BCPC

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Balchem's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to turn the call over to Martin Bengtsson, Chief Financial Officer. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our conference call this morning to discuss the results of Balchem Corporation for the quarter ending March 31, 2026. My name is Martin Bengtsson, Chief Financial Officer; and hosting this call with me is Ted Harris, our Chairman, President and CEO. Following the advice of our counsel, auditors and the SEC, at this time, I would like to read our forward-looking statements. Statements made in today's call that are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements. We can give no assurance that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements will prove correct, and various factors could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations, including risks and factors identified in Balchem's most recent Form 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K reports. The company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Today's call and commentary also include non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the reconciliations in our earnings release for further details. I will now turn the call over to Ted Harris, our Chairman, President and CEO.

Thanks, Martin. Good morning, and welcome to our conference call. We were extremely pleased with the financial results for the first quarter of 2026 and the overall performance of our company as we kicked off the new year with positive momentum from the strong performance throughout 2025. Our healthy growth continues to be fueled by ongoing market penetration of our unique portfolio of specialty nutrients and delivery systems and the favorable better-for-you trends within the food and nutrition markets that are well aligned with our food ingredient formulation systems and capabilities. We delivered record first quarter consolidated sales, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net earnings and adjusted EPS as well as strong cash flows. We also delivered year-over-year sales and earnings growth in all 3 of our reporting segments. The first quarter of 2026 was the 27th consecutive quarter of quarterly year-over-year growth in adjusted EBITDA for Balchem. We are very proud of this accomplishment, particularly in light of the market environment within which we have operated over the last 27 quarters. Before we get into more detail on the quarter, I would like to make a few comments about the overall market environment, including the evolving geopolitical and macroeconomic situation as well as some of the progress we have made on several important strategic initiatives. We continue to see healthy demand across the vast majority of our end markets. Our Human Nutrition & Health segment continues to perform very well, driven by healthy demand for both our unique portfolio of minerals, nutrients and vitamins and our food ingredients and solutions, which are benefiting from trends toward nutrient-dense, high protein, high fiber and low sugar or better-for-you foods, where our nutrient portfolio and our formulations expertise bring considerable value to our customers. In the Animal Nutrition & Health segment, we delivered another quarter of year-over-year growth on improved demand in both our monogastric and ruminant businesses as a result of further market penetration of our rumen-protected precision release encapsulated nutrient portfolio and the ongoing improvement of market conditions in the European monogastric market, and we remain encouraged by the overall performance of our Animal Nutrition & Health product portfolio. Within our Specialty Products segment, both our Performance Gases and our Plant Nutrition businesses are performing well, driven primarily by higher demand within Performance Gases as a result of healthier market conditions and successful margin management and geographic expansion growth within Plant Nutrition. As we have shown over the years, we have been able to deliver strong historical performance while facing significant market volatility, and we believe we remain well positioned to effectively manage through this current geopolitical and macroeconomic environment as well. We are once again entering a period of significant inflation, largely petrochemical-based and primarily impacting our Animal Nutrition & Health segment as well as potential supply chain disruptions due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. We will once again leverage our robust global supply chain, our procurement expertise and our strong market positions to raise prices where necessary to help manage through this dynamic market environment. While we are likely to experience some modest margin compression resulting from the timing lag that occurs between input cost inflation and pricing adjustments, particularly within our Animal Nutrition & Health segment, we do expect to deliver continued quarterly year-over-year growth on a consolidated basis over the coming quarters. We will continue to monitor the developments closely and adjust accordingly as we have done effectively in the past. Additionally, I would like to share some significant progress we have made on several important strategic initiatives that will further support our future growth. A newly published peer-reviewed research study using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a noninvasive safe neuroimaging procedure that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow and oxygenation was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients. This important study examined the effects of Balchem's VitaCholine nutrient on working memory-related brain activation and functional connectivity in post-menopausal women. The results showed that VitaCholine intake significantly enhanced functional connectivity within the working memory network, improving brain efficiency within 3 hours of consumption. This study helps highlight the benefits of VitaCholine across different life stages with previous research showing that VitaCholine supports fetal brain development during pregnancy and lactation with lasting effects beyond birth. It also suggests that VitaCholine may help enhance cognitive health in older adults. We are excited about these results, and we will continue to invest in both research and marketing around VitaCholine to raise awareness and drive market penetration of this important essential nutrient. Additionally, on April 22, Earth Day, we released our 2025 Sustainability Report, highlighting our sustainability initiatives and accomplishments. Guided by our core values and our vision of making the world a healthier place, our sustainability report demonstrates our commitment to bringing innovative solutions for global health and nutrition needs and to operate with excellence as strong stewards of our employees, customers, shareholders and communities. We are very proud of the progress made on our 2030 sustainability goals to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and water usage by 25%. Compared to our 2020 baseline, in 2025, we successfully reduced Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 31%, surpassing our 2030 goal. And we reduced water withdrawal by approximately 16%, showing substantial progress toward our water usage reduction objective. Now, regarding the first quarter financial results. This morning, we reported record quarterly consolidated revenue of $271 million, which was 8.1% higher than the prior year quarter. We delivered record quarterly GAAP earnings from operations of $56 million, an increase of 9% versus the prior year. Consolidated net income closed the quarter at $40 million, an increase of 8.7%. This quarterly net income translated to diluted net earnings per share of $1.25 on a GAAP basis, up 10.6%. On an adjusted basis, we delivered record quarterly adjusted EBITDA of $74 million, an increase of 12.1%. Our quarterly adjusted net earnings were $43 million, an increase of 7.4%, which translated to $1.33 per diluted share, up 9%. Overall, it was an excellent quarter for Balchem, marked by strong financial results and meaningful progress made on our strategic priorities. And with that, I'm now going to turn the call back over to Martin to go through the first quarter financial results in more detail and the results for each of our business segments.

