Post Holdings, Inc.

to Post Holdings First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from Post are Rob Vitale, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Maynor, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay beginning at 12 o'clock p.m. Eastern Time. The dial-in number is 800-839- No passcode is required. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Jennifer Meyer, Investor Relations of Post Holdings, for introductions. You may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Post's first quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call. With me today are Rob Vitale, our President and CEO, and Matt Maynor, our CFO and Treasurer. Rob and Matt will begin with prepared remarks, and afterwards we'll have a brief question and answer session. The press release that supports these remarks is posted on our website in both the Investors and the SEC filing sections at postholdings.com. In addition, the release is available on the SEC's website. Before we continue, I would like to remind you that this call will contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties that should be carefully considered by investors as actual results could differ materially from these statements. These forward-looking statements are current as of the date of this call and management undertakes no obligation to update these statements. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and an audio replay will be available on our website. And finally, this call will discuss certain non-GET measures. For reconciliation of these non-GAP measures to the nearest GAP measure, see our press release issued yesterday and posted on our website. With that, I will turn the call over to Rob.

Thanks, Jennifer, and thank you all for joining us. POST had quite a solid quarter. While all segments performed well, food service performance exceeded expectations and contributed to our outlook revision for the balance of fiscal 2023. Most encouragingly, We are confident that the sustainable EBITDA level for food service has reset to approximately $350 million prior to considering the contribution from our Ready to Drink shake plant that comes online late this year. Last quarter, we talked about margin restoration. Compared to last year, we expanded gross margin by 170 basis points. We expect some give and take throughout the balance of the year, including a dip in the second quarter. However, this quarter's expansion is expected to largely mirror our full-year results. Key drivers of margin expansion include pricing and supply chain execution, offset by mix. The pricing environment remains inflationary, but at a slower rate. Data-driven price increases remain achievable, and elasticities in most categories remain relatively low. Supply chains are demonstrably better, but fill rates continue to be below pre-pandemic levels. As I have mentioned, we view supply chain recovery as more of an ongoing process than a singular event we once expected it to be. Meanwhile, the shift towards more value price points is a margin headwind, but in most of our categories, dollar accretive. To give you some more detail and perspective on the individual businesses, post-consumer brands maintained a branded dollar share position of 19.1%. Meanwhile, our private label business grew 13.6%. Interestingly, we have seen a stepped-up level of competitor advertising intensity, which we believe is constructive for the overall category. As I mentioned, food service remains strong both in volume and pricing. For some time, we have signaled our expectation that this business would emerge from the challenges of COVID and avian influenza in an improved position. We believe that is rapidly becoming clearer and informs the estimate I gave surrounding sustainable EBITDA. Notably, we expect to operate at approximately that level in the second half of this fiscal year. Refrigerated retail continues to show mixed results. Our supply chain has markedly improved versus this time last year. That recovery supported 12% volume growth in our core side dish category. We do see some expansion of private label distribution. In this category, we do not make private label. We are leaning into heavier brand investment to support both expanded distribution and velocities. Liquid eggs remain under pressure as high path avian influenza costs have driven up pricing and resulted in elasticities among the highest in grocery. Weedabix continues to be well-managed in a challenging environment. The margin pressure from elevated energy prices, which we highlighted last year, developed as expected and will persist throughout the year. In addition to higher incremental costs, the impact on consumers drives mixed towards private label. Our small acquisition of the UFIT brand has gone exceptionally well, with sales up over 30% when compared to the prior pre-acquisition period. As we mentioned last quarter, we continue to believe the current challenges in the capital markets, especially the debt markets, create opportunities for POST and M&A. We remain interested in opportunities, both large and small, that could complement an existing business or provide entry to a new category. This quarter, our capital allocation skewed towards bond rather than share repurchases, as that same debt market volatility created unusually attractive prices. This quarter, we sold our remaining stake in Bellring Brands. All told, our investment of a little over $700 million generated after-tax proceeds of $2 billion and resulted in a distribution to shareholders of an additional $2 billion. Their future is bright, and I'm excited to see the Bellring story continue to develop. Last but not least, we revised our guidance yesterday evening. we increased our outlook to an adjusted EBITDA range of $1.025 to $1.065 billion to reflect year-to-date results and an increased optimism in the condition of the business. While we have yet to plan fiscal 24, our initial thinking is that despite some non-repeatable current year benefit, we expect to maintain or grow overall EBITDA in fiscal 2024. With that, let me turn the call over to Matt, who will go into more detail on the quarter.