Stryve Foods, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Strive Foods, Inc. second quarter 2022 earnings call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then 0. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sandy Martin with three-part advisors. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and welcome to the Strive Foods second quarter earnings conference call. With me today are Strive's chief executive officer, Chris Beaver, and chief financial officer, Alex Hawkins. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Looking, forward-looking statements by their nature are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results could differ materially from these expectations. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We do not undertake to update these forward-looking statements at a later date, and they only refer to today, August 15, 2022. In addition, today's call will include a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. Non-GAAP financial measures should be considered as a supplement to and not a substitute for GAAP financial measures. We refer you to reconciliation of non-GAAP to the nearest GAAP measure included in today's earnings press release for further detail. This call is being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the news and events page of the investor section at ir.strive.com. Also, the earnings press release is posted on our website, and a copy of the release has been included in the Form 8 case submitted to the SEC. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Chris Beaver. Chris?

Thank you, Sandy. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call, and thank you to my teammates at Strive. You have been welcoming, transparent, and your efforts are greatly appreciated. Our second quarter results represent the largest revenue quarter ever for the company. For context, second quarter's gross revenues were $14.8 million, which is nearly half of the gross revenues achieved in the entire fiscal 2021 year. Clearly, the consumer demand is on the rise, which creates a tremendous amount of excitement about our future. While these top line results were certainly impressive, we clearly have opportunities to improve our delivery in a more balanced way. as evidenced by our profit margins. The lessons learned from our second quarter's performance highlight the need for transformational change. These changes, combined with the growing consumer demand, offer us significant opportunity to grow, improve margins, and deliver a profitable business, ultimately creating value for all stakeholders. I am now 10 weeks in at Strive. I think it's important to begin with some foundational comments about the company, why, As a fellow shareholder, I am excited to have joined Strive Foods and discuss our plans moving forward. Our portfolio of brands hold a unique and differentiated position as a delicious, healthy alternative for consumers, especially for traditional meat snack users. We know that our brands have a much broader appeal than other meat snack brands interacting with other healthy, higher protein alternative snack options, thus further offering us growth potential outside of the traditional category. Consumer demand continues to accelerate for better-for-you snacks, and it is increasing faster for products that deliver higher nutritional value without compromising taste and quality. Similar to other categories across the industry in which better-for-you offerings brought new users, disrupted the category norms, and has led to higher category penetration and growth, we are truly in that sweet spot in a high-growth category with fantastic tasting products that are minimally processed and deliver against the highest demand of product benefits. This presents drive the opportunity to delight our expanding consumer base, partner with our valuable retailers on category growth solutions while delivering value to our shareholders. We start with high quality steak, seasoned, air dried, and minimally processed. This delivers a superior consumer experience for taste along with more protein per ounce versus traditional jerky, without any of the no-nos, no nitrates, no gluten, no MSG, nothing artificial, truly natural ingredients, all while having zero grams of sugar. Earlier this year, we discussed our growing retail distribution, ranging from convenience stores to clubs to supermarkets, as well as distribution in numerous alternative formats. We have made progress growing distribution, and this will be a top area of focus. Increasing our distribution footprint will ultimately deliver more availability of our brands while helping our retail partners expand the category and affording our valuable consumers more opportunities to find their variety that's a favorite choice. In addition to building distribution, we will be disciplined with our investments for promotion, implementing a decision criteria that delivers a return on investment in advance of taking action will be our way moving forward. Within the last quarter, we learned some valuable lessons that will make us much better in the future. This includes the financial makeup as well as how we must execute with excellence. The executional lessons from Q2 also impacted the business downstream, which created short-term service challenges. Combine this with continued industry-wide supply chain challenges, rising input costs, and the importance of how we price and promote all present opportunities for us ahead. I am proud of what the team has accomplished and believe that the quality of our products along with the passion, pride, and talent in the organization is a strong foundation for our future from which to build upon. With that said, I'm excited to announce a major restructuring plan at our company. This plan builds off momentum from the first quarter where the company set in motion a path to profitability with solid sequential improvements from Q4 to Q1. While we have incorporated many of these elements of the original work, this restructuring plan adds key elements not previously contemplated. We will simplify the organization and the portfolio, introducing a productivity initiative that will attack costs through disciplined project management and continuous improvement in all that we do. For example, we have already optimized the organizational structure and headcount, brought clarity to roles and responsibilities, and are creating a culture of accountability. We have additional initiatives already actioned, such as rationalization of SKUs and implementing a zero waste mindset across the organization. This is particularly important as we seek to prioritize, simplify, and monetize all inputs by maximizing our yield. The compounding impact of this will improve the quality of revenues and ultimately profits. I will turn the call over to Alex to discuss Q2 results and liquidity, and we'll come back to discuss guidance and our key initiatives around growth, productivity, and execution. Underpinning these efforts is our transition from a founder-led organization to a true operating company. This type of transformational change takes planning, collaboration, and relentless execution. And the board, my teammates, and I are fully aligned on all these efforts. This is an exciting time for the company, and we are committed to making meaningful changes to our business operations to build a sustainable and profitable growth company. With that, I will turn the call over to Alex to discuss our Q2 financial results.