Thank you for watching. I can't even pretend. No matter how I try, my body wants to know, can I? I don't want this night to end. If only I could stop the sunrise, we could lay here all night. If only I could let every dollar hold you forever. If only I had one more chance. I like that, I like that Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine God, I gotta be down because I want it all It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this? It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss Now I'm falling asleep and she's calling a cab While inside of the smoke and she's faking it Red Rocks right here! Y'all ready? 3, 2, 1

Thank you for watching. Red Rocks Losing!

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining and welcome to the Celsius Holdings third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the call over to Paul Wiseman, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Celsius Holdings' third quarter 2026 earnings webcast. With me today are John Fieldly, Chairman and CEO, Jarrod Langhans, Chief Financial Officer, and Toby David, Chief of Staff. We'll take questions following the prepared remarks. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. will present results on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. Non-GAAP measures like adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted diluted earnings per share, adjusted SG&A, and adjusted SG&A as a percentage of revenue and their GAAP reconciliations are detailed in our third quarter press release. And non-GAAP financial measures should not be used as a substitute for our results reported in accordance with GAAP. With that, I'll turn it over to John.

Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2026 results. We delivered the third quarter revenue of approximately $847 million, up approximately 17% year over year. Alani New delivered the strongest quarter in the brand's history, led by Witch's Brew, the largest limited time offer in our portfolio's history. Brand Celsius performed in line with expectations we set out last quarter, setting the stage for the brand being back to expected growth across 2027. Rockstar remained stable quarter over quarter, and we had begun seeing green shoots in a number of areas. And our combined portfolio held approximately 21% dollar share of the energy category in track channels, roughly one in five energy drinks purchased in the United States. As we just saw at NACS, the largest convenience store showcase in the U.S., energy remains one of the strongest performing categories in beverage, and our portfolio is key to driving that growth. Our modern energy brands contributed approximately 28% of zero sugar energy category growth in the third quarter. Retail sales for our portfolio and track channels grew approximately 15% year over year in the third quarter, consistent with the second quarter. And we continue to bring new consumers into the category and win new occasions with them. Thank you. Rockstar reaches the traditional energy consumer through gaming, motorsports, and music. Together, these brands give us ways of growing across more channels, more occasions, and more price points. That is the power of managing a portfolio, and the third quarter is a good example of it. To fully capitalize on these opportunities, we are also evolving how we organize and lead our business. Today we announced the establishment of three brand-led business units. Celsius, Alani New, and Rockstar in Emerging Growth, each led by a dedicated brand president responsible for its strategy, growth, and performance. This structure is designed to bring greater focus and speed to each brand while continuing to leverage the scale and capabilities of Celsius Holdings. We're excited to welcome Alex Zigalera as president of Brand Celsius in the U.S., bringing more than two decades of global CPG and beverage experience, and to announce Rishi Daing's expanded role as president, rock star energy and emerging growth. Rishi currently serves as Celsius Holdings' chief marketing officer and will transition from that role as the new organizational structure is implemented. We believe this brand-led structure will enable us to better execute with discipline against our total energy portfolio strategy to drive durable long-term growth with expanding consumer reach and consumption occasions through differentiated brands, gaining distribution and shelf space, sustaining innovation, scaling internationally, and realizing greater opportunities and efficiencies. Before moving on... I want to take a moment to acknowledge the recent passing of our Chief Supply Chain Officer, Paul Storey. Paul was a valued member of our leadership team. We are deeply grateful for his many contributions to Celsius Holdings, including the deep bench and the talented team that he developed at Celsius. Our thoughts remain with his family, friends, and colleagues during this difficult time. To ensure continuity across our supply chain operations, Seth Nicholas has assumed the role of Executive Vice President Operations and Interim Chief Supply Chain Officer. Turning now to our brand performance. Let me start with Brand Celsius. The quarter played out the way we expected. Retail sales and track channels were down approximately 7% year over year as we cycled last year's innovation. On a dollar basis, the quarter ran a lot like the second, as we said it would. Brand Celsius is not yet where we want it to be. We have spent this year strengthening the sequencing of the planograms or said another way, getting our faster cars on the track. And that work continues. But it is important to keep in mind that a brand is built with the consumer, not on the shelf. Celsius was built one consumer at a time in the gyms, the run clubs, the daily routines of people who live an active