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DATE

Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

  • Chief Executive Officer — Jeff Yurcisin
  • Chief Financial Officer — Tom Siragusa

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TAKEAWAYS

  • Net Revenue -- $36.2 million, a decline of 16.8% year over year, reflecting a reduced active customer base and fewer orders.
  • Adjusted EBITDA -- $0.3 million positive, marking the second consecutive quarter in positive territory.
  • Gross Margin -- 54.8%, an increase of 180 basis points compared to the prior year period, attributed primarily to the shift to Grove Green Rewards and targeted promotional strategies.
  • DTC Total Orders -- 502,000, down 19.2% year over year, indicating the lag from reduced customer acquisition spend and platform disruptions from 2025.
  • Active Customers -- 553,000 at quarter end, an 18.5% decrease, driven by prior advertising reductions and migration-related attrition.
  • DTC Net Revenue per Order -- $67.79, up 2% year over year due to targeted promotional activity and a higher mix of premium categories.
  • SG&A Expense -- $18.2 million, a 17.4% reduction versus the prior year, following a reduction in force and fulfillment cost control.
  • Advertising Spend -- $1.2 million, down 58.6% year over year and flat sequentially.
  • Operating Cash Flow -- Negative $0.7 million, a substantial improvement from negative $6.9 million year over year, primarily due to inventory build.
  • Cash and Equivalents -- $10.4 million at quarter end, down from $11.8 million at year-end; $1.7 million available under the asset-based loan facility.
  • Raised Full-Year Outlook -- Net revenue guidance increased to $142.5 million-$152.5 million and adjusted EBITDA guidance to breakeven to positive low single-digit millions.
  • Platform Stabilization -- Management declared platform disruption "largely behind us" and emphasized mid-February as the key milestone for restored mobile app performance.
  • Loyalty Program -- Majority of active customers now members of Grove Green Rewards; improved margin structure and targeted incentives have replaced previous discounting practices.
  • Subscription Program -- Subscriptions accounted for 60% of revenue and were present in 79% of total orders in 2025; new investments aim for further enhancements by the next quarterly report.
  • Product Development Expense -- $1.4 million, a 19.4% decline due to lower consulting costs and selective owned brand development.
  • Strategic Initiatives -- Appointment of a Chief Medical Adviser, development of a Human Health Advisory Council, and onboarding of physician advisers to deepen scientific authority in product curation.
  • Impact of Tariffs -- '26 guide assumes existing trade policy; no material update or quantified impact from IEEPA tariffs during the period.

SUMMARY

Management signaled a major strategic turning point, highlighting that the platform migration disruption is resolved, with the first quarter expected to be the revenue trough for 2026. The company reported year-over-year improvement in gross margin, supported by the upgraded loyalty program and operating cost reductions. Updated full-year guidance reflects increased confidence, with higher expectations for both net revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Management described early customer response to the relaunched mobile application as "phenomenal," referencing strong engagement and positive initial cohort behavior. Grove Collaborative Holdings (GROV +3.20%) outlined new investments in scientific and clinical expertise to strengthen its market positioning and underlined its continued evaluation of strategic corporate actions.

  • CEO Yurcisin stated, "we expect net revenue in the first quarter of 2026 to be the bottom, and we're seeing the evidence."
  • The company is "ready to accelerate" advertising investment following stabilization of customer experience metrics and improved marketing efficiency.
  • Product mix enhancements in higher-margin categories, such as clean beauty and personal care, contributed to the increase in average order value.
  • Subsidiary launch of The Unplastic Shop, in partnership with the Oceanic Preservation Society and aligned with the Netflix documentary The Plastic Detox, supports Grove's advocacy for ingredient safety and consumer health awareness.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

  • IEEPA tariffs: U.S. trade policy measures implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act; referenced here in the context of potential impact on product cost structures.
  • Grove Green Rewards: Grove's proprietary customer loyalty program, replacing broad-based promotions with targeted, margin-enhancing incentives.
  • The Unplastic Shop: A Grove-curated product assortment certified to reduce exposure to plastics and endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Jeff Yurcisin: Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us. A year ago, we were navigating a platform migration that effectively broke our customer experience and weighed on our results throughout 2025. Throughout the year, we made deliberate choices to protect liquidity and profitability while we repaired it. Those choices are reflected in the results we are reporting today. The first quarter performed ahead of our expectations. Net revenue was $36.2 million and adjusted EBITDA was $0.3 million, our second consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, reflecting the foundation we built in 2025.