Thank you, Ted. The first quarter was a strong start to 2026. Our record first quarter net sales of $271 million were 8.1% higher than prior year, driven by strength across all 3 segments: Human Nutrition & Health, Animal Nutrition & Health and Specialty Products. The impact from foreign currency exchange, driven primarily by the stronger euro had a favorable impact to our sales growth of approximately 2% in the first quarter. Our gross margin dollars were $101 million, up 14.6% and our gross margin percent expanded to 37.3% of sales, up 210 basis points. The gross margin performance was driven primarily by the sales growth and manufacturing efficiencies, partially offset by raw material inflation. Consolidated operating expenses for the first quarter were $45 million as compared to $37 million in the prior year. The increase was primarily due to higher compensation-related costs and an increase in professional services. GAAP earnings from operations for the first quarter were a record $56 million, an increase of 9%. On an adjusted basis, as detailed in our earnings release this morning, record non-GAAP earnings from operations of $61 million were up 9.5%. Adjusted EBITDA was a record $74 million, an increase of 12.1% with an adjusted EBITDA margin rate of 27.4% Net interest expense for the first quarter was $2 million, a decrease of $1 million, primarily driven by lower outstanding borrowings and lower interest rates. Our net debt was $96 million with an overall leverage ratio on a net debt basis of 0.3. The effective tax rates for the first quarters of 2026 and 2025 were 23.3% and 22.7%, respectively. The increase in the effective tax rate from the prior year was primarily due to an increase in certain state taxes. Consolidated net income closed the quarter at $40 million, up 8.7%. This quarterly net income translated into diluted net earnings per share of $1.25, a 10.6% increase. On an adjusted basis, our first quarter adjusted net earnings were $43 million, an increase of 7.4%, which translated to $1.33 per diluted share. Cash flows from operations were $40 million with free cash flow of $34 million, and we closed out the quarter with $73 million of cash on the balance sheet. As we look at the first quarter from a segment perspective, our Human Nutrition & Health segment saw sales of $172 million, up 8.3%, driven by growth in both our Nutrients business and our Food Ingredients and Solutions businesses. Earnings from operations of $40 million were up 5.4%, driven by the higher sales and a favorable mix, partially offset by certain higher manufacturing input costs and higher operating expenses. First quarter adjusted earnings from operations for this segment were $43 million, up 6%. We were encouraged by the continued momentum in Human Nutrition & Health, where our differentiated ingredients and solutions aligned with the consumer shift toward better-for-you nutrition. We believe this positions us well to further leverage our formulation expertise and portfolio of differentiated branded ingredients to drive sustained growth. Our Animal Nutrition & Health segment delivered sales of $62 million, up 8.6%. The increase was driven by higher sales in both the monogastric and ruminant businesses. Animal Nutrition & Health delivered earnings from operations of $6 million, up 8.7%, driven by the higher sales, partially offset by certain higher manufacturing input costs and higher operating expenses. First quarter adjusted earnings from operations for this segment were $6 million, up 8.2%. We delivered another quarter of improved performance in our Animal Nutrition & Health segment. We continue to drive adoption of our encapsulated rumen-protected nutrients in the dairy market. Our U.S. monogastric business remained steady, and our European monogastric business continued to improve following the EU antidumping duties. Looking ahead, we're paying careful attention to the conflict in the Middle East and the potential impacts it may have on the animal nutrition markets. We are seeing increases in raw material input costs, along with increased freight costs, which will either be offset or passed on to our customers. We feel good about the momentum we have built within our Animal Nutrition & Health segment. And while we are likely to experience some modest margin compression resulting from the timing lag that occurs between input cost inflation and pricing adjustments, we remain confident in our ability to continue to drive growth in this segment over time. Our Specialty Products segment delivered quarterly sales of $35 million, up 4.4%, driven by healthy growth in Performance Gases. Specialty Products delivered a record quarterly earnings from operations of $12 million, up 24.5%, driven primarily by higher sales and a favorable mix. First quarter adjusted earnings from operations for this segment were a record $13 million, up 21.2%. We were very pleased with the performance of Specialty Products, delivering yet another quarter of solid growth, and we believe Specialty Products is well positioned to continue to deliver consistent profitable growth as we look forward. So overall, the first quarter was another strong quarter for Balchem, and we are really pleased with the results. While the global geopolitical and macroeconomic environment remains dynamic and includes areas of uncertainty, we believe we are well positioned to continue executing our strategy and to deliver continued growth through the rest of 2026. I'm now going to turn the call back over to Ted for some closing remarks.

