Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

on the internet and being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Please note that there will be a question and answer session following the formal remarks and we will go over the question and answer session instructions following the conclusion of the formal presentation. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Mike Rall, Investor Relations at Maple Leaf Foods. Please go ahead, Mr. Rall.

Thank you, Michelle, and good morning, everyone. Speaking on the call this morning will be Michael McCain, Chief Executive Officer, Curtis Frank, Chief Operating Officer, and Geert Vooralen, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some statements made on today's call may constitute forward-looking information, and our future results may differ materially from what we discussed. Please refer to our Q3 2021 MD&A and other information on our website. for a broader description of operations and risk factors that could affect the company's performance. We have also uploaded our Q3 investor deck to our website, which includes support material for the quarter. As always, the investor relations team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions that you may have. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Michael McCain. Michael? Thank you, Mike.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2021 earnings call. So some of you might be old enough, like myself, to recall a very classic television soap opera, As the World Turns. Well, it feels like that to us these days, and it was almost two years ago now that we experienced the birth of a global pandemic and the havoc that it brought to all of us, and now The world keeps turning, and there are two material topics that we feel we need to discuss with you today. The first is a world under stress in the aftermath of COVID, and the second is growth rates in plant-based protein categories, which have, to be frank, evaporated. While both of these require our attention, I can assure you that we are disciplined and focused in executing our long-range vision to become the most sustainable protein company on Earth and building long-term value for all of our stakeholders. So let me begin with the first of these two, a world under stress. Clearly, as vaccination rates continue to improve in most parts of North America, COVID-related restrictions are generally subsiding. Life seems to be slowly recovering back to some kind of new normal, but the economy is struggling to rebalance demand and supply, characterized by a rapid rise in inflation, shortages of labor, and disruptions in the global supply chains. Nobody is immune to these challenges. I'm proud of our teams and business for many reasons and near the top of the list would be their resilience and this environment demands that. So far, we've been able to navigate this dynamic environment with minimal financial impact, but candidly, it's a new daily adventure. In this environment, we believe there are three skills that rise to the top of an organization's ability to navigate the constant turmoil. First, revenue management skills are required to stay ahead of the tide of inflation. We have invested heavily in this capacity in the Maple Leaf organization, demonstrating it clearly in our second quarter. We indicated last quarter that we expected a full recovery from the short-term margin compression quickly, and that's how it played out. The second is exceptional supply chain agility with very tight operations. We demonstrated that at the start of the pandemic, and it will certainly serve us well in this environment also. Double check.