MGP Ingredients - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, welcome to the MGP Ingredients Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the Star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press Star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Amit Sharma, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Amit Sharma (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to MGP's fourth quarter earnings conference call. I'm Amit Sharma, Vice President of Investor Relations, and this morning I'm joined on the call by Julie Francis, our Chief Executive Officer, and Brandon Gall, Chief Financial Officer. We'll begin the call with management's prepared remarks and then open to questions. Before we begin, this call may involve certain forward-looking statements. The company's actual results could differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including the risk factors described in the company's reports filed with the SEC. The company yields no obligations to update any forward-looking statements made during the call, except as required by law. Additionally, this call will contain references to certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe are useful in evaluating the company's performance.

A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is included in today's earnings release, which was issued this morning before the markets opened and is available on our website at www.mgpingredients.com. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Julie for her opening remarks.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Thank you, Amit. Good morning, everyone. As we close out 2025, I want to start with a clear message: We are doing what we said we would do. We made progress on each of the five initiatives. We finished the year above the top end of our guidance. The operating backdrop remains challenging for the spirits industry. We recognize that 2026 is likely to be another down year for the industry and our company. That said, we are increasingly optimistic about MGP's future. Our confidence is grounded in three things. First, our ability to deliver sustained growth off of our 2026 guidance expectations, which has been accelerated by our proactive self-help actions. Second, our newfound strategic clarity, prioritizing our right to win, which we believe will also position us for solid and sustainable growth.

Third, our financial strength, which in this environment is a competitive advantage of increasing magnitude. As I mentioned on our last call, we undertook an exhaustive review of our businesses to create a clear strategic roadmap for the next phase of our growth. This was a well-defined process grounded in an objective, data-driven assessment. We have since shifted from broad strategic discussions to a clear enterprise roadmap, including an organizational structure aligned to the strategic priorities of our business to further enhance our right to win. Strategy and structure are critical, but having the right talent and processes to execute with discipline is what we believe will lead to our ultimate success and sustainable growth. To that end, we recently announced organizational changes across our senior leadership teams. These were difficult decisions, but align with our strategic roadmap and position the company for long-term success.

On our last call, I shared the hiring of our new Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Operations. Since then, we've also added a Senior Vice President of Strategy and Insights. Each of these leaders brings to MGP track records of success and global best practices. In the coming quarters, they will be at the tip of the spear of building out best-in-class processes that are designed to enable disciplined execution and long-term success. Let me now provide a brief overview of our fourth quarter and full year results before outlining key elements of our strategic roadmap and the progress we are making against our key initiatives in each business. Our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results came in ahead of our expectations as the teams continue to act with diligence and focus.

For the fourth quarter, consolidated sales declined 23% compared to a year ago, as double-digit sales growth in our Premium Plus portfolio was more than offset by the expected declines in the rest of our business. Adjusted EBITDA declined to $26 million, while Adjusted Basic Earnings per Share reached $0.63. For the full year, we delivered consolidated sales, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Basic EPS of $536 million, $116 million and $2.85. Despite lower earnings, operating cash flows for the year increased by 19% to $122 million. Brandon will provide more detail on our financial results and 2026 guidance, but let me touch on the overall environment and our key initiatives that will shape our results over the next year.

At the broader level, the spirits industry has historically shown great resilience across economic cycles and periods of consumer behavioral changes. While we are confident about the long-term outlook for the industry, we expect near-term category trends to remain below historical levels. Consumer sentiment and spending remain under pressure, with competition from spending from online gambling, gaming, and from cannabis-infused beverages, as well as an increased focus on health and wellbeing impacting consumer behavior. While we expect the near term to remain challenging, we are starting to see some encouraging signs, including a more balanced public conversation around alcohol and its role in social settings and in overall wellbeing. The recently released U.S. Dietary Guidelines place greater emphasis on moderation and individual occasions for alcohol consumption rather than the no safe level guidance of the past.

As we know, across generations, cultures, and geographies, shared moments and occasions of celebrations have included a drink among families and friends. A recent study from the American Heart Association concluded that low levels of alcohol consumption may not increase cardiovascular risk. The shift in overall tone is constructive and reinforces our long-term confidence in the category. These developments are not expected to drive an immediate inflection in industry trends. Our 2026 outlook does not assume a return to historical growth rates for the overall industry. Shifting to our brand and spirit segment, we believe this segment will continue to be our primary growth engine and the foundation of our long-term value creation strategy. In 2025, we executed well against our initiative to concentrate on more attractive growth opportunities.

