United Natural Foods, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the UNFI fiscal 2021 second quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any assistance, please press star zero for the operator. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Steve Bloomquist, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on UNFI's second quarter fiscal 2021 earnings conference call. By now, you should have received a copy of the earnings release issued earlier this morning. The press release, webcast, and a supplemental slide deck are available under the Investor section of the company's website at www.unfi.com. Joining me for today's call are Steve Spinner, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, John Howard, our Chief Financial Officer, Chris Testa, President of UNFI, and Eric Dorn, our Chief Operating Officer. Steve, Chris, and John will provide a business update, after which we'll take your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that comments made by management during today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include plans, expectations, estimates, and projections that might involve significant risks and uncertainties. These risks are discussed in the company's earnings release and SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in these forward-looking statements. And lastly, I'd like to point out that during today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions and reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our press release. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve.

Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our fiscal 2021 second quarter earnings call. As you saw in this morning's press release, we delivered another quarter of outstanding financial results. Second quarter sales grew 7.1%. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA grew 57%, or $74 million. And second quarter adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 95 basis points. This quarter's $206 million of adjusted EBITDA was the second highest in UNFI's history, behind only last year's third quarter that benefited from the significant jump in demand as consumers began loading their pantries heading into the pandemic. This quarter also represented the fourth consecutive quarter where we've grown adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS at a significantly higher rate than we've grown sales. We continue to make great progress in our debt reduction efforts this quarter and improved our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio to 3.2 times, a full two-turn improvement since last year's second quarter. As a reminder, we have paid down almost $1 billion of debt since fiscal 2019 and are well on our way towards less than three times leverage. Momentum continues to build throughout our business, and we are delivering strong results as we execute on our strategies. This quarter's results are a clear validation of the great work we are doing to increase shareholder value. Our cross-selling strategy is resonating with both existing and new customers who are looking to aggregate volume. Our award-winning brands business an important differentiator for UNFI, continues to grow, as does our professional services business, both of which help our customers succeed in today's evolving retail landscape. Looking forward, we continue to believe that UNFI is well positioned for continued growth and that food at home consumption will remain elevated for the next several years. Companies continue to push office return dates further into the future as they evaluate return to work strategies in light of increased productivity and work flexibility that come with working from home. At the same time, many Americans continue to manage their household budgets closely. with dining in providing a more affordable meal option and a great opportunity to connect as a family. Consumers also continue to look for better food options with ingredient transparency, and UNFI continues to lead the way forward in this important segment. We expect this backdrop will continue to provide a tailwind for us as we pursue growth within the 140 billion dollar addressable wholesale market of which 38 billion dollars comes from gaining share of wallet with our current customers and an additional 78 billion dollars from adding new customers in addition we continue to move forward on optimizing our distribution network generating additional operating benefits through the Value Path Initiative, and investing in technologies that provide valuable insights into our future business growth and lower our cost structure. Finally, I'm pleased that we've extended the contract with our largest customer through late 2027, almost seven years from now. We believe this reflects the strong working relationship between the two companies and the benefit UNFI brings to their operations and growth. Let me now turn the call over to Chris to provide more context on our business performance. Chris?