Thanks, Martin. We were very pleased with the financial results reported earlier today. We executed well within a dynamic and evolving macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop, delivering another strong quarter of solid growth while at the same time, advancing our strategic initiatives. Looking ahead, we remain excited about 2026 and confident in our ability to deliver continued top and bottom line growth while further advancing our long-term growth platforms. I will now hand the call back over to Martin, who will open up the call for questions.

Thank you, Ted. This now concludes the formal portion of the conference. So at this point, we will open up the conference call for questions.

Your first question comes from the line of Bob Labick from CJS Securities.

Congratulations on another record quarter.

Thank you, Bob.

Thanks, Bob.

Sure. Yes. So one of the keys to your growth and success has been the branded ingredients. And Ted, you spoke a little about VitaCholine already. I know you're kind of like early-ish on a branding strategy so far. But what percent of sales are branded that's -- out of what's applicable now? And what could that look like in 5 or 10 years?

Yes. Again, Bob, thanks for your comments. Our branded ingredients, and let's just talk about Human Nutrition & Health, make up about, I would say, 40% to 50% of our Human Nutrition & Health business today. And that doesn't mean to say on the other 50% to 60%, we don't have brands, but they're more B2B brands. The power brands, as we refer to them, like VitaCholine that you talked about, K2VITAL and K2VITAL DELTA, OptiMSM, Albion Minerals, for example, are brands that obviously we're selling to supplement nutritional beverage manufacturers, but are recognized by the consumer. And so those are the ones that we're really investing in. So let's say, 40% to 50% of H&H today. And that part of the business is obviously growing faster than the other parts of the business. So over time, we will clearly become a bigger and bigger part of our portfolio.

Okay. Great. And we've talked on previous calls about the Jets partnership and the new customers that have come, notably in VitaCholine and I think energy drinks in particular. Are there other areas of expansion still to come from this? Are there opportunities for just more general sports drinks versus energy drinks? Or how do you take the company down that path, if possible?

