BellRing Brands, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Bail Wing Brands first quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Jennifer Meyer, Investor Relations for Bail Wing Brands. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Bellring Brand's first quarter fiscal 2025 earnings call. With me today are Darcy Davenport, our president and CEO, and Paul Rowe, our CFO. Darcy and Paul will begin with prepared remarks, and afterwards we'll have a brief question and answer session. The press release and supplemental slide presentation that support these remarks are posted on our website in both the investor relations and the SEC filing sections at bellring.com. In addition, the release and slides are also available on the SEC's website. Before we continue, I would like to remind you that this call will contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties that should be carefully considered by investors as actual results could differ materially from these statements. These forward-looking statements are current as of the date of this call and management undertakes no obligation to update these statements. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and an audio replay will be available on our website. And finally, this call will discuss certain non-GAAP measures. For reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP measure, see our press release issued yesterday and posted on our website. With that, I will turn the call over to Darcy.

Thanks, Jennifer, and thank you all for joining us this morning. Last evening, we reported our first quarter results and posted a supplemental presentation to our website. I'm pleased to share that fiscal 25 is off to a good start. The business accelerated as we layered in demand drivers and kicked off new campaigns on both brands. Our first quarter results were slightly ahead of our expectations on the top line, with more favorability on the bottom line. Both net sales and adjusted EBITDA grew approximately 25%, driven by Premier Protein. Our EBITDA margins benefited from favorable gross margins and the timing of marketing spend. As you saw in yesterday's press release, we raised our outlook for the year. We now expect net sales to grow between 13 and 17% over fiscal 24, and adjusted EBITDA to grow between 7 and 14%. Our strong first quarter performance, along with confidence in demand, drove our decision to raise our guidance. Before reviewing the category and brand updates, I want to share that our supplemental presentation and corresponding metrics now reflect expanded coverage of the convenient nutrition category, as well as our business. In the new database, The total convenient nutrition category is now reported as $19 billion, up from $13 billion, a sizable increase in tract coverage. The new database provides a more accurate picture of the category across channels and a better reflection of our strong market position. Now to category and brand updates. The convenient nutrition category grew 12% in Q1. As I mentioned last quarter, it is rapidly transforming into an everyday and sports nutrition category, with those segments driving most of the growth and making up 75% of sales. From a form perspective, ready-to-drink growth accelerated and continued to lead the category up 18%, driven by strong consumer demand. RTDs were the second fastest growing category in the entire store, only behind eggs, which had unique supply-demand dynamics. Mainstream everyday and sports nutrition RTD brands continue to bring new consumers into the category and were up 31%. Ready to Mix grew 8%, sustaining Q4's growth rate. Overall, we see the total convenient nutrition category momentum increase in Q1, and I look forward to an even stronger growth during the Q2 New Year, New You season. Turning to our brands, Premier Shake consumption growth accelerated this quarter at 23%. Growth was strong in all channels driven by distribution expansion, accelerating velocities, and incremental promotional activity. Expansion in form, including bottles and pack size, along with improved in-stocks, drove the distribution gains. Our seasonal flavor, Winter Mint Chocolate, has demonstrated high incrementality to the brand and was the number two RTD item at a major mass retailer this season. Consumption growth continued with January up 17%. Our brand metrics remained strong with Premier Protein reaching all-time highs in TDPs and household penetration. The brand continues to gain new consumers reaching 20% of household this quarter. In calendar year 24, Premier Protein grew household penetration 17%. a significant contributor to the overall RTD category growth. The brand's repeat and buy rate grew for the calendar year, demonstrating our category-leading consumer loyalty. Premier Protein, with RTD market share of 26%, maintained its position as the number one brand in the RTD segment as well as the number one brand in the broader convenient nutrition category. All of this is especially encouraging because in a high-growth category with low household penetration, we see plenty of room to continue to grow our brand and expand the overall category. Premier Protein Powder continued its strong trajectory with consumption of 24% in Q1, behind strong velocities and distribution gains. We remain encouraged by the growth potential of Premier Protein brand in this format. Its household penetration reached 2% this quarter, and during calendar year 24, Premier powder's household penetration grew 22%, the second highest of any competitor in the powder category. We continue to believe Premier will be a contributor to mainstreaming the powder category in the same way that Premier did in Ready to Drink. We're thrilled to share that our Premier Protein national marketing campaign hit screens late in December, just ahead of the new year and new year season. It is a high energy spot that captures how Premier Protein brings joy to the health journey Featuring the tagline, Sweeten the Journey, it shows that healthy eating doesn't have to be hard, but can actually be enjoyable and fun. It is our first nationwide campaign since 2021 and will reach TV, streaming, and social media audiences. Although early, the campaign is generating significant increases in search and traffic to our website is up 80% versus a year ago. From an innovation standpoint, we launched a new line of Premier Protein products, our Indulgent line, which are available in four decadent shake flavors and one powder flavor. These items are richer and creamier, targeting an incremental consumption occasion, while still delivering on the nutritionals that our consumers expect from the Premier brand. The items are building distribution, and although early, are off to a promising start. More innovation is planned throughout fiscal 25. In addition to exciting advertising and new products, we are updating our logo and redesigning our packaging for the first time in close to a decade. The refreshed design builds on our strong performing current design and brings a modern look that improves discoverability at the shelf. We expect the updated design will start to hit the shelves in the second half. Turning to diamond ties. The international business drove the global brand this quarter, more than offsetting domestic headwinds. Despite recent U.S. trends, the brand remains strong, holding the number two share position within sports nutrition powders, which represents about half of the overall powder category. While household penetration and overall distribution levels remain stable, we are starting to see some encouraging signs from our marketing campaign as well as our new products. Our marketing campaign with San Francisco running back Christian McCaffrey exceeded our benchmarks and drove strong lift to our brand metrics. As a result, we have expanded our core team of Dymatize athletes and influencers by partnering with tennis professional and Olympic medalist Tommy Paul, who is ranked number nine in the world. On the innovation front, we launched two new platforms this quarter. We know that Dymatize consumers purchase both free workouts and RTD products. So in December, we launched RTD shakes with fruity and cocoa pebbles flavors, as well as pre-workout powder called Energize, available in three flavors. Early results for both products are positive, and we continue to be bullish on the sports nutrition category opportunity. In closing, our Q1 results position us well for another above-algorithm year. Our organization has officially pivoted to demand driving. Strong macro tailwinds around protein are driving robust long-term growth in our category with ready-to-drink and powder segments in the early stages of growth. Premier Protein is already the number one convenient nutrition brand, and we are just starting to drive demand. Our innovation pipeline on both brands is rich, enabling us to bring excitement to consumers and our retail partners for years to come. Last, we have a scalable, regionally diverse supply chain able to support our long-term growth projections. Our confidence in long-term outlook for Bellerin remains high. We look forward to sharing our progress next quarter. I will now turn the call over to Paul.