection of profitability for the business, and also, by the way, relative to our liquidity and inflection in cash flow into 2024, which I mentioned in my prepared comments as well.
Michael Baker (Managing Director)
Okay. Thanks. Appreciate the call here.
Steve Kadenacy (CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Sarang Vora with the Telsey Group. Please proceed with your question.
Sarang Vora (Research Analyst)
Great. Congrats, Chris, and to you on the new role, and, you know, good to see the acceleration of the business. Let me start first with the Walmart thing. Can you it seems like the relationship is going fine, strong for you guys? You know, we were in stores, we saw the new canisters and, instant coffee and stuff. So can you help us, understand how the, you know, how the new products are, driving success over there? And then it is almost a year that you will leave the bagged coffee. So how are you thinking about growth of the bagged coffee business at Walmart, and then any changes you plan to do over there in terms of pricing, promotion, as you start to lap, you know, go into the second year of the business at Walmart, the bagged ones?
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Hey, Sarang, thanks for the question. Let me kick off. I think, yeah, we've had an outstanding partnership with Walmart, you know, through the existence of the brand there. So to specifically address your question around some of the new items that we talked about in the last quarter's call. Yeah, the performance has been outstanding. I think our share position has continued to advance. So as you recall, you know, the share was at 1.3. We talked about it being, you know, 3.8. It's now 4.2 over the latest 13 weeks. So as that share continues to advance, you know, an element of that, of course, is those new items and those new segments that have come into our product portfolio there.
Moving forward, we'll continue to drive, you know, our core business as well as, you know, look for ways to expand as we would with any customer. I think, we have a great shelf set already at Walmart. You know, if you go walk any of the stores, we certainly have room for improvement as far as areas that we can continue to move into. But yeah, I mean, primarily what we're going to continue to do is drive strong marketing and build awareness of our brand. Our brand awareness has built, you know, over the last three months, an additional from 27% to 31%.
You know, we're gonna be investing, we're not going to go into the details of this today, but we're gonna be investing into our brand awareness next year at an even higher level to drive that awareness further. And we are confident that that will continue to convert, again, not only around those new items, but the velocity of our existing items in store. As far as pricing, we're not gonna go into any details on that. We're continuing to monitor the market and find opportunities to make sure we're delivering the best value for our consumers.
Sarang Vora (Research Analyst)
That's great. You know, and my second question, Steve, I think you mentioned there is a substantial opportunity to improve gross margins next year. And I know you aren't giving, like, a very specific guidance, but can you help us walk through some of those key elements that, you know, should strongly help you next year? I think RTD margins is the one that you mentioned, but just curious, if you can help us more on the gross margin expansion next year. Thank you.
Steve Kadenacy (CFO)
Yeah, well, sure. Good question. I think if you look at our current quarter and you remove some of the one-time hits that we took to rightsize our inventory, our margins were closer to 37%. As we look forward into the new year, we're looking across the entire supply chain for further savings, but also we get natural benefit from the FDM category in general because we're more profitable there. But we'll give you more detail on that. We certainly believe there's more upside to where we are. We're clear. We believe there's more upside to even though the adjusted number that I just gave you of 37%. When we come back next quarter, we'll give you what we believe we can do in 2024 and perhaps beyond.
Sarang Vora (Research Analyst)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Joe Altobello with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.
Joe Altobello (Managing Director)
Thanks. Hey, guys. Good afternoon. I guess the first question on the cost savings, the $30 million, that certainly got my attention. Can you give us a little more detail on where that's coming from? You know, what time period do you expect to realize those savings? And does that drop to the bottom line, or do you see that getting reinvested?
Steve Kadenacy (CFO)
So the timing has been about $15 million that, that happened prior to the quarter. There's another $15 million coming out in the quarter. It's a combination of various types of expenses, like professional fees and other things that are naturally rolling off and/or we're bringing more discipline into the business for us to do things ourselves. And the other are reallocating our resources to the things that are really growing and driving profitability now. So there's, there is a headcount element to that. I'm not gonna get into the detail side of that, but that's all coming out in the quarter.
Joe Altobello (Managing Director)
Okay. I guess, I guess to follow up on that, when do you expect to realize all of it, though?
Steve Kadenacy (CFO)
Sorry about. It'll all be realized through by the end of the year. And then your, your second part of the question, which I didn't address, and I apologize for that, is, are we going to reinvest some of that? Yes, we will, and that'll be largely on the marketing side.