Yes. So obviously, historically, supplements have been our primary targeted market. But as you mentioned, we've had pretty significant success more recently relative to sports beverages, energy drinks and the like. And as you can imagine, it's a great application for our products, partly because you don't have the capacity or volume limitation that you can have in a supplement or a multivitamin. And so we've found it to be an excellent application for our products and trends are leading to significant growth in those areas. So I do think that, that will continue to grow and kind of that word energy drink versus nutritional beverage, I do think many of these products started to be more kind of in the energy drink and all that comes with that term in that category. And now those drinks are expanding much more broadly to more of a nutritional beverage focus, meal replacement focus, a much healthier product than -- or better-for-you product to use those words, than the historical energy drinks. And we really believe that, that nutritional beverage market is a significant opportunity for us and will grow rapidly over time. So I think that's really where the predominance of our opportunity lies in the near to midterm. And relative to investing marketing dollars in the brands, it does expand far beyond partnering with an NFL team. We're already partnering with a Women's professional soccer team in Europe and the Bayern Munich Women's team. We're investing in other sort of influencer areas, digital media areas and so forth. So we do continue to expand that effort in other areas. So we really -- I think, we talked about on calls many, many quarters ago that the investment in the Jets was a pilot to some extent. We certainly look back on that as being a successful pilot and one that we want to now expand through other consumer marketing awareness campaigns, some of which I just mentioned.

Okay. Super. And one last one for me, I'll jump back in queue. But looking at the P&L, the gross margins, the 37.2% surprised on the upside. It was really strong, in fact. So maybe just give us a little more details of what kind of drove that. And I know with raw material cost pressures coming, how should we think about gross margins going forward?

Yes. Bob, strong performance on the gross margin, as you pointed out, and as you're familiar, we've talked about in the past that we do have a favorable tailwind in our portfolio from the fact that our higher-margin businesses are the ones growing the fastest. So minerals and nutrients in H&H being an example of that. And similarly, on the Animal Nutrition side of ruminant being higher margin and generally growing faster than monogastric. And just from a portfolio perspective, we have that tailwind that supports expansion of the margins. On top of that, we have been fairly effective more recently to just manage the balance between price and inflation and drive some benefits that way as well, along with having effective manufacturing operations here supporting the P&L. So everything has just been working fairly well from a gross margin perspective, and you're seeing that come through. The reference we made to seeing inflation is true and real. We do see inflation coming. and we see that accelerating a bit with what's happening in the Middle East. And as you know, from the past, when we went through this with COVID, we've been quite effective historically at managing that, both through our supply chain and through our procurement, but also in terms of pricing that through to our customers where needed. But it tends to have a little bit of a dilutive impact, right? If your costs go up $1 and you price through $1, mathematically, your margin rate goes down. So I think we'll see a little bit of that to a modest extent as we go forward in this inflationary environment. So while we continue to grow our margin dollars, we may see a little bit of a margin rate compression as a result of the environment.

Your next question comes from the line of Ram Selvaraju from H.C. Wainwright.

Firstly, I was wondering if you could comment on sort of ongoing evolution of your thinking regarding the positioning of VitaCholine and in particular, how you are thinking about optimizing the value of this franchise, especially given the most recent data that you cited published in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients and how this might evolve going forward. When you think about historically, the work that's already been done demonstrating that choline is an essential prenatal nutrient. Now you have data showing that it has applicability to enhance potentially cognitive health in older adults. Just give us a sense of how you're thinking about the evolution of that brand and how best to position it, particularly from the perspective of promotional and marketing strategies that you may not necessarily have employed in the past? Secondly, I think it would be helpful if you could give us a sense, particularly in light of the most recent geopolitical developments, how this might affect the industrial side of Balchem's business, especially when we think about potentially increased U.S. stateside-based oil and petroleum production that may include enhanced fracking activity? And then lastly, Martin, I was wondering if you could just comment on the effective tax rate. It was a little bit ahead of what we had originally projected. So I was wondering if we should use that as kind of the serviceable tax rate assumption going forward or if you anticipate the effective tax rate to modulate a little bit over the course of the remainder of this year?