The cost structure is more efficient, the customer experience is improving, and we are seeing green shoots as it relates to recent cohort behavior, giving us further conviction that we expect the first quarter of 2026 represents the revenue trough for the year. What this means for Grove is this: The platform disruption that defined 2025 is largely behind us, and Grove is turning the page. The work ahead is about growth, deepening our authority in human health, reaccelerating advertising spend responsibly and translating a stronger customer experience into durable momentum.

That is a very different and more optimistic conversation than the one we've been having for the past several quarters, and I want to make sure that comes through clearly today. Let me emphasize, we expect net revenue in the first quarter of 2026 to be the bottom, and we're seeing the evidence. Repeat order rates among recent cohorts have recovered to levels consistent with what we saw before the migration. The effectiveness of our advertising is proving strong at the current scale, and we're ready to accelerate from here. Because of this progress, it gives us confidence to raise our top and bottom line guidance, which Tom will discuss more later on.

Let me take a step back and discuss what Grove is and what we are building toward. Grove is the leading curated destination for clean, sustainable, nontoxic products for every room in the house. Our addressable market is the 57 million conscientious consumers who want to make healthier choices for their families and the planet. Behind that curation is a deeper conviction that the products in your home are not just a lifestyle choice. They are an important health decision. Every dish soap, every lotion, every cleaning spray that contains synthetic chemicals or harmful microplastics is a small but cumulative exposure that adds up over a lifetime.

Grove exists to make those decisions easier, safer and more trustworthy for the families who care, and we back that promise with more than 10,000 banned or restricted ingredients, including more than 3,000 that are outright banned across every category we carry, the most stringent standards we know of in the industry. The opportunity in front of us has never been clearer. Translating that opportunity into durable, profitable growth is what 2026 is about. Our strategy is straightforward: maintain profitability discipline and reaccelerate growth responsibly as platform improvements take hold. As we have done throughout this transformation, we are organizing our progress around 4 strategic pillars, and I want to walk through each of them. Starting with sustained profitability.

We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $0.3 million in the first quarter. This is our second consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, and it matters because it demonstrates cost discipline at the expected revenue trough. We expect revenue to grow sequentially through the year. And as it does, we expect the operating leverage in the business to follow. A meaningful contributor to that margin performance is Grove Green Rewards, the loyalty program we launched in the fourth quarter. The program has enabled a structural shift in how we approach promotions, moving away from broad discounting and free gifts towards rewards-based incentives that deliver a higher gross margin while still giving customers a compelling reason to shop at Grove.

Gross margin of 54.8% was up 180 basis points year-over-year, and we believe this represents a durable improvement. The program also gives us more flexibility in how we structure new customer acquisition offers, which becomes increasingly important as we reaccelerate advertising investment through the year. The next pillar is balance sheet strength. We continue to manage the balance sheet with discipline. We ended the quarter with $10.4 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash. Operating cash flow was negative $0.7 million, primarily reflecting an increase in inventory during the period. This is a substantial improvement compared to the negative $6.9 million in the prior year period. The third pillar is revenue growth.

Net revenue of $36.2 million was down 16.8% year-over-year. We expect sequential improvement from here, driven not by any single initiative but by several improvements that are compounding together. Let me walk through each. The redesigned mobile app, which we launched in February, is the most visible milestone of the quarter. We rebuilt a custom application that restores the reliability and functionality our customers expect after the disruptions associated with our third-party approach following the e-commerce migration last year. Mobile application orders represent approximately half of non-auto ship orders and the app is a primary interface through which customers manage their subscriptions.

In other words, the app is central to engagement and retention and having a stable, high-quality app is a prerequisite for the revenue growth and advertising reacceleration we are planning. The early response has been encouraging with 5-star app reviews that reflect a meaningfully better experience. On subscriptions, we are making progress on the improved subscription experience. Subscriptions drove 60% of our revenue in '25 and were present in 79% of total orders. So the experience of managing a subscription, modifying orders, adjusting frequency, adding or removing products is one of the most important interactions a customer has with Grove.