Our Nielsen reported sales growth for the 52 weeks period ending December 27th, came largely in line with the category, while our premium plus sales growth outperformed the overall category by 900 basis points during that same time period. As we look ahead, our focus here is clear: win in the premium plus category with Penelope Bourbon, strengthen our focus brands, increase penetration in national accounts, and strengthen our digital marketing capabilities. Penelope is a key driver within this strategy. While Premium Plus American Whiskey, Nielsen reported dollar sales declined 3.5% during the 52-week period, ending December 27th, Penelope's reported dollar sales increased by 80%, making it the second fastest growing brand during this time period among the top 30 Premium Plus American Whiskey brands.

This growth was fueled by innovation and distribution gains, with Penelope Wheated and Penelope Ready-to-Pour Cocktails being two of our biggest new product launches in 2025. These products were very well received and helped deliver 100% growth in points of distribution and a 12% increase in velocity. Our focus is on sustaining this ongoing momentum while strengthening our core by making incremental targeted investments designed to drive brand awareness, improving in-store execution, and filling distribution gaps. Beyond Penelope, we have a portfolio of high-quality brands, evidenced by Yellowstone and Lux Row's inclusion in Whisky Advocate's prestigious Top 20 Whiskies of 2025. We are the only company to have two brands in this year's top 20 list. This external validation reinforces the strength across our portfolio and highlights the unrealized potential of a focused portfolio.

To achieve this potential, we have established a comprehensive cross-functional portfolio management review process, which will take a deeper look at the long tail of our Branded Spirits portfolio, reduce complexity, and rationalize SKUs and brands. As a first step, we are targeting a rationalization of 20% of the portfolio's tail brands. We believe this new rigorous portfolio review process will help us make even clearer decisions about where we invest and where we protect to better position our brands across targeted consumer segments, channels, price points, and consumption occasions. Another key priority for the Branded Spirits segment is to increase our penetration in national accounts across both retail and on-premise accounts. We believe that having a greater presence with these customers not only creates additional distribution opportunities, but also drives greater scale, visibility, and recognition of our brands.

Our continued commitment to invest behind our most attractive growth opportunities underpins these initiatives. We ended the year with Branded Spirits A&P spend at 12.5% of segment sales and expect it to increase modestly in 2026 to roughly 13.5%. We're also prioritizing investing in digital media, analytics, and tools designed to drive awareness and consideration for our key brands, to bring greater discipline to how we track and improve brand health, and allow us to connect more precisely with consumers around specific consumption occasions and social moments. Our Distilling Solutions segment saw sales and profitability reset in 2025, as many large customers paused purchases in an effort to balance their whiskey inventories and manage working capital. Full year 2025 sales and gross margin declined significantly from 2024, but came in modestly ahead of our expectations.

As our initiatives to strengthen our partnerships with key customers led to improved visibility and alignment, we continue to stay close to these customers and expect to gain greater clarity on their brown goods needs for 2026 and beyond towards the end of the second quarter. Overall, domestic whiskey production continues to decline sharply. We continue to see media reports about closing or idle distilleries. According to the latest available CTP data through October of 2025, domestic whiskey production was down 26%, 29%, and 27% for the trailing 12, six, and three month periods. In this environment, we are focused on creating a differentiated value proposition to better position MGP as a long-term strategic partner for both large and small customers.

That means broadening our premium white goods offerings to complement our brown goods portfolio, rebuilding our aged whiskey pipeline, and attracting and retaining a wider pool of customers by offering greater value-added services. Our increasing focus on premium white goods is designed to leverage the scale, heritage, and quality of our Indiana distillery to produce premium gin and GNS spirits that are customized for our customers. This would allow us to move beyond commoditized offerings to not just generate more attractive economics and better asset utilization, but also serve as a bridge to longer-term, deeper relationships with strategic customers. With respect to our aged whiskey strategy, producing and storing various vintages and mash bills is critical, and after taking a pause in 2025, we are committed to prudently building our aged whiskey offerings.

MGP is one of the few distillers with the technical depth and operational expertise to consistently produce high-quality whiskey at precise specifications of our customers, and that capability continues to differentiate ourselves. Our focus is on broadening our customer base, better leveraging the depth of our aging whiskey inventories, and capturing a greater share of aging whiskey sales. We also see meaningful opportunities to expand aged whiskey sales to both domestic and international private label whiskey customers, an area that has historically been underpenetrated for our brown goods business. While the industry-wide aged whiskey dynamic is unlikely to improve meaningfully in the near term, the strategic repositioning of our Distilling Solutions business and the actions initiated by our team give us confidence that our Distilling Solutions segment sales and profitability will approach trough levels in 2026. Turning to our Ingredient Solutions business.

