Saputo Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Saputo, Inc. Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2022 Results Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Thursday, June 9, 2022. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nick. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Frank. Good afternoon and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2022 earnings call. Our speakers today will be Lino Saputo, Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Maxime Therrien, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary. For the question and answer session, they will be supported by Carl Kolitsa, President and Chief Operating Officer, North America, and Leanne Cutts, President and Chief Operating Officer, International and Europe. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this webcast and conference call are being recorded and the webcast will be posted on our website, along with the fourth quarter investor presentation. Please also note that some of the statements provided during this call are forward-looking. Such statements are based on assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. We refer to our cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information in our annual reports press releases and filings. Please treat any forward-looking information with caution as our actual results could differ materially. We do not accept any obligation to update this information except as required under securities legislation. I'll now hand it over to Lino.

Thank you, Nick, and good afternoon to you all. We appreciate everyone joining us here today. In fiscal 2022, we navigated a complex and volatile business environment And once again, our team rose to the challenge. The care and passion that have always been a part of our DNA was evident, and I applaud all of our employees for their ongoing contributions. Throughout this difficult year, I witnessed a strong sense of cooperation, dedication, and creativity from our people, guided by our clear strategy and our highly engaged leadership team. We continue to adapt, and evolved to one of the most challenging operating environments in our history. Input costs escalated at a pace well beyond historical levels. We also faced labour challenges as well as bottlenecks and shortages from materials to freight and more. This limited our ability to fully meet growing consumer demand for our products and created inefficiencies that were difficult to plan for. But we also kept our sights on the longer term. We embarked on a new journey to deliver accelerated organic growth with our global strategic plan, sharing with our stakeholders our roadmap and targets. While our overall financial results for fiscal 2022 were disappointing, we took decisive action to offset some of the challenges and to better position Saputo for the future. This included implementing pricing actions to offset higher costs, taking measures to improve our productivity and efficiency levels, and investing in capacity, innovation, and in our strong brands. In Canada, Argentina, and the UK, all performed well and delivered results in line with our expectations. For its part, Australia had to contend with a declining milk pool which significantly impacted efficiency and costs. But the platform where we faced the most adversity was the US, where challenges have been more acute in terms of labour, inflation and supply chain. We also faced significant volatility in commodity markets, a factor beyond our control. But we are confident that by increasing our branded retail offering and diversifying our product mix, we will be able to respond to the new market dynamics and ensuing opportunities for growth. In tandem, we're making headway on the labour front and finding new ways of working with our supply chain partners. Despite this backdrop, we've generated nearly $700 million of net operating cash flows, a testament to our diversified foundations. Acquisitions continue to be at the core of our strategy in fiscal 2022 we completed the integration of four recent acquisitions which will reinforce our efforts to strengthen our core business drive product innovation and increase the value of our ingredients portfolio we've also progressed on our esg agenda driven by our saputo promise which underpins everything we do and serves to drive enable and sustain our growth We completed our first three-year plan in fiscal 2022, and we're heading into the next phase with a firm dedication to delivering on our objectives. On the environmental front, we made further commitments to reduce the environmental impacts of our operations. Our near-term focus is executing on a series of projects to deliver on our climate, water, and waste targets. We undertook 24 projects in fiscal 22, that are going to bring productive wins with a further 32 projects slated for next fiscal year. Beyond the scope of our operations, we also believe we have a key role to play to ensure a sustainable and equitable food system, working in partnership with our farmers, suppliers and industry partners to support the industry towards a transition to net zero by 2050. To that end, we launched and began executing on our supply chain pledges this past year, which include sourcing 100% of our principal ingredients sustainably. In addition, we signed on to Pathways to Dairy Net Zero alongside several industry players to stimulate climate efforts and drive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the dairy sector. From a social perspective, We make great progress with our DE&I initiatives, with a focus on training and development and talent acquisition to promote an inclusive and diverse workforce. Our next three-year plan, which will be released in August, together with our upcoming Saputo Promise Report, will build on the momentum of the past few years, with execution already underway. Turning now to our growth strategy. While the external environment has required a laser-focused, short-term execution, this has not detracted us from advancing on our key initiatives. We are confident in our strategic plan target, and we continue to lay the groundwork for our next chapter of sustained growth. In fiscal 2022, we announced the first of a series of investments and consolidation activities that will optimize and enhance our manufacturing footprint. This included a major capital investment plan towards the modernization and expansion of our chief manufacturing facilities in Wisconsin and California, and to support our growth plan in the retail market. It also included several key streamlining initiatives in the US and Australia to optimize and enhance our manufacturing footprint. In the UK, the business undertook plans to outsource our Nuneaton facility warehouse and distribution activities to a long-term partner. We will close our Froome facility and centralize chief packaging at Nuneaton over the next two years, creating a center of excellence and providing both operational and cost synergies while offering plenty of scope for growth. We're poised for a recovery in fiscal 23. And we are well underway with the full-scale rollout of our growth, cost, and productivity initiatives. Together, this should set the stage for accelerated growth in the back half of our strategic plan with a clear line of sight to our adjusted EBITDA target of $2.125 billion by the end of fiscal 2025. We're aggressively working our plan keeping a view on maximizing long-term value creation. I will now turn the call over to Max for the financial review before providing my final remarks. Max?