HANOVER, PA. –  As Utz Brands expands its geographic footprint into new regions of the United States it is seeing its business grow. Much of the growth comes from national retailers that stock Utz products in one region and then expand the products to additional regions.

“It’s much easier to be able to sell with facts and evidence,” said Howard Friedman, chief executive officer, during a May 2 conference call to discuss first-quarter results. “We are now at the point with a lot of the national retailers where we can point to geographies where we are and where we’ve been added and the benefits that we’ve had, which makes them obviously much more positive to expanding and broadening their relationship with us.

“The more the strategy works, the easier the distribution gains and selling opportunities are.”

The distribution gains translated to volume growth of 4.6% during the quarter, according to Circana data cited by the company.

“Our consumption growth was again led by power brand growth of 4.9%,” Friedman said. “And within our power brand portfolio, our power four brands increased 6%, which was nearly 4-times the category growth of 1.4%. From a salty snack subcategory perspective, our growth was led by significant outperformance in tortilla chips and cheese snacks.”

“Power brands” within Utz’s portfolio include Utz, On The Border, Zapp’s and Boulder Canyon.

“Tortilla chip growth was led by On The Border consumption growth of 15%, resulting in a 0.5 point share gain, fueled by strong growth in both traditional grocery and mass channels,” Friedman said. “Our rebound in cheese snacks continued in the quarter led by share gains for iconic Utz Cheese balls, with strong growth in mass and club channels.”

For the quarter ended March 31, Utz brands recorded a loss of $4 million and an improvement over the same period during the year before when the company recorded a loss of $9.1 million.

Quarterly sales fell to $346.5 million from $351.4 million the year before.

Contributing to the loss were costs associated with the divestiture of several brands and manufacturing plants.

Friedman said the divestitures were driven by two goals — to deleverage the company’s balance sheet and focus the company’s energies on investments in automation and capital improvements that are intended to drive productivity. He said the company’s capacity utilization is currently in the 70th percentile and over the next year it should climb to the 80th percentile.