Joe Altobello (Managing Director)
Okay, got it. And then secondly, in terms of the FDM partners, you mentioned you're at 14 today. I think you mentioned you had one a year ago. If I look at your wholesale doors, I think they're down year-over-year, and I think they're up very modestly, sequentially. So help us understand, you know, the big growth in the partnerships, yet, you know, very few incremental doors coming from that.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Yeah, that's a great question, Joe. I think, you know, really, we're looking to re-guide, you know, the way we look at this to ACV or all commodity volume. It's just... For us, it's a better way to guide that our resources are going against where we believe we're gonna get the greatest return. So, we've been ensuring that we go after the customer partners. Again, I wanna reiterate that, you know, we believe are gonna deliver the greatest value in the alignment to our mission, but that are also allowing us to impact, you know, ACV in the most efficient way, against, you know, the fewest number of doors. And these, of course, are gonna end up being your larger partners.
So I think, you know, when you look at the math of some of what you're talking about, a lot of that is, really the migration of the business. And again, you know, when you look at where we were a year ago, it was one major FDM partner. We had a lot of smaller partners, you know, who were still showing up. And when those partners come in promotionally, et cetera, into the business, it can affect, you know, how those door numbers look, which again, we believe does not allow us sometimes to make the best internal decisions. And again, this is why you're gonna see us talking much more around ACV as a guiding metric.
Joe Altobello (Managing Director)
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Sure.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Jon Andersen with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.
Jon Andersen (Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Wanted to ask about brand awareness. You mentioned in the prepared comments, I think the brand awareness has doubled over the past year. Where is the awareness level for the brand today? How does that compare to some of the other bigger packaged coffee brands in the marketplace? And you referred to kind of 2024 marketing initiatives, you know, designed to drive brand awareness and presumably more kind of trial and more entry into the brand. If you could discuss the kind of magnitude of the step-up you'd expect and how some of that money might be spent. Thank you.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Yeah, thanks, Jon. I'll address that. I think, so, you know, brand awareness is measured based on whatever, you know, sort of supplier you choose to measure it with. So, any number that I would, you know, put out would be directional in nature. But as I mentioned on the previous set of questions, you know, we've seen it move from 27%, you know, brand awareness up to about 31%. That was just in the last quarter. When you look at that versus year ago, then yes, as I said in the prepared comments, it has essentially doubled. One of the biggest components of what drives our brand awareness is actually our distribution in the market.
So, not to minimize marketing, you know, I'll talk about marketing here in a second, but simply driving our distribution on shelf is actually the most efficient way for us to be able to raise our brand awareness. And we've seen that, you know, come through as we've been able to increase our distribution. On the marketing front, you know, we talked a little bit about this last quarter. We're going to continue to ensure that we are maximizing our efficiency of marketing spend. So again, we would be spending against the entire marketing funnel, but when you start to talk about brand awareness, that's top of funnel awareness, and we'll ensure that we're generating as much awareness in the right ways, again, bringing the Black Rifle brand to life, as we can.
We've been able to do a lot of that in the last quarter in increasing our efficiency numbers. That's part of what's leading to some of the increases you're seeing in the last quarter. As we're gaining those learnings, we really look forward to being able to, quote, unquote, "double down on that," you know, as we go into 2024. Again, we're not gonna reveal any specific numbers around that, but suffice to say, we're looking forward to being able to spend at a bit of a higher level now that we have those learnings.
Jon Andersen (Equity Research Analyst)
Makes sense. Thanks. With your largest FDM customer that you've now been in market with for a year or so, can you talk about any learnings you've had there around the incrementality of the brand? You know, I think, you know, for that partner, how they view it, obviously, you know, your ability to add new items, you know, in year two and build your presence in more segments of their coffee aisle suggests it's been kind of a win-win. But if you could talk a little bit more about that and kind of the prospects for these newer items going forward, that would be helpful. Thanks.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Yeah, sure. I think, You know, look, I'm not going to represent the view of any of our customers, you know, but that being said, you know, have we been able to grow the category? Yes, we have. I think, you know, you can see that in the category trends. You know, if you pull those up in the IRI or the Nielsen data, a lot of the partners, or the main partner that we have worked with has actually, you know, been able to grow their category, you know, significantly over the last year. I think, you know, as we look at our business, that is a key component as to what we do with our customers.
You know, we that is, as a role that we play as their partner, is to be able to grow their coffee category. So that's actually one of the key KPIs that we measure ourself against with any of our retail partners, is, you know, the growth that we are generating for them, creating that category incrementality? So again, while I don't want to mention any specifics about what a customer might or might not feel about us, I will say that, you know, any success that we have with a customer and the ability to put additional items on the shelf, is generally going to be related to our ability to be able to grow category with them.
