Tyson Foods, Inc.

To ask a question, you may press star and then one using a touchtone telephone. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Sean Cornett, VP, Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to Tyson Foods' third quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings conference call. On today's call, Tyson's President and Chief Executive Officer, Donnie King, and Chief Financial Officer, Kurt Callaway, will provide prepared remarks followed by Q&A. Additionally, joining us today are Brady Stewart, Group President, Prepared Foods, Beef and Pork, and Chief Supply Chain Officer. Devin Cole, Group President, Poultry and Global Business Unit, and Christina Lambert, Chief Growth Officer. We have also provided a supplemental presentation, which may be referenced on today's call and is available on Tyson's Investor Relations website and via the link in our webcast. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding our expectations for the future. These forward-looking statements made during this call are provided pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include all comments reflecting our expectations, assumptions, or beliefs about future events or performance that do not relate solely to historical periods. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions which may cause actual results to differ materially from our current projections. Please refer to our forward-looking statements disclaimers on slide two, as well as our SEC filings for additional information concerning risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our projections. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Please note that references to earnings per share, operating income, and operating margin in our remarks are on an adjusted basis for our fiscal period, unless otherwise noted. For reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to their corresponding GAAP measures, please refer to our earnings press release. Now, I'll turn the call over to Don.

Thanks, Sean, and thank you to those joining us on the call. Let me begin by saying that I'm pleased with our performance this quarter, and we've driven results in line with my expectations. Sales, adjusted operating income, and adjusted earnings per share all grew year over year, marking our fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth across each of these key metrics. This was no accident. We're driving efficiencies across all businesses while delivering growth with world-class service and value for our customers and with innovation for our consumers. Our total volume was roughly flat to last year, while Nielsen data shows that we grew retail branded volumes across prepared foods and chicken. We also grew volume and dollar share in aggregate across our top 10 categories, including Tyson branded frozen chicken, Hill Shire Farms snacking and lunch meat, as well as Jimmy Dean breakfast products. Growth and profitability versus last year was driven by our prepared foods, chicken, and pork segments, each delivering double-digit growth in adjusted operating income. The only soft spot in our business is the beef segment. With cattle availability at record lows, we continue to experience industry market headwinds. But even in this difficult environment, we are improving our fundamentals with increased prioritization on efficiencies, reducing costs, and bringing innovative new products to market. We're poised to capitalize on tremendous opportunity ahead of us, as we believe heifer retention is likely now begun, and cattle availability should improve in coming years. We continue to take meaningful steps forward in building our financial strength, with net leverage improving year over year and sequentially, a direct result of deliberate actions and disciplined capital allocation. Simply put, our strategy is working, and we're finding ways to win in today's market. As you know, consumers generally remain cautious and more selective in how they spend. Nielsen data shows food and beverage retail volume remained steady versus last year during the 13 weeks ending in June. However, protein continues to be the right place to play, and beef, pork, and chicken are all clear winners with consumers. Now let's take a closer look at our branded retail performance in Q3. Volume across these products grew 1.5%. far outpacing total food and beverage, dollar sales grew 2%. This growth was led primarily by Tyson branded frozen value added chicken, which saw a 10% increase in volume sales driven by our brand relaunch and strong performance. We are meeting consumers where they are. And you can see that in new innovations like our Tyson simple ingredient nuggets, developed for those seeking high protein and simple ingredients with chicken, cheese, and seasoning, a great taste without compromise. We also launched fun, family-friendly products like Mega Dino Nuggets that are driving engagement and incremental eating occasions. Our volume share increased 130 basis points, and we're growing off a base where we are the market share leader. We're especially pleased with the momentum in our snacking portfolio, where volume grew 20% and share increased 110 basis points. led by strong performance from Hillshire Brand Snacks. Our Jimmy Dean Breakfast Lines and Hillshire Farm Lunch Meats also delivered solid volume growth in the 13-week period ending in June. Innovation, distribution gains, and efficient marketing and promotional support are strengthening our brand and keeping us competitive in the marketplace. And importantly, as consumers look to the perimeter of the store, we are also offering high-quality fresh options where our Tyson branded fresh chicken volume grew 2.3%. As a world-class food company and recognized leader in protein, Tyson Foods is well positioned to meet the robust consumer demand for protein. Now let's walk through segment performance. Prepared Foods delivered a strong third quarter with adjusted operating income up more than 21% and margins expanding by 150 basis points, reflecting continued progress on our multi-year plan to enhance profitability in this business. Importantly, the segment returned to top line growth in the quarter, successfully navigating higher raw material costs and improved product mix within and across channels. Innovation and expanded distribution remain key pillars of our strategy, driving both top and bottom line growth. And as mentioned earlier, our heel shower snacking dips and spreads are contributing to volume and share gains at retail. We're also leveraging our brand equity to thoughtfully expand into new spaces. We're launching new Hillshire Farm handhelds featuring ham and cheese, buffalo-style chicken, and Philly cheesesteak, all designed to meet growing consumer demand for convenient, high-protein options. This marks an exciting step into a new platform for the Hillshire brand and reinforces that we have our most robust innovation pipeline ever, as well as our commitment to innovation across the company. Our operational execution initiatives contributed to profit growth in Q3 and helped offset continued cost pressure from raw material inflation. We have strengthened our S&OP process and unlocked efficiencies in our plants, driving fill rates above 98% in the third quarter, the highest since 2019. This has enabled us to better serve our customers with greater consistency and reliability. These improvements have also helped by ensuring that we have the right product in the right place at the right time. We are working to culturize within prepared foods the operational discipline that's critical in our other businesses, while adding new tools and analytics to eliminate inefficiencies and reduce waste. There's still more work to do, but we are encouraged by the progress and excited about the long runway for growth and profit improvement in prepared foods. Chicken delivered another quarter of solid top and bottom line growth, including our third consecutive quarter of year over year volume growth. Value added volume grew at more than three and a half times the rate of total segment volume, driving a favorable mix shift that is positively impacting both sales and earnings. Adjusted operating income rose more than 12%, building on a very strong base from Q3 last year. With grain costs roughly in line with last year, Profit growth this quarter came mainly from incremental efficiencies we've unlocked across our plant network. We have made significant strides in transforming our chicken business over the past two years and haven't taken our eye off the ball in driving operational excellence. In beef, as you know, we continue to navigate the cattle cycle. Cattle supply is noticeably tighter than a year ago, which significantly compressed spreads in the quarter despite resilient consumer demand. We are managing this market environment with discipline, controlling what we can across the supply chain to meet customer needs. We're also seeing benefits from the network optimization efforts that shifted further processing volumes back into our harvest facilities. At the same time, we're enhancing our value added mix with the help of new data and analytics capabilities that support smarter, faster decision making. These steps are helping to fortify the foundation for a more resilient and agile beef business, both today and over the long term. In pork, we delivered our strongest third quarter adjusted operating income in four years, reflecting the purposeful actions we've taken to improve our operations. Like beef, we increased our capacity utilization by optimizing our network and enhancing our value-added mix. We have improved labor and asset efficiency through operational excellence. We have built a fundamentally better pork business, and this quarter's results reflect that progress. In closing, we are executing our strategy, controlling the controllables, and finding ways to win in today's market. With that, I'll turn it over to Kurt to walk through our financial results in more detail.