Premium Brands Holdings Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Premium Brands Holdings Corporation First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us on today's call, we have from Premium Brands, George Palaiologos, CEO and President, and Will Kalutich, CFO. At this time, all lines are in a lesson only mode. Following the presentation, we'll conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Monday, May 15th, 2023. I would now like to turn the call over to George Palaiologos, CEO and President of Premium Brands. Please go ahead.

George Palaiologos Thank you, Julie, and thank you for joining us today. With me here today is our CFO, Will Kaludich. Our presentation will follow the deck that was posted on our website this morning. We're now on slide four, which outlines certain key highlights for the quarter. Results for the quarter were unplanned as industry headwinds subsided. Our overall volume growth for the quarter was within our targeted range of 4% to 6%. However, the majority of the growth came from the food service channel, as out-of-home dining returned and food traffic in retail slowed down somewhat. Consumers have resumed their regular activities. They're spending more time at the office downtown. They're traveling more for business and pleasure, and they're consuming more food at QSR and white tablecloth dining establishments. This, of course, means that they're eating and entertaining a little less at home. Return to normality for us means that once again, we're able to present our products and process innovations to new and existing customers, and we're pleased to report that responses have been excellent. Innovation is back in vogue, and the premium brands ecosystem remains prolific in this area. Both our reporting platforms performed well during the quarter and are very well positioned to gain traction going forward. Demand for a cooked protein artisan sandwich and specialty bakery products was very strong, while our center of the plate best-in-class protein offerings continue to drive the growth of our food service business. We're pleased to report that our new sandwich facility in Edmonton, Alberta is now ramping up and will be fully operational by the end of this month. The facility features automated state-of-the-art sandwich assembly lines as well as industry-leading charcuterie tray assembly capabilities. We continue to gain momentum in growing in our U.S. businesses, and we expect this trend to accelerate in the months and years ahead. During the fiscal first quarter, 57% of our specialty food platforms sales were generated by our U.S.-based businesses. Considering the many new listings we have secured recently and the current pipeline of opportunities, we have visibility to this number growing substantially in the future. We're now on slide five. You can see that our acquisition pipeline remains very full. Although we did not close any acquisitions during the quarter, we're pleased to report the completion or near completion of several capital projects that will solve a number of capacity challenges facing our various businesses while improving efficiencies and enhancing productivity. Hopefully, you had a chance to watch the three videos we showed at our AGM on Friday. All three videos demonstrate the degree of automation and robotics we have been investing in over the past three years. Before I pass it to Will, I would like to reiterate that, as promised, we're emerging from the past three chaotic years bigger, stronger, and even more diversified. Our decentralized, entrepreneurial-focused business model, combined with our great people and culture, continues to differentiate us and we look forward to translating these competitive advantages into sustainable top and bottom line growth, and above average long-term returns for our shareholders. As you can see on slides 6 to 12, our prolific product innovation continues to disrupt and reinvent the various categories we compete in. Look for some of these products at a store near you. We're especially pleased to be bringing premium, center cut, super lean, best-in-class bacon to Central and Eastern Canada under the Leadbetters brand. It won't be the cheapest bacon you ever bought, but it'll be the best you've ever had. I will now pass it on to Will.

Will?