Jon Andersen (Equity Research Analyst)
Makes sense. Last question for me. I guess I wanted to... I know it's smaller in terms of focus right now, but on Outpost, I guess, why is that still important, you know, to Black Rifle and to the brand? Why not focus all of your resources to drive, you know, FDM, RTD, DTC, where it seems like you have higher kind of ROI opportunities in those business areas?
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Yeah, that's a great question. There's a couple reasons why it's so important to us, and again, I'll reiterate what I said earlier. We are right now at a bit of a tactical pause, so obviously we're resourcing the stores we have in place. But, you know, we have limited the spending for exactly the reason you talked about. We want to make sure we're spending our money where we are getting the best overall return for shareholders and in generating our brand awareness, which we believe is critical, you know, to our long-term mission. You know, the reasons why Outpost, we believe, is still quite important to us are twofold. One, you know, we're all about premium coffee.
You know, when you're about premium coffee, you know, the ability to be able to deliver that coffee experience to consumers in as many ways possible is a very, very important part of that element of our business. So, you know, obviously, at-home consumption is an area that we're gonna continue to press on and resource as we have been, you know, everything we've discussed up to now. That ability to deliver that out of home is something that, again, you know, based on our learnings, we believe we can do very efficiently as well. The second element is just as important, which is around our mission. Our mission is around veterans and first responders, and as you know, we do that in many ways.
We do that in the money that we give back philanthropically to many different organizations, but we also do that in how we are able to bring employment opportunities to veterans and first responders, and we're very proud of the fact that, you know, 50% of our workforce is veteran first responder. The ability to drive that into out-of-home consumption allows us to double down on that element of our mission as well. You know, we made a statement at one point that we're going to employ 10,000 veterans and first responders, and, you know, that is a vision for us, but that vision drives us in every decision that we make. So again, coffee, veterans, those are the simple mantras for us, and each one of those is quite important when you think about that out-of-home consumption.
Jon Andersen (Equity Research Analyst)
Really helpful. Thanks so much.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Sure.
Operator (participant)
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Matt McGinley with Needham and Company. Please proceed with your question.
Matt McGinley (Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you. On the FDM retailers that you hope to add in next year, do you already have visibility into adding those new FDM retailers, or are those discussions more ongoing? And is there any seasonality around the shelf resets in the coffee island, that if you're not on target by a certain date for selling, you might not get that distro until later in the year?
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Yeah, that's a great question. So it's kind of both. We have a lot of those locked up at this point, and we have some ongoing conversations going on with other retailers. You know, as far as... You know, coffee obviously does have seasonality. We're actually in or moving into kind of the core seasonality of the coffee category itself as we move into the colder months. As far as the retailers, it really depends on their operational schedule. So we are having very transparent conversations with any of those potential partners and, you know, we will make sure that we can adjust our business, you know, around their need to hit those schedules.
I will say, that, you know, even in the retailers that we have moved into most recently, we've begun to have conversations of, you know, further accelerating our, you know, reset timelines on different segments of their business. So, for instance, in a retailer where we may go in and in bags, you know, maybe they reset their pods business on a different schedule. Some of the successes that we've been having are driving conversations for retailers to say, they would open up windows to potentially get us on shelf even sooner. So, you know, in some cases, we're going to work through their schedule. In some cases, we're gonna push hard to say, "Hey, based off of really strong performance, we're gonna suggest that we push our business on shelf even earlier than maybe where their current resets are.
Matt McGinley (Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. And on the, you had a big drop in salaries, wages, and benefits that I assume was driven by the cost-cutting program that you instituted in the first quarter. Is that $14 million dollar base now the right dollar level to assume in the fourth quarter? You made the comment about some of the $30 million in cost savings might be realized by year-end, but I'm not sure if you're implying that there's a further dollar decline here, or if we should assume it's kind of around this dollar base into year-end.
Steve Kadenacy (CFO)
Yeah, and I don't want to guide on a singular line item, but I wouldn't adjust your models down that far. There were some obviously one-time benefits that we took relative to stock-based compensation for some of the senior executives that left, that were unique, that won't reoccur. But you know, I would bring it back up if that's what you're thinking for the model.
Matt McGinley (Senior Research Analyst)
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the floor back over to Chris Mondzelewski for any closing comments.
Chris Mondzelewski (President)
Well, I wanna thank everyone for their time. Thank you for the questions on the business and the involvement in the business. I just want to close the call in the way that Evan opened it, to reiterate our thanks to all of the veterans out there around the country, around the world, that have served in the past, that are serving currently. So everyone, you know, please have those people, you know, in your mind, you know, as you move into the weekend. And again, it was great having the conversation. I hope everyone has a great rest of the day.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.