Company Participants

Jason Rechel – Investor Relations Head
Ara Mahdessian – Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board & CEO
Vahe Kuzoyan – Co-Founder, President & Director
Dave Sherry – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

David Hynes – Canaccord Genuity Corp., Research Division
Michael Turrin – Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division
Dylan Becker – William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division
William Fitzsimmons – Piper Sandler & Co., Research Division
Christopher Quintero – Morgan Stanley, Research Division
Scott Berg – Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division
Tyler Radke – Citigroup Inc., Research Division
Nicholas Altmann – BTIG, LLC, Research Division
J. Lane – Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Research Division
Jason Celino – KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division
Terrell Tillman – Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division
Joseph Vruwink – Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Research Division
Andrew Sherman – TD Cowen, Research Division
Daniel Jester – BMO Capital Markets Equity Research
Yun Suk Kim – Loop Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Presentation

The Trump administration will ban imports of Canadian dairy products, most alcoholic beverages and motorcycles, the White House announced Tuesday, marking a sharp escalation in the trade dispute between the neighboring countries.

The restrictions will take effect in three weeks, according to the White House. The move came hours after Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of U.S. imports.

The latest action deepens a trade conflict between two of North America’s largest trading partners, with both governments imposing new measures despite their closely integrated economies and longstanding commercial relationship.

This is a developing story. Check back later for updates. 

VAIL, COLO. — Nearly two years after the make America healthy again (MAHA) movement evolved from a campaign slogan to an official driver influencing federal policy and food manufacturing decisions, sugar industry leaders are assessing its broader impact on consumer perceptions of sugar and purchasing behavior, even as policymakers continue to pursue measures aimed at changing both.

“If you follow it closely, like I do, it feels like a disaster,” Courtney Gaine, president and chief executive officer of The Sugar Association, told attendees at the 41st annual International Sweetener Symposium in Vail. “You’ve got somebody with a very loud microphone and an echo chamber, and it feels like it’s been a nonstop barrage of attacks on sugar, whether it’s that sugar is as addictive as crack or sugar is poison. Then in January, the United States was launching a war on sugar. It’s hard to fight back against this narrative, so you kind of take it and hope that the damage isn’t too extreme.”

Gaine, a registered dietitian who also has a PhD in nutritional sciences and biochemistry, said the MAHA rhetoric, especially from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears at odds with reality.

“We did a survey last March and it turns out that MAHA supporters are genuinely OK with sugar, so even though this movement is powerful and it’s loud and it’s chaotic, we felt like sugar might fare OK,” Gaine said, adding that another survey conducted in March of this year showed similar results. “About 90% of MAHA supporters still, a year and a half into the MAHA movement, feel that sugar is an important part of the diet and are okay with it.”

Brandon Lipps, a principal at Caprock Strategies who presented alongside Gaine at the Sweetener Symposium, said that while consumer demand for sugar has not collapsed, the emotional rhetoric behind the MAHA movement continues to drive policy change that has the potential to impact sugar usage.

“When you talk to parents whose kids have health issues, and when you talk to families who are dealing with health issues, and when Secretary Kennedy quotes all these statistics and tells them that they have a solution, they’re going to buy it,” Lipps told the Symposium attendees. “Emotion moves. It gains momentum. The only defense that sugar has is that the facts are actually on your side.”

“Emotion moves. It gains momentum. The only defense that sugar has is that the facts are actually on your side,” said Brandon Lipps (left), principal at Caprock Strategies.

| Source: Sosland Publishing Co.

Both Lipps and Gaine pointed to a chart showing obesity rates among adults and children climbed sharply even as added sugar consumption steadily declined.

“There are folks that have a lot of problems in this country, but sugar is not the single cause,” Lipps said. “It’s maybe not even a major cause of the health epidemic in this country.”

Still, recent policies that have either passed or are currently under legislative consideration may directly influence the decisions of consumers and food manufacturers when it comes to buying or making products with sugar. These include front-of-label packaging, reformulating school meals to align with the sugar consumption limits recommended in the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and restrictions on using federal-assisted food program dollars to purchase foods made with sugar.

Lipps said that despite evidence pointing toward consumers’ acceptance of sugar and the data that shows an incongruent correlation between obesity and sugar consumption, the Trump administration is targeting sugar usage as an easy win for political gains.

“We acknowledge we have a health crisis in this country, but we don’t know what the solution is,” he said. “But if I go on the campaign trail and cite all these statistics to you and I tell you that I’ve got the solution, you’d perk up and listen. And America is doing that. The thing that Secretary Kennedy did is he didn’t create the MAHA movement, he created the MAHA political narrative out of a movement that was out in the countryside.”

