Utz Brands (UTZ) opened 2026 with the kind of quarter grocery retailers and snack suppliers alike have been waiting to see: modest top-line growth, improving margins, and encouraging signs the salty snacks category may finally be settling into a more predictable rhythm after several years of inflation-driven volatility and consumer behavior changes.
The Hanover, PA-based snack maker reported first-quarter net sales rose 2.6% to $361.3 million, while branded salty snacks sales climbed 5.2%. The company also reaffirmed its full-year guidance, signaling confidence that consumer demand and operating trends remain on stable ground heading into the balance of the year.
For grocery operators, the bigger, more valuable takeaway is where the growth is coming from.
Utz said its “Power Four” brands – Utz, On The Border, Zapp’s, and Boulder Canyon – posted retail sales growth of 6.7% during the quarter, helping the company gain dollar share in the salty snacks category. That matters in a market where shoppers have become increasingly selective about where they’re willing to spend.
The company also appears to be benefiting from a sharper focus on higher-margin branded products while reducing lower-margin non-branded business. Non-branded and non-salty snack sales fell more than 14% during the quarter as Utz accelerated the phase-out of weaker-margin items.
That pivot helped margins move materially higher despite ongoing supply chain inflation.
Gross margin expanded 200 basis points to 25.4%, while adjusted EBITDA increased 6.2% to $47.9 million. Leverage also improved somewhat, dropping to 3.6x from 4.0x a year earlier.
The company still posted a small quarterly loss, driven partly by higher operating expenses and accounting adjustments, but investors appeared more focused on the improving fundamentals underneath the headline numbers.
CEO Howard Friedman said the salty snacks category showed “continued improvement” during the quarter, adding that Utz plans to continue leaning into marketing, productivity initiatives, and geographic expansion through the rest of 2026.
That geographic push remains an important part of the Utz story.
Long a household name in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, the company has spent the last several years steadily expanding distribution nationally while trying to preserve the regional brand equity that made Utz a supermarket staple in the first place. The latest quarter suggests that strategy may finally be reaching a more mature phase — one less dependent on aggressive pricing and more driven by brand strength and operational discipline.
In a grocery environment where many center-store categories are still struggling to regain volume momentum, a snack company posting share gains, margin expansion and stable guidance stands out.
