Coffee Holding Co., Inc. (JVA) Earnings Call Transcript

Greetings. Welcome to Coffee Holding Company, Inc. 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Andrew Gordon, President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Coffee Holding Company, Inc. Andrew, please go ahead.

Good afternoon. I'm Andrew Gordon, President, CEO, Chairman of the Board of Coffee Holding Company. I'd like to welcome everyone listening to our Annual Shareholder Meeting being conducted this year by remote communications. I'd like to first begin by stating that it's nice to conduct the meeting on a day when our stock is at a new 52-week high. It's nice to know that the hard work we've put in over the past year has been appreciated by the Street. Before I begin the formal portion of this meeting, I would like to take the opportunity to thank our Board members who are in attendance today. Gerard DeCapua, Barry Knepper, Daniel Dwyer, David Gordon and George Thomas. Present at this Annual Meeting is our attorney from [indiscernible] Daniel Porco; and our auditors from CBIZ LLP as well. We also have Emily White, a representative of Equiniti, our transfer agent present at the meeting. I have 2 other preliminary announcements. First, please note that our bylaws provide that any business brought before an annual meeting by a shareholder, which is not specified in the notice of the meeting must be submitted in writing in advance to the secretary of the company and there the notice meet certain requirements. The company did not receive any such notice, and as such, voting will be confined to only the 3 proposals outlined in the proxy statement. Second, any nonhistorical statements that we make will constitute forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from these statements as a result of a number of risks and uncertainties, including the risks that we have cited in our most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings with the SEC and that we typically also cited in our press releases. Also, I would like to remind everyone that this meeting is not a public forum for the purposes of the SEC's regulation FD. As a result, while I would be happy to provide you with general background information about the company, I will not be able to provide you with any material nonpublic information. I appoint Mr. Porco as Acting Secretary of the meeting, and I will ask Mr. Porco to include with the minutes of the meeting a copy of the affidavit of mailing certified list of shareholders, notice of meeting and proxy statement, which we refer to as the proxy materials. The notice of the meeting and the proxy statement were filed with the SEC on September 15, 2026, and was sent or given to each holder of record of common stock on or about September 15, 2026. The proxy statement describes the record date of this meeting and a number of eligible votes of common stock outstanding on that date. These proxy materials are available on the virtual meeting web page. I have appointed Ms. White as the Inspector of Election, and she has taken the appropriate oath. At this point, I will call the formal portion of our meeting to order. Will the inspector of election, please report on the existence of a quorum.

Andrew, the Board of Directors selected September 1, 2026 as the record date for the annual meeting. On the record date, there were 5,708,599 shares of common stock outstanding, a total of 2,705,450 shares are present in person or by proxy at this meeting. Accordingly, a quorum is present.

Since a quorum is present, we may now proceed to the proposal set forth in the proxy statement. As indicated in the proxy statement, the Board of Directors has nominated David Gordon for election as Director. If there is anyone present that would like to vote now, either because they have not voted or because they wish to change their vote, please do so by using the voting buttons on the meeting interface. [Voting]

The Inspector of Election will report on the preliminary results of the proposals later in the meeting. The second proposal relates to the ratification of the appointment of CBIZ LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending October 31, 2026. If there is anyone present that would like to vote now, either because they have not voted or because they wish to change their vote, please do so by using the voting buttons on the meeting interface. The Inspector of Election will report on the preliminary results of the proposals later in the meeting. The third proposal relates to the nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation. I will now provide a brief update on the company, followed by a short Q&A period following. As a company -- as a company, we faced many challenges in 2026, and I believe we emerged healthier and strong heading into 2027. There has been a persistent inflationary macro environment initially due to tariffs and currently a logistics cost spiral due to soaring diesel prices, all of which have had an effect on both the cost of importing our green coffee beans as well as the shipments of finished product to our customers. Green coffee prices on both the New York, Arabica and Robusta London exchanges remain at historically high levels, even though we are moving into a surplus supply demand scenario for the first time in a few years due to an anticipated record harvest out of Brazil. As such, we remain focused on operating margins and maintaining sales to customers where all of the previous mentioned inflationary factors can be controlled, adjusted and maintained at levels, which we believe will not negatively affect the company's profitability. This is why we saw a slight decline in revenues, but an increase in overall profitability during the last few months of fiscal 2026 compared to fiscal 2025. However, we have recently been awarded substantial new business with multiple new supermarket banners, which we anticipate ramping up at the end of Q1 2027 or early Q2 2027, which we believe may rebuild our revenues back to 2025 levels or greater. I will now entertain any questions that stockholders wish to raise and any comments that stockholders wish to make regarding the proposals submitted at the meeting. Please note that the representatives from our independent registered public accounting firm are also present and available to answer the appropriate questions from stockholders.

Andrew, this is Dan Porco from Lowenstein Sandler, there are no questions. You can move on.