As expected, the outage of a key piece of equipment that impacted Q3 results remained a sales and profit headwind in the fourth quarter. The equipment came back online in the last part of November as planned. As I look ahead, I continue to draw confidence as our Ingredient Solutions business continues to enjoy consumer-driven tailwinds. Commercially, we continue to focus on driving growth through our three core platforms, specialty fiber with Fibersym, specialty protein with Arise, and extrusion protein through ProTerra. Each of these platforms serves large and growing end markets. Consumer demand for high protein and high fiber products remains strong, and we are leveraging our R&D and innovation capabilities to make MGP an even more integral part of our key customer supply chain.

In our texture protein business, the continued commercialization of a large multinational customer is a clear example of our ability to build strategic, growing, and sustainable relationships with leading food companies. With the commercial demand side of Ingredient Solutions on solid footing, our focus remains squarely on the supply side and returning to operational excellence. To that end, we are adding people, increasing capital investment, and implementing new processes to return operational execution back to historical levels. As a result, we are seeing early signs that these efforts are paying off in the form of reduced unplanned outages and more consistent throughput. This improved reliability gives us confidence to deliver strong double-digit growth in segment sales and improved gross margins in 2026. As I have spent more time focusing on this business, it's become clear that waste treatment and disposal is more complex and more costly than initially expected.

The commercialization of the biofuel plant, along with our other waste stream handling initiatives, is helping to reduce these costs, but a portion of these costs will persist in the near to medium term, and it's reflected in our full year guidance. Managing high disposal costs remains a key priority. We're evaluating additional measures and continue to expect to remove these costs over the long term. I want to highlight the progress we are making on our enterprise-wide productivity agenda, which was one of our five key initiatives in 2025. We are proud of our teams for delivering against all of our 25 initiatives, and more importantly, productivity is becoming embedded in how we operate at MGP. We're reinforcing an ownership cost mindset by incorporating productivity and cost discipline into our operating routines, performance management, and compensation metrics.

Productivity and a cost management focus is becoming a part of our regular management routines, helping us uncover and track opportunities to eliminate waste and operate more efficiently and effectively across the organization. As we look ahead, we are encouraged by the progress we are making. Across all three businesses, our strategy is grounded in focus, execution, and discipline, and we're actively evaluating all available levers to operate more efficiently. I am committed to addressing our challenges directly, focusing on disciplined execution and accountability, while positioning MGP to emerge better aligned, more resilient, and well-positioned for long-term value creation. With that, let me hand it over to Brandon for a more detailed review of our financial results and 2026 guidance.

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Thank you, Julie. For the fourth quarter of 2025, consolidated sales decreased 23% compared to the year ago period to $138 million. Branded Spirits segment sales declined by 1% in the fourth quarter and 3% for the full year. Our premium plus sales posted its strongest quarterly sales growth of the year, with a 10% increase, driven primarily by Penelope Bourbon's continued momentum. Our mid and value price brands collectively declined by 11% for the quarter, slightly better than the 13% decline for the full year. Fourth quarter Distilling Solutions segment sales declined by 47%, including a 53% decline in our brown goods sales. Full year segment sales declined 45%, and gross profit declined 52%. Each of these came in ahead of our initial outlook, underscoring the improved visibility in our brown goods business.

Ingredient Solutions sales declined by 10% for the fourth quarter and 7% for the full year. The equipment outage and higher waste stream disposal costs that Julie mentioned earlier were the key drivers of lower segment sales and profits. On the other hand, fourth quarter extrusion protein sales reached a new high as we continue to increase sales volume to new customers and expand our extrusion platform beyond wheat. Consolidated gross profit declined 35% to $48 million during the quarter, primarily due to lower gross profits in the Distilling Solutions and Ingredient Solutions operating segments. Consolidated gross margin declined by 630 basis points to 34.9% in the fourth quarter, while full year gross margin decreased 350 basis points to 37.2%. Fourth quarter SG&A expenses increased by 5%.

On an adjusted basis, SG&A increased by 18% as the reinstatement of performance incentives more than offset our cost savings initiatives. Excluding these incentives, adjusted SG&A declined by 5% for the quarter and 4% for the full year. Advertising and promotion expenses declined 11% in the fourth quarter and 23% for the full year as we realigned our spending behind our most attractive growth opportunities. For the full year, our Branded Spirits A&P was approximately 12.5% of Branded Spirits segment sales. Adjusted EBITDA decreased 51% to $26 million for the fourth quarter, and decreased 41% to $116 million for the full year.

