Del Monte Corporation

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Del Monte's Produce First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Today's call is being broadcast live over the internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. We will have a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. And if you'd like to withdraw that question, again, press star one. Thank you. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn today's call over to the Vice President, Investor Relations with Fresh Del Monte Produce, Ms. Christine Cannella. Please go ahead, Ms. Cannella.

Thank you, Krista. Good day, everyone. And thank you for joining our first quarter 2026 conference call. Joining me in today's discussion are Mr. Muhammad Abugazali, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Ms. Monica Vicente, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I hope that you have had a chance to review the press release that was issued earlier by A Business Wire. You may also visit the company's IR website at investorrelations.freshdelmonte.com to access today's earnings material and to register for future distribution. 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 and our call today include non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures are set forth in the press release and earnings presentation, which is available on our website. 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 safe harbor provisions of the federal securities laws. In today's press release and our SEC filings, we detail risks that may cause our future results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Our statements are as of today, May 5th, 2026, and we have no obligation to update any forward-looking statements we may make. During the call, we will provide a business update along with an overview of our financial results, followed by a question-and-answer session. With that, I will turn today's call over to Mr. Muhammad Abu-Ghazali. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Christine. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Following up on our last quarter, We reached an important milestone this quarter with the closing of the Del Monte food transaction, bringing the brand back under a single owner for the first time in nearly four decades. The quarter included approximately one week of contribution from the acquired business, so the financial impact in the quarter is limited due to timing. We are encouraged by the initial performance of the Del Monte food business, and we see clear opportunity as we begin to thoughtfully scale the business and believe there is a meaningful opportunity to realize the full potential of these assets. As I mentioned during our last call, this acquisition is not expansion for expansion's sake. It's alignment. bringing the brand, the portfolio, and the platform back under a single focused owner. This acquisition not only reunites one of the oldest and most recognized brands in the world, but it also positions us to operate from a more complete platform, expanding our presence across both the perimeter and center of the store and allowing us to offer customers a broader, more integrated portfolio. Our priority during this early phase remains continuity, ensuring stability for customers, partners, and employees, while taking a disciplined approach to evaluating the business and identifying where we see the strongest opportunities. We are focused on strengthening the platform, prioritizing key customer relationships, and building a more focused, high-quality portfolio over time. It is important to dedicate a portion of today's call to discuss the broader environment shaping our business, the industry, and the global food system. The conflict in the Middle East has introduced a meaningful shock across key inputs fundamentals to food production, energy, fertilizers, packaging, and transportation. There is no part of agriculture that is not energy dependent from inputs to packaging to transportation. As a result, movements in energy costs do not remain isolated. They cascade through the entire system. Agriculture does not operate in real time. The timing of impact varies meaningfully by category. In crops like pineapples, for instance, where production cycles extend to approximately 18 months, the inputs being deployed today will be reflected in cost and pricing later this year. Bananas, by contrast, move more quickly through the system and therefore respond more immediately to changes in input costs as a result the pressures that emerge during the quarter are now embedded in the system and will continue to move through the value chain in the periods ahead regardless of how conditions in the middle east evolved from here We are already seeing this dynamic take hold from higher fertilizers and packaging costs to increase ocean freight and inland transportation driven by fuel and labor. The impact is more pronounced in our fresh business, given its production cycles and input intensity, while other parts of the portfolio are affected differently based on their supply chain structures. This is not a short term volatility. It's the natural transmission of input costs through a global time lag system. The situation remains dynamic and we are managing the business with discipline and flexibility. This is an environment we are well positioned to navigate, but it will not be without challenges. We expect pressure to build the coming quarters particularly in the second and third quarter as these costs continue to flow through the system and the full impact move through the value chain our global footprint diversified sourcing and integrated supply chain enable us to adjust and respond across markets while our scale and disciplined execution position us to manage through this period effectively These are the conditions where those advantages become most evident. We have navigated complex operating environments before, and we will continue to do so with clear focus on execution, cost management, and operational efficiency. With that, I will turn it over to Marietje to present our CFO to discuss our financial results.