Saputo Inc.

Greetings and welcome to Saputo, Inc. second quarter fiscal 2023 results. 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 would like to register for a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4. If you require operator assistance at any time, please press star 0. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. Friday, November 11, 2022. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Lino Saputo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Saputo. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Fran. Good morning and welcome to our second quarter fiscal 2023 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, Leona Maxim will be supported by Carl Kolitsa, President and Chief Operating Officer North America, and Leanne Kutz, 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. The webcast will be posted on our website along with the second 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 Leo.

Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everyone. First, I'd like to recognize today is Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the U.S., I'd like to take a moment to honor the brave veterans and troops who have dedicated their lives to serve our communities and to remember the sacrifices they made for our freedom. Turning now to our second quarter results. We delivered strong growth across all key metrics, revenues, net earnings, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS, driven by our successful efforts to mitigate inflation, our efficiency and productivity initiatives, and sustained consumer demand. Consolidated revenues increased 21% versus the prior year, with each sector delivering year-over-year growth. From a pricing perspective, we had good momentum as we realized higher broad-based pricing reflecting higher input and logistics costs. We expect our pricing protocols along with our ongoing productivity and cost containment initiatives to mitigate the effects of inflation and commodity market volatility over time. Beyond pricing, investments in our people are making an impact. Higher pay and enhanced benefit offerings, referral and retention bonuses, modified work schedules, and improved onboarding training programs have all led to increased applicant flow and hiring in our production facilities, notably in the US. As a result, our service levels and fill rates are improving. We continue to accelerate our productivity and efficiency actions across all sectors. In our US sector, for example, where it has been more challenging, order fill rates are getting closer to historical levels. Consumer demand for dairy has remained relatively steady, and price elasticity has held up better than expected in most of our markets. But we are monitoring closely for signs of changing consumer behaviors, with the average cost of the consumer basket continuing to increase. In some cases, demand is still outpacing our ability to fill supply. There are several category trends that should benefit us in a more challenging and highly inflationatory macro environment. This includes greater at-home consumption with hybrid work only accelerating this behavior. Our diverse portfolio also allows us to meet consumer and customer needs across a broad range of products and price points. While we continue to navigate this dynamic environment, we are not losing focus on the long term. As we think about the long term, we're keeping ESG top of mind. The Saputo Promise remains a key pillar of our global strategic plan and is another important way we are investing for the future, for our employees, our communities and for our planet. We recently reached an important milestone celebrating the fifth anniversary of our promise. Over the last five years, we have embedded environmental, social and governance factors into operational and business decisions and in our long-term incentive plans. Our targeted initiatives support our global strategic plan, and our new three-year Saputo Promise Plan will enable us to continue to drive and support sustainable growth. Execution is already underway to meet our new three-year goals with a focus on, among other things, reducing environmental impacts by delivering on our 2025 environmental pledges, supporting the transition to a sustainable food system through our supply chain pledges, notably with the recent launch of our sustainable agricultural policy, improving gender representation, diversity, and inclusion, and improving the nutritional quality and performance of our global product portfolio to meet consumer needs. We look forward to updating you on our progress towards these goals as we continue to take the necessary steps to offset macro headwinds through pricing, productivity, cost containment, and capital deployment. These actions leave us well positioned to benefit when our markets stabilize. We will continue to prudently manage our business and focus on the things we can control in what remains a volatile operating environment while executing on our global strategic plan initiatives to accelerate our business momentum. I will now turn the call over to Max for the financial review before providing concluding remarks.