Flowers Foods, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Flowers Foods third quarter 2023 results conference call. Please be advised that today's event is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, J.T. Rick, Executive Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Liz, and good morning. I hope everyone had the opportunity to review our earnings release, listen to our prepared remarks, and view the slide presentation that were all posted yesterday evening our investor relations website after today's call i'm sorry after today's q a session we will also host an audio replay of this call please note that in this q a session we may make forward-looking statements about the company's performance although we believe these statements to be reasonable they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially in addition to what you hear in these remarks Important factors related to Flowers Foods business are fully detailed in our SEC filings. We also provide non-GAAP financial measures for which disclosure and reconciliations are provided in the earnings release and at the end of the slide presentation on our website. Joining me today are Riles McMullin, Chairman, CEO, and President, and Steve Kinsey, our CFO. Riles, I'll turn it over to you.

All right, great. Thanks, JT. Good morning, everybody. Appreciate you joining our third quarter call. We're very pleased with our strong third quarter results. We generated record quarterly revenues and maintained our unit share despite inflationary pressures. Sales benefited from strategic pricing initiatives that are designed to mitigate inflation and improve volume trends. Our leading brands continue to perform well, and we're investing in innovation and marketing to maintain that momentum. We also continue to make progress in our digital and cost savings initiatives, which are helping to improve our efficiencies. Despite the strong results, revenues did come in a little bit less than expected due to business rationalizations that materialized sooner than we expected and a lower than normal amount of storm activity. It's important to note that although the timing can be unpredictable, these business exits are an integral part of our portfolio strategy as we aim to improve the profitability of our food service business. We've made great progress in that regard, and we expect continued improvement moving forward. I remain extremely confident in our prospects, and I've never been more confident in our ability to grow shareholder value over time. Before we move to questions, I also want to acknowledge that today is Veterans Day, and so we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all the men and women in service that have chosen the risk there was to protect our freedoms here at home. So thank you very much for your service. With that, Liz, we're ready to take questions.