Pilgrim's Pride Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 Pilgrims Pride earnings conference call and webcast. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. At the company's request, this call is being recorded. Please note that the slides referenced during today's call are available for download from the investor section of the company's website at www.pilgrims.com. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Andrew Rajewski, Head of Strategy, Investor Relations and Sustainability for Pilgrims Pride.

Andrew Rajewski Good morning and thank you for joining us today as we review our operating and financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 28, 2025. Yesterday afternoon, we issued a press release providing an overview of our financial performance for the quarter and the year, including a reconciliation of any non-GAAP measures we may discuss. A copy of the release is available on our website at ir.pilgrims.com, along with slides for reference. These items have also been filed as Form 8Ks and are available online at sec.gov. Fabio Sandri, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Galvinoni, Chief Finance Officer, will present on today's call. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone of our safe harbor disclaimer. Today's call may contain certain forward-looking statements that represent our outlook and current expectations as of the day of this release. Other additional factors not anticipated by management may cause actual results to differ maturely from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Further information concerning these factors have been provided in yesterday's press release of Form 10-K and our regular filings with the SEC. I would now like to turn the call over to Fabio Sandri.

Thank you, Andy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. So, for the fiscal year 2025, we established new financial milestones as net revenues reached $18.5 billion and adjusted EBITDA rose to $2.3 billion. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 12.3%. In the West, consistent execution of our strategies, along with strong chicken demand, bolstered our demand. Demand for our key customers grew significantly over the category average for the year. Our brand building accelerated as the combined retail sales of Just Bear across Fresh and Repair exceeded $1 billion, further diversifying our portfolios and resonating with consumers. Operational excellence efforts improve efficiencies in processing and live operations in Big Bird, mitigating commodity cut-out volatility throughout the year. Given these efforts, the U.S. grew both in top-line and bottom-line. Europe completed several projects to enhance the efficiency of its manufacturing footprint, consolidated back-office support, and optimized mix and innovations. Key customer partnerships strengthened as sales and volume both increased compared to last year. Our portfolio of key brands continue to grow, further diversifying our portfolio. Based on these efforts, margins and overall adjusted EBITDA continue to improve. Max Group grew sales through increased sales volumes of branded offerings across fresh and prepared and growth with key customers, despite commodity pricing volatility. Equally important, we initiated a series of investments in both fresh and prepared to drive profitable growth while reducing the volatility of our business. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we reported net revenues of $4.5 billion. We have adjusted EBITDA of $450 million, and our adjusted EBITDA margin was 9.2%. Our key four results reflect the robust nature of our strategies to drive strong margins during changing market conditions. In the U.S., Fresh increased market share through continued focus on quality, service, and innovation. Our Fresh business improved efficiencies both in plant and live operations. Repair Foods continued to drive category-leading growth across retail and food service, further diversifying our portfolio. Investments to grow our presence in key customers, increase capacity in value-added and enhance operational efficiency, continue to progress as planned. In Europe, we increased overall adjusted EBITDA compared to the same quarter prior year. Our fresh operations drove the majority of the gains through improved productivity and enhanced mix. Key customer demand was stable, while our portfolio of key brands continued to grow. Mexico faced difficult circumstances given increased imports of animal-based proteins, and unbalanced fundamentals in the live market. Our diversified efforts continue to gain traction as branded fresh and prepared offerings both rose compared to last year. Turning to supply, the USDA indicated that ready-to-cook production for the U.S. rose 2.1% year-over-year in 2025, driven by increased headcount, improved live performance, and higher average live weight. Egg sets were higher than 2024, giving a more productive layer flock and record hatchery utilization. Hatchability improved sequentially in Q4 with seasonality and a younger flock, but are still below the five-year average. Cheek placements were higher throughout the entire quarter compared to last year. After peaking in Q3, live weights declined and ended the fourth quarter consistent with prior year levels. Looking forward, USDA reports a 1.9% year-over-year decline in the layer flock in January 2026, alongside a 3.1% drop in pullet placements compared to Q4 of 2024. Given these factors, along with other considerations, the most recent USDA estimates suggest moderate production growth of 1% in 2026 compared to last year. As for overall protein availability, USDA projects growth of 1.5% in 2026, with challenges in the beef production partially compensated by higher beef imports. From a demand standpoint, consumer sentiment remains low, given continued economic uncertainty. Inflation for food at