Net income for the quarter declined to a loss of $135 million, primarily due to a discrete non-cash adjustment of $153 million to lower the carrying amount of goodwill in certain indefinite lived intangible assets in the Branded Spirits segment. On an adjusted basis, net income decreased 60% to $14 million. Basic earnings per common share decreased to a loss of $6.22 per share, while adjusted basic EPS decreased 60% to $0.63 per share. Despite lower earnings, our cash flow from operations increased 19% to $122 million for the full year, as we continue to prioritize strong cash generation by managing our working capital, including barrel inventory put away, which reduced from $33 million in 2024 to $19 million in 2025.

Full year capital expenditures of $32 million were down more than 50% from the year ago level, as we continue to optimize capital expenditures in the current environment. Turning to our 2026 outlook, we expect the operating environment to remain challenging. We are planning accordingly. Our outlook assumes continued pressure in certain categories, lower contracting activity levels in Distilling Solutions, and improving execution in Ingredient Solutions as our operational initiatives take hold.

Specifically for 2026, we expect net sales in the $480 million-$500 million range, adjusted EBITDA in the $90 million-$98 million range, and adjusted basic earnings per share in the $1.50-$1.80 range, with average shares outstanding of approximately 21.4 million shares and a full year tax rate of approximately 27%. Our first quarter tax rate is expected to be approximately 75%, due to the vesting impact of share-based awards granted during periods of higher share prices. Full year CapEx is expected to be approximately $20 million. We expect first quarter adjusted EBITDA to represent approximately 15% of our full year target and to be the lowest quarter of the year.

2026 Branded Spirits sales are expected to be down mid-single digits compared to 2025, as our continued momentum and growth in the premium plus category is expected to be offset by lower sales of our mid and value price brands, as well as lower private label sales. We expect Branded Spirits segment gross margin to improve modestly in 2026. Given the ongoing brown goods environment, we expect 2026 to be another down year for our Distilling Solutions segment, with sales down 35% and gross profit down 40% compared to 2025. We expect performance for both metrics to be down relatively more in the first half of the year than the second half when compared to the prior year, as we cycle against completion of certain large contracts during 2025.

However, as Julie outlined earlier, we believe that our proactive actions are helping us stabilize this business and position it for growth from the 2026 levels. We also believe our Ingredient Solutions business is poised to recover after a tough 2025. Given sustained commercial tailwinds and expected operational improvements, we expect segment sales in the $140 million-$150 million range, and gross margin in the mid to high teens in 2026. As Julie stated, we expect first half gross margins to improve from the second half of 2025 to the low teens and improve again in the second half of 2026 as our operational efforts set in.

We expect Branded Spirits A&P to be approximately 13.5% of segment sales, and total company SG&A to be approximately 18% of total company sales, both of which are up versus prior year, primarily due to our lower sales outlook. Maintaining a flexible balance sheet remains a priority. As we look ahead to 2026, we expect to pay $111 million in the second quarter as an earnout payment related to our Penelope acquisition. We also expect to refinance $201 million of convertible notes in the fourth quarter. Given the Penelope earnout payment, our net debt leverage is expected to peak and be approximately 3.75 times in the second quarter of 2026. We remain committed to reducing costs, prioritizing cash generation, managing working capital, and being deliberate about our capital allocation.

We expect that these actions will allow us to delever over time following the Penelope payment. We expect 2026 CapEx to be approximately $20 million and net whiskey put away in the $13 million-$18 million range, which represents a second consecutive year of meaningful capital optimization and stewardship. We expect full year interest expense to be approximately $12 million and for it to increase sequentially during 2026 due to the Penelope payment and a convertible note refinancing. The Penelope earnout payment will reduce our 2026 operating cash flow by nearly $50 million. Excluding the impact of this payment, we expect 2026 cash flows from operations in the range of $40 million-$45 million, and free cash flow in the $20 million-$25 million range. To close, I want to echo Julie's comments.

In 2025 was a year of progress, discipline, and important foundational work. We believe that the actions we are taking position MGP to emerge stronger, more focused, and more resilient over time. With that, I turn the call back over to Julie.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Thank you, Brandon. Before we wrap up, I want to thank the entire MGP team for all their hard work, persistence, and focus in a dynamic environment. This past year was not without its challenges. The operating environment remains difficult, and we are clear-eyed that 2026 will likely be another down year of sales and earnings. At the same time, 2025 was a year of important progress for MGP. We delivered results in line with, and in several areas, ahead of expectations, while beginning the hard work we feel is required to reposition the company for the future. I've shared that since joining in the third quarter, I've made it my priority to look within, to fully understand what makes this company unique, and what actions we need to take. In doing so, I've traveled to all of our facilities, many numerous times.

