The Hain Celestial Group, Inc.

2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Chris Mandeville with ICR. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on Haynes Celestial's second quarter fiscal 2023 earnings conference call. On the call today are Wendy Davidson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Belairs, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the means of the federal securities laws. These include expectations and assumptions regarding the company's future operations and financial performance. These statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could differ materially from actual events in those described in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to Haynes Celestial's annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as its press release issued this morning for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. The company has also prepared a presentation inclusive of additional supplemental financial information. which is posted on Hayne Celestial's website under the investor relations heading. Please note management's remarks today will focus on non-GAAP or adjusted financial measures. Reconciliations of GAAP results to non-GAAP financial measures are available in the earnings release and the slide presentation accompanying this call. This call is being webcast and an archive of it will be made available on the website. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Wendy.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for my first earnings call since joining Hain. First, let me thank Mark Schiller for his leadership of the company over the past four years through a time of significant transformation of our company portfolio and operating model. In the past month, Mark has been a valuable resource in my transition into the company and the role. I'm only a few weeks into the job, but I've had the opportunity to review many of our key commercial, supply chain, and brand plans across our businesses. In the coming weeks, I will have a greater opportunity to visit our locations and connect more with our local teams to further my understanding. What I have learned thus far has only confirmed my decision to join Haines and our opportunity to build a sustainable, profitable, and high-growth business with leading brands in the better-for-you consumer space. During my early weeks with our team, I have been impressed with the potential of our brands many of which are number one or number two in their category. However, while much work has been done to simplify the portfolio and generate productivity, it is apparent that a variety of challenges have prevented sustained investment to scale our brand. In fact, I've noticed our brand building spend has historically been far below industry average. And in certain instances, we have been off air for over a year on some of our largest brands. Moving forward, I anticipate committing greater support behind those brands, and eventually spending more in line with our category growth peers with sustained brand building support. I see strong potential to drive growth in our categories and brands with expanded reach across channels and geographies. But to do so, we will need to ensure we are investing in the organizational capacity and capabilities to enable accelerated growth. I am impressed with the talent on our team and appreciate the time and efforts they have spent to help me more fully understand the state of the business, our capabilities, and our opportunities. I'm encouraged by the progress in advancing end-to-end supply chain improvements. And while we are in the early stages of integrated business planning implementation, in my experience, I've seen firsthand the impact this can have in improving planning and forecasting discipline across the business. In our international business, we will be adding resources in our commercial capabilities to improve our distribution and in-market performance. and we are streamlining our operating model in our North American business to accelerate our go-to-market potential. While we are facing similar headwinds and challenges as the rest of the industry in our categories and markets, the company has taken on a number of initiatives to drive productivity, improve service level, and enhance margins. The organization and team are passionate to drive growth and deliver on the opportunity we have to scale our brands. As I am still in my early weeks, I'm examining the key elements of the current HANE 3.0 strategy and growth algorithm. I will not be providing any formal updates to our long-term strategy today, except to say that I am committed to building a clear path to sustainable top and bottom line growth. I will be ready to share my thoughts in the next quarter and a more detailed strategic plan outlook sometime in the late summer, early fall. In the past few years, we've established a level of transparency into our performance and our strategic growth plans which I will continue. And I look forward to working with you and providing updates as we shape and execute our growth plan. For now, I'll turn it to Chris for the business update.