Where Food Comes From Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Where Food Comes From EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.04
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Where Food Comes From Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $6.04 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Where Food Comes From Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/26/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 26, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 12:00PM ET

Where Food Comes From (NASDAQ:WFCF), Inc. (NASDAQ: WFCF) is a food traceability and certification company headquartered in Caldwell, Idaho. Established from a ranch-to-plate verification program launched in 2005, the company now offers a suite of services designed to authenticate product attributes, verify production claims and enhance supply-chain transparency for agricultural producers and food brands.

The company’s core offerings include third-party certification audits, program development, on-farm risk assessments and digital traceability solutions. These services cover multiple commodities—such as beef, pork, poultry, dairy and grains—and aim to support both commodity producers and specialty brands. By combining on-site verification with proprietary traceability software, Where Food Comes From helps clients ensure compliance with food-safety regulations, meet retailer requirements and communicate verified product attributes to consumers.

Over time, Where Food Comes From has expanded its footprint across North America, serving ranchers, farms, feedlots and processors in the United States and Canada. The company collaborates with growers and brand owners to develop customized verification programs—for example, origin-specific labeling, antibiotic-free or humane-handling certifications—and provides ongoing support through data management, audit coordination and marketing-ready documentation.

Where Food Comes From leverages its Traceability & Certification platform to help food-industry participants address growing consumer demand for transparency and accountability. By integrating traditional on-farm audits with digital record-keeping, the company enables clients to track products throughout the supply chain, underpinning claims with verifiable data and fostering greater trust among retailers and end users.

Where Food Comes From Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: Reported 2025 revenue of $24.9 million and net income of $1.5 million ($0.30/share), but Q4 was materially hurt by the unexpected closure of a packing plant that reduced beef certification activity; executives returned bonuses, producing a planned reduction to SG&A compensation that will benefit the Q1 10‑Q.
• Negative Sentiment: The U.S. cattle supply is at a 70-year low, driving record beef prices and prompting some ranchers to cut back on verifications and tag purchases, which has depressed beef-related revenue and tag sales.
• Positive Sentiment: Launched RaiseWell Certified, a new animal-care and traceability standard, and secured Whole Foods as the first major retailer adopter, with rollouts planned across beef, poultry, eggs, dairy, and pork.
• Positive Sentiment: Deepening strategic positioning via the CARE Certified leather program with Pangea (in partnership with Walmart/Prime Pursuits) and by having IMI Global administer U.S. CattleTrace, strengthening the company's role in animal disease traceability and regulatory engagement.
• Positive Sentiment: Non-beef verifications (pork, dairy, eggs, organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, upcycled) grew year-over-year, the company's bundled service model supports margin improvement, and management repurchased 183,016 shares in 2025 (total buybacks to date: 1,374,652 shares, $15.2 million) with repurchases expected to continue in 2026.

Presentation

[Operator]

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Jay Pfeiffer, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

[Jay Pfeiffer, Director of Investor Relations at Where Food Comes From]

Good morning, welcome to the Where Food Comes From 2025 Q4 and full year Earnings Call. Joining me on the call today are CEO, John Saunders, President Leann Saunders, and Chief Financial Officer, Dannette Henning. During this call, we'll make forward-looking statements based on current expectations, estimates, and projections that are subject to risk. Statements about financial performance, growth strategy, customers, business opportunities, market acceptance of our products and services, and potential acquisitions are forward-looking statements. Listeners should not place undue reliance on these statements, as there are many factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review our publicly filed documents as well as our news releases and website for more information. I'll now turn the call over to John Saunders.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

Hello, thank you for joining the call today. This morning, we announced 2025 financial results that included total revenue of $24.9 million and net income of $1.5 million, or $0.30 per share. Once again, the steady growth we're achieving in new customer wins and non-beef-related revenue streams was offset by the impact smaller herd sizes and tariffs are having on our beef-related verification activity. Q4 revenue was particularly impacted by the unexpected closing of a packing plant that has been an important contributor to our NHTC, natural and EU export certification programs. That closing had a significant impact on our prior internal projections management and the board used to formulate discretionary bonuses for the year. Accordingly, executive management determined to return their bonus compensation to the company.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

Result, the income statement in our Q1 10-Q will benefit from a reduction to compensation expense in the Selling, General and Administrative category. We've been discussing on our Earnings Call over the past couple of years, herd sizes have been steadily shrinking due to drought, increasing production costs and other factors. Today, the U.S. cattle supply is at a 70-year low. The shrinking supply, in turn, has led to record beef high prices. In this environment, some ranchers have opted to reduce their investment in certain verifications that we provide. This is impacting both our verification and tag sales. There are indications that the herd contraction phase of the cattle cycle is at or near a bottom. The industry should begin rebuilding the cattle supply over the next couple of years.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