lifestyle. Live, fit, go is not just a tagline to us. It is a lifestyle of the consumer we serve. So this fall, we sharpened our focus on the consumer with a multi-year partnership with ESPN College Game Day. Put Celsius in front of college football fans every Saturday and every weekend during the season, we are on campus putting our product in the hands of the next generation of active consumers. We're doing this within the marketing investments we laid out, and we are measuring it the way we measure everything. Brand Health, new consumers coming into the brand, and most importantly, repeat purchases. That is the foundation. This growth comes from what we talked about on our last earnings call, a core set of national SKUs. Retailers are planning 2027 with us earlier than they ever have, and innovation, which was not there to bridge the gap this year, but will be much more prominent in 2027. I'll come back to that in a moment. Lonnie New delivered the biggest quarter in brand's history with net sales of approximately $410 million, up approximately 24% year-over-year and accelerating from the second quarter. Retail sales and track channels grew approximately 58% year-over-year. The story of the quarter was Witch's Brew. Last quarter, we said Witch's Brew would be the biggest limited time offer in the brand's history and it was. It was the largest limited time offer in our portfolio's history with more than $130 million in retail sales across traditional retail and club. and our core 12-ounce Witch's Brew was nearly 80% ahead of last year. At its peak, it delivered the biggest single week of any item in the Celsius Holdings portfolio has ever delivered on record, more than double the next best. And in that peak week, if Witch's Brew had been its own brand, it would have ranked as the fifth largest energy drink and track channels. What is most important is what sits underneath. Excluding Witch's Brew, core Alani News sales and track channels grew approximately 50% year-over-year in the third quarter. This is continued evidence that we are bringing new consumers into the brand and keeping them. We are graduating top performing SKUs into permanent core, which adds stability as the brand scales. And the program sold through at retail, which sets up well for the fourth quarter. Alani New's share of the category and track channels reached approximately 9.8% in the quarter, up nearly three points year over year. Importantly, Alani New is still underpenetrated in channels where our portfolio is strong, and that remains a clear roadmap for growth in 2027. Given the brand's tremendous momentum and the opportunities ahead, we're excited to bring dedicated leadership to Alani New as part of our new brand-led organizational structure. For Rockstar, our focus this year has been stabilizing the brand. The brand is tracking in line with expectations we set at the time of acquisition. While total retail sales remain down year over year as we cycle the SKUs we exited, the SKUs we are carrying forward are getting healthier. In fact, the year over year trend has improved in each quarter since we acquired the brand, with the remaining SKUs being within about 1% of last year in the third quarter. We're also seeing broader geographic momentum, more than twice as many states now growing since the end of last year. Our plan for Rockstar in 2027 is simple. Expand distribution, accelerate your velocity of the core, and recruit the next generation of Rockstar's consumers. We will do that by going deeper into the platforms that built this brand, music, motorsports, and by taking Rockstar into college towns in a way that only Rockstar can. With Rishi Daing now leading at Rockstar, an emerging growth business unit, we're bringing dedicated leadership and greater focus on these opportunities ahead. That brings me to innovation. It is one of the biggest growth drivers in the category, and it was a piece missing from the Celsius brand this year. 2027 will look very different. We purposely delayed innovation on brand Celsius this year while we brought Alani New and Rockstar into the system. And that is now behind us. For 2027, we have incredible innovation planned across both Celsius and Alani New. New flavors, new lines, new permanent SKUs. It's going to be an exciting year. And innovation is already landing in the fourth quarter. Celsius, Spritz Bride, Shirley Temple is on shelf. Two more Celsius SKUs land around Thanksgiving. And Alani New Winter Wonderland, our winter limited time offer, launches at the end of November. Now turning to markets outside the United States. Last quarter, we laid out a roadmap, focused market entries, strong local partnerships, and disciplined launch plans with markets outside the U.S. expected to grow to more than 15% of total revenue over the next five years. The third quarter was another step on that path with our non-U.S. market revenue up approximately 56% year over year. And when you look at the runway in front of us, the ready-to-drink energy category across our key international markets is in excess of 8 billion and expected to grow double digits next year. Our playbook in Europe is working. In the UK, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, we are building awareness and trial. We are seeing it in the metrics underneath. Our brand tracking shows aided awareness have roughly doubled in both the UK and France since early last year. And our share of the category is up year over year in every one of our new European markets. Thank you for joining us. We are also finalizing the Select International Markets, where Alani New is planned to launch in 2027. And we'll leverage the learnings, market entry playbooks that have helped Celsius grow globally. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jarrod to walk through our financials. Jarrod?

