Flowers Foods, Inc.

Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Flowers Foods second quarter 2024 results conference call. Please be advised that today's event is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your opening speaker today, J.T. Rick, Executive Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Shannon, 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 earlier on our investor relations website. After today's Q&A session, we will also post 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 and could cause actual results to differ materially. In addition to what you hear in these remarks, important factors relating 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 an earnings release at the end of the slide presentation on our website. Joining me today are Riles McMullen, Chairman and CEO, and Steve Kinsey, our CFO. Riles, I'll turn it over to you.

Okay. Thanks, JT. Good morning, everybody. I'm very pleased with our solid top and bottom line results in the quarter. Our leading brands are outperforming the category, growing volumes, and gaining market share. And our portfolio strategy is enhancing profitability in our private label and away-from-home businesses. At the same time, our savings initiatives have improved our cost structure, significantly boosting our margins compared to the first quarter, and enabling us to better leverage our top-line performance as we go forward. The inflationary environment is encouraging some consumers to seek value, but many are increasingly looking for differentiated products. And that desire is manifesting itself in the strong performance of our leading brands, consumers are clearly recognizing our brand's differentiation, resulting in the largest dollar and unit share gain of any company in the category. We're investing to increase that differentiation, further aligning our brand portfolio with the consumer. Our quarterly performance bolsters our confidence that we'll deliver results in line with our annual guidance. We're working to drive further improvements, and I look forward to continuing our progress throughout 2024. So with that, Shannon, we're ready to open it up for questions.