The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 27, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Michael Andrews - Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

James Koch - Founder and Chairman

David Burwick - President and Chief Executive Officer

Diego Reynoso - Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Conference Call Participants

Nik Modi - RBC

Kaumil Gajrawala - Jefferies

Stephen Powers - Deutsche Bank

Robert Ottenstein - Evercore ISI

Eric Serotta - Morgan Stanley

Brett Cooper - Consumer Edge Research

Peter Grom - UBS.

Filippo Falorni - Citi

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Boston Beer Company Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] And as a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce to you Mike Andrews, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Thank you, Mike. You may begin.

Michael Andrews

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome -- This is Mike Andrews, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Boston Beer Company. I'm pleased to kick off our 2023 Fourth quarter earnings call. Joining the call from Boston Beer are Jim Koch, Founder and Chairman; Dave Burwick, our CEO; and Diego Reynoso, our CFO.

Before we discuss our business, I'll start with our disclaimer. As we state in our earnings release, some of the information we discuss and that may come up on this call reflects the company's or management's expectations or predictions of the future. Such predictions are forward-looking statements. It's important to note that the company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's most recent 10-Q and 10-K.

The company does not undertake to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

I will now pass it over to Jim for some introductory comments.

James Koch

Thanks, Mike. I'll begin my remarks this afternoon with a few introductory comments and then hand over to Dave, who will provide an overview of our business. Dave will then turn the call over to Diego who will focus on the financial details of our fourth quarter results as well as our outlook for 2024. Immediately following Diego's comments, we will open the line for questions.

As I look back on our 2023 performance, I'm encouraged that we saw steady sequential improvement in depletions as we move through the year. On a comparable week's basis, our depletions improved from a decrease of 7% in the first half to a decrease of 3% in the third quarter and a decrease of 1% in the fourth quarter. We made progress across the portfolio, and we have innovations that are launching this quarter, which Dave will review in more detail.