Gaine shared a similar perspective.

“Asking the MAHA supporters specifically about the rhetoric that had come out from RFK Jr. about the war on sugar and about sugar being as addictive as crack and about sugar being poison, about 60% of MAHA supporters feel that rhetoric goes too far,” she said. “There’s a lot still to come with what’s on the table for the MAHA movement, not to mention that the MAHA movement doesn’t necessarily end when the Trump administration ends. It actually might get stronger.” 

MARSHALL, MINN. — The Schwan’s Co., a US-based subsidiary of South Korean food manufacturer CJ CheilJedang, has debuted Crunchtime pizza as part of its Red Baron brand.

The 10-inch, multi-serve microwavable pizza may be prepared in 5 minutes. The pizza is available in multiple varieties, including pepperoni, meat trio, and four cheese.

“At Red Baron, we’re focused on bringing consumers the flavors and convenience they’re looking for,” said Katie Hagen, senior marketing manager for Red Baron pizza. “Crunchtime pizza is an exciting addition to our lineup — giving families a new way to enjoy a full-size pizza in just 5 minutes.”

Red Baron Crunchtime pizza is available now at major retailers and grocers across the United States for a suggested retail price of $5.99.

Salford has been named the UK’s most entrepreneurial city after its concentration of small businesses grew by 15.4 per cent in 12 months, according to rankings released by GoDaddy, which found satellite cities taking four of the top five places.

The Most Entrepreneurial Cities ranking, published by GoDaddy, with data from the company’s Small Business Research Lab. Each place with city status in the UK is given a microbusiness density growth score, based on the number of new start-ups for every 100 people. GoDaddy said the list identifies the key locations fuelling the UK’s small business economy.

Salford, with a population of about 130,000, is two miles from Manchester, home to about 550,000 people. Ely, 14 miles north of Cambridge, was second, with density growth of 14.9 per cent, more than double the 7.1 per cent recorded by its larger neighbour.

Bangor in Northern Ireland grew by 12.9 per cent, four times Belfast’s 3.2 per cent, while Milton Keynes, on 11.7 per cent, outpaced London’s 9.8 per cent. The full top 10 also includes Stirling, Londonderry, Manchester, Sunderland, Preston and Lisburn..

Investment in Salford

The company linked Salford’s first place to sustained local investment. The city has developed a digital and innovation-focused enterprise hub anchored by HOST Salford at MediaCity, backed by Salford City Council and public funding that includes £846,900 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. According to GoDaddy, the hub has supported more than 300 businesses and helped upskill more than 5,000 people, alongside programmes such as EnterprisingYou and Build a Business, which support people launching new ventures.

Yvonne Sampson, director of enterprise at GM Business Growth Hub, which delivers the EnterprisingYou programme, said: “The growth in Salford has been over a decade in the making, leveraging commercial and residential investment to create an environment for thriving entrepreneurship. The City has fantastic strengths, from the University to MediaCity and the longstanding partnerships between Salford Council and support organisations like ours, GM Business Growth Hub.”

She added: “Not only does it have a well-established digital, creative and technology sector, but recent investment in the City’s high streets has meant there has been some incredible growth in the everyday business economy.”

Zwi Meisner, 48, who has run the New York Laundrette in Salford with his brother for seven years, said: “Salford has a real sense of community. It’s a diverse place where people from different backgrounds support each other and genuinely want to see local businesses succeed. It doesn’t surprise me that so many new businesses are starting up in the area. Finding the right location is everything, and Salford can offer lower premise costs that would be harder to find in Manchester.”

Rents, AI and start-up costs

The research points to costs as one factor behind the shift. Average rent in Salford is about £2,500 a year cheaper than in Manchester, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Technology is another, GoDaddy said. More than half of entrepreneurs, 52 per cent, use generative AI to support their business, with the biggest time savings reported in content creation, cited by 62 per cent, marketing, at 40 per cent, and business advice, at 39 per cent.

The amount of capital needed to launch has also shrunk. In the latest survey by the Small Business Research Lab, 53 per cent of UK entrepreneurs said they had created a new venture with under £1,000 of initial investment.

Alexandra Rosen, economist and head of the GoDaddy Small Business Research Lab, said: “Entrepreneurship is no longer tied to major city centres. Better digital infrastructure, the rise of AI tools and lower start-up costs have changed the economics of building a business, making it possible for founders to launch and scale from places that may previously have been overlooked.”

She added: “What we are seeing is a more distributed model of growth, where smaller cities and towns are becoming increasingly important parts of the UK’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.