Kellanova

Good morning. Welcome to the Kellogg Company's first quarter 2022 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. At this time, I will turn the call over to John Renwick, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Planning for Kellogg Company. Mr. Renwick.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and thank you for joining us today for a review of our first quarter results and an update on our outlook for 2022. I'm joined this morning by Steve Cahillane, our Chairman and CEO, and Amit Banati, our Chief Financial Officer. Slide number three shows our forward-looking statements disclaimer. As you are aware, certain statements made today, such as projections for Kellogg Company's future performance, are forward-looking statements. Actual results could be materially different from those projected. For further information concerning factors that could cause these results to differ, please refer to the third slide of this presentation as well as to our public SEC filings. This is of particular note during the current COVID-19 pandemic and supply disruptions, when the length and severity of these issues and resultant economic and business impacts are so difficult to predict. A recording of today's webcast and supporting documents will be archived for at least 90 days on the investor page of KelloggCompany.com. As always, when referring to our results and outlook, unless otherwise noted, we will be referring to them on an organic basis for net sales and on a currency-neutral adjusted basis for operating profit and earnings per share. And now I'll turn it over to Steve.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. We're pleased to be able to report another good quarter delivering solid results even ahead of plan by sustaining growth momentum across our international businesses and our North America snacks brands, realizing price and productivity amidst decades high inflation and executing with agility. After all, we are navigating through what I think you would all agree continues to be an extremely challenging operating environment. The situation in Ukraine only accelerated cost inflation and exacerbated the global economy's bottlenecks and shortages. It also prompted us to suspend all shipments and investments into Russia and to identify new sources for certain ingredients. Meanwhile, the team has done an excellent job of quickly restoring and ramping up production in our U.S. cereal plants following the fire and strike of last year's second half. Our inventory is gradually building toward normal levels as planned, enabling us to start replenishing retailer inventories earlier than expected in the first quarter. To be able to affirm our full year earnings guidance is a testament to our strategy, our brands, and our people. Our deploy for growth strategy, shown on slide number five, is working. This strategy is still as appropriate and effective as ever, even as occasions shift and the operating environment evolves. We continue to emphasize occasions and build on our world-class brands. We continue to see the benefits of our reshaped portfolio, and through extreme supply challenges, we continue to focus on service and in-store effectiveness. Behind all these growth boosters are capabilities that we have strengthened from data and analytics to e-commerce to revenue growth management to a robust innovation pipeline. You're seeing the benefits of these capabilities in our actions and results. Simply put, the strategy is working. We remain equally focused on better days, our ESG strategy. Actions are louder than words. Slide number six offers some examples of our ESG activities during the first quarter. They reflect continued action on various elements of ESG as we remain committed as ever to our values and doing what is right for the planet and for our communities. Sticking to our strategy and focusing on execution is resulting in sustained top-line momentum, as you can see on slide number seven. We had restored top-line growth in 2019, experienced a pandemic-related acceleration in 2020, and yet sustained a strong growth in 2021 despite what we were lapping. And in quarter one of this year, even with difficult comparisons, we continue to exceed our long-term target of 1% to 3% net sales growth, with organic growth of more than 4%. I'll call out two key elements that are behind this momentum. The first is our reshaped portfolio. Our largest portfolio segment, the developed market snacks, continue to generate strong growth, led by world-class brands like Pringles, Cheez-It, and others. and our emerging markets collectively sustained double-digit growth. Even in the quarter when one of our businesses, North America Cereal, was notably soft, declining 10% year-on-year because of a lack of inventory, this was more than offset by momentum in the rest of our portfolio. The second element is price realization. In an environment in which cost inflation is too high to cover with productivity alone, we have leveraged our enhanced revenue growth management capabilities to realize price effectively. We've been realizing price ever since cost inflation began to accelerate back in the second half of 2020, and we have accelerated as the market-driven cost inflation worsened. The result of all of this strategy, executional focus, and sustained momentum is another quarter of delivering results. and affirm full year outlook and increase cash to share owners as discussed on slide number 8. We grew our net sales faster than we had anticipated and we delivered more operating profit than we had projected. Our earnings per share and cash flow also came in ahead of our plan. This puts us in a good position. It allows us to affirm earnings guidance for the full year as an improved net sales outlook covers the impacts of accelerated cost inflation and supply disruptions, including Russia and Ukraine. It also enables us to increase the cash return to share owners, which we have done both in the form of accelerated share buybacks and an increased dividend. So with that introduction, let me now turn it over to Amit, who will explain our results and outlook in more detail.