Didn’t the famous philosopher Christopher Wallace (aka The Notorious B.I.G.) once say, “More Protein Chips…More Supply Problems?” Well…even if he didn’t say that, it has been a notorious problem for the Simply Good Foods leadership team that seems to be on repeat again. In this latest episode, I'll utilize the Q4 2024 Simply Good Foods Company (NASDAQ: SMPL) earnings report, earnings call, and supplemental presentations that were filed on 10/24/2024 as the backdrop to provide broad nutritional snacking market insights. In fiscal Q4 2024, Atkins Nutritionals brand dragged down the overall portfolio performance, as Quest Nutrition beat categorical competitors in tracked channel retail takeaway (up 8.8% YoY). What's at the heart of the Quest Nutrition success? Quest Nutrition is still known for the original Quest Bar. And that means the company needs the bar business to be healthy for any of this innovation risk to make sense. But while Quest bar has positive growth, recent performance is lagging internal expectations a new protein bar innovation should launch in February called Quest Overload. Additionally, Quest Nutrition has proven it's one of the few brands that can successfully extend across multiple product forms...and its customer base expects them to come into an indulgent snacking category and flip it into great tasting (high protein, low sugar) offerings. The snacks segment of Quest Nutrition, which now accounts for almost half of all retail sales, saw retail takeaway growth increase 17%. But if we analyze one layer deeper…the salty side of the Quest snacks segment had quarterly retail takeaway growth of about 34%. Quest chips now represent about 25% of the total Quest Nutrition revenue and provide a substantial share of new users to the brand. I’ve been a broken record when it comes to stating that salty snacks are where the excitement (and focus) should be placed within Quest Nutrition. The size of the total addressable salty snacks market suggests significant and continued upside on this business. Yet, the biggest challenge for Simply Good Foods over the last few years has been overcoming Quest chips supply constraints. And solving for this long-term will be extremely important as Quest Nutrition will bring its larger pack size nationwide at Costco next calendar year. Also, I run through what's causing the weak brand performance at Atkins and explain actions the company is taking to change it…especially against the backdrop of GLP-1 weight loss solutions. In my opinion, you’re going to see weight management brands like Atkins (and others) get repositioned on the right side of GLP-1 second-order effects through both product innovation (e.g. Atkins strong)...but most of the “innovation” will come in the targeted communication marketing strategies. Finally, even though even if only about 81% of days were officially included, OWYN had quarterly retail takeaway growth of 112% YoY. Based on revenue growth models, Simply Good Foods leadership expects OWYN fiscal 2025 net sales to be in the $135 million to $145 million range.

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