The Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.

Greetings, and welcome to the Chef's Warehouse Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Alex Aldis, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Government Relations Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. With me on today's call are Chris Pappas, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, and Jim Letty, our CFO. By now, you should have access to our third quarter 2021 earnings press release. It can also be found at www.chefswarehouse.com under the Investor Relations section. Throughout this conference call, we will be presenting non-GAAP financial measures, including, among others, historical and estimated EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, as well as both historical and estimated adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share. These measurements are not calculated in accordance with GAAP and may be calculated differently in similarly titled non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. Quantitative reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures appear in today's press release. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our estimated financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Some of these risks are mentioned in today's release. Others are discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which are available on the SEC website. Today we are going to provide a business update and go over our third quarter results in detail. then we will open up the call for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Chris Pappas. Chris?

Thank you, Alex, and thank you all for joining our third quarter 2021 earnings call. Revenue trends remain strong as momentum from second quarter customer and consumer demand continued into the third quarter. In September, limited growth in return to offices and hospitality-related activity contributed to a moderate increase in sales trends sequentially over August and July, and we exited the quarter at approximately 103% of 2019 sales. Similar to our previous reporting, I will compare sales and gross margin results of the current quarter sequentially to the second quarter of 2021. Jim will provide the comparison to prior year in his comments later in the call. During the quarter, net sales increased approximately 14.5% versus the second quarter of 2021. Specialty sales increased approximately 18.1% sequentially versus the second quarter of 2021, with average unique customers increasing 7.1% and we saw higher placements of approximately 8%. Specialty cases increased 12.8% versus the second quarter of 2021, while center of the plate pounds sold were approximately 2.8% higher sequentially versus the second quarter of 2021, excluding the impact of acquisitions. While gross profit margins were relatively unchanged compared to the second quarter of 2021, total gross profit dollars increased 14.7% versus the second quarter. Gross margin in the specialty category increased 70 basis points as compared to the second quarter of 2021, while gross margin in the center of the play category decreased 97 basis points. Jim will provide more detail on gross margin and inflation in a few minutes. During October, we completed two acquisitions that will contribute to our continued growth as a provider of choice for high-end center-of-the-plate product lines to our customers nationally. On the West Coast, we added Silver State Meats, the premier provider of specialty proteins in the greater Las Vegas metro area. We are excited to partner with the Silver State team as their high-touch, high-quality service model will serve as a great complement to our existing specialty business in Las Vegas. This acquisition will also provide us with a bridge to growing our Southern California specialty protein sales until we implement Center of the Play processing in our new LA facility, which we currently expect to be opening in 2022. In Texas, we acquired certain assets of Martin Preferred Foods. This will facilitate accelerated growth of our premium Allen Brothers brands to our growing customer base in the Lone Star State. Regarding recent business activity, recent sales trends have continued in excess of 2019 sales, consistent with the final weeks of the third quarter. Continued modest growth in travel, office building and college-related markets combined with favorable fall weather led to moderate week-over-week sales progress during October. Despite the ongoing challenges in the labor and supply chain environment, our team at Chef's Warehouse continues to focus on sourcing, marketing, and delivering our high-quality product and high-tech service model to our customers. If anything, the last few months have strengthened our confidence in both the future growth of the culinary industry at large and the investments we as chefs are making in market, in category expansion, and adding key talent and partners as we look forward to returning to above average industry growth. I would like to thank all of our CW team members for their dedication and resilience as we move forward towards our achieving our medium-term and long-term goals. With that, I'll turn it over to Jim to discuss more detailed financial information for the quarter and update on our liquidity. Jim?