In preparation for this recovery, we have been expanding our services portfolio with new certifications and working on other protein programs that we believe will position us for accelerated growth as the recovery gains momentum. I want to highlight a few of these initiatives to give you an idea of why we remain confident in the future of Where Food Comes From, as both a growth company and as the food verification industry leader. Last month, we announced the launch of RaiseWell Certified, an innovative new standard for animal care, verified natural raising practices, and transparent, fully traceable supply chains. The program is designed for brands, high-end retailers, and food service operators that want to differentiate their products on integrity, quality, and certified production practices.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

RaiseWell requires animals to be responsibly raised at every stage of life, with rigorous animal care requirements, no antibiotics or added hormones, and verified as a source of origin, all with the aim of creating traceability throughout supply chains that retailers and consumers can trust. We are rolling out RaiseWell in stages, beginning with beef and expanding over time to poultry, eggs, dairy, and pork. We followed up that news last week with an announcement that Whole Foods Market became the first major retailer to adopt the RaiseWell program. Whole Foods is widely recognized as a pioneer in advancing farm animal welfare, so its adoption of RaiseWell is an important endorsement for the program that we believe will lead to adoption by other leading retailers as time goes on.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

RaiseWell® Certified seamlessly integrates with our CARE Certified standard, giving producers and retailers the option to bundle claims and create a unified, audit-ready package that it can include pasture-raised, outdoor access, grass-fed, and other verified livestock raising attributes. Another promising initiative on the beef side of things is a new collaboration with global automotive leather supplier Pangea. In concert with Walmart and Prime Pursuits to introduce CARE Certified sustainable leather to U.S. automotive brands, this first-of-its-kind program, entitled Transparency in Motion, leverages data-driven, verifiable practices to confirm exactly how its materials are raised, cared for, and processed, making Pangea the first leather provider in North America to achieve traceability at this level. By becoming CARE Certified, ranchers can not only enhance the value of their herds, but also connect with consumers who increasingly prioritize sustainable practices and ethical sourcing.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

I want to touch on one other beef-centric initiative that we continue to advance slowly but surely, and that involves animal disease traceability. I'll remind you that the United States is the only major cattle-producing country that does not have a mandatory traceability program. That is essential to managing and containing an animal disease outbreak. We have invested significant time and resources over the years to position ourselves as an integral player in what we believe is the inevitable adoption of a formal ADT program in the U.S. Our IMI Global unit is far and away the most experienced player in this space, having the technology systems and procedures already in place and in practice that can quickly be brought to bear in a comprehensive national animal disease traceability program.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

We are now working closely with U.S. CattleTrace, a producer-led private industry database, to strengthen cattle traceability and support a secure U.S. beef supply. Unlike traditional point-of-origin traceability systems, U.S. CattleTrace enables contact tracing, allowing animal health officials to identify animals and locations that may have been exposed during a disease event. This capability is critical for responding to highly contagious diseases, such as foot-and-mouth disease. IMI Global serves as the administrator for U.S. CattleTrace. We provide the technical infrastructure and operational expertise needed to manage traceability securely while ensuring producers retain control, governance remains producer-driven, and data privacy is protected. Together, we are engaging with U.S. government representatives and entities to explore ways to advance and formalize an ADT solution. The cattle industry is going through a period of disruption unlike any other in our lifetime.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

As discussed, this has presented challenges so far that we are navigating successfully. At the same time, it is creating opportunities for us to leverage our positioning and know-how to play a lead role in reshaping the industry as it begins the rebuilding process. Hopefully, some of this will give you a feel for why we're so optimistic on long-term prospects for our beef-related business. In the meantime, for our non-beef-related business lines continue to grow and prosper. For the past 10 years, we've been building out a highly diverse and dynamic solutions portfolio, adding new customers for new services, generating new revenue streams, and reducing our reliance on the beef industry. Verifications for pork, dairy, and egg operations all increased year-over-year, and our CARE Certified program continued to attract new customers in a variety of proteins.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

Similarly, certification activity for organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, and upcycled all show gains. In addition, we continue to benefit from a unique ability to bundle services, a competitive advantage that saves our customers time and money, contributes to revenue growth, and, at the same time, helps us strengthen our margins. Given the growth, our solutions portfolio, and customer base, and our optimism about our business overall prospects, we believe our shares remain an excellent value at these levels, and we expect to continue repurchasing stock in 2026. In 2025, we repurchased 183,016 shares, raising total share buybacks and private purchases since plan inception to 1,374,652 shares, totaling $15.2 million in value returned to shareholders.

[John Saunders, Chairman and CEO at Where Food Comes From]

With that, thank you again for joining the call today, and I'll open up the call to questions. Operator?

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we pull for questions.

Participants

Executives

• Jay Pfeiffer, Director of Investor Relations
• John Saunders, Chairman and CEO