Our near-term focus is building a world-class subscription experience, one where customers can reliably stock their home with products they trust on a schedule that works for them. We remain committed to delivering a meaningfully improved subscription experience by the time we report second quarter results. On advertising and customer acquisition, we maintained disciplined investment in Q1, consistent with our strategy to prioritize stabilization before reaccelerating spend. What gives us confidence in gradually increasing investment is the quality of what we are seeing in our underlying metrics. Early life cycle repeat order rates among recent cohorts have performed at levels consistent with what we saw prior to the platform migration.

Customer acquisition costs and marketing efficiency have also improved to the point where we believe an increase in investment is justified. It's the strength of these new cohorts that are justifying the increased spend and reinforce confidence in expected sequential growth. Our fourth and final pillar is environmental and human health. I want to spend a moment here because the progress we made is helping us build the kind of authority that will define Grove's position in human health. Every product a family brings into their home is a quiet health decision, one most people don't realize they're making.

That's the foundation of our human health world view and is why we are making a strategic commitment to deepen our scientific infrastructure across three developing fronts in the first quarter. First, we onboarded a Chief Medical Adviser to guide our health-first approach. Second, we are in the process of establishing a Human Health Advisory Council of experts to guide our ingredient standards and help ensure our vetting evolves with the science. And lastly, we are onboarding physician advisers to translate that science into practical insights and everyday choices that shape a healthier home. These initiatives represent a strategic commitment to scientific rigor.

It is how we help to ensure that when a customer trusts Grove, that trust is backed by something real. Lastly, in February, the Oceanic Preservation Society produced The Plastic Detox, a Netflix documentary about the human health consequences of everyday microplastic exposure. The conversation about what is in household products and what it does to human bodies is crossing into the mainstream, and Grove has been building towards this moment since our founding. Alongside the film, Grove and the Oceanic Preservation Society launched The Unplastic Shop, a curated assortment of products vetted to reduce everyday exposure to plastics and endocrine disrupting chemicals.

We believe the convergence of consumer awareness, emerging science and regulatory momentum around ingredients, microplastics and chemical safety is one of the most significant long-term tailwinds available to Grove. And the investments we're making now in clinical expertise, scientific governance and consumer education are how we earn the right to lead that conversation at scale. The progress across all 4 pillars in Q1 reinforces our conviction that the foundation is in place and the path forward is clear. Finally, as we have stated previously, we continue to evaluate strategic options that could accelerate our path to scale, strengthen our competitive position or unlock additional value for shareholders.

Any action we take will be guided by the same principles that shape how we operate every day, customer focus, capital efficiency and shareholder value creation. In closing, our goal for '26 is straightforward: deliver sequential revenue growth through the year while maintaining discipline on the bottom line. The work in front of us is clear. The team is executing with urgency, and I'm more optimistic and confident than ever that we're building something that will matter for our customers, our shareholders, our public benefit and the families we serve. With that, I will turn it over to Tom to walk through the financials in more detail. Tom, go ahead.

Tom Siragusa: Thank you, Jeff, and welcome, everyone. I'm encouraged by what the numbers are telling us. Repeat order rates among recent cohorts have recovered to levels consistent with what we saw prior to the e-commerce migration. Customer acquisition costs and unit economics have improved. Gross margin is expanding in a way that reflects structural change. And across the organization, there is tangible momentum. Our teams are executing against a clear strategic road map. Turning to the results. Starting with the top line. Net revenue for the first quarter was $36.2 million, down 16.8% year-over-year. The decline was primarily driven by fewer orders, reflecting a smaller active customer base entering the year.

Similar to prior quarters, that smaller base is the compounding result of lower advertising investment in prior periods and customer attrition associated with the 2025 e-commerce platform disruptions. DTC total orders were 502,000, a decline of 19.2% year-over-year. Active customers totaled 553,000 at quarter end, down 18.5% versus the prior year. These declines reflect the lagging effects of reduced advertising investment in prior periods and customer attrition from the 2025 platform disruption. DTC net revenue per order was $67.79, an increase of 2% year-over-year.

