The Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Chef's Warehouse first quarter 2026 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. Hello. By now, you should have access to our first quarter 2026 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 historical adjusted net income, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted operating expenses, adjusted operating expenses as a percentage of net sales and as a percentage of gross profit. net debt, net debt leverage, and free cash flow. These measures 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 and first quarter 2026 earnings presentation. 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 first quarter results in detail. For a portion of our discussion this morning, we will refer to a few slides posted on the Chef's Warehouse website under the investor relations section titled First Quarter 2026 Earnings Presentation. Please note that these slides are disclosed at this time for illustration purposes only. Then we will open up the calls for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Chris Pappas. Chris?

Thank you, Alex, and thank you all for joining our first quarter 2026 earnings call. First quarter 2026 business activity displayed typical seasonal cadence as revenue trends coming out of January increased steadily into February and March. Despite some volatility in business due to extreme weather events and the start of the conflict in the Middle East later in the quarter, Our team's exceptional execution and the strength of our North American business allowed us to continue to grow market share, delivering strong year-over-year growth in volume, product penetration, unique customer growth, revenue growth, and profitability growth. Momentum continued into April, and we currently expect double-digit top-line growth to start the second quarter. Regarding the current situation in the Middle East, our teams and operations in the region, the immediate focus has been the safety and security of our people. We have followed safety protocols instituted by governing bodies and are effectively navigating volatility in supply chains and customer demand. Our leadership and team members have done an amazing job managing both personally and professionally through the volatility and uncertainty and we hope for a resolution to the conflict soon. Jim will provide more color on the financial impact in a few moments. I would like to thank all of the Shep Warehouse, from sales and operations to all the supporting functions for delivering a great start to 2026. Our regional leadership and their teams continue to execute our strategy to leverage our investments and train the next generation of sales and operational talent. They're accelerating our long-term plan as they grow deeper understanding of our customer base and become the ultimate specialty ingredient professionals marrying technology with industry know-how to become trusted advisors to the best chefs in the world. With that, please refer to slide three of the presentation. A few highlights from the first quarter include organic net sales grew 10.4%. Organic specialty sales were up 6.8% over the prior year, which was driven primarily by unique placement growth of 6.2%, specialty case growth of 5.7%, and price inflation. Unique customers grew 1.9% year-over-year. Reported unique customer growth was impacted by the attrition related to our transition out of non-core customer business in Texas. We fully lapped this impact starting in the second quarter this year. Excluding this impact, first quarter year-over-year unique customer growth was approximately 4.3%. Pounds and center of the plate were approximately 6.2% higher than the prior year first quarter. Gross profit margins increased approximately 53 basis points. Gross margin in the specialty category increased approximately 43 basis points as compared to the first quarter of 2025, while gross margin in the center of the plate category increased approximately 110 basis points year over year. Jim will provide more detail on gross profit and margins in a few moments. For an update, I'm certain of our operating metrics, including continued improvement in year-over-year gross profit per route and adjusted EBITDA per employee, please refer to the slide provided in the appendix of our first quarter 2026 earnings presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to Jim to discuss more detailed financial information for the quarter and an update on our liquidity. Jim?