The Kraft Heinz Company

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Kraft Heinz Company first quarter results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw the question, simply press star 11 again, and be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Anne-Marie Michela, Head of Global Investor Relations. The floor is yours.

Thank you, and hello, everyone, and welcome to our Q&A session for our first quarter 2023 business update. During today's call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding our expectations for the future, including related to our business plans and expectations, strategy, efforts, and investments, and related timing and expected impacts. These statements are based on how we see things today, and actual results may differ materially due to risk and uncertainties. Please see the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in today's earnings release, which accompanies this call, as well as our most recent 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K filings for more information regarding these risks and uncertainties. Additionally, we may refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude certain items from our financial results reported in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to today's earnings release and the non-GAAP information available on our website at ir.kraftheinzcompany.com under News and Events for a discussion of our non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the comparable GAAP financial measures. Before we begin, I'm going to hand it over to our CEO, Miguel Patricio, for some brief opening comments.

Well, thank you, Anne-Marie, and thank you, everyone joining us today. We are proud, proud and confident. We are so confident that we are raising our guidance on EBITDA and earnings. We are so confident that we are increasing our investments in marketing and in R&D, by $100 million to $150 million versus budget, which represents a solid double-digit growth versus previous year. These results are not a coincidence. They are because of our confidence. We have been consistently saying that we'll grow through emerging markets, and we grew 23% this quarter. We'll grow through food service globally, and we grew about 29% this quarter, and we'll grow through our priority growth platforms in U.S., Easy Meals, and Taste Elevation, where we had double-digit growth. The rest of the portfolio has to free up resources to invest in our strategy. These results are possible not only because of our strategy, but because of everything that is behind our strategy. Let me start with people. Today we have a great team and very engaged team. Speed. Well, agility is a big word for us, and the pods that we have in place are transforming the company in innovation, in supply, in manufacturing, procurement, in sales, in logistics. And two good examples of that is innovation. where we have now a much stronger pipeline for the future, and we reduced the time of innovating from two years to a couple of months. Or in supply, that through the pods plus the partnership with Microsoft and the usage of artificial intelligence, we are improving our planning, our service levels, reducing waste, reducing fines. We are in a very different place today. And finally, efficiencies. When we announced three years ago a $2 billion in five years of gross savings, there were a lot of people that were skeptical. That represented $400 million per year. We not only delivered this number in three years in a row, but we are now increasing this bar to $500 million a year. With that, I have here with me today André, our CFO, Carlos Abrams Bezera, our zone president for North America, and Rafael, our zone president for international, that are joining me. Please, we are ready for the Q&A.