Del Monte Corporation

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Del Monte Produce first quarter 2020 conference call. Today's call is being broadcasted live over the internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to now turn today's call over to the Vice President, Investor Relations with Fresh Del Monte Produce, Christine Cannella. Please go ahead, Ms. Cannella.

Thank you, Joanne. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter 2020 conference call. As Joanne mentioned, I'm Christine Cannella, Vice President, Global Corporate Communications and Investor Relations with Fresh Del Monte Produce. Joining me in today's discussion are Mohammed Abugazali, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Eduardo Becerra, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I hope that you had a chance to review the press release that was issued earlier this morning via Business Wire. You may also visit the company's website at freshdelmonte.com for a copy of today's release, as well as to register for future distributions. This conference call is being webcast live on our website, and will be available for replay after this call. Please note that our press release includes reconciliations of any non-GAAP financial measures we mentioned today to their corresponding GAAP measures. I would like to remind you that much of the information we will be speaking to today, including the answers we give in response to your questions, may include forward-looking statements within the provisions of the Federal Security Safe Harbor laws. We ask that you review the forward-looking statements, information included in the press release we issued this morning and in the company's most recent filings with the SEC. With that, I am pleased to turn today's call over to Mohamed.

Thank you, Christine. I want to take a moment to acknowledge each of you for joining Fresh Del Monte Produce First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. It has been a very difficult few months for the world. Our thoughts go out to all the heroes working to keep people safe and healthy during this unprecedented, evolving global pandemic. I want to extend my best wishes to you and your families that you stay safe and healthy. I also want to extend my gratitude to our frontline team members for their commitment to providing healthy, convenient, fresh and prepared food products during this crisis. I will go directly to what is likely top of mind for all of us, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions we have taken to support our team members and their families, customers, suppliers, and our local communities. At the outbreak, of the pandemic, we immediately activated our global and regional executive crisis management teams to respond accordingly. At our production facilities where food safety has always been top of mind, we introduced additional operating procedures and safety protocols to include social distancing, thermal screenings, and increased cleaning cycles to protect our production teams. We activated our supply chain contingency plans to mitigate any disruptions in our ability to service our customers. Most recently, we voluntarily closed a distribution and fresh-cut facility in Boston, Massachusetts, for 10 days due to team members being diagnosed with COVID-19. We shifted inventory and production from our Boston facilities and continued to meet demand and deliver uninterrupted service to our customers in the northeastern U.S. As of today, our Boston facility is back in operation. Other preventive actions included having as many global employees as possible working remotely. Our worldwide team members have rallied around maintaining business continuity during this critical time. And I am pleased with how quickly they adapted to the circumstances, especially our frontline teams that have kept our farms, plants, and distribution centers running, allowing us to maintain our commitment to providing healthy, convenient, and safe Del Monte branded products around the world. We are also collaborating in a number of ways with our local communities during this time of uncertainty, adding support wherever we can. Regarding our business, while we saw an increase in demand in our banana business, we did experience reduced demand for fresh cut, for fresh and value-added products as stay-at-home orders impacted the restaurant and food service industry. We anticipate this trend continuing in the near future as consumers adapt to social distancing, households manage unprecedented economic hardships, and unemployment rates soar. I would like to add that our man packing subsidiary had shown improved results in January and February as they are recovering from their fourth quarter 2019 voluntary recall. However, the COVID-19 impact to the food service channel also reduced demand for man's meals and snacks and fresh-cut vegetables product lines. We expect the trend to continue in the second quarter of 2020 if conditions remain the same. Over the coming three months, we will be moving our operations to our new Gonzales, California facility, which will allow us to streamline and improve our production capabilities, customer service, and reduce costs. In addition, early in the quarter, we saw a reduction in our business in Asia as a result of supply and demand imbalances brought about by the closures and restrictions put in place in China logistics operations. This trend turned around in March as the Asia region showed signs of recovery, and we began to see demand increase, especially for bananas. While we did experience a number of challenges in the quarter that softened top line sales, we took several actions to fortify our business and conserve liquidity, including halting our share repurchase program, reducing our dividend by 50%, postponing non-critical capital investments to the second half of 2020, and establishing measures to reduce selling, general, and administrative expenses going forward. All of these measures give me confidence that we will come out of this crisis stronger than ever. What will the new normal be? I believe we will see behavior changes in the markets. One such example is the surge in e-commerce category sales. While online grocery shopping rose at rapid pace during the pandemic, I believe consumer usage has just begun, which is why in April of 2020, we broadened our distribution channels by introducing our online store in the United Arab Emirates with plans to roll out the concept to other countries soon. Now I would like to turn the call to Eduardo to talk about the first quarter financial results. Eduardo, please.