I've spoken with customers and suppliers of all sizes, engaged in exhaustive business unit function reviews, and hosted more than 60 one-on-ones with employees. These insights were used to formulate our strategy, design an effective organizational structure, bring in the right talent to drive impact, make prioritization decisions, and implement processes designed to enable sustainable results and growth. The success we aim to achieve will not come overnight, nor will it be without tough decisions, but the progress we have made over the last 6 months has been made with expeditious prudence. We believe it has positioned us to deliver sustained growth off of our 2026 guidance expectations, to sharpen our strategic focus and strengthen execution across the organization, and to utilize our financial strengths to position us for long-term and sustainable growth.

While I'm pleased with the progress we are making, what gives me the greatest confidence is the alignment I see across our teams. There is a growing clarity around where we can win, greater accountability for results, and a shared commitment to doing what we said we would do. Operator, please open the lines for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question will come from Sean McGowan with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Sean McGowan (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. First question is a general one. What are you seeing, regarding pricing, you know, in the industry? Are you able to hold the prices that you expected to? Then a more technical question on the, yeah, does your credit facility allow, you know, is there any limitations on how you can use the credit facility regarding the Penelope payment? Thank you.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Morning, Sean. Hey, it's Julie. How are you doing? Appreciate your question. On pricing, I would, you know, broadly speaking, listen, I would say pricing is rational. You certainly have pockets across some states and in a couple of different categories. You know, affordability is an issue. Our price package architecture, we've sharpened up. In particular, we're launching, you know, smaller pack size, 50 mLs and 375 mLs to kind of have a more affordable price point out there. Broadly speaking, in Branded, I'd say it's very rational. You know, in Distilling, obviously, you know, we have an oversupply situation, while pricing is certainly impacted, you know, we have the tools that we need, and we understand where we want to be on some of the barrel pricing.

We've been moderately pleased with our ability to work with our customers. You know, our partnership approach is working. We haven't lost any customers to date, certainly our ability to have those conversations and understand their intent really helps us in that matter. I'll turn it over to Brandon for your second question.

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Sean, as far as the credit facility as it relates to the Penelope earn-out, no limitations. As you recall, we upsized and extended the facility the first part of last year. Our bank group views this payment as a positive thing. They're excited for Penelope. They view this as all good news, and we're very, very fortunate to have such a supportive bank group that we do have. In fact, we also have the ability to exercise our acquisition holiday in Q2 if needed, which actually gives us even more covenant headroom, should we desire to do that. No limitations on that side of things.

Sean McGowan (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Thanks, Sean.

Operator (participant)

The next question will come from Robert Moskow with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Seamus Cassidy (Equity Research Associate)

Hi, this is Seamus Cassidy on for Rob, and thanks for the question. First.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Okay.

Seamus Cassidy (Equity Research Associate)

if your expectations for a down year for the industry takes into account the slightly positive year-to-date trends we're seeing in scanner data. On brown goods, can you speak to your visibility sort of on 2026 being the trough, i.e., are new distillate contracts largely locked in? Sort of on that point, you spoke to a pivot back to aged whiskey sales. This has historically been sort of more choppy and difficult to predict demand for, so I'm hoping you can talk us through that dynamic.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Thanks so much. Appreciate the question. I would say, you know, going back to Branded Spirits, you know, our 2026 guidance does, you know, certainly reflect both our premium plus momentum and then the mid-to-value expectations across the industry. We feel we've got good visibility in what we're seeing, and we're pretty encouraged by some of the commercialization strategy, planning, and execution that we have newly introduced. We see that coming into play, you would expect Penelope to continue to drive our premium plus brands in addition to, you know, our other three core focuses. Some refinements in how we're looking at the mid-to-value price tier.

We do think that there's a few key brands that we can really dial in, some of our pricing, some of our architecture on offerings and sizes to really address that. I'd say, broadly speaking, our 2026 guidance reflects the industry and where we have visibility. Then switching to your distilling question, I would say. You know, from a guidance, there, you know, certainly, most of our, I'd say, substantially under contract for the majority of our aged and distillate customers for the year. We've got good visibility in 2026. Our brown goods guide reflects similar spot ages to, you know, 2025 at current market pricing. Partnership approach is working, and so, we have expanded with some of our larger customers into the premium white goods.

We're reflecting that up, guidance reflects up double digits. We really like this. Number one, it's sticky, right? We're deepening our relationships with some key customers. Two, it's a great mechanism to reduce costs, the cost of brown goods. Then our warehouse services continues to play an important role. Our customers are tight on working capital, and we can provide them this service, and it's also a fairly strong cash flow generation. You know, that's a balanced approach, good visibility, but certainly, you know, I think our guidance reflects appropriately the oversupplied environment that we're seeing.

