The Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Chefs' Warehouse Second 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 Aldous, 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 Leddy, our CFO. Thank you for joining us today. 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 second 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 second quarter results in detail. We are also providing an update to our five-year financial targets. For a portion of our discussion this morning, we will refer to a few slides posted on the Chefs' Warehouse website under the investor relations section titled Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Presentation. Please note that these slides are disclosed at this time for illustration purposes only. 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 second quarter 2026 earnings call. Today, Jim and I will begin our remarks with an update on second quarter results and provide an increase to our full year 2026 financial guidance, followed by an update to our five-year financial targets, taking our previously provided 2028 targets out to 2030. Second quarter, 2026, displayed strong growth in both revenue and profitability. Our regional CHEPS warehouse teams continue to deliver excellent execution across markets and product categories. We are driving market share gains via growth in product penetration, case volume, and unique customers, combined with ongoing improvement in operational efficiency to provide customers with the highest quality ingredients and flexible on-time delivery. Momentum continued into July, and we currently expect double-digit top-line growth to start the third quarter. Our Middle East operations are improving gradually as they enter the seasonally slower summer period. During May and June, our business located there operated at approximately 94% the prior year, and this trend has remained fairly steady through recent weeks. I would like to thank all our teams from sales, procurement, and pricing, operations, and all the supporting functions for their dedication to serving our customers and our communities as we go to market as the Chefs' Warehouse family of brands and companies in North America and the Middle East. With that, please refer to slide three of the presentation. A few highlights from the second quarter include organic net sales grew 12.2%. Organic specialty sales were up 10% over the prior year, which was driven primarily by unique placement growth of 7.2% and specialty case growth of 6% and price inflation. Unique customers grew 3.6% year over year. Reported unique customer growth was impacted partially by the conflict in the Middle East. Excluding this impact, second quarter unique customer growth was approximately 4.9%. Pounds in center of the plate were approximately 8.8% higher than the prior year's second quarter. Gross profit margins increased approximately 49 basis points. Gross margin in the specialty category increased approximately 47 basis points as compared to the second quarter of 2025. while gross margin in the center of the plate category increased approximately 75 basis points year-over-year. Jim will provide more detail on gross profit and margins in a few moments. For an update on 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 slides provided in the appendix of our second 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?