00:00I do want to start with kind of the theater experience, or really the away-from-home, if you will.
00:05And I picked that clip because, you know, I interact with a lot of your products when I particularly go
00:09to the theater
00:09or I go to the ballpark and see Dippin' Dots or something like that.
00:13What is sort of the general strategy for growth?
00:17Are you more focused on those areas, or are you more focused on the take-home, you know, grocery-type
00:23business?
00:23Right. Yeah, our business, 60% of it is in food service.
00:27So that is a big piece of our business, and a spot that we think we can continue to grow.
00:31We do have those tremendous brands, like you go to the theater and you get an ICI.
00:34I love that clip because the theaters came charging back this year.
00:38You know, many of them thought it was Left 4 Dead, and it's really come charging back.
00:42In fact, they had a record-breaking weekend with Spider-Man.
00:45Yeah, well, yeah, that's what we have been talking about.
00:47And, I mean, he seems to think that this will continue, that this is kind of the start of something
00:51big,
00:51the idea that more people want to have these experiences.
00:54It's not just in movies, but they just want to be out more and experiencing things.
00:58So I would assume, long-term, that would have to have some sort of potential upswing on your business.
01:03It's a great impact for our business.
01:04When you think about some of our products, they really are experiential, right?
01:08So just like we talked about earlier, when you go into a theater,
01:10you think about getting the popcorn and the ICI on the way to the movies, right?
01:13If you're going to an amusement park, you're like the Kelsey's said here recently,
01:17the best part about an amusement park is Dippin' Dots, right?
01:20And if you're going to a ball game, you're thinking about a big soft pretzel with mustard all over it.
01:25Well, absolutely.
01:26I mean, let's face it, if I sat on my couch with an ICI on Dippin' Dots, I would be
01:29judged by my wife.
01:30But, you know, if you're in the dark movie theater, no one could judge you.
01:33Nobody sees you.
01:33In all seriousness, though, I do want to get your thoughts, though, about growth.
01:37Because revenue growth has been negative for a while now.
01:40And there are a lot of questions as to when that gets to a positive number and what actually gets
01:46you there.
01:46Right.
01:46We think we're there coming into 2027.
01:49This past year, we've been working on our Apollo, which is a transformation initiative.
01:54And we had some skew rationalization that we need to do to get our margins, kind of building ourselves for
01:59the future.
02:00And that ends at the end of our fourth quarter, which we're in right now.
02:04As we get into the first quarter of 2027, we think we have those opportunities to get back to growth.
02:10When we talk about the growth, is this going to be purely organic?
02:14Is this going to be about expansion, finding new partners and things like that?
02:20It'll be a combination of both.
02:22We have some great new customers coming up.
02:24Even during this quarter, we've been pushing our core.
02:26When I say our core, we think of Icy or Super Pretzel or Dippin' Dots or Churros as our core.
02:31And we have some great new customers coming on board right now during this quarter.
02:35And we'll see that effect as we get into 2027.
02:38Can you share that, though?
02:39Because I remember on the call, you talked about a major pretzel deal that you have with a, I assume
02:47it's a fast food chain.
02:48So you're going to be on the menu.
02:49Is that the idea?
02:50Super Pretzel?
02:51We're actually having our pretzel in a bun form on the menu coming up.
02:55I can't tell you who it's with.
02:56But it's going to be pretty exciting.
02:58It's really exciting to be able to have your brand as part of that.
03:01Okay.
03:02So that's good.
03:02Do you plan to try to do more of that to those types of partnerships?
03:05Teams are doing really good with a great pipeline of new business right now.
03:10So when we talk about, and I know you can't name them, but when you talk about trying to do
03:13those partnerships,
03:14is the idea that you, meaning J&J Snack Foods and these brands are adding value to those chains,
03:21or is it vice versa where you're trying to get some brand value from those chains?
03:24Well, I think it's a little bit of both when you get to use your brand name with that.
03:27But I do think a pretzel brings value to a lot of chains out there, as does Dippin' Dots or
03:34Icy.
03:34When we talk about the food service segment and the drop that we saw there in the most recent,
03:39some of that was because of the plan skew cuts.
03:41It was.
03:42That's over?
03:42Really, most of that was that it winds down in Q4.
03:46It was about 3.5% of sales in Q3 and about 2.5% in Q4.
03:51I do have to ask you about this whole GLP-1 craze and the idea that a lot of people
03:56who are either on the medicines
03:58are eating less and eating less sugary and salty foods.
04:02Has that affected your business?
04:03Have you made any changes to your lineup to maybe address that?
04:07Yeah, absolutely.
04:08I do think you have to, as a CEO, you have to pay attention to the trends out there.
04:12And I think GLP-1 has some impact.
04:15We're not seeing a lot of it because our products are so experiential.
04:18But we are working on bringing out new innovation, like a protein-enriched pretzel that we brought out this year
04:25in the retail with 10 grams of protein in it.
04:27Or a Luigi's mini pop, a smaller size, kind of for the GLP-1, smaller size with hydration or antioxidants
04:34in it.
04:35So the team's doing a lot of great things to lean in to maybe make it GLP-1 friendly.
04:41I do have to ask you, Dan.
04:43What's your house like on Halloween?
04:44Because you must be popular, right?
04:45Do you just load up the freezers and put them out on the porch?
04:49Everybody loves us, for sure.
04:50So you've been with this company more or less, or you've been with IC.
04:52You started in IC.
04:53I did.
04:54When you were a kid, I mean, when you were a young adult.
04:56I really was, yeah.
04:56And you've grown with the company from, what, a service technician at IC Machines to CEO of this broader snack
05:03food.
05:04I started out as a service technician and kind of worked my way through the company, became CEO and president
05:09of IC at a young age, 37 years old.
05:12And about six years ago, I became the CEO of J&J Snack Foods.
05:16And it's really fortunate because you understand those different jobs along the way, and you value people.
05:22You know, good teams are what makes companies successful.
05:25If you go into the theater and you see an IC machine, what flavor are you getting?
05:29Oh, if I can ever pick my flavor, it's strawberry lemonade, for sure.
05:33But if it's not in there, I'll go blue raspberry.
05:36Oh, okay.
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