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. I will walk through the quarter by brand, then cover profitability, operating discipline, and capital allocation. I will then close with how we are thinking about the fourth quarter, as well as a few comments on 2027 planning. We delivered third quarter revenue of approximately $847 million, up approximately 17% year-over-year as a portfolio. On net sales, there is one timing item I want to call out up front. Relative to the expectations that we set in August, we did see some benefit from timing of shipments moving into the third quarter that were planned for the fourth quarter. Brand Celsius came in a little stronger, and part of that was as a result of the shipment timing, as did Rockstar and Alani. This was in the range of $20 to $25 million. Looking at the brands, starting with Brand Celsius, reported net sales were down approximately 6% year over year. Retail sales and track channels were down approximately 7%. Within that, U.S. orders ran below scans as the system continued to work through inventory, offset by growth in international and powders, which is not in the track data. Dollars per point of distribution improved again versus the second quarter on fewer points of distribution, so the productivity gains we delivered in the second quarter held. What is most important to stress is that the trade investment on brand Celsius as a percentage of gross sales improved year over year. Revenue Growth Management Program and retail sales and track channels grew approximately 58%. Excluding the timing item, Ohlone new growth still accelerated from the second quarter. We have again included a bridge in our earnings deck, so I will focus on the main drivers. The largest item this quarter was Witch's Brew, and the performance was phenomenal. Shipments ahead of the August launch landed in July and August, and the product sold through quicker than we had anticipated. Thank you for watching. Two points on that. While Witch's Brew was the largest driver of the quarter, the Bay Solani New business grew without it, with Coralani New retail sales and track channels up approximately 50% year-over-year, excluding the limited time offer. For Rockstar, net sales were approximately $80 million, up from approximately $67 million in the second quarter. Third quarter revenue was partially driven by a strong performance in Canada due to the timing of orders across the second and third quarter of 2026. Velocity x Distribution Productivity is moving the right way with dollars per point of distribution up approximately 14% versus the second quarter on a more focused assortment. Distribution is where the declines have been. As we cycle the rationalization, that distribution headwind narrows, and that is what allows the velocity gains to show up in the top line. We are not calling a return to growth today, but the building blocks are coming into place. Third quarter gross margin was 46.8%, compared with 48.1% in the second quarter and 51.3% a year ago. In August, we said that at current diesel and aluminum levels, margin expansion was largely offset and that we would expect the third quarter to remain in the high 40s. Since then, both diesel and aluminum prices have moved higher. Aluminum costs remain elevated on both the LME and the Midwest premium, and diesel reached its highest level in several years. Outbound freight as a percentage of revenue was slightly favorable versus the second quarter, which reflects the work the operations team has done on freight, and the benefit largely offset the increase in diesel. For the full year, depending on commodity fluctuations, we would expect gross margin in the high 40s. On Contra, trade investment as a percentage of gross sales increased modestly from the second quarter. In August, we said the price pack architecture work would deliver an initial impact in the back half and help offset the mixed impact of more cases moving through DSD. Thank you for watching. Thank you for joining us. On revenue growth management, we have seen the initial impact this year and the much larger opportunity is in 2027 because it is a different program than the one we ran this year. In 2026, we built the capability and used it to fix what was in front of us. Post-event analysis by promotion and by account and elasticity work at the SKU and account level. So that trade dollars go where they earn a return. For 2027, we are moving from tactical decisions to a portfolio level program, and it has three parts. First, a clear brand ladder across Celsius, Alani New, and Rockstar so that each brand's pricing reflects its role in the portfolio. Second, a pack architecture that is consistent across the brands, which gives us a cleaner price slope from singles to multi-packs and supports the formats coming with the 2027 innovation. and third, a multi-year roadmap so pricing and trade are managed as a system rather than as a one-year event. We are planning 2027 around that program with our retail partners and our DSD partner now and we would expect trade investment as a percentage of gross sales to improve as it takes hold with the benefits building through 2027 and into 2028. Selling general and administrative expenses were $221 million or approximately 26.1% of revenue Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. On capital deployment, our balance sheet remains a source of strength and flexibility. During the third quarter, we repurchased approximately $45 million of stock, bringing year-to-date repurchases to approximately $169 million with approximately $91 million remaining under the $300 million authorization. The reason we continue to lean into repurchases is the same as last quarter. Our cash flow return on investment is among the strongest in the beverage category, and at current levels, we view repurchasing our own stock as an attractive use of capital. Thank you for joining us. First, the comparison. A year ago, the fourth quarter included the inventory bill that came with moving Alani New into the DSD system, partly offset by inventory reductions on brand Celsius. As we noted when we reported the fourth quarter of 2025, that was a net benefit of approximately $25 million to our reported results, and it does not recur. Second, shipment timing. Separate from last year's item, the approximately $25 million of shipments that moved into the third quarter this year comes out of the fourth. Contra. Trade investment as a percentage of gross sales will be higher than it was a year ago because a year ago Alana New was not yet carrying a full quarter of DSD economics. Our DSD partner began delivering the brand in the first week of December. Partly offsetting those, in terms of the timing and sequencing of the 2027 innovation, the first wave loads into the system in November and December with the balance in the first quarter. So some innovation revenue lands in the fourth quarter ahead of the January launches. Putting it together, the fourth quarter is the most difficult comparison of the year on a reported basis, and we expect that reported revenue growth will be below what we delivered through the first three quarters. That is a function of the comparison and the timing items I just walked through, not underlying demand, which you can see in the scanner data. for Rockstar the fourth quarter is the first quarter with the brand fully in both periods as a reminder a portion of last year's fourth quarter Rockstar sales was recorded in other income during the integration so reported growth will be elevated on an underlying basis we would expect sales to trend closer to what we delivered in the first and second quarters of this year for the full year we would expect gross margin in the high 40s and from a portfolio perspective our focus is on strengthening our brands and execution service through the network product displays on the floor and winning at the register through the holiday selling season and into 2027. Moving to 2027 we are currently wrapping up key meetings with our retail partners and the innovation plans promotional calendar and activations are being locked in. In addition Our commercial teams are meeting with Pepsi this week to finalize our priorities as well as the timing and sequencing of our various programs and launches. From a 10,000-foot perspective, our plans include Brand Celsius returning to growth, Rockstar continuing to work towards stability and then growth, and Alani continues to benefit from its entrance into the PepsiCo DSD system as well as the outsized growth the brand is delivering as it drives the modern energy category. With that, I will turn the call back to the operator to open lines for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question only. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you're muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Now, if you'll just please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Peter Grom with UBS. Your line is open. Go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. So I wanted to ask about Brand Celsius. Can you maybe just talk about expectations for the brand as you look out to 4Q and into 27? And then related, Jarrod, you touched on all the different moving pieces in 4Q across the total portfolio. Any thoughts on how we should be thinking about Celsius itself relative to what we might see from a track trend standpoint?