home and away from home continue to impact consumers' available income. Nonetheless, chicken's affordability was exceptionally appealing across channels and categories. In retail, consumers continue to stretch their budgets through more frequent trips with smaller basket sizes. Within the channel, the meat department continues to lead performance as it is remain a key priority for consumers. Chicken experienced volume growth across all cuts versus prior quarter. Boneless, skinless breast prices decreased 1% compared to last quarter, while prices of other proteins rose, especially ground beef that is set in new, all-time highs. As a matter of fact, when compared to two years ago, prices of boneless at retail was reduced by 1.7%, while prices of ground beef have increased 22%. As a result, record pricing spreads emerged, further strengthening demand for chicken. Similar to boneless breast, dark meat from boneless thighs also continued to experience significant growth. increased slightly versus last year as velocity more than offset changes in mix, distribution, and pricing. Consumers also look for convenience, and in the frozen chicken category, we saw significant growth with continued strength in velocity. In food service, rising costs associated with dining out continue to pressure overall restaurant traffic, particularly in the full-service format. However, growth in QSRs and non-commercial channels compensated for these declines, supported by operators' continuous strategic focus on chicken through value offerings, limit-time promotions, and menu innovation. Chicken-centric QSRs are leveraging the protein's affordability to drive traffic and engagement, outperforming the broader dining sector. Within food service, boneless dark meat volumes are growing at double-digit rates, across all segments. Wings are gaining momentum and tenders continue to deliver steady, consistent growth. In exports, industry volumes accelerated during Q4. Within pilgrims, demand was primarily driven from the Southeast Asia and Mexico. Pricing remained high relative to historical levels and continues to be elevated in the first quarter of 2036. While trade disruptions have impacted certain markets given the high-path AI outbreaks, the overall effect has been relatively muted on both pricing and volumes as most U.S. trading partners quickly limit restrictions to either the county or specific zones. As a result, trade simply shifts from other locations outside the impacted area during the restriction period. Moving forward, we expect exports to remain strong and well-diversified across markets. Turning to feed inputs, corn moved marginally higher in Q4 compared to previous quarter. However, prices moderated in January as the U.S. corn realized new records in harvest area, yield, and total supply. While record demand currently exists, Corn ending stocks are still expected to increase to 2.2 billion bushels, creating the highest stock-to-use ratio since 2019. Soybeans and soybean meal rallied in Q4, giving the resumption of U.S. soybean sales to China. Strong domestic interest and export demand for soybean meal. Potential upside appears limited, given favorable weather in South America for soybean production and relatively slow pace of U.S. soybean exports. Since shipments are below average, the USDA anticipates ending stocks will rise by 350 million bushels, up 7% versus prior year. Global soybean stocks and processing capacity are also expected to increase, generating ample supplies of meal. Global wheat stocks continue to be well supplied and production increased by 41 metric tons versus prior year. Every major producer experienced above average crops reducing the risk of physical disruption in shipments. Additional takeaway may emerge from increased wheat acreage planted in the UK. Within the US, our diversified fresh portfolio increased volume compared to the same period last year as consumers continue to seek affordability offerings for their meal occasions across retail and food service. Our higher attribute differentiated offerings in case ready accelerated its marketplace presence, as volumes to key customers increased nearly two times the category. Sales and profitability rose compared to last year from sustained growth. Small birds also realized similar success, as volumes to QSR remain robust, despite the slow market for boning chicken and whole birds. Given continued market shifts to boneless cuts, extensive key customer partnerships, and growth aspirations, we will evaluate and adjust our portfolio to match demand accordingly. In Big Bird, Commodity cutout values fell nearly 20% compared to last year. Nonetheless, the business was able to improve its efficiencies in live operations and in production. Equally important, we further leveraged our position as the leading supplier of NAE meat to support our robust growth or value-added offerings. To that end, Big Bird will continue to increase supplies to our internal prepared foods, reducing volatility and enhancing margins for our portfolios. During the quarter and the beginning of 2026, our team also undertook a variety of projects to strengthen our key customer partnerships and enhance operational excellence, including investments within Big Bird to increase our portioning capacity and differentiated cuts. Through these efforts, our team managed to plan a downtime and adjusted production across locations accordingly to ensure sufficient availability, maintain quality, and uphold service levels. In prepared foods, sales grew 18% compared to the same period last year, giving branded growth across retail and food service. JustBear momentum continues to accelerate market share in retail. It rose nearly 300 basis points compared to the same period last year. Equally important, it has the highest velocity of any brand within the frozen chicken. Further growth opportunities exist through increased