Sean McGowan (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Understood. Thanks.

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Thanks, Travis.

Operator (participant)

The next question will come from Marc Torrente with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Marc Torrente (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, thank you for the questions. I guess, just building off the last one, any more visibility that you could provide into the guidance building blocks for distilling? Just specifically, what is embedded from a fully committed orders that you've proactively worked with customers on? How much potential spot business is assumed? Just any other color you can give on cadence through the year.

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Yeah, thanks for the question, Marc. For our brown goods business, let's start with aged. Aged was obviously, came in ahead of our expectations last year, albeit they did start from an expectation standpoint at a pretty low point. What we're, you know, guiding for this year is the same, you know, spot volume sales that we were able to do last year. We feel, you know, that level is appropriate in this environment, given, you know, the success we were able to have last year. There are more aged sales above that's really due to the team's successful efforts in commercializing some private label, large customers, internationally and domestically. Those aged sales are under contract. That's factored into our guide.

As it relates to our new distillate, substantially all that is under contract. We feel that, you know, we are exercising the same discipline and visibility that we were able to exercise throughout the course of last year. As it relates to Ingredient Solutions, moving on there, you know, as we've said in our opening comments, 2025 was a tough year, and we learned quite a bit. You know, we're doing the right things. We're putting the right efforts against it. Excuse me. You see sequential improvement as the year goes on. That's going to be seen in double-digit growth in sales as well as, you know, pretty substantial improvement in gross profit. We're excited about what's to come this year with ingredients.

Julie already spoke quite a bit to Branded Spirits, but those are our building blocks.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Quarterly cadence.

Brandon Gall (CFO)

As far as quarterly cadence goes, you know, Q1 will likely be the low point for the year, which is pretty typical. Brown goods customers tend to take a little bit of a pause during the quarter, and branded spirits is historically, you know, softer coming out of the holidays. We do expect, you know, to perform against all these expectations as well as contracts as the year goes on.

Marc Torrente (Analyst)

Okay, appreciate that. On Branded, you spoke to further rationalization of tail brands. Maybe talk about the ability to reallocate resources behind your premium brands, where this can take Premium Plus as a % of the portfolio in the near term, and how to think about margin potential, and I guess, the balance of the portfolio going forward. Thanks.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Thanks for that question. We did do a pretty intense portfolio, you know, review process of all of our brands. We're starting this year. Again, we have a roadmap, this strategic roadmap starts in 2026, shared on the call that, you know, 20% of the tail brands, and it's important to know they are tail brands. Availability and presence out in the marketplace is different across different states. These aren't, the first 20% aren't, you know, are high visibility, you know, high volume ones, but certainly, they take away focus. They take, you know, warehouse space, they take up raw ingredients, they take up production line availability, et cetera. We're going to start there.

It's not going to reduce any scale with distributors or anything like that, because again, broadly speaking, we have our lineup in Premium Plus. I won't say a change to Premium Plus lineup of our core four focuses. I kind of attribute our commercial execution and planning that we're really ramping up in that area, not directly linked to portfolio review, but really linked to, we have a new leader in marketing. We've got dialed in commercial strategies, dialed in execution plans, and certainly tools and enablement at a distributor level to ensure that we're delivering the key value drivers we expect. Most importantly, what does that look of success that we expect in the different channels and different customers? That's really what's going to drive some nice movement, we believe, with our Premium Plus and our distributors.

We do think portfolio management and rationalization plays an important role. As we get past this first 20%, you would expect towards the end of the year and into 2027 for us to focus on the, on the next, you know, the next 20%, which we do feel is out there for rationalization.

Sean McGowan (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Thanks, Marc.

Operator (participant)

The next question will come from Mitchell Pinheiro with Sturdivant & Co. Please go ahead.

Mitchell Pinheiro (SVP and Director of Research)

Yeah. Hey, good morning. Most of my questions have been asked. I did want to sort of follow up on the Distilling Solutions business, where we're looking sort of for, you know, a trough year here this year, and you talked about some of the reasons why, you know, you have some confidence there. What would cause you to sort of miss that, you know, that trough year expectation?

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Yeah, I'll start on that. You know, what gives us a, you know, the confidence are all the actions that we're taking, and which we went into, you know, a lot of detail in our opening remarks. Our connection and continued connection with our customers, you know, especially those large customers that are pausing on brown goods buying, we're talking to them about other projects, whether it's ways to innovate with the barrels they currently have in our warehouses, or whether it's to do some of these really interesting premium white goods services and products that we've talked to. Just that connectivity definitely gives us a lot of confidence.

you know, as time goes on, they're going to have to come back to the table and we got to be patient, and we got to continue to be good partners in the interim. we've shared that we hope to have more visibility, you know, by the midpoint of this year. ultimately, we're going to do what's right for them and what's best for them. you know, what gives us, you know, a lot of the confidence is just the levels we're at today, Mitch. you know, the level of brown goods sales that we're forecasting and guiding to, a lot of the risk has been removed from that standpoint.

