Keurig Dr Pepper Inc.

and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Keurig Dr. Pepper's earnings call for the first quarter of 2021. This conference call is being recorded, and there will be a question and answer session at the end of the call. I would now like to introduce Keurig Dr. Pepper's Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Tyson Silley. Mr. Silley, please go ahead.

Thank you, and hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Earlier this morning, we issued our press release for the first quarter of 2021. If you need a copy, you can get one on our website at KeurigDrPepper.com in the investors section. Consistent with previous quarters, today we will be discussing our performance on an adjusted basis, excluding items affecting comparability. The company believes that the adjusted basis provides investors with additional insight into our business and operating performance trends. While the exclusion of items affecting comparability is not in accordance with GAAP, we believe that the adjusted basis provides meaningful comparisons and an appropriate basis for discussion of our performance. Details of the excluded items are included in the reconciliation tables included in our press release and our 10-Q. which will be filed later today. Due to the inability to predict the amount and timing of certain impacts outside of the company's control, we do not reconcile our guidance. Here with me virtually today to discuss our first quarter 2021 results are KDP Chairman and CEO, Bob Gambgart, our CFO, Ozon, Dr. Maceo-Glue, and our Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Maria Scheper-Gurcio. And finally, Our discussion this morning may include forward-looking statements which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements based upon subsequent events. A detailed discussion of these risks and insurgencies is contained in the company's filing with the SEC. With that, I'll hand it over to Bob.

Thanks, Tyson, and good morning, everyone. I hope you and your families are well. As we enter spring, cautious optimism is in the air. Vaccine rates are approaching 50% of the U.S. adult population and growing across North America. Higher levels of consumer mobility are evident in retail, restaurants, and entertainment, and there is an increasing belief that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. If the last year has taught us anything, however, it is that our role is not to predict the future, but rather to be nimble, responsive, and prepared for whatever we may face in the future. This same mindset enabled Keurig Dr. Pepper to deliver meaningful outperformance in 2020 and a strong start to 2021. While some companies have been devastated by the impacts of the crisis, others have experienced a windfall from it. We, on the other hand, have succeeded despite the pandemic by driving the parts of our business that are performing well to overcome the declines we've experienced in areas structurally challenged by COVID. While that may sound easy in concept, it is very difficult to execute in the real world. And I would like to thank our 27,000 team members across KDP who continue to step up to meet the challenges. In the first quarter of 2021, we delivered strong performance across the board, highlighted by double-digit growth in both net sales and adjusted diluted EPS. We also reaffirmed our outlook for another strong year of double-digit adjusted diluted EPS growth. Despite the specter of rising inflation, in part by increasing our net sales growth expectations from 3% to 4%, to 4% to 6%. This sets us up for a solid 2021 and positions us to achieve our ambitious three-year merger target ending this year. Let me now provide key highlights of the first quarter. Our net sales grew by 11%, with all four business segments posting growth. Driving this performance was continued strong in-market execution across the business. In cold beverages, we continue to perform well, with more than 80% of our cold beverage retail sales base expanding market share during the quarter. We believe a helpful way to assess both our results and those of the broader industry, given the unique volatility of 2020, is on a two-year staff basis. Over this time period, nearly 90% of our cold retail sales base grew market share, and our consumption was up nearly 17%. LRB performance continues to reflect KDP's broad-based strength in CSDs, premium unflavored water, Snapple teas and fruit drinks, and others. During the quarter, we launched new zero-sugar varieties across our CSD portfolio, which has helped to solidify our number two CSD manufacturer status in key retail accounts. We're also seeing KDP brands take over leadership positions, the latest being Sunkist, becoming the number one fruit-flavored CSD brand, fueled by the zero sugar introduction and flavor line extension. In the past few months, we launched Innovation Behind Buy with BuyBoost. Made with clean ingredients, including plant-based energy from tea extract, BuyBoost has been well-received by retailers and consumers in early days. Finally, on cold beverages, our new brand partnership in the growing sparkling water segment with Polar is performing well. National ACV has grown to 55% with more distribution to come as shelf recesses are completed across the country. Our coffee business posted an exceptionally strong quarter with net sales advancing 17% on a constant currency basis due to a 14% increase in pod volume growth and a 61% increase in brewer volume, the latter primarily being driven by a roughly 40% increase in consumer sales and some benefit of shipment timing between the quarters. Approximately half of the 14% increase in pod volume was due to strong consumption in the quarter, with the remainder driven by differences in pod shipment timing relative to the unusual year-ago periods. The fact that pod volume growth in tracked channels registered at just above 3% for the quarter demonstrates a trend that we've been discussing for some time. KCUP pods are experiencing significantly higher levels of growth in untracked channels, particularly e-commerce. Sticking deeper into untracked channels highlights further the growing importance of e-commerce. Strength in at-home pods has been tempered by continued weakness in the away-from-home channel, as the return to offices continued to be slow. We do expect improvement over the course of 2021, especially after Labor Day, when we anticipate the rate of office reopenings to accelerate. On a two-year stack basis, dollar consumption of pods and track channels was up 11%, with two-year shipments up more than 20%. For total KDP, we delivered very strong bottom-line results in the quarter, with adjusted diluted EPS growth of nearly 14%, despite lapping the sale-leaseback gains in the first quarter of the year. We also continued to generate high levels of free cash flow, enabling us to pay down debt and improve our management leverage ratio to 3.5 times at the end of the quarter. Since the merger, we have reduced our leverage ratio by 2.5 turns while also investing meaningfully across the business. Let me now hand it over to Ozan to walk you through the financial results for the quarter and provide further details on our outlook for 2021.