The increase was primarily driven by more targeted promotional strategies, including the shift to loyalty-based incentives through Grove Green Rewards and a larger mix of higher-priced items and customer orders, as we continue to expand our assortment in categories such as clean beauty, personal care and wellness. Gross margin was 54.8%, an increase of 180 basis points compared to 53% in the first quarter of 2025. The improvement was primarily driven by the shift to more targeted promotional activity enabled by Grove Green Rewards, which has allowed us to move away from broad discounting and free gifts, toward more efficient rewards-based incentives.

We believe this represents a durable improvement, and it is one of the proof points in the quarter that the business model changes we have made are translating to improved financial performance. Turning to advertising. We invested $1.2 million in the quarter, a 58.6% decrease year-over-year, but in line with fourth quarter spend levels as shared last quarter. This reflects a deliberate choice to preserve liquidity and drive profitability. As the customer experience improvements Jeff described previously take hold, we expect to gradually increase investment through the year. The current trends we are seeing in customer acquisition costs and repeat order rates give us confidence in the returns on that investment.

Product development expense was $1.4 million, down 19.4% year-over-year, reflecting a decrease in consulting expenses related to the e-commerce platform migration and lower owned brands development. At present, we have been more selective in owned brand innovation, prioritizing resources towards stabilizing and improving our core technology and customer experience. SG&A was $18.2 million, a 17.4% decrease versus the prior year. The reduction was driven by the full quarter benefit of the reduction in force executed in November 2025, lower fulfillment costs from fewer orders and ongoing cost optimization across the organization. Net loss was $1 million or a 2.8% net loss margin compared to a net loss of $3.5 million or an 8.1% net loss margin in the prior year.

The year-over-year improvement reflects gross margin expansion and lower operating expenses flowing through from the structural changes we have made over the past several quarters. Adjusted EBITDA was positive $0.3 million or a 0.8% margin compared to negative $1.6 million or a negative 3.7% margin in the prior year. The year-over-year improvement reflects the gross margin expansion and lower operating expenses, consistent with the net loss improvement. This is our second consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA. Delivering positive adjusted EBITDA at the revenue trough is the result of deliberate choices made throughout 2025 to protect the financial foundation of the business. Turning to the balance sheet and liquidity.

We ended the quarter with $10.4 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, a decrease from $11.8 million at the end of the fourth quarter, primarily reflecting cash used in operating and investing activities, including the development of our recently launched mobile application. Furthermore, we ended the quarter with $1.7 million of availability under our asset-based loan facility, an increase from $1.1 million at the end of the fourth quarter due to an increase in inventory. We are comfortable with our liquidity position relative to our operating plan. Operating cash flow was negative $0.7 million, reflecting working capital usage in the quarter, primarily an increase in inventory to support ongoing operational execution.

This compares favorably to negative $6.9 million in the prior year period, which included a larger net loss net of noncash items, working capital investment and other one-time items that did not reoccur. Now turning to our outlook. The first quarter came in ahead of our expectations on both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, and we are continuing to see sustained momentum from the underlying business drivers discussed. Therefore, we are raising the top and bottom line guidance. For full year 2026, we now expect net revenue of $142.5 million to $152.5 million, an increase from $140 million to $150 million and adjusted EBITDA of breakeven to positive low single-digit millions, an increase from approximately breakeven.

Furthermore, on revenue, we still expect the first quarter to represent the trough for the year with sequential improvement in each remaining quarter. In closing, the first quarter reflects the financial discipline we committed to at the start of the year, protecting liquidity at the expected trough while laying the groundwork for the growth we expect to follow. The cost structure is more efficient. The unit economics are improving, and we are managing cash flow consistent with our liquidity. I'm encouraged by where we stand, and I remain confident in our ability to deliver on the plan we laid out for 2026. With that, I will turn the call back over to Jeff for closing remarks.

Jeff Yurcisin: Thank you, Tom. I want to close by reflecting on where we are in this journey. A year ago, we were navigating arguably the most disruptive period in Grove's history, managing through platform instability and making difficult choices that we believe would pay off. Where we stand today, the customer experience is improving rapidly, the unit economics are moving in the right direction, and the mission we've been building toward helping families make healthier choices for their homes through rigorous curation, scientific authority and genuine transparency has never been more relevant or timely.

