Company: UTZ
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001739566-25-000053
Chunk: 5

Company: Utz Brands, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 5
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 of products also enable us to rapidly respond to evolving consumer needs and preferences and to better create new innovative products to delight consumers. We also believe that our diversified product portfolio results in more predictable and stable financial performance as we are not overly exposed to only one salty snack sub-category.

Recent Developments in Product Innovation

New product innovation is critical in the salty snacks category because consumers both enjoy long-time favorites and like to experiment with new forms, flavors, textures, and ingredients. In particular, our brands have strong competitive positions across an assortment of popular salty snacks, including potato chips, tortilla chips, pretzels, cheese snacks, pub/party mixes, and pork skins.

Investments in new product innovation support three focus areas that are rooted in the consumer and tied to our portfolio and brand strategy: Expanding Positive Choices, Delivering Craveable Flavor, and Capturing Occasions.

Within Expanding Positive Choices, the focus in 2024 was on Boulder Canyon, a brand offering solutions for consumers seeking great tasting BFY snacks via BFY oils such as avocado oil and olive oil. Innovation contributed to the brand’s 32.7% growth in the natural channel in 2024. Within the potato chip segment, Boulder Canyon launched two kettle chips: Spicy Green Chili as an everyday item following a successful 2023 limited time offer (“LTO”) launch and a Buffalo Ranch Boulder Batch LTO. Both flavors capitalized on the hot & spicy trend that continues as the #1 flavor category in salty snacks. Also, within potato chips, Boulder Canyon entered the Wavy/Ripple subcategory with the launch of Boulder Canyon Wavy chips in top category flavors, Sea Salt and Cheddar Sour Cream. Introduced in September 2024 in the Natural Channel, Boulder Canyon Wavy is off to a strong start with both Sea Salt and Cheddar Sour Cream flavors exceeding expectations. Additionally, Boulder Canyon moved beyond potato chips in 2024, entering the cheese snacks sub-category with the introduction of Canyon Poppers. This launch leverages our expertise in cheese snacks and consumer desire for BFY snacks. Two flavors, White Cheddar and Jalapeno Ranch, represent top category flavors, Cheddar and Hot & Spicy.

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Within Delivering Craveable Flavor, we addressed consumer desire for flavor exploration with innovation across brands and snacking subcategories. Utz leveraged strength as the #4 brand of pretzels with an over 50% repeat purchase rate and the other positive trends in flavored pretzels, which now represents over