Westrock Coffee Company

I'll now hand the call over to Clay Crumbliss with ICR.

Thank you, and welcome to Westrock Coffee Company's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. With us are Mr. Scott Ford, co-founder and chief executive officer, and Mr. Chris Pledger, chief financial officer. By now, everyone should have access to the company's first quarter earnings release issued earlier today. This information is available on the investor relations section of Westrock Coffee Company's website at investors.westrockcoffee.com. Certain comments made on this call include forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs concerning future events and are subject to several risks and uncertainties, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to today's press release and other filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. Also, discussions during the call will use some non-GAAP financial measures as we describe business performance. The SEC filings, as well as the earnings press release, provide reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. And with that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Scott Ford, our co-founder and chief executive officer. Scott?

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you, Clay. It's good to be here with you all today. I'm pleased to be able to share a quick word on our first quarter operating results, update you on the two most important areas of focus for our team in 23, and share my views on our progress towards achieving the strategic goals we laid out when we went public last summer. As noted in the headline of our release, net sales for the first quarter increased 10% year over year on a consolidated basis and 22% in our beverage solution segment. The most significant contributors being the 44% increase in our single serve cup volumes and the flow through of last year's coffee price rise. Clearly, we continue to work through scaling up the single serve and extract units as capacity constraints, new physical expansions, and the resulting operating efficiency challenges impacted our EBITDA pull-through in the first quarter. Thankfully, these pressures are beginning to wane as we brought additional manufacturing single-serve capacity online late in Q1, and we are turning on our new extract expansion in North Carolina over the next few weeks. Turning to our two key business priorities for 23, First, our team remains focused on successfully launching our new extract and ready to drink facility in Conway, Arkansas. I'm pleased we remain on track with this project with anticipated product launches beginning in the first quarter of 24, rolling through a ramp up over the remainder of the year. In addition to the timely launch of the Conway facility, the second topic the team is constantly aware of is the available revenues, cost, and margins of our core coffee and tea business. So amidst the excitement of growth, new customer relationships, new product launches, we remain ever vigilant on our price points, costs, operating metrics, efficiencies, and returns as this is a competitive commodity processing business. Our single-serve scale-up effort has been tremendously challenging, due largely to equipment shortages. But we are now meeting those challenges as new machines are online and our in-stock levels are now back at industry-leading standards. The flavors, extracts, and ingredients business continues to show itself as both a tremendous source of growth and as a powerful generator of leads for all of our product lines. And the Conway Extract and RTD facility continues on pace with ever-growing interest from an even broader customer base than we envisioned when we set out on this path. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris, and then I'll give a quick wrap up, and he and I will be glad to answer your questions. Chris?