This is what gives me the most confidence in the path forward since stepping into this role, not just the sequential revenue growth we expect to deliver through the year, but the longer arc of what Grove is becoming, the trusted destination for families who care about what comes into their home. We're building something that matters, and I look forward to demonstrating our progress in the quarters ahead.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Susan Anderson from Canaccord Genuity.

Alec Legg: It's Alec on for Susan this evening. Nice job, by the way. I guess to start, can you walk through how 1Q performed? You mentioned it was outperformance and first quarter has been pretty interesting. On one hand, we have the Iran conflict that started in late February. And then just for you guys, you had the app experience and then the Netflix documentary. I guess what changed and led to the outperformance in the first quarter?

Jeff Yurcisin: Appreciate that, Alec. I will kind of kick off. First, it goes back to the customer experience. So we delivered $36.2 million. Gross margin expanded by 180 basis points year-over-year. And both of those 2 metrics and the stability of our cohorts are driven by the improved customer experience. We launched Green Grove Rewards, which has improved our underlying gross margin structure while delivering a best-in-class loyalty program to customers that's flowing through the gross margin line. But from a revenue line, like this app relaunch, 5-star reviews are back. Customers are loving the app again, and we are seeing very strong signals in all of the data that we look at in terms of sessions and conversion.

So I would say those are the two big customer experience drivers that are impacting both the stabilization of revenue and also the improvement in gross margin.

Alec Legg: And then the app issue, I guess, drilling down, when was that fully resolved? Was that in March?

Jeff Yurcisin: So roughly mid-February, like we always have rolling releases, but mid-February. And what we've also seen is just really some phenomenal strength in these early cohorts. And again, I think the best e-commerce companies are measuring not just the acquisition cost, but that ratio between LTV and CAC, and we are measuring repeat rates and third orders. And just all of the early signals look quite positive since that mobile relaunch and our push into human health.

The shift into talking about and weaving the human health story into our content, both on the website and an e-mail and all different touch points, I think, has also been critical to our -- showing up in a more meaningful way for our customers.

Alec Legg: Got it. And then on gross margins, I know it had a pretty nice jump up. Was there any other drivers besides the loyalty program helping manage pricing? Just any details there.

Jeff Yurcisin: Yes. I think we're just operating more efficiently. Like now that this platform migration is truly behind us, we're able to find smaller, more nuanced ways to improve and invest in our kind of processes. So I would say the primary driver is, of course, the reduced discounting and the different type of economics, but we're also seeing strength at the AOV, the average revenue per order line and all of these are pointing in the right direction.

Alec Legg: Got it. Is this gross margin level, you think the new normal kind of like a rebased upward? Is that how we should think about it going forward?

Jeff Yurcisin: Yes, I think -- well, I wouldn't say -- I don't want to use the phrase the new normal, but I think we believe that there is continued opportunity to run this business efficiently and that requires a gross margin comparable to what you're seeing today.

Alec Legg: Understood. And then on the Green Rewards program, I know it's still -- it's a couple of months in. I guess how has the initial sign-up been? Have you been able to get most of the active customers onto the program? And then any details on getting people to convert to the VIP tier?

Jeff Yurcisin: Great question. So still, a majority of our active customers are members of our rewards program. And then I would just say that in terms of new customers, we're not disclosing any numbers there. But at the core, we are seeing strong improvement year-over-year in adoption rates from new customers, into the VIP part of the program.

Alec Legg: Got it. And then my last question on tariffs. I guess, have you been impacted by the IEEPA tariffs at all? If so, are you able to quantify how much that was? And any updates on the potential refund, if so?

Jeff Yurcisin: I love it...

Alec Legg: Sorry. Everyone's gotta ask about tariffs this quarter.

Jeff Yurcisin: No, all good. Our '26 guide assumes continuation of current trade policy. Nothing in our guidance kind of assumes anything. And then, of course, just like all other brands that were impacted by tariffs, we will be pursuing the type of clawback, but no update to kind of guide towards.

Operator: Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.

Jeff Yurcisin: I want to thank everyone again for joining our call. Hope you all have a great night. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.