Morning, Peter. Thank you for the question. Great question. Fair question. The way we're looking at it, when you look at the third quarter, it played out the way we said it would. On scan dollars, it ran a lot like the second. Year-over-year rate moved down about 7% because of the comparisons. and then a year ago, the brand grew about 3% in track channels in the second quarter and about 13% in the third quarter. So when you're looking at the fourth quarter, it's really a lot of the same dynamic. Last year's fourth quarter was up approximately 13% on scanner, including our first limited time offer with the Celsius portfolio. So the turn in consumption shows up as we move through 2027 when we really cycle the rationalization and innovation is back in the brand and what's we've been talking about for 27. You know, we simplified the portfolio in 26 and now we're back to innovation. We have really robust plans. The way we're looking at it. and you look at the kind of the run rate on a weekly basis based on the scanner data, the brand's been running in the 50 to 55 million range on a weekly basis. As we're exiting the year, there is a few weeks, two weeks where the brand last year dipped down into the 49 million range. So the way we're looking at it, if we can hold Within the 50 range, the brand will be back to slight growth break even in a variety of weeks exiting the year. We do have innovation launching as we talked in our prepared remarks, but that distribution will build over time in 2027. So when you're looking at it, that's the way we're thinking about it. Brand Health is strong. We've got a variety of tentpoles and strategies in place for 27 that we're excited about. But at the end of the day, the register is the scoreboard, and that's what we're focusing on. We're adding additional focus, enhancements to our commercialization from revenue management, portfolio management, and we're highly confident in the Celsius portfolio.

