McCormick & Company, Incorporated

Good morning. This is Fatin Freja, VP of Investor Relations. Thank you for joining today's call. While our original plan was to review McCormick's first quarter fiscal 2026 earnings results, today's discussion will focus on our announced combination with Unilever Foods and the strategic rationale for the transaction. Please note that this call is being recorded. The press release and accompanying slide presentation related to today's announcement, along with the materials for our first quarter Fiscal 2026 results are available on our investor relations website, ir.mccormick.com. With me this morning are Brendan Foley, Chairman, President, and CEO of McCormick, and Fernando Fernandez, CEO of Unilever, and Marcos Gabriel, Executive Vice President and CFO at McCormick. In our comments, certain percentages are rounded. Please refer to our presentation for complete information. Today's presentation contains projections and other forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or other factors. Please refer to our forward-looking statement on slide two for more information. I will now turn the discussion over to Brendan.

Thank you all for joining our call. Marcos and I are pleased to have Fernando join us this morning as well. Today marks a major milestone for McCormick. We are bringing together two leading organizations, McCormick and Unilever Foods, to create a strong, scaled, and growth-oriented company that will be flavor-focused and exceptionally well-positioned to succeed in today's dynamic environment. We have always seen the logic of this combination. We're excited by the opportunity to deliver end-to-end flavor experiences to even more people around the world, bringing the tastes that inspire, connect, and bring joy to kitchens and tables everywhere. Before we go further, I want to quickly provide an update on McCormick's first quarter 2026 results. For the quarter, we delivered strong growth in sales, adjusted operating income, and adjusted earnings per share, supported by a McCormick de Mexico acquisition and organic growth across both consumer and flavor solutions. In a dynamic environment, we drove margin expansion through strong top line, acquisition accretion, and disciplined cost management. While our remarks and other materials from our results can be found on our IR website, as Fatim noted, I want to underscore that consistent and strong core financial performance from both McCormick and Unilever Foods is foundational as you think about today's announcement. Now, turning back to today's announcement, starting on slide five. McCormick and Unilever Foods are strategically and culturally aligned organizations. We each bring iconic brands in attractive categories. Spanning herbs, spices, seasonings, bouillon, condiments, and sauces. Bringing these portfolios together creates an opportunity to execute multiple growth levers, such as expanded distribution, accelerated innovation, brand premiumization, and a scale dual engine food service platform. At the same time, we see significant, clearly actionable cost synergies layered onto an already strong structural margin profile. creating capacity for continued reinvestment and attractive shareholder returns. Beyond strategy, our organizations share a common mindset, a passion for flavor, a belief in the power of people, and relentless focus on quality and innovation and strong investment behind our brands. Turning to slide six, the pillars of the combined organization reflect distinct and complementary strengths across geographies, channels, and categories. Together, we create a focused global flavor powerhouse, scaled, resilient, and uniquely concentrated on flavor. Our balanced geographic and channel footprint enhances durability across economic cycles and market conditions. The breadth of the combined company diversifies our growth across emerging and developed markets and retail and commercial channels. In addition, this combination meaningfully expands McCormick's presence in structurally advantaged categories aligned with enduring consumer trends, more flavorful, convenient, and focused on health and wellness. We will continue to flavor calories while others compete for them, giving us a strong tailwind and aligning us to favorable consumption growth trends. All of this results in a best-in-class margin profile that supports sustained industry-leading reinvestment behind brands, from global leaders like McCormick, Knorr, Hellman's, and French's, to high-growth potential brands like Frank's Red Hot, Cholula, and Mai, along with strong regional favorites where we see exciting potential. Moving to slide seven, we see a clear path to unlock incremental growth grounded in the complementary strengths of our geographic footprints and go-to-market capabilities. Unilever Foods brands can benefit from McCormick's focus and strength of retail execution in the North America flavor aisle. At the same time, McCormick is positioned to expand more meaningfully in high-growth emerging markets by leveraging Unilever's established scale, deep local infrastructure, and proven route to market. In food service, the strategic thick is particularly strong. McCormick's front-of-the-house brand equity and tabletop presence, combined with Unilever Foods' deep back-of-house experience and operator relationships. Together, we create more complete end-to-end solutions for customers. strengthening relevance, and deepening partnerships. Innovation is a shared strength. Both organizations have proven expertise in flavor development and format expansion across consumption occasions, complemented by Unilever's robust culinary capabilities and chef-to-chef engagement model. Before I expand on these growth opportunities, I will turn it over to Fernando for his perspective.

Thank you, Brendan. We are very enthusiastic about this combination and about our partnership with McCormick. We are confident it delivers a compelling outcome for all stakeholders. At Unilever, over the past several years, we sharpened our strategic focus, we have reshaped our portfolio to our high-growth categories, and strengthened our operational foundation. This transaction is a natural extension of that strategy, leading to value creation, while giving our shareholders meaningful participation in the upside of a scaled, global, flavor-focused leader with a strong growth and margin profile. Importantly, this is a transaction anchored in a strategic and cultural fit. Most organizations operate in attractive categories where brand, innovation, and execution matter. Both bring disciplined capital allocation, a strong cash generation, and a consistent track record of volume-driven growth. And both are driven by performance-oriented cultures with a deep commitment to quality and customer partnership. We believe this combination strengthens the competitive position of the business, enhances its growth prospects, and creates a more focused platform to lead in flavor globally. With that, I hand it back to Brendan.