Lancaster Colony Corporation

Good morning. My name is Gerald, and I will be your conference call facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Lancaster Colony Corporation Fiscal Year 2025 First Quarter Conference Call. Conducting today's call will be Dave Sosinski, President and CEO, and Tom Piggott, CFO. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers have completed their prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star 1-1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star 1-1 again. Thank you. And now to begin the conference call, here is Dale Gnabczyk, Vice President of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations for Lancaster Colony Corporation. The floor is yours.

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today for Lancaster Colonies fiscal year 2025 first quarter conference call. 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 uncertainties is contained in the company's filings with the SEC. Also note that the audio replay of this call will be archived and available at our company's website, LancasterColony.com, later this afternoon. For today's call, Dave Susinski, our president and CEO, will begin with a business update and highlights for the quarter. Tom Piggott, our CFO, will then provide an overview of the financial results. Dave will then share some comments regarding our current strategy and outlook. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to respond to any of your questions. Once again, we appreciate your participation this morning. I'll now turn the call over to Lancaster Colony's President and CEO, Dave Sosinski. Dave?

Thanks, Dale, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you today as we review our first quarter results for fiscal year 2025. In our fiscal first quarter, which ended September 30th, consolidated net sales increased 1.1% to a first quarter record $467 million, while gross profit increased 1.9% to a record $111 million. In our retail segment, net sales declined 1.1%. Excluding the perimeter of the store bakery lines we exited this past March, Segment net sales increased 1.4%, and volume measured in pound shift grew 1.9%. Our licensing program continued to remain an important source of growth for the segment, led by Subway Sauces, which we launched this past spring. During our fiscal first quarter, we were pleased to also begin the national launch for Texas Roadhouse Dinner Rolls. While it's early days for this proposition, we are highly encouraged by both the consumer excitement and the sales velocity for these great tasting rolls. Given the magnitude of the demand for this item, we will be executing a phase expansion for this launch similar to the one we executed for Chick-fil-A sauce a few years ago. During the quarter, Cercana scanner data showed that most of our brands continued to perform well. In the produce dressing category, our Marzetti brand grew sales 2.4% and increased market share about 25 basis points. When combined with Chick-fil-A dressings, our sales in the category increased 2.6% with market share up about 40 basis points. Sales of our Marzetti brand produce dips advanced 1.7% with a market share gain of about 150 basis points. In the frozen dinner roll category, sales of our category-leading Sister Schubert's brand advanced 5.3%. When combined with the new Texas Roadhouse dinner roll, sales were up 17.9%, and our market share grew an impressive 420 basis points to 60%. In the shelf-stable dressings category, sales of Olive Garden dressings were up 3.3%, adding 10 basis points of market share. In the shelf-stable sauces and condiments category, sales for Chick-fil-A sauces grew 3.4%, while Buffalo Wild Wing sauces were up 5%. In the food service segment, net sales grew 3.5% on increased demand from several national chain restaurant accounts, in addition to strong sales growth for our branded food service products. Food service segment volume measured in pound shift advanced 3.1% despite industry-wide slowing traffic trends. Despite the challenging external environment, we are pleased to report record first quarter gross profit of $111 million and a sequential improvement of gross margin of 220 basis points compared to the fourth quarter. Gross profit margin increased 20 basis points when compared to last year's first quarter, as we benefited from higher sales volume and our ongoing cost savings initiatives. Our focus on supply chain productivity, value engineering, and revenue management remain core elements to further improve our financial performance. I'll now turn the call over to Tom Piggott, our CFO, for his commentary on our first quarter results. Tom?