Your next question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

All right. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I had a question on your gross margins. I guess I was hoping you could touch on your expectations for gross margin and the pace of recovery, I guess maybe in the fourth quarter and then into next year, just in light of the stubborn inflation. I guess what levers do you have to help mitigate some of the pressures? And I'm thinking about this in the context of pricing actions. I believe you've already raised prices at certain retailers. So if you could talk about your pricing strategy, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Good morning, Bonnie. Thank you. I'm going to let Jarrod cover that question. As we all know, everyone's been affected by some of the commodity prices and we are no different. But I'm going to let Jarrod talk about some of those key drivers there.

Let me talk pricing first, and then we can talk the other margin drivers. Our posture is to follow the category rather than lead it. We're positioning Celsius and Alani as premium brands, so we don't want to become value brands. We don't want to be priced out of that. With the category leaders taking pricing, it's created room for us, which has created opportunity. Thank you so much for joining us. Price Pack Architecture by Channel, looking at pack strategy, looking at discipline promotion. So the bigger near-term prize for us is really bringing that contra line down. So price is a part of that infrastructure and a part of that program, but not necessarily the biggest driver and not necessarily where we're just saying we're taking price everywhere. It's all about going account by account and really working to see what's the best position we can put the portfolio in. Whether it's about price pack architecture, different promotions, price increases, those kind of things. So there's a variety of everything within our revenue growth management program. And we're really excited to put that into play in 2027, which will be the first year we're really able to take all three brands together. and really put a focus to that by account. So that's kind of where we're thinking of pricing in 27. And then that kind of our revenue growth management program will really play out across 2027 and into 2028 and then should be in a really great place from there forward. As we're looking at gross margin outside of pricing, we've got the same key strategies that I talked about on the call. There's three buckets under our control. Those haven't changed. We've got the revenue growth management opportunity. We've got the improvements that we're doing across the board when it comes to our plant in North Carolina, as well as some direct sourcing. And then we've got some other things we're doing as a part of the integration to really drive costs out of the bombs within our portfolio. So we are working through those processes. Improvements in commodities will help us get to the low 50s goal quicker. Unfortunately, right now, the commodities aren't really moving fast. So it's really working through those other three buckets to get our margin expansion, which unfortunately, because of the commodities, it's going to take a little longer than we had anticipated a year ago.

As Jarrod mentioned, we really have invested a lot in the revenue management piece. Now that the integration is done, it's time to leverage scale. That's what really 2027 is all about. Maximizing the revenue management, gaining leverage with the portfolio, gaining productivity with our space and allocations. That's going to enhance our margin structure. driving the purchase strategies and unlocking that leverage and then maximizing the benefit. We have a scale portfolio, almost 21 share in the energy category. Now the opportunity is to really drive that through.