Thanks, Ram, for your questions. And maybe I'll take the first 2, and Martin, you can answer the last one. And I'll start, Ram, with your second one around industrial. As everybody knows, we no longer report out industrial separately. But that business continues, has continued for a number of years at a very low level, I would say. But that business is clearly up. It's still not a measurable contributor to our overall results and business. But regardless of that, the results are up, sales are up, demand is up, which is what you would expect given the current situation with increased activity in that part of the economy. So we are seeing new business from that. Again, it's not to a material nature. And we strongly believe it will never return to what it once was, but it's nice to see higher demand in that area based on the increased activity. Relative to the ongoing VitaCholine positioning, we are really excited about the results of this most recent study, specifically for servicing post-menopausal women in that community and that targeted market. But it does suggest that older adults can benefit from VitaCholine intake more broadly. And that is a huge market compared to the prenatal market that you mentioned. Historically, choline was a product that was sold into infant formula and really didn't even appear that much in prenatal vitamins. I think we can look back and say we were very, very successful in doing the science, having the studies to support the prenatal market. And today, it really is broadly part of a prenatal vitamin regimen. It's incredibly rare for me to ask a pregnant woman what her vitamin regimen is and not to include choline. So I think we've been very successful there. But the reality is that's a relatively small market. So this could be an absolute breakthrough from a VitaCholine perspective and really open up that, as I used the word earlier, huge adult cognition market. I think it's an early study. It's a study that has definitive results for post-menopausal women. We need more studies for sure to show effectiveness across a wider segment of the population in that age group. But this is a good first start, and we always expected this just to be the start. So we're investing in some more studies. And then as we've also learned, we need to support that science and those studies with marketing and obviously, marketing to aging adults that either are experiencing cognitive issues or are concerned about cognitive issues is a very different marketing campaign to positioning VitaCholine as a nutrient that athletes should take, which is what we were doing for the New York Jets. So we will have to reposition our marketing efforts or newly position our marketing efforts to support the emerging science in this area and to build awareness in the aging population and ultimately to drive market penetration of VitaCholine in that category. And that's exactly what we're going to do. So with that, I'll hand it over to Martin to talk about tax.

Yes. Ram, as we spoke about in the past, we tend to use 23% effective tax rate as sort of the planning rate for you. And I think when we spoke last time, I thought we were probably error on the side of doing better than that. In Q1, we had 23.3%, so a bit above that just based on timing of various items and some changes in state tax laws that impacted that negatively and also various discrete items that hit the quarters differently. I think, as we look forward here, I think the rate will be higher in Q2 as well versus that 23%. And then I think you will be lower in the back half of the year as we're working our way towards that 23%. So I think it's still a good planning rate to use, the 23%, as you model things for the full year.

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Harriman from Sidoti.

Ted, Martin and again, congratulations on continued execution and great performance. I've got 2 questions this morning. I'll start with one for Ted. Last quarter, I had kind of touched on or asked you about international growth. And I was just wondering if you might be able to provide us on an update or if there's anything been going on that we should pay attention to there -- across the 3 businesses? And then, Martin, on the European monogastric side of things, I was just curious if you could give a little bit more color about where we are in the recovery there and if there's more room for you guys in terms of both volume and pricing? Really appreciate it.

Yes. So on the geographic expansion and international growth, that continues to be a primary strategic focus area for our company and one that we feel really good about the progress that we're making. Part of that progress involves hiring people in the various international regions around the world, and we're doing that, and we're hiring really good people. I would say when you look at our OpEx this quarter, Martin talked a little bit about it being higher than normal. And part of that at least is driven by some onetime items, but part of it is also driven by an investment in sales and marketing around the globe as we do invest in geographic expansion. So we're making good progress in hiring people, building out the infrastructure that we need to drive geographic expansion and the results are showing. We are seeing higher growth rates in most international locations versus the U.S. We're still driving really good growth in the U.S., but the international growth rates have been better for us because of the low base that we're starting in. So we're focused on it. It's a primary strategic objective for us, and we're making really good progress relative to that strategic initiative.