distributions. Our innovation and approach to both flavors under the Pilgrims brand also continues to receive accolades, as People's Food Award recognized our cheesy jalapeno nugget line as a category winner. In food service, we continue to build our presence, giving continued growth with distributors, national accounts, and schools. Our investment in a new prepared facility in Georgia to meet demand for our fully cooked offerings remain on schedule. Turning to Europe, consumer sentiment continues to be relative to subdued. Nonetheless, we improved our profitability and maintained stable demand compared to the same period last year, giving consistent execution of our strategies. Within retail, chill meals and fresh offerings were among the fastest-growing categories. As such, our chicken business drove profitable growth, lead by our differentiated Pro3 offerings that select customers. Our added value business remained steady, Whereas pork experienced challenges from excess supply, as animal health issues emerging in Spain, triggering export restrictions in the EU. Despite these challenges, our team maintained volume and increased profitability compared to last year. Our diversification efforts through key brands continue to progress, as overall sales and volumes rose compared to last year. Fridge rate bursts increased share yet again, given the effectiveness of recent changes to pricing and packaging. The momentum for the rollover continues to accelerate from additional distribution with new customers. The Richmond brand was challenged by low-cost private label offerings, but recent investments in promotional and innovation activity have been beneficial in resuming our growth trajectory. We continue to develop our innovation pipeline in close collaboration with our key customers. To that end, we have created a variety of new platforms in chill meals, focused on diet, health, and ethnic offerings. To date, market acceptance has been promising, given incremental distribution awards and consumer interest. In food service, visits fell at QSRs, giving concern regarding affordability. As a result, our volumes were impacted, especially during the late half of the Q4. To reverse this trend, several of our QSR customers reignited promotional activity during 2026. In Mexico, Challenging market circumstances arose in Q4, given increased imports of animal-based protein. As a result, the short-term supply of meat and poultry in Mexico increased to levels not previously experienced. These conditions were further amplified by weakened market fundamentals in the live commodity market, as improved growing conditions increased supply. Nonetheless, we continue to drive our strategies, growing volume in retail, QSRs, and food service channels compared to last year. We also increased volumes by double digit in our fresh branded portfolio versus Q4 of 2024. JustBear continues to be extremely well received as sales have grown more than two times compared to last year. Similarly, repair sales volumes increased by 8% versus last year, led by key customers in food service and QSR. Based on these efforts, we continue to diversify our portfolio and reduce the volatility for our business. Despite these short-term challenges, we continue to have growth ambitions in Mexico, given its long-term growth potential, status as a net importer of animal protein, and effectiveness of our strategies. Our growth plans will further mitigate the volatility of our portfolio, resulting in higher, more resilient earnings profile. We have already begun implementation of our plans. In fresh, our efforts to build domestic supply, create national distribution capabilities, and diversify our geographical presence remain on schedule, with growth in the south region, in Veracruz, and in the peninsula region, in Merida. In prepared, we are doubling our capacity of fully cooked products through the expansion of our facility in Port Veneer. We anticipate our increased capacity coming online during the second quarter, further enabling growth for the second half of the year. Our growth intentions in Mexico are not isolated, and overall prospects for chicken remain strong globally, given relative affordability, emerging trends in consumer preferences, and healthy attributes. As such, our growth investments previously announced in the U.S. can further capitalize on these trends, reinforce our strategies, and strengthen our competitive advantage. Given this environment, our portfolio will also continue to evolve to support key customer growth in fresh, We are converting one of our commodity Big Bird plants to a case-ready plant. We expect this conversion to become operational during the first half of 2026. To support the expansion of Prepare Foods, we will install equipment upgrades, modify our plant layouts in Big Bird, leveraging our internal supply of differentiated NAE portion raw materials. Regardless of these investments, We fully expect to remain consistent in our quality and service levels, giving our extensive network of facilities and overall supply chain capabilities. More importantly, we will have fortified our key customer partnerships and improve operational efficiencies, which will reduce volatility, enhance margins, and drive profitable growth. In sustainability, our journey continues. We've made significant headway, in the reduction of our carbon-based direct and indirect emission intensity used for processing compared to last year. External agencies continue to recognize progress in environmental and social matters as our scores improved compared to last year. Improvements in the team member development continue to be exceptionally well received as over 2,300 team members or their dependents have signed up for our Better Futures program. of which 780 have begun their selected academic pathway. With that, I would like to ask our CFO, Matt Galvanone, to discuss our financial results.