All right. Thank you. I'll pass it on. Your next question comes from the line of Camille Gajrala from Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, everybody. Good morning. A couple quick ones, just, Jarrod, I know you gave us some back and forth on the timing, but just to make sure, it sounded like you had mentioned that, or John, you had mentioned that Celsius is trending around what you had expected, which was about a down 12, but does that include 25 million buy ahead, which goes to what obviously maybe on run rate be down more than that? And then maybe we take that 25, and I think from a modeling perspective, Jarrod, it was The intention to take 25 out from last year, 25 from the pull forward out of 4Q, but then how much should we, what are your intentions in terms of the inventory build for 2027's innovations?

Thank you, Kamal. What I was referencing is really the scanner data, what's happening at the registers. And that's really looking at the overall health of the portfolio. As I mentioned, on a weekly basis, it's been running in the low 50s. So that's what we're really looking at. Now, there's puts and takes on the gap revenue recognition. And that's what Jarrod really outlined in his prepared remarks. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jarrod to talk more about that. But What I was referencing is specifically the scans at the register, which ultimately is how we track the business and how we scorecard it.

Yeah, so like John said, mine was more of the gap movements. We set some expectations back in August with Brand Celsius, and in particular, Brand Celsius came in a little bit stronger, as did Alani New, and that was really in part driven by some inventory timing. There was still, if you go to the deck we have, we've got kind of a A bridge for Brand Celsius, and it shows kind of the orders versus the scans were still down. They're probably a little less down than we had anticipated, and that was part of the timing of when we had some inventory movement across the very end of the quarter. So there was a little bit of benefit that rolled into Q3 and out of Q4 in terms of that really orders versus scan comparison. So that was where that 2025 comes into play. Thank you so much for joining us. We talked about Rockstar being more like the Q1, Q2 gap reported results as opposed to what we saw in Q3 because of some of that timing. And then if you look at last year, if you combine Celsius and Alani as one number, they had a benefit of about $25 million with some inventory being built for Alani and some being pulled down to offset for Celsius. And then we had the pull forward that we talked about That was a bit of all three brands benefiting from some pull forward. So those kind of are the three things I would factor in as you look at Q4 from a modeling perspective, from a gap perspective.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Gerald Pasquarelli with Needham & Company. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks very much. Question on Alani. Regarding the scans versus the reported results, it's been pretty consistent between like negative 34 to 35 percentage points. I understand there are many considerations this year between the DSD mix, the continuation of non-energy, which you've telegraphed. But just looking ahead, if you can maybe provide some color or thoughts on when you would expect or when we should expect scans and reported results to maybe start to align a little bit more closely. Thank you.

Yeah, probably Q2 next year is the best to kind of get the cleanest. If you look at Q2 and Q3, if you back out kind of – The non-RTD, if you back out some of that amortization from the contract, which the amortization will be the same year over year, so you won't see that impact next year. And then some of the non-RTD stuff. Thank you for joining us. Your next question comes from the line of Eric Serrata.

with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. One housekeeping item for Jarrod. Just wanted to come back. I think you made a comment about the fourth quarter growth being, I think, in line or maybe slightly below what you did year to date. Can you unpack that since are you talking organic or reported since you had additional quarters of the acquisitions in there and is the way to think of it you're basically cycling you know kind of 50 million of timing benefits or cycling 25 plus another 25 from the third quarter timing and then whatever is Partially offset by inventory trade-in, so inventory sell-in, so basically minus 50 plus whatever we assume on the inventory side. And then zooming back out, John, in terms of the actual Thank you for joining us today. both sequentially and year on year. Thanks. I know there's a lot there.

Yeah, I'll jump in first from a gap basis. I think your summary is reasonable. It's probably more simple than what I said. So kind of that makes the most sense. Now, one is from one year, one is from another year. So how do you combine all that? And you kind of laid it out pretty simply from that perspective. But for John, you want to jump in on the other piece?