Yes. On the Animal Nutrition, Europe and the recovery of the monogastric business there, we are clearly seeing an uptick following the antidumping. In Q1, we did see a double-digit volume improvement. So it's definitely there combined with improved pricing. So there is clearly an upward trend in that business that I think has the potential to continue to strengthen further. And the sort of impacts that we're keeping an eye on around now is really stemming from the Middle East conflict, right, and whether or not that will have an impact to the European end markets or not, just given the higher input costs that they will be facing here going forward. But in terms of the EU antidumping, we are clearly seeing benefits from that at the moment.

Your next question comes from the line of Artem Chubarov from Rothschild Redburn.

Ted and Martin, congrats on a good quarter. Yes, I would like to ask probably 2 questions. The first on H&H. Any color on how Nutrients or Food Ingredients businesses performed in the quarter would be helpful just to understand the magnitude of growth and whether you expect these to persist? And the second question is on Specialty Products. Obviously, you've reported quite exceptional improvement in profitability. So it would be just helpful to understand where it came from, perhaps whether it was a price or volume? And how did that develop by region, whether it was Europe or the U.S.

Sure. So maybe I'll take a stab at this, and Martin, you can chime in as needed. We were really pleased with the overall performance of H&H really as we have been for many quarters. And the story, I would say, in Q1 was very similar to the story that has played out over previous quarters. So not much changing. The minerals and nutrients portfolio growing very strong, I would say, double-digits growth, fueled, I think, particularly by growth in our minerals business, which is performing really outstandingly, broadly speaking, but all of the nutrients are growing nicely. And that business is performing well and really fueled by, yes, to some extent, the better-for-you trends, but just the adoption of supplementation and the inclusion of nutrients in beverages as we talked earlier. So a little bit more of the same, which I view as positive. The Food Ingredient and Solutions business grew, I would say, sort of lower to mid-single digits. So again, continue to grow at what I would say would be nice rates for that business. And that growth truly is really being fueled by the better-for-you trends, whether it's meat sticks that we've talked about before, where some of our ingredients are included or high-protein bars, high fiber beverages, organic, high-fiber cereals, those kinds of products are really all performing very well for us. And really driving the vast majority of growth within H&H. And again, I would say that story has been true for quite a number of quarters. So we're overall very pleased with the performance of H&H, and we continue to believe that, that story will continue for some time to come. We think it's quite sustainable. Relative to Specialty Products, it's a little bit of a different story. The favorable growth really is driven primarily from the Performance Gases part of Specialty Products. Again, very pleased with the overall performance of Specialty Products. But in this quarter, it was primarily driven by performance gases where we're seeing healthy demand, both in the U.S. and in Europe. It seems odd a number of years later to still be talking about the pandemic, but those were markets that were pretty severely impacted by the pandemic, and it had a result -- kind of a long played out impact, I would say, on those markets. And we would say those markets today are back to where they were, very healthy, and our business is doing very well, both in the U.S. and Europe just on healthy demand. The growth, as we talked about in Plant Nutrition has been primarily driven by geographic expansion over time. We didn't deliver growth in Q1, but we're bullish about the performance of Plant Nutrition over the course of the year. We had significant margin improvement in that business in Q1, delivered healthy geographic expansion growth. And generally speaking, it's a healthy planting environment right now. And so again, we feel good about our ability to deliver growth in that business this year. So really pleased with the performance of Specialty Products as well and believe that this performance that we've been delivering in that segment over the last number of quarters and in Q1 is sustainable. So hopefully, that answers your questions.

It does indeed.

And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Ted Harris for closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much. Once again, thank you all for joining our call today. We are very pleased with how we have started 2026, and we really appreciate your support and your time today. And we look forward to reporting out our Q2 2026 results in late July. And in the meantime, we will be participating in the Wells Fargo Industrials and Materials Conference in Chicago on June 10 and the CJS Summer Investor Conference in White Plains, New York on July 9. And we certainly hope to see some of you there. Thanks again.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.