Not to say that, there's not ever risk out there, but we feel like a lot of that has been alleviated from our outlook.

Mitchell Pinheiro (SVP and Director of Research)

Okay. Then, you know, when you look at, you know, most recent sort of inventory data, industry inventory, you know, it's over like 13 years of inventory, you know, in it right now. Typically, you know, back in the, you know, 2022, 2023 range, it was down around nine or 10 years. That delta of four years, some of it obviously is to do with, you know, consumer preferences for more aged product. I'm wondering, how does that compare to sort of your inventory levels? Are you out there that long with your barrel distillate, or is your barrel distillate closer to sort of, you know, sort of your near-term demand needs?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, have you overproduced on your barrel distillate, or do you feel that your, you know, your performance is sort of in a better shape than the industry?

Brandon Gall (CFO)

I think, I don't think anyone's gotten it exactly right over these last five years, ourselves included. But what we do feel, Mitch, is that we've taken action very quickly. Industry numbers are down over the last 12 months, anywhere between 25% and 30%. If you look at, you know, just our sales and Distilling Solutions and equate that, you know, loosely to production, you know, we're down much more than that. Then we're also guiding this year for Distilling Solution sales to be down another, you know, roughly 35%. We've definitely taken our production down, but we're still putting away, you know, anywhere from, you know, $13 million-$20 million in both years for our future.

Because both our brands and having a full age portfolio offering are critical strategies of ours, and we're committed to those. We do think we're doing the right things. We've also been able to do so in a very cost-effective manner. Our cost structure overall for brown goods is in a really great spot, really due to the team, the team's ability to reduce costs, largely fixed costs out of the operations, but also our ability to do unique things that our competitors can't do, like offer premium white goods that can absorb a lot of the cost structure that otherwise wouldn't be there.

Julie Francis (CEO)

The only thing I'd add to that, Mitch, I think Brandon did a great job summarizing, is I'd say, yes, volume and pricing, you know, is reflected in our guide. In the toughest of tough environments, we're still guiding to mid-thirties. As Brandon says, you know, reducing our operating costs, team's done a great job. We've got cash-generating warehouse services, aged whiskey sellable inventory. We've expanded into aged whiskey with private label contracts, and we're pleased that a couple of them, these take a long time to get through the process, but by the end of first half, we should have some sales for a couple of them. We're entering into premium white goods, both, you know, services and saleable products. Again, tough environment.

We're pleased with some of the progress, but certainly I think our actions are very appropriate, and we're certainly pleased where some of the TTB data has come in.

Mitchell Pinheiro (SVP and Director of Research)

Okay, thanks. That's helpful color. One last, just one last question is, curious if you mentioned it before, I apologize, but I'm curious where your marketing focus is on your Branded Spirits, what particular brands, what you intend to do, if you can talk about that?

Julie Francis (CEO)

Sure, Mitch, I'd love to give you a little color. First, Premium Plus, you know, will be our primary growth engine. Fairly pleased with our Penelope results. It continues to have a mass consumer appeal. Innovation has been robust. It's, we would have another strong year as well in 2026, so you can certainly expect us to have that focus. We are going to have even more, I would say, digital dollars on Premium Plus, led by Penelope. You know, our A&P in 2026 was about 12.5% of sales. We are modestly going to take that up in 2026, most importantly, we're going to shift to digital media. We're increasing over 200%. We are also, you know, taking a streamlined approach to our agencies.

Better brand briefs, better dialed in RFPs. We think one to two points of shifting A&P to actually real media or in-store dollars. From a commercial support, we did shift from 55% brand building to 45% commercial support for 2025. We think this is appropriate, given the current environment, to bring those pull through. Be mainly on focused Premium Plus, El Mayor, Yellowstone, Rebel, and also, obviously, Penelope. We've got a great NASCAR activation program for the races this year with our number eight Kyle Busch car. Looking forward to that, but that's where we'll be spending our dollars.

Mitchell Pinheiro (SVP and Director of Research)

All right. Thank you very much.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Thanks, Mitch.

Operator (participant)

The next question will come from Ben Klieve with Benchmark Stonex. Please go ahead.

