Lancaster Colony Corporation

will be your conference call facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Lancaster Colony Corporation Fiscal Year 2025 Second Quarter Conference Call. Conducting today's call will be Dave Susinski, 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 would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one one again. Thank you. And now to begin the conference call, here is Del Konopcic, Vice President of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations for Lancaster Colony Corporation.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Lancaster Colony's fiscal year 2025 second 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, lancasterconnelly.com, later this afternoon. For today's call, Dave Szczesinski, 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, and I'll turn the call over to Lancaster Colony's President and CEO, Dave Szczesinski. Dave?

Thanks, Dale, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you today as we review our second quarter results for fiscal year 2025. In our fiscal second quarter, which ended December 31st, we reported record highs for net sales, gross profit, and operating income. Consolidated net sales increased 4.8% to $509 million. Gross profit improved 9.3% to $133 million. And operating income grew 15.1% to $76 million. In our retail segment, net sales increased 6.3%, driven by volume growth from both our licensing program and our own brands. In licensing, we saw very strong consumer demand for the recently introduced Texas Roadhouse dinner rolls, along with solid contributions from Buffalo Wild Wing sauces, Subway sauces, and Olive Garden dressings. I'm also pleased to share that our Marsetti-branded caramel dips and refrigerated dressings also performed well. Excluding the perimeter of the store bakery lines we exited last March, retail segment net sales increased 8.4%, and retail segment volume, measured in pound shift, grew 7.4%. Circona scanner data for the quarter ending December 31st showed strong performance for several of our licensed items and core brands. In the frozen dinner roll category, our own sister Schubert's brand and our licensed Texas Roadhouse brand combined to grow 15.9%, resulting in a market share increase of 440 basis points to a category leading 60.8%. In the produce dressing category, our Marzetti brand grew sales 1.4% and increased market share about 30 basis points. Sales of our Marzetti brand produce dips advanced 2%, with a market share gain of 110 basis points. In the frozen garlic bread category, our New York bakery brand grew sales 2.8%, adding 40 basis points of market share, resulting in a category-leading share of 41.7%. In the shelf-stable sauces and condiments category, Buffalo Wild Wing sauces were up over 11%, and Chick-fil-A sauce sales grew 1.1%. In the shelf-stable dressings category, sales of Olive Garden dressings were up 3.3%, further improving their market share in the shelf-stable dressing category. It's worth noting that it's been more than a decade now since we formed our license agreement with Darden and Olive Garden restaurants to sell their eponymous salad dressings. Since those early days, we've expanded this amazing brand from one SKU in the club channel to a growing multi-SKU, multi-channel brand platform with over $160 million of scanner sales. I believe the long-term performance of this brand and others such as Chick-fil-A, Buffalo Wild Wings, and most recently, Texas Roadhouse is a testament to the strength, the potential, and the enduring consumer relevance of our licensing program. In the food service segment, net sales grew 3% led by higher demand from several of our core national chain restaurant accounts and increased sales for our branded food service products. Food service segment volume measured in pounds shipped advanced 1.5%. Finally, we are pleased to report record second quarter gross profit of $133 million. When compared to last year's second quarter, gross profit margin improved 110 basis points to 26.1%. The $11 million increase in gross profit was driven by the higher sales volumes, more favorable sales mix, the positive impacts of our ongoing cost savings initiatives, and some modest cost deflation. Our focus on supply chain productivity, value engineering, and revenue management all remain core elements to further improve our margins and financial performance. I'll now turn the call over to Tom Piggott, our CFO, for his commentary on our second quarter results. Tom?