Yeah, absolutely, Eric. When we look at TDPs, we're going to be cycling the rationalization. So those TDP, you know, those SKUs will come out. But then we also have more permanent SKUs coming in in 2000, will flow through the rest of 2027. So we're really looking at the productivity of the core portfolio, which is extremely important. That's going to not only drive increased top buying revenue, but also gross profits and productivity on shelf.

Yeah, and one more thing. There was a second part of the question you asked me. Kind of the Q4 versus year-to-date, and you mentioned it, it's the acquisition timing. So we didn't have Alani in Q1. We didn't have Rockstar in Q1, Q2, et cetera. So when you're looking at kind of the growth rate in Q4, you're not going to have those benefits. So it's going to be more with kind of the simple factor you talked about with the 50 plus the innovation, et cetera.

Great. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

Thank you, Eric.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. I just wanted to come back to some of the innovation and brand Celsius expectations for next year. I know you've pointed to how you expect to return to growth and you're well positioned for how you see 2027 starting. Maybe can you just touch on how much of that is driven by something like the energy plus hydration launch specifically? Or would that be kind of expected to carry the weight? Is that over and above expectations for some base underlying brand Celsius growth on kind of existing brands? Or how do those play together? And maybe just touch a little bit too on what's driving such better performance in international.

Yep, no, excellent, Mike. Let me just start off with some of the innovation there in regards to Energy Plus, which we really showcased at the upcoming NACS. And, you know, when you look at Energy Plus, we're really continuing to drive new category consumers and occasions. We know the energy category well. continues to grow in new occasions, bringing new consumers in. So this is really incremental to the core and adds benefit and enhancements to the overall trademark. We've done a lot of research. Celsius has the right and permission to expand in this adjacent category and opportunity. It ties into fitness and health and wellness. The category is expanding, and Celsius and our modern energy portfolio is leading that. When you look at some of the opportunities we have or incrementality, that's where we're playing with this portfolio, but we are extremely focused on the core. The portfolio growth is not 100% reliant on Energy Plus success. We have a variety of core innovation coming in, as we mentioned in the prepared remarks. We're rolling out in the back half of 2020. Q4, and then it'll start gaining further distribution throughout 27 as resets take place. We have some great flavor innovation that we're leaning into. Cranberry Apple is a new flavor that's launching. Just some really, really core flavors. We're really excited about doing a and many more. with the enhancements in our investments, strategic alignment, focus, and most importantly, this integration is behind us. Now we get to maximize this portfolio and the infrastructure we built with focus on execution and top performance. So really excited there. International did phenomenal this quarter, and we've talked about it the last several quarters. I see great opportunity and momentum. We saw great growth. I know the playbook is working. You know, we're adding aided awareness as roughly double in the UK and France. We're seeing we mentioned prepare remarks, orange in Australia, number one flavor in all accounts. We're going to continue with our discipline approach. We're being very calculated. We have invested in a variety strategic initiatives, sales, marketing, commercial. And we are the same growth trends we see in North America, the same growth trends we see internationally. Health and wellness gets stronger internationally. Celsius has a right to play within the category. We are building great relationships with international retailers. And then Alani, we're bringing that to new markets in 27, which we're excited about. We're going to run that same exact playbook, being extremely disciplined. And as we continue to get trial, but most importantly, loyalty and repeat purchases, we're going to continue to invest in. And that'll be a big growth driver for the foreseeable future and years to come.

Okay, great. Thanks so much.

And we've reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Mr. John Fieldly for closing remarks.

Thanks for joining us. Brand Celsius is back with the consumer who built it and we are measuring it. And we are planning 2027 with retailer partners earlier than we ever have before. With strong innovation across Celsius and Alani New behind it, I want to take this opportunity to thank our employees, our partners, and all of our customers for their focus and their teamwork, which has made this all possible. To everyone listening today, we appreciate your support and we look forward to updating you next quarter.