Ben Klieve (Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks for taking my questions. First question on the expectation of rationalizations in the Branded Spirits segment. I'm wondering, Julie, if you can, first of all, characterize the degree to which those rationalizations are kind of proactively built into your 2026 guidance that you laid out, or if there's going to be potential, you know, downside to the Branded Spirits outlook when those rationalizations come. Second, the degree to which you think those are going to be monetizable versus just written off.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Yeah. No, good question. Number one, I'd say, broadly speaking, they're not going to be an impact on our 2026 guidance. They're reflected in that. You know, the 20%, again, it's important. I'd use the word, it's our long tail, and by that, it's, you know, it's probably our heritage Luxco brands that are in value space, in some categories and segments that and states that are unique. No real. It should be no impact on 2026 guidance, and it is accounted for. You know, moving forward, you know, we do have, you know, our next wave of that. Certainly, as you optimize SKUs, there's a few different things we can do. We do think there's a handful of them that we'll divest.

You know, we think, you know, recovering at least our packaging and inventory costs is the minimal amount that we'll get for those. We're also going to be prudent, efficient, and effective on how we draw those down. Whether it's a write-off or obviously there's several different places or states that we could go to, that it may make sense. You know, those will come forward as, you know, they're expected in 2026. As we move forward to our next 20%, that's when we'll move into some other, you know, stronger volume plays that we think streamlining them does provide us with the ability to replace some of these, some of these SKUs, and their shelf presence with some more, you know, higher velocity SKUs.

That's our roadmap for portfolio management, and it's in progress. It's accounted for, and most importantly, it's not a episodic event.

Ben Klieve (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you for that. My follow-up question, moving to the ingredients segment. Great to see your encouraging outlook here for that business here in 2026. I'm wondering if you can break down or quantify the impact of the mechanical challenges and the elevated cost of the waste stream within 2025. Wondering how much of a profit headwind those two buckets were? Second, if you can kind of characterize, you know, the degree to which those headwinds are going to persist in 2026, especially on the waste stream. I thought that that was going to be effectively zero with the emergence of the biofuel facility, but, you know, clearly, those are going to persist a bit. Help me understand those dynamics.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Yeah. I'm going to take your questions kind of together, and then Brandon can clean up any of the impacts that he sees. Let's talk Ingredient Solutions. First and foremost, significant consumer tailwinds. you know, high fiber, high protein on point right now, you know, our ability to have co-creation events with large customers. Many of these products are well known and certainly very strong. Our ability to partner with them on these. We have, you know, consistent demand. We've been able to now, most importantly, since late November, we've gotten out the production pounds and have had stronger operational reliability than we had in the last four months. You're going to see segment sales up north, well north of double digits in 2026.

That being said, the affluent part, and yes, and I think I was, you know, I was pretty transparent in our remarks. That has been a little bit more complex. It's been more costly. Obviously, you know that that plant was stood up in sometime in Q2 of 2025. There's multiple waste streams, one of which this biofuel cannot digest, and so we do have to send that out to a municipality. That municipality was offline since early December. We expect them to go back online sometime in the spring of 2026. That certainly will help mitigate some costs. We do have work underway, and this work is months, not weeks. on how to eliminate that final, that final work stream or affluent stream that we can't mitigate right now.

I will tell you, very bullish from the commercial side of the business. Very good operational reliability. We're getting out the talent, the affluent certainly is the last kind of stool on this leg here that we have to get better at. I would expect sequential improvement across gross margins and that affluent waste stream across, you know, each quarter in the back half of the year, then 2027. We do expect this to be, you know, in the 20s% gross margin. It will take us to that time to get there, but we certainly think those are comfortable ranges that we can get to. Brandon?

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Yeah, no, well said. I think, yeah, it really depends on the month or the quarter then. Largely speaking, like, if you just look at Q4 in terms of what was the driver to the profitability headwinds of the segment year-over-year, the segment was down $5.7 million in gross profit. A little more than half of that was due to that key equipment outage, and then the, you know, the other half or less was due to the effluent and disposal. As we get into, you know, Q1 of this year, that effluent disposal is expected to be more of the cost driver in headwind, because as Julie said, a lot of the front-end throughput and reliability issues are being resolved.

You know, if you look at it in three areas, the demand side is still intact and very constructive. The throughput and reliability is improving every day, so we're feeling really good about those, which is really allowing us now to circle around the last item, which is the effluent. That's what we're going to do.

Ben Klieve (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Very helpful. Okay, thank you, both for taking my questions. I'll get back in queue.

Brandon Gall (CFO)

Great. Thanks, Ben.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Julie Francis for any closing remarks.

Julie Francis (CEO)

Thank you. In closing, thank you for your time and engagement with MGP Ingredients. you know, we look forward to talking again soon and after our next quarterly announcement. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.